Carra’s Mission plan hits a roadblock
Ald. Gian-carlo Carra’s urban planning revolution was supposed to start on a drab patch of Mission Road, then spread to the rest of the city.
Not so fast, council told him on Monday.
Council effectively killed his initiative, refusing to cough up further money for studies that would have brought the project close to $600,000 — double its original price tag.
The biggest problem council had with the vision of stores below condo units and back-lane mews is that it would occupy land where bungalows now sit. The people who own those bungalow properties had their own redevelopment plans for their land, and most didn’t want the city running interference with the Mission Road Main Street Innovation Project.
The landowners had joined the consultation-heavy planning process, but said the necessary street improvements and other infrastructure upgrades its outcome demanded would have made no market sense, said owner Steve Sparks.
But some of the ideas in the community consultation process may work their way into the ultimate plan, council decided.
“If that can in some way be enhanced in a way that’s better for everybody, we’re open to that possibility,” said Sparks, who led the owners’ rezoning bid.
After stopping the Mission Road project, council also voted to seek ways to ensure the city doesn’t again bid to play developer on private land already working its way through the development process.
“To come in overtop of that and to suggest another process that involves many many millions of dollars of infrastructure . . . to me is disrespectful of the landowners,” Ald. Gord Lowe said.