The Victoria International Marina is at a crossroads while its developer decides whether to construct one commercial building or two in the water at Songhees.
Uncertainty about the design of the $24-million project — one of the city’s most controversial developments in the past decade — follows a roadblock imposed on Thursday by Victoria city hall.
Councillors refused to give permission for the developer to put up a B.C. Hydro substation on municipal land. The substation is required to power the marina development.
Regardless, the project will go ahead, Craig Norris, managing director of Community Marine Concepts, said Monday.
“The city has put us in a difficult position,” he said.
“We are going to decide whether we are going to build the old [design] or not.”
Norris is meeting with the company owners this week to figure out the next move. The developer aims to open the marina this summer.
Citizens squared off over the marina plan after it was unveiled in 2008.
Opponents said the marina, designed to take large yachts, would spoil views, harm the environment, cause safety risks in a busy area and wasn’t appropriate in the city’s scenic harbour.
Advocates said it would help put Victoria on the tourism map, bring fresh money into the economy and serve the demand for a place to moor large yachts.
Community Marine Concepts eventually received approval for two commercial buildings to be constructed on piers in the water at Cooperage Place and Paul Kane Place. The marina was originally to have 52 slips, but a Victoria city council rezoning saw numbers drop to 30 slips.
Paddlers would pass underneath the two buildings as they travelled near the shore.
However, late last year, a new design was put forward, downsized to one building that would float in the water. The developer said this new plan was more feasible and would create an open-to-the-sky paddlers’ route.
This new proposal required city approvals, including permission for a B.C. Hydro substation built on municipal land at the end of Cooperage Place.
Under the original, two-building plan, the substation could be built inside a building, and municipal land would not be needed, Norris said.
Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps said council members meeting in-camera on Thursday did not vote to turn down a development permit application for the project. But rather, they refused to give the developer permission to use public land.
“The development as it is proposed involved use of city-owned property,” she said. “Council concluded that use of public property for a private purpose, without benefits to the public, was not appropriate and so we declined the applicant’s request for permission to carry out work on city property.”
Without that permission, the application for the development permit could not go ahead and has been postponed, Helps said. A new development permit would be needed for the one-building design.
“We will see if the applicant is either going to modify the proposal or proceed with the original development,” Helps said.
A city report said the substation proposal would have put the structure on a grassy area next to the Westsong Way, a public walkway. It would be about 2.4 metres tall with a footprint of about 10 square metres.
