Port Moody council will again consider whether to remove the right-of-way for the David Avenue connector through Bert Flinn Park at its meeting on Tuesday.
And it may also take action to restrict development on the Ioco lands.
In a report to council that's part of the meeting agenda package, Mayor Rob Vagramov wrote the results of last October’s civic election, public consultation with residents as well as “countless emails to council spanning eight years” indicate “significant public support for the right-of-way’s removal.” And after several delays while council worked on its strategic and tactical plans, the time is right to make that happen, he added.
Vagramov’s report also asks council to direct staff to draft an amendment to the city’s official community plan to restrict density in the Ioco Lands to the level permitted by its current zoning — 111 single-family homes.
In 2015, Brilliant Circle Group (BCG), a Hong Kong-based developer, acquired the 232-acre property that was once a townsite for workers at the nearby Imperial Oil refinery. The company hired Vancouver architect James Cheng, then began a series of public meetings and consultations to plot a new plan for the property.
Less than two years later, Cheng was off the project, replaced by Peter Busby, and more public meetings were convened in June, 2017. Busby told The Tri-City News at the time he envisioned a new waterfront-oriented community with bistros and restaurant patios overlooking Burrard Inlet, and possibly even a ferry connection to Rocky Point Park.
But since then, BCG has gone quiet on the project and its iocolands.ca website is no longer active. Last year, the developer abruptly pulled the plug on a 46-storey luxury condo tower it was hoping to build on a triangular piece of land at Georgia and Pender streets in downtown Vancouver just a week before it was to go to a public hearing.
Meanwhile, a citizens' group led by now-councillor Hunter Madsen was rallying support to remove from Port Moody’s OCP a gravel right-of-way through nearby Bert Flinn Park that had been long designated to become a paved roadway connecting David Avenue to the Ioco lands to facilitate their development and ease traffic pressure on Ioco Road. Such a roadway, the group argued, would ruin the tranquility of the 311-acre parcel of forested land that was turned into a park in 1999 following a civic referendum.
Madsen was elected to council in 2017 in a byelection after former councillor Rick Glumac became the new MLA for Port Moody-Coquitlam, and he was re-elected in last year’s civic election.
In his report, Vagramov cites the election result — Madsen topped the polls among council candidates — as well as the election of other candidates supportive of removing the David Avenue right-of-way as further justification for this latest effort to get that realized.
An earlier effort by Vagramov and Madsen shortly after the October 2018 civic election went off the rails last February when Coun. Meghan Lahti successfully challenged the timing of their move, saying it jumped a deferral that had been agreed upon in January to delay consideration until after council had completed its strategic plan for the coming year, as only one planning session had been completed at that time.
Six weeks later, Vagramov was charged with sexual assault and took a leave of absence from his duties. However, on Sept. 9, he he abruptly returned to office, saying he didn't expect his criminal case to go to trial and declaring he was “excited” to return to work to implement the mandate that got him elected.
