Image: Contributed
The troops are rallying on both sides of West Kelowna’s Blackmun Bay Village battle as the public hearing date draws near.
Calgary’s Landstar Development Corporation invited members of the business community to Two Eagles Golf Course on Monday night for an information session about its massive Campbell Road development, which is slated to feature 260 apartments, 40 townhomes, a 100-room hotel and a 241-slip marina.
Members of the Casa Loma neighbourhood, which is located at the end of Campbell Road and would be affected by the six-year building process and then the development’s presence after that, responded Tuesday morning by launching a petition encouraging all West Kelowna residents to rally against Blackmun Bay Village.
Photo: Kirk Penton
Landstar president and CEO George Mylonas addresses the crowd on Monday night.
“We respect the fact that they have the right to express their opinion, and we have no issues with that,” Landstar development and operations vice-president Robert Moskovitz said Monday night. “And we welcome them coming to public hearing and actually letting council know what they feel.
“One of the things that bothered us is that there’s a lot of information that is put out there that—how should I say?—doesn’t exactly meet the accuracy test. We thought we should talk to a community of people from within West Kelowna to say: These are the facts.”
Even though Monday night’s event was by invitation only, a member of the Casa Loma Community Association showed up uninvited to take in the presentation. Don Drissell made his presence known upon arrival, and Moskovitz had no problem letting him stay.
Moskovitz said the lines of communication with the CLCA have soured somewhat since the group voted in a new executive at its annual general meeting last month. Moskovitz said he and former CLCA president Al Hildebrandt had an open communication line, even if they didn’t see eye to eye on the project.
“I think one of the things that happened is that here there was a particular group of people that have made up their minds that they are against this development no matter what,” Moskovitz said. “No amount of conversation, no amount of persuasion is going to work for them, and they’ve done a little bit of a takeover of the Casa Loma Community Association.
“We definitely hear from people who live in Casa Loma who say, ‘I’m not opposed to this development. I’d like you to address this issue. But I’m not opposed to the development.’ And yet the group of individuals who are on the board, including one of them who came here tonight.”
The CLCA is against the Blackmun Bay Village because it goes against West Kelowna’s official community plan. It is also concerned about transportation issues and population density, not to mention the approximate six years it would take to build. Campbell Road is the only route in and out of the Casa Loma neighbourhood.
“It seems like they are trying their hardest to make it work and answer all the questions and concerns both from the community and from the West Kelowna mayor and council,” Drissell said. “I’m happy to hear that. I just wanted to be an open ear tonight and listen to where they’re at and what they’re proposing.”
Drissell added that the CLCA’s new executive is open to having regular discussions with Landstar.
Landstar has made several changes to Blackmun Bay’s original design, most notably decreasing the number of storeys of its four buildings from 15 to nine. It has also proposed to West Kelowna council an emergency-only traffic lane to appease Casa Loma residents’ fears about emergency vehicle access to their neighbourhood.
Despite the diplomatic words being spoken by both sides on Monday night, neither is going to give in. The public hearing is expected to take place in late August or September, and then it will be up to West Kelowna council to make its decision. Council voted 4-3 in favour of the project at its second reading in May.
“We’re not here to ram anything down your throat, but on the other hand we’re also not going away,” Moskovitz said. “We invested a lot of our time, energy and money into this thing. We’d like to see this succeed for everyone involved. So that’s where we’re at.”
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