While Downtown New West is well-known for its abundance of bridal boutiques, a city councillor worries Queensborough could become known for storage facilities.
At a recent public hearing, council considered an official community plan amendment bylaw and a zoning amendment bylaw related to the construction of a four-storey self-storage building at 805 Boyd St.
The applicant wants to subdivide off a 4,496-square-metre parcel of land on the southeastern corner of the Queensborough Landing Shopping Centre site to build a 1,081-unit climate-controlled storage facility. To facilitate the proposal, a portion of a building that was constructed in 2008 would need to be demolished.
A staff report stated the project would add to the supply of industrial and mixed employment lands, be in an appropriate location proximate to compatible uses and would provide a transition from neighbouring industrial lands to other land uses.
In a 4-1 vote, council supported the OCP and rezoning amendments. Coun. Paul Minhas was the lone council member to oppose the application (Coun. Tasha Henderson was not at the meeting and Coun. Jaimie McEvoy is on a medical leave of absence.)
At the July 8 public hearing, Coun. Daniel Fontaine asked staff if there are other storage locker facilities in Queensborough.
Jackie Teed, the city’s director of planning and development, said there are other storage lockers in Queensborough; she said staff did not have figures on the number of units, saying that analysis is not done as part of this type of application.
Minhas said he believes there’s “quite a few” storage sites in Queensborough, but it would be good to have the exact number.
“For a long time, we have been labelled with certain names. For example, the downtown was Antique Alley, or bridal shops only. And even lately, we have been talking about a lot of dental offices,” he said. “I do have the fear that in Queensborough there's already quite a few storage sites, and we don't want to be labelling Queensborough with just storage sites.”
Fontaine questioned if approval of the application would set a precedent if further OCP amendments were proposed to allow more storage lockers at Queensborough Landing.
“This would not fetter council's future decision-making,” Teed said.
Coun. Nadine Nakagawa said she was “not enthusiastic” about the proposal and would prefer to see a larger vision for the Queensborough Landing site that meets more of the community’s goals. In the absence of that plan, she said she would support the application.
“Again, not with a ton of enthusiasm,” she said. “But I do want to signal that I would like to see … something more for that area. Because the bigger issue right now is that it's not a particularly vibrant space that's meeting community need in a significant way.”
