SQUAMISH OCEANFRONT PROJECT UPDATES

 Development

SUB AREA PLAN
The Sub Area Plan for the Squamish Oceanfront Peninsula has now been drafted by the staff at the District of Squamish and it will be presented to Council the week of July 26 for review and public consultation. Public meetings to present the draft plan and receive final approvals are planned for September and October. The rezoning process for the Squamish Oceanfront lands can commence immediately following the approval of the Sub Area Plan.

The Oceanfront Sub Area Plan is a schedule to Squamish’s Official Community Plan (OCP), a bylaw adopted by Council to guide development of a defined area over the long term. The Sub Area Plan guides land use, building form and character, transportation and circulation, parks, public open spaces, community facilities, environmental performance, and infrastructure servicing on the Oceanfront peninsula. It is intended to ensure that the development of the Oceanfront Peninsula is coherent and coordinated, and that it achieves the community’s vision of sustainable development that links Squamish to the ocean, as expressed in the Vision and Oceanfront Guiding Principles.

ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT
The Oceanfront Park is the first phase of the development plan. To move forward with the construction of the Oceanfront Park, the SODC needs to make sure that all of the stakeholders are consulted and taken into consideration. The manner in which the provincial and federal governments ensure adequate review and consultation is through both the federal and provincial Environmental Assessment Office processes (EAO). These are legislated processes that take approximately a year to complete and are typically initiated once the land use for a project has been determined. Now that the Sub Area Plan is in the final steps, the SODC has submitted its Project Description application with both the federal and provincial EAO.

With this process initiated, the SODC should be in a position to start construction on Oceanfront Park in the fall of 2011.

Squamish REALTOR
Morgan Rice
604-849-2668
mrice@macrealty.com