Objection to tower surprising
To the left in one of their dreamscape renderings of their proposed downtown highrise, Edmonton-based developer Westcorp has added a phantom skyscraper.
It hasn’t been approved. It perhaps can’t be approved where it’s situated. It might never be built. But no matter. The ghostly tower was likely pencilled in by Westcorp’s artists as a way of suggesting something of the inevitable skyline that will appear in Kelowna in years to come.
“C’mon, guys,” the unstated argument to city council goes. “Our tower may be 33 storeys now instead of 24, but the reality is downtown will have oodles of tall buildings in the future. No biggie, right? Can we have our development permit?”
Right now, though, Westcorp’s tower is shaping up to be a real lightning rod of controversy when it reaches city council on Feb. 20, at least among the usual anti-development suspects.
Somewhat surprisingly, after working with Westcorp representatives for years on various versions of this project, city planners are now recommending council deny the necessary permits.
As recently as last week, city staff and the developer’s representatives were talking about the shape and size of the podium that faces Water Street. Staff wanted it lower, and the developer said it was necessary to achieve the required parking.
No common ground was found, and a few days later the planning department’s negative recommendation — complete with some surprisingly strident language, such as the assertion the tower was not “sensitively” designed — appeared on the city’s website.
This seems an awful late-inthe-day and arrogant way for staff to be making a recommendation on what represents a massive investment in downtown Kelowna.
Many Canadian cities would die for this kind of economic confidence being shown in their communities, but Kelowna’s City Hall bureaucrats have no problem in pulling out the welcome mat in such a brusque way.
The revised tower, which would be Kelowna’s tallest building, is too tall, city planners say, too wide, and too likely to “overpower” the streetscape around the end of Bernard and Queensway.
“It has never been the city’s intention,” the staff report states, “to achieve the region’s tallest tower on this property.”
Think about that comment for a second. It may not have been the City of Kelowna’s planning department’s intention for the base of Queensway to support the tallest tower. But there’s no evidence at all to say that stance accurately reflects the citizens’ desire.
The former building height for the property was 19 storeys. Council approved a variance in 2014 to allow for the then-proposed 24-storey tower, and the citizenry did not rise up in rebellion. In fact, the public hearing was a placid affair.
From the perspective of someone on the ground, the difference between a 24- and a 33-storey tower is imperceptible. Anyway, the downtown of any city should be the place for its tallest buildings, not least as a way of signifying it as the most important and active area.
It’s just plain odd that the city has allowed tall buildings farther north, on Water Street and Sunset Avenue, but now feel the need to kneecap downtown Kelowna. A relatively squat downtown flanked by areas with taller buildings is not the kind of Kelowna I suspect most people conceive when they imagine the future.
As city staff told councillors last week, trying to explain the disappearance of highrises from the Central Green site, plans “evolve” according to real-world conditions.
Council’s earlier bafflement at the vanished Central Green towers was assuaged by such talk, but what really cinched their approval of yet another low-rise apartment block was the production of much prettier artist renderings of the project than they’d been given to consider earlier. It was almost exactly the same building, just made to appear more attractive in the presentation.
The fact council was guided by new and improved artwork is not a bad thing. An image plainly shows them what the planners’ abstruse language about form and character cannot — just what the damn thing will look like when it’s built.
As representatives of the people, councillors, not bureaucrats, make the big decisions about the way Kelowna evolves.
In the run-up to the Feb. 20 decision-making meeting, councillors should get the views of as many ordinary people as they can about Westcorp’s revised project before taking as gospel the word of the planners.