The District of West Vancouver has received a preliminary development proposal for four stacked townhouses above a daycare facility in Horseshoe Bay. The development follows the direction of the Horseshoe Bay Local Area Plan.
The applicant is hosting an in-person public information meeting on its preliminary proposal on October 5, from 6 to 8 pm at the West Vancouver Community Centre to share information about the proposal, answer questions, and seek public input.
However, this is not a District-led public consultation, but is hosted by the applicant at Cedar Room at the West Vancouver Community Centre on According to the applicant, the applicant proposes to rezone the site from duplex dwelling to a Comprehensive Development to allow for the construction of a mixed-used building comprising of a daycare and residential townhomes.
The entrance for both residential and childcare facility are separate. Residents will access their units via an exterior stair on the west side of the building, while the main entrance of the child care facility is on the north side of the building. There will be 8 parking spots, four parking spots for the child care and four for the residential units.
The child care will be owned and managed by Altamont Child Development Centre Ltd, which has been operating a licensed group childcare centre in West Vancouver for 10 years. “ACDC wishes to use its experience and expertise to build and operate another group child care centre in West Vancouver. The proposed project will add 16 of new childcare spaces to Horseshoe Bay, West Vancouver, which is an under-served, family neighbourhood,” the applicant notes.
Of the 16 new childcare spaces, 8 will be for children 0 months to 36 months and 8 will be for children 3 years to school age.
Morning! What are the impacts to the rest of West Vancouver, and how are our staff and council ameliorating these impacts? For example, this will obviously increase traffic and affect many in WV. What global precedents are our leaders and staff considering for areas such as ours, are they negotiating for an expanded provincial highway system that does not cut through WV neighbourhoods, how are they engaging with all WV stakeholders, how are they ensuring ethical conduct and fairness for all stakeholders, how are they adjusting for the extreme wealth and poverty gap in WV, how are they handling the fact that changing traffic patterns increases criminalization, poverty, ghettoization, health and aging costs, and homelessness? Our engineers and planners and engagement professionals are professionally bound and paid to look after the health and welfare of ALL existing WV citizens and the existing environment.
In my opinion stacked townhouses, or any multi-level residential building must have an elevator to enable older people to age in place. An outside stair case, any staircase, can be a real problem for older people who need walking assistance, or whose sight starts to fail, whose balance deteriorates and so on. People, particularly couples need to be able to age in place and not have to move if one of them can’t handle stairs . Using stairs in the rain and snow at night even with lighting can be a serious hazard for someone using a cane and carrying a bag of groceries. An irresponsible developer exhibiting sheer neglect of the interests of older people in my opinion .