One of the first orders of business for the new Victoria city council elected next month will be to hold a public hearing into the rezoning for one of the largest developments proposed for downtown.
Council this week voted to move to November a public hearing into Starlight’s proposal for the Harris Green neighbourhood, rather than squeeze it in during the pre-election period.
“This is a very large and controversial project,” said Coun. Jeremy Loveday, who put forward the motion to move the hearing until after the Oct. 15 election. “Because it is outside of the official community plan — and requires an OCP amendment — I think there’s a rationale for not considering that in the middle of the election.”
Starlight Developments’ proposal would transform the Harris Green neighbourhood along the 1000 and 900 blocks of Yates and View streets between Cook and Quadra streets.
The plan is to tear down all of the existing commercial buildings over a number of phases to make way for a project that will include residential towers with an estimated 1,500 rental suites, more than 100,000 square feet of commercial buildings and green space. Council has been split on the proposal. Councillors Geoff Young, Ben Isitt and Charlayne Thornton-Joe all voted against sending it to public hearing due to its size and the height of some of the towers.
Isitt, who attempted to have the proposal sent to a committee meeting to be amended by a new council in November, said he thought the project could do with further refinement to rein in the height and provide more affordable housing.
Thornton-Joe said she appreciated the fact Starlight had addressed some of council’s earlier concerns, but is still concerned about its size.
While the height and proposed design remain the same, Starlight has made several changes to the proposal, including improvements to a planned mini plaza at Cook and Yates streets, increased setbacks to protect trees, adjusting the tenant assistance plan to provide right of first refusal at the eligible tenants’ previous rent rate, as well as covering all moving expenses and offering to provide 80 units of affordable housing in the first phase of development rather than spreading it across phases.
Loveday said while he still doesn’t like the design of the proposal, he would vote for it because of the housing provided.
“We need a massive amount of new rental housing, but there is a fundamental question of how to get there and is it to continue to build up and to increase heights downtown, or is it to densify at a more of a mid-rise level?” he said. “To be frank, I don’t like the buildings, but I like the housing.”
Mayor Lisa Helps said she expects an interesting public hearing on the project.
“We asked a lot of this applicant, as we should for an official community plan amendment, and almost everything that council has asked for has been met and, in some cases, exceeded,” she said. “I don’t think that we can ask any more at this point. I’m very curious to hear how the public will receive this application at a public hearing.”
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