SmartCentres’ permit applications for its shopping centre development have made it through one hoop and are rolling towards the next.
At Monday’s meeting of the planning and development services committee, which generally draws no more than a handful of citizens, a nearly full gallery was present to hear about two applications for the property that borders the Trans-Canda Highway across from 30th Street SW.
A majority of council voted to forward both applications to the next meeting of council, Monday, July 11, 7 p.m. in council chambers, at which time a hearing will take place where the public is permitted to express opinions.
If approvals are forthcoming, Nathan Hildebrand, land development manager with SmartCentres, said construction could begin in early August and the grand opening date would be Nov. 15, 2012.
The first item for approval, a development permit application, guides the form and character of the development – essentially what it will look like.
It contained several variances, including:
• a reduction in setback requirements from frontage roads for nine of the 11 buildings planned; and
• waiving the requirement to extend the city’s water and sanitary-sewer mains along the entire length of the unconstructed 30th Street SW (towards the lake) and instead allowing a reduced extension from the highway to the new frontage road, which will be Ninth Avenue SW.
Corey Paiement, the city’s director of development services, said the provincial Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, which must approve the development plans, has not done so because additional road right-of-way could be required. If it is, the development plans will have to be altered and the development permit would return to council.
Hildebrand said the ministry’s lack of approval came as a surprise, because his company has been showing them the same site plans for months.
“They read our drawings inappropriately so they thought they were getting more right of way than they were,” he told the meeting.
Mayor Marty Bootsma later remarked that although Hildebrand had mentioned that a SmartCentres development in the Lower Mainland with similar setbacks had been approved by the ministry, in Salmon Arm the ministry needs room to put snow.
Paiement said new information also arose regarding water on the west side of the property. It relates to the Riparian Areas Regulation, which determines how close to a water course development can be. He said the shopping centre itself isn’t affected, but there are questions as to whether the regulation applies to the unconstructed roadway that would be 30th Street SW.
“The question is, can the site plan function if 30th Street couldn’t be used and, if it couldn’t, then the site plan might have to be amended.”
Overall, Paiement said the buildings and landscaping proposed are “very high quality.”
Councillors raised several issues, including the burying of hydro lines, the size of an on-site sign promoting Salmon Arm’s downtown and the potential for light spillage from the shopping centre parking lot, before unanimously voting to forward the application to the next meeting. The second application from SmartCentres was for a development permit in an environmentally hazardous area, in terms of the flood plain.
This application was also forwarded to the July 11 meeting, with all but Couns. Ivan Idzan and Ken Jamieson voting in favour.
Discussion focused on differing professional opinions regarding flooding potential expressed by Stantec, engineers hired by SmartCentres, and Michael Church, an engineer hired by the Neskonlith Indian Band.
Coun. Alan Harrison said what’s most important to him is a statement from Stantec that there will be no measurable increase in the current hazard risk to adjacent properties from the development.
“I’m not going to question that conclusion based on all I’ve read,” he said.
Idzan raised concerns about what’s called the one-in-200 year flood event, the baseline for floodplain management. He said the data the city is relying on is 22 years old, yet the city redid its official community plan after only eight years.
“We might have to go back to that baseline and say, is that baseline adequate?”
Jamieson raised similar concerns, and asked what kind of dialogue has gone on between SmartCentres and the native bands. The Neskonlith Band issued a written statement following the meeting referring to council’s lack of consultation and the potential for negative impacts from the development on Neskonlith land.
“Neskonlith is taking this matter very seriously which is why we had a report prepared by the pre-eminent fluvial geomorphologist Prof. Michael Church which should be given serious consideration.”
