Correspondence from D. Foord (Invictus) - Eagles Nest Opponents Analysis

From: df@icic.us df@icic.us
Sent: Saturday, April 25, 2020 10:26 AM
To: Mayor And Council Email mayorandcouncil@viewroyal.ca
Cc: James Davison JDavison@viewroyal.ca; Lindsay Chase LChase@viewroyal.ca; Kim Anema KAnema@viewroyal.ca; Jennifer Kay jennifer@town-square.ca
Subject: Eagles Nest opponents

Mayor, Council and Staff,

We are writing to share an update on the public input received on our application to date. We understand you are considering options on how to elicit additional public input before proceeding with next steps and thought it might be helpful to share our analysis of the input received to date.

We approached the Access to Information Officer of View Royal to request all communication from residents concerning the Eagles Nest development beginning from the date of the first meeting, which was held in November 2018.

It was explained to us that it would be more expedient and less costly to obtain the information ourselves from both the Council and Committee of the Whole meetings. We, therefore, extracted the names and addresses of all those residents who communicated verbally and/or in writing at these meetings.

We have attached a spreadsheet that will indicate exactly when and how every individual communicated in opposition. We have not included those that spoke in favour.

We noted that many individuals communicated more than once within the meetings. The spreadsheet compiles all the information of who communicated by email, letter or verbally and at which meeting.

There was a total of 20 opponents including View Royal residents, Hidden Oaks residents as well as Saanich residents:

• Eight View Royal residents were primarily concerned with traffic or density. The contributing impact to traffic would seem to be the reoccurring message from the View Royal residents.
• Seven Hidden Oaks residents were primarily concerned with vehicles using their driveways as a turnaround, the height and location of buildings, the loss of privacy and density, and the impact on traffic.
• Five Saanich residents were primarily concerned with the impact on ALR land, their views as well as the impact on traffic.

We were present at a meeting where an opponent presented a petition from neighbours that they obtained through a door to door campaign. The Mayor provided us with a copy of the information left at his door. The information about the application was incorrect and did not represent the stage that the proposal had evolved to at that time. Since the signatures on the petition were solicited using inaccurate and misleading information, and is referring to the previous application, we respectfully request that Council not consider the petition.

We also suggest it is important to consider that although only five Hidden Oak residents actually border the Eagles Nest property, we have dramatically revised our current proposal to maintain their privacy by reducing the building heights and moving the buildings back significantly, and by redesigning the development to preserve a number of trees which provide additional privacy.

As you may recall, we were forced to pull our application at a Council Meeting on September 17, 2019, before Council ratified their vote to decline our application. We pulled the application to avoid the penalty of waiting a year to reapply. We paid a new fee of approximately $28,000 and presented a new, greatly revised plan to Council on Mar 10, 2020.

At that meeting, there were total of 4 residents that opposed the new plan regarding the new application.

• Three were from Hidden Oaks
• One was from Saanich.

Based on the new application, complete with significantly changed plans, we would request that Council consider this application not be considered ‘contentious’.

There were only eight View Royal residents that opposed our development and those were from a concern for the impact we would have on traffic. Not only did Watt Consulting indicate in their report that our impact was minimal. They also provided a viable solution on how to mitigate the traffic issue. Council stated that traffic was a regional issue and would not get in the way of View Royal achieving the goals and objectives of the OCP.

There were seven opponents from Hidden Oaks. We have changed the plans dramatically to mitigate their concerns. It would appear their major concern moving forward is traffic and their driveway. We chose not to use their driveway for ingress or egress as we did not want to further exasperate that problem. We believe that we will never get their buy-in as they have stated a several meetings that they want the site developed as townhouses. That is not in keeping with the OCP. Please keep in mind the OCP is an adopted bylaw.

We have reviewed Council meetings going back to the inauguration of this Council and have discovered that there were other applications that were as ‘contentious’ as ours and were approved even though they required amendments and/or variances to the OCP that we do not.

We are concerned that we are being treated differently than other rezoning applications especially given all the plans we have put forward complied with the OCP and other applications that were approved required amendments and/or variances to the OCP that we do not.

We respect the value of community input and believe we have made great efforts to adjust our plans in response to feedback received. Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to share our summary of public concerns. We look forward to working with your staff to advance the application.

Kind regards,

DOUG FOORD
PRESIDENT / CEO

Invictus Commercial Investment Corp.
Real Estate Development Division
www.InvictusCommercialInvestment.com
Direct: 778-350-2620