Housing is as big an issue as ever on Bowen, and with a year left in its term, Bowen Island Municipality’s council wants to see what housing opportunities are out there.
BIM is inviting “non-profit housing providers, developers, community organizations or partnerships of any or all of these entities” to propose a housing project on Lot 1 Area 2 of the Community Lands (on the West side of Carter Road, past Belterra before the turnoff to Camp Bow-Isle.)
The nearly 1.9 hectare property (just over 4.5 acres), has neither water nor sewer service, nor is subdivided. It is zoned for a maximum of 20 attached dwelling units but a BIM press release said that rezoning for higher density could be an option. The 20-unit zoning came from recommendations from the previous council’s Mayor’s Standing Committee on the Community Lands, who felt that 20 was a reasonable number, given the site constraints, said BIM’s manager of planning and development, Daniel Martin. “It has some steep areas and the need for septic to service it and the need for setback from ALR land.” But in developing the request for expressions of interest, council left the door open for ideas for more units (but that would trigger a rezoning.)
This move isn’t coming out of specific inquiries but rather council wanting to generate some more diverse housing on Bowen, said Martin. It’s also the piece of community land that’s zoned for densified housing and is easily delineated from the other municipal parcels.
While Martin’s not aware of BIM issuing such testing-the-development-waters callouts like this in the past, other municipalities, such as Vancouver and Coquitlam, have been known to send out requests for expressions of interest for projects the cities are interested in pursuing.
One may find more details on the BIM website. The closing date is November 10.
