Letter from Applicant – June 6, 2017 (Joan and Chris Walker)
A letter from the property owners describing their intent for the development and its compliance with neighborhood objectives.
June 6, 2017
Mayor and Council Town of View Royal 45 View Royal Avenue, Victoria BC V9B 1A6
Mayor and Council,
Re: Development Application, 265 View Royal Ave.
We have been residents of View Royal for over a decade. Having enjoyed living here so much, we bought another property in hopes of building the home we will retire in.
We are the owners of Christopher Developments, and have operated out of our home office for 25 years. With just two employees we have grown a successful business designing and building custom homes, with no disruption to our neighbours. We feel that by operating out of our home, we are taking two vehicles off of an already overloaded commuting route, and have very little traffic coming to the office. This effectively meets the objectives of the Town’s Official Community Plan of reducing green house gases.
This property is challenging to develop, given it’s sloping characteristics. We’ve designed a home and detached office/garage that both compliment the natural topography and limit the disruption to the site. The reason for detaching the accessory building was to minimize the amount of hard surfaces in proximity to the front entry of the house. Detaching the garage also allows the landscape to be more pedestrian oriented, with gentle landscaped steps leading to the front entry.
The lot is over twice the size of the R1 minimum. The structures are low in profile and ground-oriented eliminating any potential view obstruction from surrounding neighbours. The floor of the accessory building has been graduated to work with the sloping footprint.
The overall design is understated, and pleasing to the eye. We’ve met with the majority of our surrounding neighbours, and have attained 22 signatures in favour of our proposal.
With respect to the work on the waterfront, we have met the requirements of the Official Community Plan. Addressing drainage with work to be overseen by a geotechnical engineer and a landscape plan endorsed by a registered biologist. Our plan is to not only enhance the waterfront area, but to remove invasive species as set out in this plan.
Sincerely,
Joan and Chris Walker 265 View Royal Ave., Victoria BC V9B 1A6