A hotel and long-term rental complex with a restaurant and a mixed-use building has been proposed for a plot of land along Resort Drive in Parksville.
The lot is located on 6.45 acres at 1180 Resort Drive and Island Highway East, near the Parksville Repo Depo and Sunrise Ridge Waterfront Resort.
Nigel Gray from MacDonald Gray Consulting presented an introduction to the project to Parksville City Council on July 16.
There are four buildings proposed for the site;
A three-storey, 65-suite hotel, which will most likely be a Holiday Inn Express, a restaurant with an outdoor seating area and patio, a five-storey multi-unit residential complex with 40 units and ground floor parking, geared towards long-term rental, and a four-storey mixed-use building with 36 suites that include ground floor commercial spaces.
Currently the site, that is not within the Agricultural Land Reserve, is zoned for industrial and agricultural uses and for future development under the Resort Land designation. Gray asked council for an Official Community Plan (OCP) amendment and zoning amendment to have the property zoned for Mixed Use (Tourist Commercial).
The current designation, of Resort Land, is intended to preclude permanent housing, limit densities to 30 units per hectare and limit driveway accesses from Island Highway East. The proposed change to the Mixed Use (Tourist Commercial) designation would not have these restrictions.
Gray said the combination of commercial and multi-family residential units will benefit the community.
“Mixed housing types is a big one for Parksville,” Gray said. “Rental housing is huge, we need quite a bit of that.”
A traffic impact assessment was prepared by Adept Transportation Solutions in June 2017. The traffic report recommends right-in/right-out access to the property from Island Highway East which will reduce travel distance and loads on nearby intersections. Gray asked for council’s support for the right-in/right-out access to the property.
The site developed under the current zoning has a 2017 assessed value of $815,000.00. The appraiser estimates that the rezoned value of the site as proposed is estimated to have a value of approximately $2,725,000.00, an increase in land value of 1,910,000.00.
A public information session for the proposed complex will be held near the end of August, with a date to be determined.
