The evolution of Kelowna from a small town to a growing city brings change—more traffic, more people, demand for more amenities.
Those issues all play a role in the city’s proposal to create the Capri Centre Landmark Urban Centre, which could help absorb the 40,000 to 50,000 new residents expected to move to Kelowna over the next 20 years.
The urban centre plan would create higher density residential housing, new amenities, such as parks and public transit improvements and high rises would all be built around the expanding Landmark Towers complex, giving the Capri Centre mall block a whole new look.
While the city is implementing the plan to try and get ahead of the population boom, land changes proposed under the Capri Landmark Urban Centre could leave several long-time area commercial building owners facing expropriation of their properties. Their tenants would then lose an affordable rent space to operate their small businesses.
There is bitter acrimony between a trio of those building owners and the city at the moment, as they feel the city hasn’t kept them in the loop on the impact of land use changes and the extension of Sutherland Avenue will affect their properties.
Related: Commercial landlords face displacement
While city planners estimate the land costs to create the urban centre vary from $18 million to $25 million, three of the business owners affected did their own calculations and estimate the cost will rise to $60 million.
“I don’t think the city is being upfront with taxpayers about that real cost,” said Bob Curell, with Sapphire Construction, which owns a commercial building at the corner of Burtch and Sutherland that stands in the way of the proposed Sutherland expansion.
“Expropriating revenue generating commercial property is different than expropriating a residential lot. We are facing the loss of future revenue generated by the building, as well as tax implications if we can’t build on another site within two years of the sale being completed.
“And in Kelowna right now, finding a site to build is very difficult because land is in short supply.”
Lambert Schmalz, founder of Lambert & Paul Construction, is upset about the urban centre plan impacting two of his commercial buildings.
“We have spent 30 years building up our business, providing affordable space for our tenants and contributing taxes to the city, and with a stroke of a pen all that can disappear,” said Schmalz.
Schmalz and Curell along with other affected business building owners met last month with city planners to discuss the town centre plan, and they both along with fellow commercial building owner Bob McNamara left the meeting even more frustrated with the process.
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| Commercial building owned by Sapphire Construction which faces closure if or when the Sutherland Avenue extension proceeds. Photo: Barry Gerding/Black Press |
For McNamara, he faces the prospect of his commercial property on Dolphin Avenue being rezoned as parkland.
All three argue alternatives could avoid the displacement of their buildings and their tenants.
Also, a detailed traffic analysis has yet to be done to even justify proposed road extensions and they question why the park space allotment has been reduced from nine to one hectare.
Overshadowing all that is a concern that the plan devised to accommodate growth of the Landmark Towers development—which is currently comprised of five towers with two more on the way—has been made at the expense of other neighbourhood commercial property owners’ interests.
Litigation may be an avenue explored in the search for equitable compensation, but Curell says the other issue is how their tenants who are facing potential eviction will fare.
With the eventual loss of their business space hanging over their heads, he says those tenants now face an uncertain future.
Curell says their rents will probably double in a newer building and available commercial retail space in Kelowna is at a premium.
“You face the prospect of relocating somewhere out near the airport. For many of our tenants, they have been with us 20 or 30 years, their location here is key to their business, and the idea of moving may force them to shut down their business,” he said.
They estimate that 100 businesses which employ more than 1,000 people will feel the impact of the change.
“Talk to anyone who owns commercial property in this area and nobody wants to see this happen,” Curell argued.
While the urban centre plan is designated for completion over the next 20 years, many businesses already have started thinking about what it would mean to move.
“I just know what I have heard from my landlord, but it sounds like I will have to move within the next two to five years,” said Mark Shier, owner of Wytek Direct technology supplies store on Dolphin Avenue owned by McNamara.
“To relocate, I have been looking around but I can find nothing comparable to this, which is a cheaper rent, older, affordable building. This store has been here 29 years and I have been with it for the last 18 years.
“Mine is a service and supply business so we have a good central location in the city. I don’t like the idea of having to move, the impact that could have on my business, while they bulldoze this building in order to create a park.”
Related: Kelowna council endorses $95 million urban centre
Mamas for Mamas is a co-tenant of the Dolphin complex with Wytek. Shannon Christensen, head of the social service agency for moms, said being forced to relocate would be devastating for her organization.
“We just completed a $210,000 interior renovation last year with the assistance of Jillian Harris. Her hard work and dedication made that happen,” Christensen said.
She said finding office space by itself is challenging in Kelowna, for cost and availability, leaving their future uncertain.
“We had a city planning person here the other day talking to us, but they can’t say much because they don’t have the answers we are looking for. It leaves us in a precarious position,” she said.
She said their current location was ideal because it was transit accessible for moms and their kids, a dignified community space for people to visit and space conducive to providing social, item exchange and parental time-out services.
“Since January we have had 2,463 visits from moms,” she said, looking for help in wide variety of areas from escaping an abusive relationship and counselling or consoling attention to mental health or poverty issues.
“We are starting to become known as a place to go to seek help. People know where we are, so to get up and move would be a setback,” she said.
Mayor Colin Basran acknowledges that “change is hard” but the urban centre plan is a sign of Kelowna’s evolution to react in a co-ordinated manner to population growth, the one single project that will have the most far-reaching impact on the city.
“We have started down this path of encouraging more residents to live in our urban centres because it makes sense for a number of reasons—economically, socially, environmentally—this is the way cities are moving in,” Basran said.
“But when you implant any plan like this, people are affected and it is not always easy. Overall, this is the right plan for our community as a whole, and as a council it is our job to supply the industrial and commercial lands for businesses to continue to grow.”
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| The Landmark Tower development along with the nearby Capri Centre Mall are the two most significant land developments within the Capri Landmark Urban Centre zone. Photo: Barry Gerding: Black Press |
For business owners facing the loss of their commercial rental space, Basran cautions that the overall vision of the urban centre will take 20 years or possibly more to implement.
“One of the things I would say to them is this is not going to happen overnight,” he noted. “As it progresses going forward, we will see how it unfolds in terms of businesses being displaced.”
As for the commercial building owners, he notes property rezoning will open new opportunities for them.
He said to have their land zoning changed to allow high density residential opportunities will increase the value of their land and offer residential development opportunities.
“It’s not all doom and gloom,” he said.
On the high-rise potential, Curell feels that construction costs will require buildings at least 30 storeys high to be profitable, not the 18 projected by the urban centre proposal.
But as those and other disputes linger, Basran said council has publicly endorsed the urban centre proposal as submitted by the planning department and expects it to be adopted into the Official Community Plan now undergoing a review process.
For Christensen, she is hoping the security of just signing a five-year lease won’t get shortchanged by the need to relocate anytime soon.
“Hopefully we would have at least one year’s notice that we would have to move. That would be a minimum for us to deal with it, so hopefully it won’t just be sprung on us,” she said.
“Fortunately, if we are nothing else, we have learned how to be very resourceful to get Mamas For Mamas to this point.”
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