Although they struggled with the decision, Castlegar city council has opted not to waive development fees for a fourplex being rebuilt following a fire last year.
The property at 1137 7th Ave. burned in March 2021. The owner is now rebuilding it on the same foundation and applied to council to reduce or waive the building and development permit fees and development cost charges, which came to a total of about $20,000.
But while council had sympathy for the applicant and agreed it was an unusual situation, they agreed with the staff recommendation to deny the request.
City planners pointed to similar requests being denied, most recently for several non-profit housing developments.
Although the city recently adopted a bylaw providing incentives for new rental construction in specific areas, this development isn’t eligible because of its location.
Staff recommended against the waiver, and suggested that if council wanted to grant it in whole or in part, they should come up with a policy first.
Councillor Maria McFaddin said she “wrestled” with the decision but felt the circumstances were unusual and was willing to make an exception.
“I don’t have a hard time justifying why this doesn’t set a precedent,” she said. “There’s not going to be very many cases that would come in that have this same criteria where I would say ‘We gave it to him, now we need to give it to everyone.'”
However, councillor Cherryl MacLeod spoke for the majority who were unwilling to grant the waiver.
“That’s [money] we’re asking the rest of the community to pay for, to subsidize, and to me that’s just the slippery slope,” she said.
The decision was made with a bare quorum. Mayor Kirk Duff and councillors Bergen Price and Sue Heaton-Sherstobitoff were all absent.
Addressing council after the decision, owner Ryan Ricker said an engineer deemed over
60 per cent of the structure was intact following the fire.
“We really would like to provide homes needed for residents or future residents of Castlegar,” he said. “It’s a really horrible experience to lose a building.”
