The Regional District of Central Kootenay board decided at its June 19 meeting that it will not donate a piece of its land at 825 Front St. in Nelson for a proposed affordable housing project.
The vision discussed for several months was a six-storey 50-unit apartment building built and run by Nelson CARES on city-owned property that would be combined, in a single building, with an expansion of the Nelson and District Community Complex on 506 square metres of adjoining RDCK-owned land.
This discussion has happened primarily around the table at Recreation Commission 5 (known as Rec 5), which is a committee of the RDCK that oversees recreation for Nelson, Electoral Area F and a defined part of Area E.
The chair of Rec 5, Nelson city councillor Keith Page, told the June 19 RDCK board meeting that the timeline for Rec 5 to make this decision is too short to deal with questions of what the public wants, how much the recreation addition would cost, and how it would affect RDCK taxation, and other RDCK facilities needing attention. Nelson CARES' deadline to submit its funding application to BC Housing is July 31.
In May, M'akola Development Services, which is Nelson CARES' development consultant, said the RDCK would have to commit to a lease of between $20,000 and $25,000 per month over 35 years if it wishes to have recreational space included in the project.
RDCK Area F director Tom Newell, who also sits on Rec 5, told the RDCK board that commission discussed the issue thoroughly before recommending that the RDCK not take part.
"We came to this decision not lightly, but certainly there are a number of factors that led the commissioners to feel that it was perhaps too large a commitment for too long a time to take on at this point financially."
As a result, Nelson CARES' building, if its funding application to BC Housing succeeds, will stand separately from the NDCC with a space between them that is approximately the size of one residential lot.
The property on which the Nelson CARES apartment building would stand is currently zoned for institutional use. For the project to proceed, city council must change the zoning to allow the property to be used for housing.
That change requires a public hearing, which will take place on Monday, June 23, at 5 p.m. in council chambers at city hall. The hearing will ask whether the public agrees with the re-zoning (the change in allowable land use), not whether it agrees with the proposed design of the building.
Correction: a previous version of this story mistakenly stated that the public hearing is at 7 p.m. It is actually at 5 p.m.
