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Kelowna  

City council says no to 35 storeys on Bertram Street

Developer told to try again

Even much-needed affordable housing in downtown Kelowna wasn't enough to sway city council into green lighting a 35-storey tower on Bertram Street.

Despite being within a stones throw of the Brooklyn project featuring 13, 25 and 34 storey towers on the site of the former Bargain Shop property, planning staff did not throw its support behind the development.

Council was not being asked Monday to formally approve either rezoning or OCP amendments. Rather, it was asked to weigh in on its thoughts before a significant amount of both staff and developer resources were spent on a full comprehensive review as would normally be the case.

Under the recently adopted early consideration, larger-scale projects or towers which may go well beyond council policy, would come before council for an early sneak peek.

Planner Terry Barton says the site, which would encompass three properties just north of Bernard Avenue, is only zoned for 12 storeys and it was felt that going from 12 to 35 was too much of a leap for what he called a "transition area."

Barton suggested there were other areas of the downtown core more suited for height of this magnitude, but said it was staff's opinion the area on Bertram, which featured mostly low-rise, four to six storey apartments, was not suited.

"Staff would consider a height variance which is moderate in scale in consideration of the public benefits of the project which may include housing objectives, but we are not prepared to support a project that is an order of magnitude scale difference that contravenes the strategic height categories of the Official Community Plan," said Barton.

"We are supportive of course of achieving housing in the right spot, and certainly of affordable housing objectives, but feel this is the wrong location for this particular height and density."

Ed Romanowski, executive chair of Mercidian Group told council they had listened to feedback on the original concept and have scaled it back from the original 46 storeys and 281 units to the current 35 storeys and 276 units.

And, while staff disagreed with the amount of density, he said the project needed it in order to provide cheaper, more affordable housing.

"We need density to provide affordable housing," he said.

He said 44 per cent of the units will be listed at below $400,000, with a starting price-point of $220,000.

Romanowski said they could scale down to 20 storeys if council just wants another another luxury townhouse project, but indicated that couldn't meet their goals or objectives.

While council understood the need for this type of affordable housing, it wasn't swayed away from the question of density.

"The concern I would have, if we support unexpected density bonuses essentially to properties in this area, what it does is it will destabilize that entire area. Other property owners will look at it and say if I did 46 storeys or 42 storeys I too could offer some public benefit," said Coun. Luke Stack.

Coun. Gail Given, who was also not in support of the Leon Avenue redevelopment, said the jump in density in this case is all just too significant.

Coun. Ryan Donn went further, saying the applicant was told by staff it could go to 20 storeys with community benefit, but went much higher anyway.

"You drop off a 46 storey application the day after a 43 storey tower (Leon Ave), it feels like a PR stunt, it feels like a complete waste of time," he said.

"It makes us look bad, it makes us look flat-footed. I'm looking forward to voting against this today because I feel it was a complete waste of time."

Mayor Colin Basran suggested there are properties within other urban centres of the city more appropriate than this particular site.



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