PIPS VERBAL PRESENTATION TO C.O.W. February 15th 2017

Good evening mayor and council, PIPS represents waterfront owners in View Royal, Saanich, and Esquimalt.

We oppose Realstar’s C.D. rezoning application.

In considering PIPS’ submissions please follow the OCP and RM-3 Zoning Guidelines, particularly as to height and density.

Follow the Municipal Councilor’s Handbook which guides you in applying “proper zoning purposes. I know you are all familiar with the document and we trust you to continue to protect our interests.

The Ministry of Community etc. says you should “use zoning as ‘regulatory’ tool, and as a means to implement the OCP – Not as a revenue stream

Having said that, do not contradict the carefully considered advice of the OCP Community Committee.

The OCP describes the Craigflower Neighbourhood as suitable for infill at medium density which is 13-25 units per acre (u/a). FSR is a planner’s tool that equates the density of buildings, both residential and commercial. It should not guide density in a unique situation such as Christie Point which is a narrow strip of land intruding into an Environmental Sensitive Area (ESA), thereby reducing the building parcel because of wide Shoreline DPAs on both sides, totaling 1700 x 15 metres or six acres of unbuildable land. That reduces the buildable parcel size from 16 to 10 acres, which is a factor of 0.6.

Realstar’s computed 1.15 FSR divided by 0.6 results in an FSR of 1.92 which is a 67% increase, also above the RM-3 maximum FSR of 1.6.

Put another way, medium density is maximized at 25 u/a. 473 units on 15.8 acres is 30 u/a which is medium high density. Now adjust for 1.2 acres of road and the density becomes 32.67 u/a. Drop the parcel to 10 acres and the density becomes 55.78 u/a – more like a downtown highrise.

Realstar state that they intend to build on present footprints which occupy 14.2% of the land area. Note well that they have increased the new building footprints to 27.3%, almost double, so much bigger, wider, and longer.

If there are 473 units with 946 people, the amount of green space for the residents will be 45 sq. feet per person. Enough on a sunny Sunday afternoon to lay down a blanket to do yoga, but not enough to do Tsai Chi without kicking your neighbour in the backside.

High buildings without enough trees create unacceptable MASS. They are “in your face” for all the neighbours, boating recreationalists, and passive viewpoint admirers. Note the mass in attachment 1 and that the road has been greened out. Not many trees. Fir trees planted today will take 33 years to reach building height.

BIRDS

(See attachments 2 through 7). You have seen our light pollution photos. You heard from an expert last week. You have seen the shocking Portage Inlet bird counts. 473 units will have 3,000 windows. 4 storeys will still have 2,000.

SHORELINE DPA

Others will speak to this, but I will point out something that Realstar have not addressed.

The existing road runs through the Western Shoreline DPA and prevents its function. It is going to be dug up anyway as are the buildings beside it. It should be moved away from the water which will constrict the width of new buildings and might result in the loss of some trees on the East side of building “B”. View Royals arborist needs to give advice about tree loss versus replanting twice as many in a widened Western DPA, as well as new ones in the Eastern DPA. A 2.8 metre DPA does virtually nothing to protect Portage Inlet.

TRAFFIC & PARKING

Will be commensurate with the number of units.

EARTHQUAKE & TSUNAMI

Are covered in your documents.

COMMUNITY AMENITY CONTRIBUTIONS

Have been revised and are in attachment 8. They add up to $5,266,000.

Respectfully submitted

Doug Critchley [PIPS]

Research Director.