White Rock council will have some hard decisions to make in the new year about directions to take in creating a new community hub.
That's judging from a preliminary financial analysis done by consulting company Urban Systems, whose senior consultant, J.P. Raulot-Lapointe, presented a summary report at the Dec. 9 city council meeting.
The company was looking at ways to create a community hub that could include components such as a new city hall, library, daycare, some commercial space, the RCMP detachment headquarters, affordable seniors housing and other community uses.
"The intention was to produce a community hub that included all of these components," Raulot-Lapointe said.
The feasibility study explored scenarios in which city-owned land at and around the current city hall site could be redeveloped, while other city land, such as the water works yard and a vacant lot at 1510 Johnston Rd., could be sold for development to help finance the hub.
The yardstick in each case was estimated land values, balanced against development costs.
"The purpose of the report was to look at options for developing a community hub that generated the highest amount of revenue," Raulot-Lapointe said.
"The revenues and costs associated with affordable housing were not accounted for in this (presentation)," he noted.
"We were just looking at the revenues generated from the market component of this development."
Another aspect of the study, he said, was that taxpayers would not be paying directly for the community hub development.
"One of the key components in our analysis was that there was an assumption that there would be no taxpayer funding for the project at all."
Funding sources that were included in the analysis were some $5 million that has been put aside, to date, for a new city hall, and $4 million in unassigned community amenity contributions (CACs).
"There is $9 million the city has put aside for affordable housing, but we did not include that because we were not calculating the finances of affordable housing," Raulot-Lapointe said.
Four possible redevelopment option scenarios were identified, in each of which the water works yard property was sold (with land permissions for a six-storey, strata apartment building) and the land at 1510 Johnston Rd. was developed to either a 12-storey or a 25-storey height, but only two scenarios ultimately seem financially appealing.
Scenario 2 would sell the western portion of the city hall block, develop a community hub on the eastern portion of the block and keep the RCMP and Fire Hall sites where they are.
"Scenario 2 was close to break even, if there was 12 storeys at Johnston Road, and created $16 million in revenue if there was 25 storeys," Raulot-Lapointe said.
Scenario 3 would sell the majority of the city hall block, with permissions for six-storey strata apartment buildings there, and would develop a community hub on the first six storeys of 1510 Johnston Rd., with the remaining storeys sold as strata apartments. Both the RCMP building and the Fire Hall would remain on the current city hall block.
."Scenario 3 was positive revenue both at a 12 storeys at Johnston Road and at 25 storeys," he said.
Staff plan to bring forward a corporate report in January, utilizing Urban Systems' presentation, that will be asking for council's direction on which way to proceed on the community hub proposal.
