Posted Sep 13, 2010, 6:15 PM
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Join Date: Sep 2009
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I didn't make it to this, but it sounds like it was, uh, lively....
Quote:
Naysayers pack Onni open house on Steveston high-rises
A group of longtime Steveston residents posted 400 flyers around the community encouraging people to attend an open house about Onni Group’s proposed waterfront development.
Their efforts didn’t go to waste.
Shortly after the doors opened Thursday at 3 p.m. a lineup trailed out of the gymnasium at Steveston Community Centre as people waited to sign in and pick up a comment card.
All were hoping to learn more and express opinions about Onni’s application to rezone its narrow strip of land on Bayview Street. The developer hopes to erect two residential high-rises—10 and 12 storeys—on the last of its Imperial Landing parcels.
One of the flyer-posters, Jacqui Turner, worried that approving the rezoning application would set a precedent.
“It’s going to open up a floodway of high-rises down here,” she said. “They’re not neighbourhood friendly.”
Most of the crowd echoed Turner’s opposition to the towers which, if approved, would be the tallest buildings in Steveston.
Angela Burnet strolls the boardwalk regularly and said high-rises would ruin Steveston’s charm.
“It is totally out of scale. It’s a building that’s perfect for downtown Richmond—I do not want to live in downtown Richmond.” she said. “I think they’re proposing to create a Berlin Wall,” she added.
Groups of people huddled around informational poster boards and peered over each other’s shoulders to examine two scale models.
One of those models depicted Onni’s original plan which adheres to current zoning—six four-storey buildings with maritime-based commercial space on the ground floor.
The other showed the 200-unit high-rise proposal in which the entire development would be residential and contained in two buildings. As part of this proposal, Onni would donate two acres of land to the city, which could be a potential park site, and contribute $500,000 to the community centre.
If the high-rise proposal gets the green light, Cynthia Rautio would be able to see the buildings from her English Avenue home.
“It will shadow my home and I’ll have people in a tower staring down at my backyard,” she said. “I think it’s an ill-conceived proposal. I think the only thing generating this proposal is money in the pocket for Onni.”
Rautio would prefer the land be left as open space, but said: “If it has to be developed, it should be the lowest-density and the lowest-height buildings possible.”
David Fairweather has been following the Imperial Landing development since Onni tabled a new vision for the waterfront in 2003.
He had his comment card neatly filled out. All the written comments will first go to the city, then Onni for consideration.
“The 10- and 12-storey proposal is outrageous,” Fairweather said. “It demonstrates again the total lack of appreciation of the views of the public since 2003 at open houses, and what is appropriate for Steveston on this site.”
Fairweather was skeptical Onni would seriously consider the public opinion expressed at Thursday’s open house. “We’re never heard,” he lamented.
A besieged Chris Evans, Onni’s vice-president, attempted to address residents’ many concerns.
“People have some questions about the size and just what the ultimate use of the area is going to be after being donated to the city,” he told The Richmond Review on Friday.
He said the open house was meant to be an information session where people could learn what the current zoning allows and what the rezoning proposal would include. He wasn’t able to answer some of the residents’ more specific questions about traffic and amenities.
“We’re not in a position to respond to people talking about schools, or people asking different questions about things that are well beyond the control of a development,” he said.
Evans reiterated Onni’s reason for the rezoning application.
“The merit of the rezoning and the result of the buildings is basically we have tried to maximize the area able to be donated to the city,” he said.
A second public open house is scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 22 at Steveston Community Centre, 4111 Moncton St., from 6 to 8 p.m.
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http://www.bclocalnews.com/richmond_...102653144.html
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