Feature Stories
Trouble In Paradise
By Chad Hershler published Mar 1, 2009
A Gibsons condo development hangs in the balance as citizens fight to retain the small-town character that brought them to the Sunshine Coast in the first place
When Chris Marshall began as Gibsons town planner in 1998, a shift was under way. "There was a great deal of the old boys' club still in effect," he tells me, from his town-hall office overlooking the harbour. It's early March 2008-the streets are empty, the boats still. "People expected not to have to do things by the letter of the law."
All that was changing, though. Developers and builders didn't like it, but his predecessor had already begun to take the town out of-as Marshall puts it-the "wink-wink, let-it-go" phase into the age of bylaws and accountability. Marshall made it clear he would pick up where she left off. His first few years in office, he froze development in key areas and set about redrafting the official community plan (OCP) for the town of Gibsons, collecting opinions and demands from the locals on everything from design specifications to environmental regulations. The OCP promptly won awards from SmartGrowth BC and the Planning Institute of B.C.
Marshall built a close relationship with the town, implemented an open process, and followed clear guidelines from the community, so how-he's still wondering-did the first major development proposal under his mandate get crushed before it even got started? As an ambitious young planner, Marshall had nurtured an extensive waterfront proposal from conventional condominiums to the cutting edge of sustainable design, only to watch it get shot down. That proposal, for a project in the heart of Gibsons at Shoal Bay, included almost everything the town had asked for in the OCP (and then some). But Marshall says he's realized something: bringing the town back into town planning means that emotions take precedence. Sustainable design, public greenways, eco-density-any planner's arsenal in the age of global warming-aren't enough if the town doesn't feel good about what it sees.
Recent Comments
Discussed
Had the Shoal Bay proposal gone ahead in June 2008, Grant Gillies would have been up to his ears pre-selling units in his Shoal Bay development in order to finance his project, just as the real estate market bottomed out. As we hear daily news reports of Vancouver developers dragging desperate pre-sold condo buyers to court for more than just their down payments, you could say that the Gibsons community saved our neighbourhood from a real estate meltdown that might have financially ruined the senior citizens looking to retire in the only development with an elevator in Gibsons. Heck, you could even say that the citizens of Gibsons Landing saved Mr. Gillies from potential financial disaster. You never know, maybe Grant would say your welcome after all? ;} Suzanne
