Remediation of the Pioneer Square Mall site in Mill Bay, which collapsed in a fire last week, is likely to be costly and time-consuming, but that’s nothing new for the developers that own the property, who are getting used to being patient.
Victoria-based Limona Group spent more than 11 years working to have the six-acre Pioneer Square site and surrounding 150-acre property rezoned for a master-planned community called Stonebridge, with up to 1,000 homes. More recently, the group has waited another two years for the province to sign off on a water licence.
According to the company, there has been no word on when that will happen.
“It’s frustrating,” said Limona co-founder Mike Baier, who finds it’s ironic that governments keep talking about the need for housing, yet have been slowing down the process.
“They’re yelling loud and clear that we need affordable housing, that we’re in a housing crisis, that we need rental housing and we need seniors housing,” he said. “Well, we have all of that waiting in Stonebridge.”
The planned community, to be spread over 150 acres between the Trans-Canada Highway, Shawnigan-Mill Bay Road and Barry Road, envisions seniors housing for as many as 170, 150 affordable rental apartments and a 100,000-square-foot commercial complex, along with hundreds of homes.
Baier said the company has a deal with a developer to build the rental apartments as well as developers lined up to tackle the seniors-housing and shopping-centre components. “We’re hungry to get going and have been for a number of years,” he said.
The water licence, which would allow them to divert, store and use the water found on site, is one of the last hurdles before work can begin. To build anything in Mill Bay, developers have to find the water to support it.
Baier noted they have wells to handle the development, and all the engineering work and vetting has been done — they just need the province to give it the green light.
Baier said it’s been doubly frustrating in that a water licence for the project was granted a few years ago, when the Vancouver Island Health Authority had the authority to sign off on them.
He said when that happened, the project still had some problems to iron out.
In the meantime, the system changed, and now water licences are under the purview of the Forests Ministry. Limona had to reapply.
While the company waits, it has the environmental cleanup of the massive blaze to tackle.
Baier said it’s too early to tell how extensive the cleanup and remediation will be, and while the investigation into the suspicious fire continues, there’s little they can do on site.
The company was to meet with officials from the Environment Ministry this week.
“Everything’s levelled basically and it’s safe,” he said. “We’re not really sure, other than we have to get it cleaned up and levelled off and safe for everybody, but environmentally we’re not quite sure what we’re facing.”
The 12,000-square-foot Pioneer Square structure had been boarded up and vacant for two years, after fire officials said the company would either have to fix the building up at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars or tear it down. Baier said since the buildilng was to be torn down to make way for the commercial development, it made no sense to invest in it.
Another building on the site, an old restaurant, was demolished this year and environmental cleanup on that site is ongoing.
Despite all the delays, Baier said he’s optimistic Stonebridge will come to fruition. “My glass is three-quarters full,” he said, noting he and partner John Sercombe have been developing since 1981 and working on Stonebridge for 15 years.
“We are all gung-ho to get going on, but I’m turning 70 this year and we’re running out of gas here.”
aduffy@timescolonist.com
