Proposal will require subdivision and re-zoning
Tuesday, June 22 2010
After finding that the WI Hall site will not meet the requirements of the proposed building, the Gabriola Health Care Society and Foundation has now been offered a partnership with the Coats family to construct the proposed Medical and Emergency clinic on South Road adjacent to the Madrona/old TnT property.
That was the news announced to members at the GHCS and GHCF Annual General Meeting held this past Thursday night at the Roxy.
Building Committee Chair, Ian Brownlie, explained that there were at least nine sites examined in the process of trying to find a site for the new clinic - but almost all of the sites were either too small, zoned incorrectly or unavailable for the time being.
Ian said, “One would think finding a site on an island with as much land as Gabriola would be simple - I thought so - look around you, there’s plenty of space.
“But there’s little things called zoning and when you ask the Trust what a clinic would be zoned under it is IN3.”
IN3 being ‘Institutional 3’ - required for the clinic because it includes ‘urgent care medical clinic.’
Ian explained the goal has always been to look for land close to the village centre.
But when the building committee started looked at the zoning around the village there are only a few properties with the right IN3 zoning, or large enough, to make re-zoning to IN3 potentially possible.
The Coats lot, sized at around 25 acres, is currently zoned large rural residential.
In order to have a lot subdivided off the LRR, the lot minimum size will need to be 1 ha (2.47 acres)
According to Islands Trust staff only the Trust office, the Fire Hall and the Emcon properties are zoned IN3.
The WI Hall site, offered by the Gabriola Women’s Institute last November as a site for the proposed clinic, is currently zoned IN1.
Ian explained the lot is too small to put the proposed 4,000 square foot clinic on. By the time the building and required parking were put in, no matter how the designers worked their magic, all the trees as well as the current WI Hall would need to be moved to meet the various codes.
He added that they had considered the old clinic area and house adjacent to Arbutus - but that, “was going to cost, land alone, about $400K.”
Ian said, “Thanks to the Coats family, we’ve had a really excellent offer.
“They have made a very generous offer to the society. It will still need subdividing and it will still need zoning changes.
“But it is certainly in the right place. with good access and is adjacent to the Village area.
“I think it is the best offer we’ve had to date - I thank the Coats family, particularly Clyde who is here tonight, for his generosity and his family’s generosity.”
Gabriola Health Care Society’s Brenda Fowler said in meeting with planning staff and from what she has heard from the Ministry of Transport, the site is looking good. In an ideal world, she said, re-zoning can take as little as six months, but can also take up to two years. She hopes to have the process done within about eight months.
“Currently the GHCS has a letter from the Fire Chief - he is in support of this site. BC Ambulance have been asked for a letter of support fro this site as well as GESS.
“The letters will go in with the re-zoning application package.
“I would ask if we could make a motion for this site and vote on it so that we can say this group of people have considered this site and that our two organizations are in favour of this site.”
The motion carried.
Clyde said he was happy to be working with the health care society but that, “you need to make things work for me - we need to keep the access road between telus and your lot.
“I would suggest you make the lot a little bigger than you need right now so you have the room to add on in the future.”
Clyde also offered to help with the lot getting water and he already has the site checked and knows where the sewage may be best collected.
Brenda said she wanted to make sure the Society said, “a special thank you to the Women’s Institute. Without their offer, we wouldn’t be where we are. Without their offer of the property we couldn’t answer the question of where it was going to be, or when we would finally get started.
“With that offer, we were able to turn that corner, we moved our slow moving train out of the station onto the fast track.”
