Mayor requests staff provide full briefing and update on the project; 35 residents voice concern over possible risks to aquifer
(By News Desk)
A group of Gibsons residents has asked town council to consider asking the developer of The George Hotel and Residences for a $20-million bond before the start of construction as a security for any possible risks to the aquifer.
Mayor Bill Beamish thanked the group and said he had requested staff to provide council with a full briefing and update on the project to council prior to receipt of the letter. He expects the briefing to take place later this month, and said any determination in respect to bonding or other matters would occur after that.
The letter to council was written by Gibsons resident Michael Storr and signed by 34 residents.
During the previous council’s tenure, concerned citizens asked mayor and council to require that the George developer post a bond to protect the Gibsons aquifer during the construction phase.
The town did not require any bonding, saying the developer’s and consultants’ liability insurances would suffice.
But the sinkhole affair in Seawatch and the breach of an aquifer in Vancouver have “re-awakened our concerns,” Storr wrote. “As a result [of Seawatch], multiple lawsuits have been launched against the District of Sechelt, the developer, fourteen engineering firms, five real estate agents and an insurance company.”
Storr also noted that when Gibsons resident Judith Bonkoff expressed concern about the Vancouver aquifer breach at a Gibsons special council meeting in July 2017, saying she feared a similar event in Gibsons, the town’s director of infrastructure services, Dave Newman, stated that “to compare this process to Vancouver is somewhat misleading”.
“And yet the ten-million-dollar (and still counting) bill to the City of Vancouver was ultimately caused simply by human error, an ever-present condition whenever any human undertakes any endeavour,” Storr wrote. “There is no doubt that should an error result in a breach of the Gibsons aquifer, it would cause havoc.”
Storr also expressed concern that the town has not released a peer review of the revised project done by an expert hydrogeologist since the May 2015 Waterline review.
He hopes the town will require a $20 million bond from the developer as a condition of the building permits.
At this time, the developer does not have building permits for The George development. On November 20, 2018, Newman told the town’s committee-of-the-whole that the developer had applied for building permits but that they would not be issued until the terms of the land-exchange agreement that will allow for the closure of Winn Road and building a public plaza in its way are met.
On February 12, 2019, chief administrative officer Emanuel Machado told The Coast Clarion that the building permit was completed and ready for pickup pending completion of the terms of the land-exchange agreement. He expected these terms to be completed “in the next few weeks.”
On March 25, Machado said that legal counsel for the town and the developer are still trying to work out the land exchange agreements for the project.