Automobile dealers are breathing a sigh of relief after the City of Victoria decided not to amend zoning that would prohibit self-storage facilities and vehicle storage lots from being established in existing industrial zones.
Council decided instead to refer the matter until a later date and, in the meantime, directed staff to engage with affected businesses on the proposed bylaw amendment.
The amendment was intended to protect industrial land from what city staff characterized as “land consumptive” uses that tend to generate minimal levels of employment and don’t align with land-use policies for industrial land.
In a report, staff said they had received expressions of interest from companies wanting to establish self-storage facilities in places such as Rock Bay.
After hearing the concerns of a series of car dealers and their representatives during a public hearing Thursday, Coun. Marianne Alto proposed the referral motion, noting there is a consultation process already in place to handle the discussion on the use of industrial land and the impact of such bylaw changes.
Alto said the planned public engagement on development of the Arts and Innovation District is an ideal time to reconsider the bylaw amendments as the city looks to leverage industrial land to create jobs.
Much of Thursday’s discussion seemed to be about how undesirable additional self-storage facilities might be, but it was the car dealers who claimed their lands were under siege.
Dick Graham, who owns the land on which the Campus Auto Group stores its vehicles and runs its dealerships, said the city didn’t consult with the industry on the impact the bylaw would have.
“The impacts of this proposed zoning change have enormous repercussions. The stripping of land use rights away from existing landowners and offering up a grandfather clause is no solution,” he said.
The amendment would have rendered existing self-storage facilities and vehicle storage lots as legal non-conforming sites, which means the existing use can continue despite not conforming to zoning.
However, under that status, if that use was discontinued for six months or longer, the site would be subject to the new rules and vehicle storage, for example, would no longer be permitted.
“Automotive dealers are constantly being expected to go through periods of redevelopment and it’s not realistic to expect them to take risks with changes in infrastructure when fundamental land use rights are not protected,” said Graham, noting the supply chain issues related to the pandemic have left most dealers without vehicles and their storage lots basically empty.
Bill Harbottle, president of the Jim Pattison Auto Group, which has seven dealerships in the region, said being told to rely on legal non-conforming status is cold comfort.
“This status will not protect automobile dealers for ongoing use, with this six-month limitation,” he said. “We have been out of vehicles for over six months and we don’t expect to be back to normal levels until well into late 2023 and early 2024. So our lots are empty.
“Furthermore, legal nonconforming status on property impedes the ability to sell these properties should a dealer elect to sell their business and this would significantly impair value.”
Hartbottle said the Pattison Group would normally carry between a 60- and 90-day supply of vehicle inventory — about 700 cars and trucks.
“We could not accommodate this inventory strictly and meet the requirements of our automobile manufacturers if we didn’t have properly zoned storage lots,” he said.
“These lots are empty today and they will be for a few months, quite a number of months. And this is why offering legal non-conforming does not solve the issue for our business.”
Mayor Lisa Helps, who had hoped to get the amendment passed as a stop-gap measure to limit the number of self-storage facilities, said the city solicitor had made it clear that it would be very difficult to take land-use away from dealers or others.
“Nobody who is currently operating a vehicle storage lot or a self-storage lot, or even those who have applied, no one’s going to lose anything,” she said. “But what we will lose potentially, if we don’t make this change tonight, is more industrial land going to low-intensity uses.”
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