Development in Quesnel took a step forward during city council’s Tuesday, Feb. 16 meeting.
Council discussed or moved along four projects in Quesnel; three high density housing projects and a large retail building.
Two developments in West Quesnel are moving forward. Nazko First Nation’s planned 10-unit complex at and around the River Rock Pub received first approval of a bylaw which would re-zone the area to allow for higher density housing.
A public meeting is set for April 7 to receive community feedback.
READ MORE: Nazko seeks approval to build housing for members facing lengthy medical visits in Quesnel
The Quesnel Tillicum Society/Friendship Centre is also moving forward with a high-density housing project in West Quesnel. They were seeking a complicated re-zoning application which would eventually see a 34-unit five-storey building on their North Fraser Drive property.
The land will be zoned as a comprehensive development zone to ensure current activities such as a daycare and office space will be incuded with the new zoning.
The city received a 22-page justification letter from the society.
“This is the best justification letter I’ve ever seen,” Quesnel’s director of development services Tanya Turner said. “I got a little bit teary-eyed reading it.”
Council also approved applying to the Northern Development Initiative Trust (NDIT) housing incentive program. The application is incomplete, but Turner said NDIT staff encouraged Quesnel to apply anyway.
Council has a proposal for a 24-unit project near the campus of the College of New Caledonia. The program provides $10,000 per door up to $200,000 to cities.
Turner noted this program could spur the development into existence.
Finally south Quesnel’s businesses could be seeing a new tenant.
Andre Blanleil wrote a letter to council hoping to complete the south Quesnel mall.
“This vacant lot between Marks and Starbucks has been a huge problem for our other tenants with the vandalism,” he wrote. “They have destroyed our $10,000 site trailer and and damaged our excavator as well as started fires with garbage they have brought to our site.”
The building would be a 696 sq. m, in a similar style to the other buildings in the area. The building can be divided into four separate businesses, but Blanleil noted he has a single tenant interested in leasing the entire unit.
“This is the biggest development evening we’ve ever had as a council,” Quesnel mayor Bob Simpson said. “I’ve never seen this much development… and there’s more in the wings.”
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