The developer for the proposed $35-million Sidney Gateway shopping centre is paying for an independent evaluation of what impact its 100,000 square feet of commercial space could have on the town’s core.
Omicron says its proposal will attract shoppers who currently head to downtown Victoria or to the West Shore — and won’t undercut small businesses on Sidney’s main street.
But Sidney wanted a second opinion and Omicron obliged, said Mayor Steve Price.
He expects the evaluation, by Urbanics Consultants of Vancouver, to “answer a lot of the questions, one way or the other” that businesses, shoppers and council have about Gateway’s potential impact.
Omicron suggested Urbanics.
Sidney’s chief administrator Randy Humble said Friday that Urbanics is a well-respected firm.
“From the town’s perspective, we’re satisfied it will truly be an independent evaluation,” Humble said. The review will be based on precedents in other communities and will look at building starts, among other factors.
“At the end of the day, it’s a financial analysis.”
To Humble’s knowledge, it’s the first such independent study since a Costco was proposed for Sidney 20 years ago.
The results are expected to be part of Omicron’s application to the town for rezoning, which could be late March or early April.
Before that, Omicron and the Victoria Airport Authority — which leases the 10-acre site from Ottawa — will host an open house on Thusday at the Mary Winspear Centre to explain tenant composition, although not necessarily by name.
Meanwhile, several environmental and North Saanich groups and citizens have applied to have that 10 acres returned to the Agricultural Land Reserve.
The Agricultural Land Commission opted to remove the land on Jan. 11.
North Saanich resident Springfield Harrison, who spearheaded the application, said he believes Sidney Gateway would be a “disaster” for Sidney’s downtown and called it an inappropriate use for farmland owned by the federal government.
A decision to reconsider would be made in April at the earliest, said Kim Grout, the commission’s CEO.
If the committee agrees that the removal should be reconsidered, it would be referred back to the regional panel that made the original decision.
In 2015, there were 56 reconsideration requests reviewed by the committee and only seven of those were reversed, said Elizabeth Sutton, a land-use planner with the commission.
Of six Vancouver Island requests, five did not meet the criteria and one was reversed.
