Inside Langford

The former PayLess gas station at 662 Goldstream Ave is being proposed to be redeveloped into a four-story mixed-use building. That’s in keeping with the direction Langford Council has indicated they intend that neighbourhood to go. Nonetheless, the discussion about it at Monday night’s Planning and Zoning (P&Z) meeting went in some interesting directions with everything from a committee members bluntly insisting “It has to be taller,” to the revelation that Granderson is to become a right-out-only street where it meets Goldstream, to the developer discussing the likelihood of getting provincial offices moving to Langford and saying that the “provincial government has no interest being on the Westshore,” to a member of the audience arguing that the parking won’t be enough by noting “I personally have 3 vehicles and 1 motorcycle, people don’t have 1.4 vehicles.”

But before I get too far ahead of myself, first the gory details. The four-story development is proposed for “approximately 62 units” in the upper three floors with the entire bottom floor being commercial space (888 square metres). This meets Langford’s medium density mixed-use designation.

The site has a prominent Garry Oak on it, and it is the opinion of a specialist who’s looked at it that the tree was damaged severely when sewers went in and, as a result, can’t be saved. One of the committee members proposed, and even moved at the end of the meeting, that the wood from the tree be provided to the Vancouver Island Woodworking Guild, of which he is a member, a decision that was ultimately supported by the committee.

The developer intends to build a building with “West coast comtemporary feel” that will take advantage of its close proximity to Veteran’s Memorial, the E&N rail line, the forthcoming Rail Trail, and the neighbouring bicycle shop to the west, and have a strong focus on cycling and pedestrian access. To that end the plan now calls for a “woonerf road” to be created on the East side of the development, between the new building and the realtor beside it. Woonerf roads are narrow streets where pedestrians and cyclists have legal priority over cars, and cars are expected to drive at a “walking pace”. The building is also to have a “significant amount of bike storage,” but the actual amount went unspecified at the meeting.

The development team, inspired by the fact that the “OCP leads to mixed-use residential developments,” “saw the light and proceeded with a different plan than [they'd] intended.” They proceeded with a plan that had all commercial on the bottom and all residential on top and plans proceeded apace until they got “the dreaded call from engineering.”

City Hall’s engineering department had identified that there were traffic issues present and future that would have to be dealt with, and City Hall staff were proposing that part of the solution would be to make Granderson a right-out only road, and were taking another look at the parking issues. There was also talk that the new Woonerf road might some day see a light at Goldstream Ave. where the two meet. Members of the committee questioned this, with one saying “I’m not too sure about this, lights being introduced?” Staff assured them that a final decision on that was some years away, and that making Granderson a right-out only “added 75 metres of additional capacity” of road space before people would have to contend with turning left.

The developers indicated that these traffic challenges became an opportunity. “Goldstream is a heavy vehicular street,” but they were able to introduce changes that they hope will give the development a “pedestrian feel to it.” While a traditional Woonerf road is meant for drivers to travel at a walking pace, engineering staff indicated that cars will be expected to travel at 10-20KM/hr. on the one attached to this development.

The changes meant, though, that the proposed development would be very short on the parking required by zoning. The rezoning they were seeking was MU1A (“Mixed-use 1A”), the same multi-use zoning the first post-OCP development is seeking. That designation, though, would have left the development 20 parking spots short. Langford staff have suggested it be rezoned C8A (“Pedestrian Commercial Town Centre”), a designation with lessened parking requirements that would leave the development only 1 parking spot short of what zoning requires. Another consequence of C8A would be a broader range of acceptable commercial uses (including preschool services) in the commercial space.

When questions were opened up to the committee, they were unanimous in wanting it to be taller. Richard Bauln asked “Why isn’t it taller?” Councilor Winnie Sifert was more supportive, noting that the development “beats the heck out of a gas station.” Steve Harvey returned to Mr. Bauln’s point and stated bluntly “It has to be taller, Jim,” referencing developer Jim Hartshorne who was fielding their questions. Committee member Norma Stewart, well-known in P&Z circles for championing more parking in developments and who recently argued against a prominent development on the basis of losing commercial space in a neighbourhood, said “why didn’t you do a four story and bring employment to the community?”

Mr. Hartshorne’s response was simple and direct, that this was proposed as a woodframe building. “The cost separation between wood frame and concrete is so great, that I’m not interested in it,” he said as he referenced the much greater cost of a taller, concrete structure. Under the current building codes he can only go up four floors with a wood frame building, but he and his partners would consider going higher if the code was changed to allow it.

With regards to why he wasn’t doing office space, Mr. Hartshorne indicated that “we looked at the marketplace… To make an office work, you’d have to cut a significant part of the building. In my opinion, office doesn’t work for the size of building we’re offering. There’s nowhere near the demand for large office spaces in this area.” As to the likelihood of this changing anytime soon, he was not optimistic, and in particular he noted that the “provincial government has no interest being on the Westshore,” which eliminates the single-biggest office space user in Greater Victoria from consideration. He did note that the residences on the second floor were designed in such a way as that “in the future that space could be converted to office.”

With the committees questions answered, members of the public spoke, and their concerns were quite different than the committees. Whereas the committee was concerned the development was not big enough, local residents thought it was too big already and expressed a raft of concerns about parking and traffic flow.

Earlier in the evening Jim Hartshorne had indicated that the traffic on Granderson was light, noting “Granderson has 300-400 [cars] a day, some silly small number,” a local resident named Randy was more concerned and argued that the number of people parking on Granderson was a problem most days, and a severe problem when a special event was being held at Veteran’s Memorial Park across the street. He felt that many of the people who parked on Granderson regularly were living in, or visiting people in, the new developments across the street on the south side of Goldstream Ave. Mr. Hartshorne indicated that “people who park on that street are either parking illegally at 90 degrees, or parking on Shell property.” The developer also suggested that the current wild-west of parking would be replaced with designated parking stalls that would be shared parking used mainly by the businesses in the building during the day and used mainly by residents at night.

Robert Milne, who lived nearby on Goldstream Ave., suggested that “turning left out of there won’t work,” and that he was stating this as the “voice of experience,” who had lived in the area for many years. He said that he expected development would eat up all the single-family dwellings to the north of this development and that as a result the traffic on Granderson and the new woofert road would be unsustainable. To support his thesis, he pointed out that despite attempts at improving the traffic flow that it was already back to the way it was 8 years ago, and getting worse. He noted that there were routinely 20 or more vehicles parked on Granderson at night right now, without 62 new residential units in the neighbourhood. “I personally have 3 vehicles and 1 motorcycle, people don’t have 1.4 vehicles.” He was concerned that switching to the C8 zoning, with it’s 1 parking space for each 1 bedroom unit and 1.3 parking spaces for 2+ bedroom units would tax parking beyond the limit in an area already struggling with it.

City Hall staff noted that public transit use is the highest it’s been in history, that the BC government was asking for this kind of compact mixed-use development to achieve climate change goals, and that the help had come in the “recently installed a signal at Grainger,” (which would cause periodic stoppages in the flow of traffic to help people turn left off of the woonerf road). future developments, when they occur, will trigger a review at that time as to whether there needs to be an additional light at Goldstream where it encounters the still-unnamed woonerf road.

Near the end of the meeting, developer Hartshorne indicated regarding the garry oak tree that “this project has a very significant financial penalty now,” because of the many changes, and that he doesn’t expect it to be a very profitable development. And while he’s “happy to co-operate,” but that “[he doesn't] think that tree can be saved.”

The committee agreed to recommend the property be rezoned as C8 zoning, which would give it the reduced parking requirements and the increased commercial zoning, and that recommendation now goes to Langford Council for consideration at a future council meeting.

– Steven Hurdle -