Three Development Proposals On Quadra Island

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - At the May 22 meeting, Director Mawhinney informed the board, “the Area C Advisory Planning Commission met and discussed this Kanish Bay application and the following Upshur Road application. They also heard a delegation from one of the applicants. The Advisory Planning Commission did not support either covenant discharge application. The Advisory Planning Commission provided an additional motion, which supports maintaining the covenants for 520 Upshur Road and 1731 Kanishbu Drive as legal agreements freely entered into by the Regional District and landowners, recognizing that maintaining these covenants causes less land to be available for housing than would otherwise be the case.” The minutes of the Area C Planning Comission show that, in both cases, 7 out of 9 comissioners voted against removing the covenants. Director Mawhinney moved, and Director Whalley seconded, motions that the application to remove both covenants be denied. These carried with no opposing votes. Rick Schellinck has been trying to obtain approval to develop his property in Gowland Harbour since 2011. There has been a great deal of opposition from the surrounding community. The most recent application was to create 51 residential lots, a campground, marina and two waterfront parks. After 11 years of delays, the proposed Gowland Harbour Views development was finally allowed to have a public meeting on April 20, 2022.  The Regional Director at that time, Jim Abram, reported all but 8 of the 546 submissions made at that meeting were in opposition. All four Regional Directors subsequently voted against the project, effectively killing that version of it. Now Schellinck is back with a proposal to rezone 64-hectares so that he can create a subdivision of twenty-two 2 hectare rural residential lots, a 5 hectare Agricultural Land Reserve parcel, and two small Regional District Parks.