During a marathon five-hour City of Powell River committee of the whole meeting on April 3, city councillors considered five reports for new residential development projects, including three zoning applications to make way for large-scale projects.
Zoning applications were recommended for a 21-unit condo at 4313 Alberta Avenue, an apartment building with 112 rental units where Manson Avenue, Nootka Street and Westview Avenue converge, and a 12-unit multifamily development at the corner of Westview Avenue and Joyce Avenue.
The apartment complex was the big ticket item and part of a potential five-phase residential development.
Developers behind the proposed building are also working with the city’s planning department on a subdivision for a series of duplexes on a much larger piece of property adjacent to the apartment site.
“They're currently processing 14 units but they could be building out somewhere in the range of 50,” said city senior planner Jason Gow.
Much of the planned building activity is for the Westview Avenue area from Joyce Avenue to the eastern boundaries of the city, and there is more coming. City planning staff is currently processing several significant development applications over properties in this area and most propose increased residential density.
With more concentrated residential development, there will be more traffic along Westview Avenue and congestion at the intersection with Joyce Avenue.
“Joyce Avenue is already a problematic strip in our community,” said Gow. “It's something that needs attention and I'm consistently asking engineering about working on a much larger traffic impact study.”
Gow said the conversation the committee seemed to be focused on was the individual developments, but he said he thinks the discussion should be broader, to include how to better manage Joyce Avenue.
“I don't want to blow it out of proportion,” said Gow. “I don't think we have traffic problems per se, but along Joyce Avenue there needs to be better planning for the future.”
Since January 2017, proposals totalling approximately 325 housing units have been brought before council, and almost half of those are east of Joyce Avenue to the Manson Avenue extension, with Duncan Street on the north and Kemano Street on the south, where there is a new residential subdivision.
“While that might not be off of Westview in the long term, those will connect through the Manson Avenue corridor as well as through the continuation of Saturna Avenue,” said the city director of infrastructure Tor Birtig.
As more zoning and development submissions to build along the Westview Avenue corridor arrive at city hall, city councillors, and city planning and engineering staff members, hope to get ahead of what everyone agrees is a looming traffic headache.
Councillor Karen Skadsheim suggested a traffic study for the area of Joyce and Westview be conducted because of the 12-unit development at that corner, but councillor Russell Brewer said it should be broader.
“We really do need something on that, plus maybe a report establishing a controlled intersection,” said Brewer. “It's timely given the other developments we have coming on line.”
Such a study is now on the action list, according to Birtig, and it will look at the whole traffic-flow pattern along Joyce Avenue from Lytton Street to Duncan Street.
Planning staff’s initial recommendation to pay for a study was to put the cost entirely on developers of the apartment building because it will have the biggest impact on Westview.
Councillor Maggie Hathaway and Brewer said the fairer solution would be to share the cost between the city and the developers.
“I don't think it's fair for the taxpayer to pay for all, but maybe we could figure out a contribution based on size to fund a traffic study between all of the projects,” said Brewer.
Birtig said prior to the development activity happening now, the likes of which has not been seen in years, it was guesswork as to where the next growth would be.
“Before it used to be everything above Manson,” said Birtig. “Manson was the one that was getting impacted the most but it could handle those traffic flows. Now we're starting to see this latest push has been along Westview corridor.”
