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Comment: Why building townhouses at 902 Foul Bay Rd. is a bad idea

A commentary by a neighbour. Re: “ If not at 902 Foul Bay Rd., then where? ” commentary, Jan. 28. I live across the street from 902 Foul Bay Rd., and I feel I am qualified to respond to the opinion piece by Trevor Walker.
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902 Foul Bay Rd. in the Gonzales neighbourhood. [Darren Stone, Times Colonist, January 2021]

A commentary by a neighbour.

Re: “If not at 902 Foul Bay Rd., then where?” commentary, Jan. 28.

I live across the street from 902 Foul Bay Rd., and I feel I am qualified to respond to the opinion piece by Trevor Walker.

This proposed development is about more than the loss of two trees. This lot is triple-heritage designated (now double, since the heritage house burned down).

It is on three streets (Foul Bay Road, Quamichan Street and Redfern Street), but access to the property is from Redfern Street only.

Redfern Street is a very busy street, pending closure of Richardson Street for a bike lane, it will become busier with people finding alternate routes to and from Oak Bay/downtown.

There is a definite question to the “affordability” of this project. A townhouse for $900,000?

It is still not clear whether B.C. Housing Affordable Home Ownership Program will be involved, and there is talk about “discounting” these properties to $700,000 but it is a discount on paper. Redfern Street already has three recently built garden suites, so the neighbourhood is not opposed to densification, but 902 is not a location that lends itself to 18 townhouses, and the challenges of the access to the property on only one side.

I have three Garry oaks on my property, and everything done on my property has to take those trees into consideration. They are a protected species.

The proposed development “requires” the removal of 20 to 24 trees. Times have changed, as Walker has implied, but there was not a climate crisis back when clearing a lot was the norm.

We have come to respect these large trees’ contribution to the environment, which is why the prior owner sought to protect everything on his lot, knowingly devaluing his property.

He was a lawyer and an expert in his field of property law, and a published author on the same.

A previous developer benefited from this by being able to purchase it at a low price.

Since then it has been re-sold, at a considerable profit, and the current neighbours are now faced with the potential loss of the trees (many over 100 years old), increase in traffic which will negatively impact the current uses of Redfern Street, and the disrespect of heritage designations, bylaw protections and endangered species loss.

The replacements proposed by the developer’s landscaper will not come even close to providing the protection that the current trees provide.

Walker states that: “The average selling price in our neighbourhood is reported, across several real estate sites, at well over $1 million.”

How will this development help the affordability of this neighbourhood with 18 townhouses, at almost that price each, all on one lot? There are houses in the neighbourhood (mine being one of them) which would sell for less than that, and I have a backyard.

We have many young families in the neighbourhood, who moved here because it is on record as a heavily treed neighbourhood.

We need to preserve what we have, which was the intention of the prior owner. The owner of this property would know of the restrictions on this property when it purchased it.

It is unreasonable for the developer working for that owner to now say that they can’t proceed with the development because 20 to 24 trees (plus the ones that will not survive through the construction process) are in the way.