The Victoria city council has endorsed a six-storey residential building on the border of the city and Oak Bay, located in the Jubilee Neighbourhood.
During this week’s committee of the whole meeting, city council approved the rezoning and development permits with variances for a proposal at 1908 Foul Bay Road.
The developer hopes to build an 87-unit rental building on the property that currently hosts a long-vacant office building.
The purpose-built development would focus on work/live suites on the first floor, rental units above and underground parking beneath the building.
There would also be parking for 108 bicycles, a shared outdoor space with a barbeque and indoor amenity space for residents to utilize.
One small point of contention that arose during the meeting is that because the building is designed around having work/live space on the first floor, that would mean there could be less commercial space made available in this development.
The lot’s zoning requires commercial uses along Foul Bay Road; however, the rezoning and development policy doesn’t require commercial use.
To navigate this matter, the applicant suggested the live/work units to create a more active frontage without needing it to be fully commercial space.
To this point, Councillors Chris Coleman and Marg Gardiner and Chris Coleman referred to Cook Street’s success with this model.
Gardiner noted the innovative approach of introducing live/work spaces to Cook has “quite activated that area.”
Additionally, council wants to have the applicant ensure the building would remain a rental in perpetuity, that the indoor amenity space would remain for resident usage and that the residents of this development would have access to green rooftop gardens.
Council approved the application and left staff to handle the preparation of zoning bylaws for the development.
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