A plan to redevelop the long-vacant Northern Junk buildings near the Johnson Street Bridge has been sent back to the drawing board — again.
Reliance Properties proposed to rehabilitate two historic warehouses on the site and incorporate them into a five-storey building with 47 rental units, an internal alleyway and a waterfront walkway.
But Victoria city councillors declined to send the project to a public hearing amid worries that the proposed structure “dwarfed” the heritage buildings, which were built on Wharf Street in the 1860s and have sat empty for the past 42 years.
Instead, councillors referred the development back to city staff for further refinements.
Reliance president Jon Stovell, who has been trying to develop the site for 10 years, expressed surprise and frustration at yet another rejection.
“It’s just unbearable,” he said. “I just don’t understand how anybody can think that it’s a good outcome to have buildings sitting vacant for 40 years on the waterfront of downtown Victoria. It’s just really almost beyond comprehension.”
Mayor Lisa Helps objected to yet another delay as well, and warned that council’s perpetual foot dragging is costing developers “hundreds of thousands of dollars” that will translate into higher rents down the road.
"The more time we tack on, the more money it costs,” she said.
A number of heritage advocates, however, urged council to reject the project, arguing that it would damage the character of Victoria’s Old Town.
Steve Barber, the city’s former senior heritage planner, said in a letter to council that the proposal would “radically alter” two of the most significant heritage buildings on the Inner Harbour.
The Caire & Grancini Warehouse, built in 1860, is considered a rare example of work by San Francisco-based architect John Wright, while the Fraser Warehouse, built in 1864, was designed by Thomas Trounce, who arrived in Victoria during the Fraser River Gold Rush era.
Barber said the buildings’ heritage value lies in their modest scale and appearance as freestanding structures.
“The past 25 years have seen a huge investment by the private sector in sensitive rehabilitation of [Victoria’s] commercial heritage buildings,” he wrote. “This proposal, on the other hand, would set a dangerous precedent which will undermine future efforts to conserve the scale and character of one of the finest heritage districts in Canada.”
The city’s own heritage advisory panel opposed the project as well, but there were numerous letters of support, including one from the Downtown Victoria Business Association.
“These old buildings, though valuable for their connections to Victoria’s heritage, are a decaying eyesore at present,” wrote Jeff Bray, the association’s executive director. “If they are not soon rehabilitated, they will fall into complete ruin and be beyond repair.”
City staff also supported the project, while acknowledging some of its challenges, including significant additions to the modest scale of the heritage buildings.
John O’Reilly, the city’s senior heritage planner, noted the “harsh and practical realities” of developing such a small property while restoring warehouses that have sat empty for more than four decades.
“Our file tells the story of how difficult it is to develop this site,” he said. “It’s three volumes thick and, at this point, a graveyard of dead proposals from multiple applicants dating back to 1999.
“Without the benefit of adjacent lands, there’s nowhere to go but up if you’re trying to offset the costs of all the work and meet the very high expectations the city and the public has set for this project: great heritage restoration, high-quality design and materials, a waterfront path extension and frontage improvements — all on this one site. And this is the end result, and it’s not bad.”
O’Reilly said the value of heritage buildings is also contingent on their ongoing use. “And this is what ultimately tips the scales for heritage staff to the higher goal of architectural heritage conservation, which is to animate historic buildings with people,” he said.
But Coun. Geoff Young said council should revisit earlier proposals that envisioned the city selling adjacent land, so a developer could put the bulk of the project there rather than piling storeys on top of historic buildings.
“I think that council should rethink the circumstances that we have created that gave rise to this project,” he said. “And all you have to do is look at it. The buildings are dwarfed by what’s placed on top of them.”
Helps, however, noted that other councillors oppose selling public land for the project.
“So we could essentially continue to freeze this for another four years or until this council ends, and I don’t think that’s a good thing to do.”
Stovell said Reliance tried five or six times to get approval for a big project that involved buying land and building a large development.
“And that never got support, either, from anybody,” he said. “So it just seems like with that site, there’s just nothing good enough.”
In the end, only Helps, Marianne Alto and Sarah Potts voted to send the project to a public hearing. Councillors Young, Ben Isitt, Jeremy Loveday, Sharmarke Dubow and Charlayne Thornton-Joe were all opposed.
Council initially split 4-4 on a motion directing staff to refine the project to better meet Old Town design guidelines. Helps then changed her vote to keep the motion alive and avoid a “quagmire,” she said.
