Mayor and Council June 21, 1974

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After a review of the City owned land it was obvious that the only land available
for exchange would be larger parcels of City owned land which are, at present,
subdivided into 33 foot lots but are unserviced. Three possible areas are shown

cn the attached map. The City does not own enough individual 33 foot lots scattered
around town to disburse the project to any great extent. It would be difficult to
find even a dozen lots seattered throughout the City as most of the individual

33 foot lots retained by the City are parts of drainage, right-of-ways, or to
maintain land for creek protection or a variety of other reasons. In addition,
these single 33 foot lots would only permit the construction of one dwelling unit
and the land cost would be probably in the neighbourhood of $15,000. per lot
serviced which 1s over double what the G.V.R.D. is permitted to include under their

present mortgage arrangements.

The only alternative therefore is to offer an exchange of two or three larger areas
enough to make up an equivalent land area with the value, after servicing, that
would be somewhere in the vicinity of the present value of the G.V.R.D. Site. If
this approach is taken it may result in the present project being disbursed into
two or three smaller areas, however, as pointed out in the constraints listed above
the 33 foot lots could not be utilized, the project would require a replotting of
each area with resubdivision to create smaller size lots or cluster lots to keep
the land cost per unit down. In addition, the only areas available to the City
for exchange are situated in predominately residential areas away from schools and
commercial facilities and from a planning point of view the City would probably
not rezone these areas for the densities required by the G.V.R.D. The present
G.V.R.D. proposal is at a moderate density of 12 units per acre, however, this in
excess of the 5 to 6 units per acre normally allowed in residential areas and the
areas offered in exchange to the G.V.R.D. would have to be rezoned to development
area to permit these higher densities. It also follows that the development of the
City owned land would be then similar in almost all respects to the proposed
development on Coast Meridian. The Coast Meridian site, of course, is already
zoned for higher densities than proposed in the G.V.R.D. development.

To summarize then the following appears to be the obstacles in the way of the
Proposed exchange of lands:

(1) Even if the City was able to provide enough potential RM-. property for the
G.V.R.D. development. The land is still in the name of the Province and they
would have to be consulted,

(2) The G.V.R.D. cannot undertake the project under the terms of their present
available financing unless land costs can be kept down to $6,000. to $7,000. per
unit.

(3) The City does not own enough individual sites to disburse the project into more
than two or possibly three areas which would result in substantially the same
situation as the existing proposal. In addition, these areas are far from schools
and existing servicing which would create additional problems.

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