The owner of a vacant site fronting the new casino under construction at the junction of highways 17A and 99 is taking another step toward a potential major redevelopment.
Delta council on Monday approved a staff recommendation to endorse an application by Ron Toigo’s Shato Holdings to remove the property at 6115 Highway 17A from the Agricultural Land Reserve.
The application will now be forwarded to the Agricultural Land Commission for their review.
The property was originally developed in 1969 as a service station and in 2014 it was decommissioned with the removal of the building and all underground systems. It was also remediated.
The gas station pre-dated the creation of the ALR in the early 1970s.
A report to council notes the parcel is not designated agricultural in either Delta's official community plan or Metro Vancouver’s Regional Growth Strategy.
Exclusion of the parcel from the ALR would bring it into conformance with the immediately adjacent lands which are all outside of the farm reserve and used for commercial and warehouse purposes.
Shato Holdings recently presented council a preliminary proposal to build a 153-unit housing development at the site but a formal application on that plan has yet to be submitted.
The units would be within two, six-storey apartment buildings with 58 and 80 units respectively, located at the north and east portions of the site.
A three-storey townhouse building with 15 units would be located along the west boundary of the site, connected by an under-building parkade for residents and visitors accessed via a new private road.
“Transferring replacement lands back into the ALR has been a part of other applications in Delta, but this is neither a policy nor requirement of Delta or the ALC and, as previously noted, the gas station use predated the creation of the ALR,” this week’s report to council notes.
The report also notes that servicing requirements and traffic management would be determined at the time any new development is proposed and would be coordinated with proposed servicing upgrades for the casino site.
The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure's approval would be required at that time.
