Three major bids to build housing in one of Coquitlam's oldest and soon-to-be-revitalized neighbourhoods are on hold for this year - and maybe longer.
Last month, two weeks after the pre-applications were introduced to the city, council temporarily halted the three developments as well as all new proposals for Burquitlam until city staff set new ground rules for how plans that aren't consistent with the Burquitlam Neighbourhood Plan (BNP) would proceed.
City planners want to have a few short-term measures in place before the formal review of the BNP starts later next year.
Among the interim actions are to establish: an assessment criteria and evaluation framework to guide the processing of new development plans; additional policies to address rental housing stock replacement and land use transition; and changes to the RM5, RM6 (multi-storey high-density apartment residential) and C7 (transit village commercial) zones.
As a result, the three applications - which would result in more than 600 new homes for the area - are now in abeyance until early 2012, Raul Allueva, Coquitlam's manager of development services, told The Tri-City News last week. Those three bids are:
Chris Dikeakos Architects' proposal for Blue Sky Properties, which wants to build up to 410 new homes in one or two towers as well as surrounding multi-family units, at 655 North Rd. and 525 Foster Ave.;
Intracorp Projects' plans for 636-640 Aspen St. and 514-554 Foster Ave. that would involve consolidating an entire city block to build 124 townhomes in 23 three-storey buildings;
and Rositch Hemphill Architects' proposal for Greenwood Properties, which is looking to build 91 apartments and city homes on Cottonwood Avenue.
"We would like to move it on," Greenwood's Keith Williams said. "We're not going to know what's happening now for six to eight months... But it's a process and we're in an election year. We understand they have to proceed with caution."
The Intracorp project falls just outside of the BNP boundary but because it's nearby, it is being lumped in with the BNP review.
"We were disappointed," said the company's development manager, David Jacobson. "We didn't expect to be pulled into this delay while they were doing the neighbourhood plan process. It does open up some uncertainty about our overall outcome."
Later next year, city staff plan to start the review of the BNP, a document adopted by council in 2002, that directs the land-use features of a community.
The city has been busy with neighbourhood plans recently.
In April, Coquitlam council approved a neighbourhood plan to revitalize Austin Heights in part by allowing construction of highrises. City staff are also in the middle of working on the Partington Creek Neighbourhood Plan for Burke Mountain and updating the Maillardville Neighbourhood Plan and City Centre Area Plan.
Jim McIntyre, Coquitlam's general manager of planning, said the BNP review would take two to three years and would look at "emerging issues" for the area such as:
transportation work around the Evergreen Line station at Burquitlam Plaza;
the new housing choices initiative to allow carriage homes on larger residential lots;
and amenities and services to support higher densities.
The last point was firmly raised at the July 25 public hearing by 19-year Burquitlam resident Hildegard Richter, who commented on the area's lack of infrastructure.
"The whole neighbourhood is changing and many more people are moving in," she said. "The library is gone. The amenities are gone. We have no community centre, no sports facilities. This should be in place before any development is approved."
"You want to develop a liveable environment," Richter urged council.
Under the current Burquitlam Neighbourhood Plan, the city envisions 1,900 more homes to absorb 10% to 15% of Coquitlam's growth between 2002 and 2021. Over the past decade, 682 homes have been approved or built in Burquitlam - and more than three-quarters of them multi-family units in the last three years. As for the existing single-family houses, a fifth of them have had some form of construction, either with new dwellings, subdivisions or renovations, over the past 20 years.
The neighbourhood is bounded by Port Moody, Foster Avenue, Robinson Street and North Road.
