Delta council this week unanimously approved a new townhouse development in Ladner, but one councillor expressed frustration that a plan to build a new seniors’ care facility at the location had been scrapped.
The townhouse project, called Wildwood Townhouses, will be located on a vacant site at 4900 Central Ave., behind the Trenant Park Square shopping mall.
The 40-unit development will consist of six, three-storey buildings, 80 residential parking spaces and nine visitor parking spaces. Vehicular and pedestrian access to the development will be from Central Avenue.
The rezoning is consistent with the site’s designation under the Official Community Plan (OCP).
However, while he supported the application, Coun. Dylan Kruger said he remains upset a previously approved application to redevelop a seniors’ care facility there was cancelled.
“I’m still struggling for answers what happened there. I know it was no fault of our planning department or the City of Delta that this seniors’ care facility decided to not continue their work in our community. So, now there’s a townhouse application but it’s unacceptable what has happened to those seniors and, frankly, seniors in our community deserve better than what happened,” said Kruger.
“We have such a shortage as it exists today of long-term care beds in Delta, let alone what is going to be needed for what we know is a rapidly aging population in our community, in our region and in our country,” he added.
Noting the redevelopment and expansion of Mountain View Manor at Delta Hospital is still years away, Mayor George Harvie said the answer to why the West Shore Laylum seniors’ care home plan on Central Avenue was scrapped can be found by looking at Fraser Health’s lack of funding
In 2019, council approved a redevelopment application for the 55-bed West Shore Laylum facility at the Central Avenue site.
Built in the early 1970s, the facility was to be demolished and replaced with a new three-storey, 74-bed community care facility.
The residents of the Ladner facility were relocated to a space at the Suncrest Retirement Community, located on King George Boulevard in Surrey.
The move out to Surrey was meant to be only temporary and they were to move back to the new Ladner facility once completed. The old building was subsequently demolished but the site remained vacant.
Last year, families were notified that the redevelopment was not proceeding, and the relocated residents would be remaining at Suncrest.
The development permit was subsequently cancelled, and the site was sold to a developer.
