Whiskey Landing Developments has aggressively withdrawn an application to build 23 residential and resort condo units, firing off a letter to the town’s municipal council overflowing with vitriol towards Ucluelet’s district staff.
The letter, signed by the company’s president Ewen Stewart and reviewed by the town’s municipal council during July 9’s regular meeting suggested correspondence with the district has led the company to believe that staff have “zero intention of ever approving ANY form of housing for this site.”
The letter lays out a timeline of events that led the company’s frustration level to the breaking point, beginning with a March 12 report from district staff that interpreted the site’s zoning differently from the company and laid out new demands that had not previously been discussed.
“We admit defeat,” it reads. “It is very clear that Ucluelet does not want any further building in the District.”
It adds that the company is now scrapping the 23-unit project and will instead apply for a four-unit project it believes “avoids any capacity of the Planning Department to further frustrate the use of our lands.”
“Our request to Council is that they authorize an outside planning consultant firm to review our new application,” the letter reads. “We will pay the full consultant cost rather than subject ourselves to any further abuse by the current Director of Planning. Or that we be allowed to present our application directly to Council for a DP since all possible issues have been identified in our existing application and a reduction to 4 units makes an extremely simple application.”
The letter suggests the company met the March 12 demands, but was then blindsided with additional hoops it had not expected to be told to jump through.
“Included in the June 11th Report to Council is a whole new series of demands and conditions not seen before and asking Council to make them a condition of any approval,” it reads.
The discourse during that June 11 meeting had been heated as Whiskey Landing Developments had applied for a several zoning variances to eliminate setbacks, including bringing the minimum side yard interior setback from 4.2 metres to 0 metres, the setback from the natural sea boundary from 7.5 metres to 0 metres and raising the maximum height of the building from 12 metres to 16.4 metres.
Several residents, including unit owners inside the current Whiskey Landing building, expressed concern over how close the new building would be as design renderings show the two just about touching and fears were also raised about the environmental impact of eliminating the sea boundary setback.
Those setback issues though took a backseat to an argument between the developer and district staff around the site’s current zoning.
The first argument between both parties centred around whether a public walkway, both between the current Whiskey Landing building and the new proposed building as well as along the waterfront, were part of the project.
“Whether the proposal meets the (development permit) guidelines completely hinges to a large degree on some confirmation from the applicant about whether a waterfront walkway that’s proposed is still part of their proposed development because there’s some contradictory information we’ve received,” said the district’s director of community planning Bruce Greig.
He explained the district’s Official Community Plan calls for maintaining views of the harbour as well as access to the waterfront.
“The building is quite a large building and if there is public access to get essentially beyond it, well then there’s full access to that harbour view. If there isn’t that public access, then it really acts as a bit of a blocker.”
The second and more debated issue was a clear disagreement between the two parties between how many of the 23 units could be used as short term rentals while fitting into the site’s zoning.
Greig contested that the site’s zoning would allow a maximum of eight short term rentals with the remaining 15 units reserved for long-term residential use, while Whiskey Landing Developments suggested the zoning allows all 23 units to be short term rentals.
The company’s development manager Fawn Ross spoke on behalf of Whiskey Landing Developments and said WLD would not agree to the waterfront walkway or unit breakdown between residential and short term.
She said the company “would have loved to provide” the walkway, but ownership of that strip of land is “very complicated” and involves crown land.
She said the company had reached out to the provincial government and been told it would be about a two-year process to sort out the walkway. She suggested the company had reached out to the district to work through that process, but received no response.
“Once the application went in, all communication on the subject was dropped. We tried numerous times to re-engage and have documentation along those lines. We tried and tried again and we couldn’t get the staff’s attention to get there,” she said, adding the company gave up and took the walkway out of the application.
“We can’t proceed without the information that’s required and the engagement of the district…We have not heard anything on it again until this report to council.”
The walkway was then put on the backburner as the two sides argued over the breakdown of short-term and long term units allowed under the zoning with Ross claiming the zoning allows for all 23 units to serve as resort condo and hotel.
““The concept that it’s a residential building that allows some resort condos or a resort condo that allows some residential, doesn’t work within the wording of the regulations,” she said.
“We have always been and still remain willing to work with council to determine what’s best for the site and the community, but we can’t do that in a vacuum and we can’t do it when the expectations are what they have been on us here.”
Greig said district staff had sought a legal opinion that confirmed the zoning requires at least 15 residential units.
Coun. Ian Kennington said he had researched the zoning and been unable to find any validity to the company’s claims.
“I spent a ridiculous amount of time digging into this because it is so complex and I do have a background in this. My conclusion is that the bylaw as interpreted by our planning department is correct. I didn’t take this lightly,” he said.
“There’s no indication that what’s being contested has any validity. I can’t get there. I can’t get to the point where I can side with the applicant on the interpretation of that bylaw. I just can’t do it. It doesn’t work.”
Coun. Shawn Anderson said the issue “was one of the most complicated ones I think we’ve done,” adding he had reached out to a variety people to seek more information.
“If there’s a bylaw, we have to stick to the rule of that bylaw. In the interpretation of that bylaw could be a bit of wiggle room, but this one seems fairly black and white and I don’t want to be remiss in making a decision that comes back to bite us later,” he said.
This then led to a back and forth between Greig and Ross rarely seen during a council meeting as each took turns at the podium to pitch their case to council.
Ross laid out a timeline that suggested district staff had not been consistent on the site’s zoning.
“We have been given six different interpretations of the bylaw by the (district) staff to the point where nobody can function within that system,” she said, adding the company was initially told that none of the 23 units could be used for long-term residential.
“We were directed by the staff to directly remove any reference of the principle use from the documentation. Upon doing so, we were ridiculed for it and told only three could be resort condo and then only eight only could be resort condo,” she said.
“We’re willing to work with you, but interpretations of zoning is not to be altered by who is applying the regulations at the time and/or which property it extends to. A zone is supposed to be objective in its application and that’s not what’s at play here.”
She added the company feels it was “put under a microscope from the staff.”
“We’ve heard that one more short term rental is too many, it’s people like us that cause evictions of staff, that we are unwilling and can’t understand the community and should care about the people that are here. That’s not the case. We’re asking to have clear conditions that are laid out and that fit within the regulations.”
She reiterated the company is willing to work with council to hammer out a plan that works for the community, but refuses to work “under forced systems.”
“Talk to us about what you want as the community versus the forced changes and held back of information,” she said.
Mayor Marilyn McEwen suggested the conversation “was going around in circles” and said she’d be willing to hold off on the walkway stipulation, but would not be willing to move ahead without a set amount of residential units agreed upon.
“What we don’t want is 23 resort condo units,” she said.
Ross agreed and suggested that when district staff had pushed the company to make their application strictly short-term rental use only, the company had fought against it.
Coun. Mark Maftei asked how many short term rental units the company would be happy with.
Ross responded that she did not have a direct answer for that.
“I can say that there are lots of options on the table and we’re willing to discuss all of them with you as council and come to a number that you and I are both satisfied with,” she said. “We’re open to suggestions and we’re open to working with you. We just can’t do it in a forced method.”
Maftei said he understood her frustration, but tried to press further for a specific number of units the company was hoping to use as short term rentals.
Ross repeated that she didn’t have an exact number.
“I’m not dodging the question. I’m not trying to move the target. I just honestly don’t have an answer for you on what that looks like,” she said.
Kennington then quipped that the eight short term rentals and 15 residential units proposed by district staff represented a good place to start that conversation.
“If you’re asking for suggestions on what the community is asking for, the intent of the OCP (Official Community Plan) and the zoning was exactly that. Whether you don’t agree with that, if you’re asking for a number, we can use that as a baseline,” Kennington said.
Ross pushed back that the 15 residential units idea is not enforceable within the zoning and suggested the Official Community Plan is “a planning document” rather than a legal one.
Kennington then expressed polite, but exacerbated frustration and suggested the zoning is not as confusing as Ross was making it out to be .
“The zoning bylaw and the definitions attached to it are very clear. There’s like less than 100 words here. I don’t know where you’re coming from on this,” he said.
Greig added the developer could apply for a rezoning, but had not done so.
“They’ve been very coy about what the uses would be,” he said.
Kennington suggested the proposal was clogging up the district’s time with no clear path forward.
“We have other projects that have greater community benefit that we need to be working on,” he said.
Coun. Anderson agreed that time was an issue.
“It does seem like it could be a galactic miscommunication here. I don’t want to make the mistake of setting a precedent here for a misinterpretation of a bylaw. I think it needs some fresh eyes and potential to come up with some alternative solutions moving forward. I don’t think we have time right now to do this,” he said.
Now that the 23-unit application has been taken off the table by Whiskey Landing Developments, the two sides seem set for a rematch with the company’s revised, four-unit, application pending.
