‘Suburban infill’ housing plan in works for 35 years – developer

Proponents of a large new suburban development are pushing back against city planners’ contention the project would be bad for Kelowna.

“This really isn’t urban sprawl. This is what we’re calling suburban infill,” Andrew Bruce, a consultant working for the developers, said Friday in an interview.

“It’s part of a plan that started 35 years ago. There’s servicing capacity at the doorstep, and it completes roads and trails and parks that were planned long ago and which will integrate well into the existing neighbourhoods,” Bruce said.

People want to buy the kind of homes planned for the area, which covers 255 hectares adjacent to the developed neighbourhoods of Southridge, the Ponds, and Kettle Valley, Bruce says.

“The demand is absolutely incredible. There’s virtually no inventory out there for someone who wants to go and buy a lot and build a home,” Bruce said.

Municipal planners claim the project would put extra stress on roads and other city infrastructure, and they also suggest the homes would not be affordable for most city residents.

Although the area in question has long been identified as urban reserve, municipal planners say notions of good development have changed in the past 30 years and they will recommend to council on Monday that the necessary approvals not be granted for the housing project to move forward.

“This almost comes down to this idea of social engineering,” Bruce says, suggesting city officials are too indifferent to the realities of what types of housing many people prefer.

“If people really want this kind of lifestyle, shouldn’t we find a better way to do it than just say ‘No’ altogether?” Bruce says.

“That’s been part of the conversation we’ve been trying to have with the city, but we just haven’t gotten past this hard, philosophical ‘No’,” Bruce says.

And if the city blocks development in one area, he says, that would only serve to increase housing prices in other areas, undoing municipal efforts to promote more affordable housing.

Most of the proposed development would take place on level terrain in the aptly-named Thomson Flats region, Bruce says. As a result, many of the homes would not have lake views.

While pricing hasn’t been established, given that construction would still be several years away even if council moves the project forward on Monday, Bruce says there’s no basis for the assertion by planners that homes would sell for more than $1 million, particularly since there’s been no discussion about the exact mix of housing units.

“That’s a broad generalization,” he said. “We don’t know what the prices are going to be. Built product is four to five years out in the best-case scenario. Who knows what the market is going to do?”

“There are a lot of areas where we could do single-family or even duplex housing at a higher density than a typical suburban neighbourhood,” he said.

While municipal planners say the application is for as many as 1,200 homes, Bruce says that’s an outdated figure and he’s surprised to see it referenced in the documents going to council. The first part of the development would be for less than 700 homes, he says, though approval for additional units might be sought in the future.