Email from Ron Mattson re Western Gateway OCP Housing and Population Projections
Correspondence from Councillor Ron Mattson regarding potential development capacity in the Western Gateway Corridor.
From: "Ron Mattson" To: "Sid Tobias" mayortobias@viewroyal.ca, "John Rogers" JRogers@viewroyal.ca, "Brown Donald", "Gery Lemon" GLemon@viewroyal.ca, "Damian Kowalewich" DKowalewich@viewroyal.ca Sent: Monday, 16 June, 2025 20:13:47 Subject: Western Gateway OCP Housing and Population Projections
Colleagues,
I have attached a 4 page document created by Doug Wilson as an example of the type of information Council, and our advisory committee and probably our residents, should have to make intelligent and informed decisions on our OCP.
Basically Doug has set out the retail floor space, office area, residential area/units, population and parking stalls for the Western Gateway Corridor - along Island Highway under 4 scenarios with varied FSR and height. (also included in the tables is the formula he used to develop these statistics).
Highlights:
- 13 properties, 4 of which are under-developed.
- for the 13 properties: 1.2 million (M) square feet (SF) of land; 1M SQ of gross floor space (GFS) allowed under current zoning; 3.1M SQ under 2011 OCP; and 3 different scenarios for 2025 OCP -- 6 stories with FSR 2.5 (3.1M SF GFS), 10 stories with FSR 3.5 (4.4M SF GFS) and 15 stories with FSR 4 (5M SQ GFS). Note these numbers are for all 13 properties.
- Town's Land Economics Study forecast max the 2025-2050 max growth of retail floor space (19,616 sq Meters) and office space (11,799 sq M).
- for the 4 under-developed Properties: for All 4 scenarios Doug has listed in table 2 for just the 4 properties would surpass the entire 25-year retail and office floorspace forecast for View Royal. Showing that 66% to 78% of the floorspace could be put to other uses like residential.
- under the 2011 OCP the 4 properties could provide all the retail and office space we need to 2050 and 663 residential units (1000 ft sq), 1,393 more residents and 2,162 parking stalls. (table 2 has the figures for the other 3 scenarios)
Note: the numbers in the document "paint a big-picture estimate of the potential development capacity". Using a different methodology the numbers would change. However, Council needs this type of information to make informed decisions on our new OCP.
Food for thought.
Ron
PS: I don't have Alison's email address handy, could someone send it to her.