STAY CONNECTED TO VIBRANTVICTORIA
WHAT'S HAPPENING ON CITIFIED VICTORIA
Kim Westad, Times Colonist
Published: Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Cadboro Bay village, with its hodge-podge of architectural styles and cheerful shops, is facing growing pains as potential development comes to its pricey land.
Like most areas in the core municipalities, land is scarce and expensive in the village at the bottom of Sinclair Hill. And just how it should develop is near and dear to the many residents and visitors who wander the block or so of shops before heading to Gyro Park and Cadboro Bay beach.
So developer Rick Smith is now on his third set of plans for a three-storey, 10-unit apartment building with 75 square metres of office space on the first floor, as well as two attached townhouses.
The plan would see two storeys of condos built on top of one storey of parking right behind the small strip mall that houses Peppers Food at 3829 Cadboro Bay Rd. Three single-family homes would be torn down, leaving 1,530 square metres in a long strip to build on.
While Saanich council unanimously decided this week that the development should go to a public hearing, which will likely happen some time this fall, councillors were split on whether they liked the style of the development. But that might simply be the price of change.
"I'd like to see something far more sensitive to this wonderful area of Cadboro Bay," said Coun. Vicki Sanders. "This to me is an old-style development, something we are trying to get away from."
The West Coast contemporary design would stretch across a narrow space, with the entrance to the condos on Penrhyn Street and the exit on Sinclair Road.
"I don't know if it speaks to me of the Cadboro Bay 'look,' but it may be a changing Cadboro Bay village," Coun. Susan Brice said. "There's something special about the haphazard way Cadboro Bay village has developed."
Coun. Judy Brownoff said the building was a "Whistler design. ... I like the wood, but it really is different than [it] is in the village. But change does happen."
Many of the village's businesses are housed in single-storey stucco buildings. That style of building isn't being replicated in any village centre, Smith said, because land prices are simply too high. More than one storey is needed to make business sense.
He likens the proposed development style to the building Starbucks is in at the corner of Cadboro Bay and Penrhyn roads, or several at Mattick's Farm.
Dennis Moore, a Cadboro Bay resident and architect, is in favour of higher density in designated areas of the community, but not like this.
"This is the wrong approach in every way," Moore said.
"That form of elevated units above a full parking level completely disconnects those residents from the community and vice versa."
Rather, new development should build on a sense of community, with front doors to the street, he said, not inward in an exclusive enclave.
