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Smart Bylaws Guide – Case Studies – Selkirk Waterfront

Jutland Road at the waterfront, Victoria

Features:	Brownfield Oceanfront Mixed-use Affordable housing Ecological restoration On-Site Stormwater Detention Recreation Comprehensive development zone Near downtown
Site Area:	10 hectares (24 acres)
Residential Units:	800 to 2,100 square feet Function of building area and height (approximately 400 allowed; likely 250 will be built)
Commercial Units:	Total allowable building area 116, 170 square feet
Public Right of Way	4.35 acres (18%)
Site Coverage:	50% in residential areas, 80% in non-residential areas
Maximum Height:	One to six storeys
Parking:	260 off-street required by City; 190 on street; 150 in parkade
Pre-development Usage:	Lumber mill
Date Completed:	From 1993 to 2005 (building permits obtained)
Developer:	Jawl Development Corporation, Mohan Jawl

Project Overview

The Selkirk Waterfront is the redevelopment of the Victoria Sawmill and brownfield site 2 kilometres north of downtown Victoria. It is adjacent to the Gorge Waterway and Galloping Goose Regional Trail, and is a fifteen minute walk from downtown. The 24 acre site is a comprehensive development zone that allows industrial, institutional, office, commercial, and residential uses in a variety of building types. Services such as restaurants and a fitness centre/rowing club attract non-residents to the area. An elementary school and daycare operate on site, and the Vancouver Island headquarters for Centra Gas provides a buffer from the heavy industrial uses next door. The result is a vibrant mixed-use neighbourhood that met the developer's primary goal -- to build a project of which his grandchildren would be proud.

Land Use

The 24-acre site was used for a century for lumber milling and is located between heavy industrial operations on the waterfront and a residential neighbourhood. The developer purchased the site in 1991, after the former owner, Fletcher-Challenge Canada Ltd., removed the buildings on site (1989) and completed a government-mandated environmental clean-up of soil contamination. The site achieved Level B environmental status, a rating that allows residential uses. The developer assumed the liability for further environmental remediation. At every new excavation the developer monitors the contamination levels in soil and has had to remove some hydrocarbon contamination since acquiring the property.

In 1992 the developer obtained a rezoning from the City, from heavy industrial to a comprehensive development zone, that allows the City to continue to control use of the site to ensure adherence to the original vision and approved neighbourhood concept. The vision contained in the neighbourhood plan and Selkirk Waterfront Design Guidelines is to create a vibrant mixed-use development that can withstand market fluctuations and be safer than single-use neighbourhoods because of the amount of activity occurring on site from the early morning until late at night. With its proximity to downtown and the waterfront, the site is attractive for residential, business and recreational uses.

Selkirk is viewed as a social and recreational centre just north of the downtown core. It includes:

• Central Gas Vancouver Island headquarters (light industrial);
• Government, business and professional services office space (commercial/office);
• Low-rise apartments, condominiums, townhouses, and live-work townhouses (residential);
• Institutional (Montessori school, daycare) 
• Services (restaurants, pub, retail shops, physiotherapist, hair studio, fitness centre, rowing club, kayak rentals); and 
• Access to recreation (Galloping Goose Regional Trail, Gorge Waterway).

From south to north, the land uses flow from industrial to residential and from pavement to natural area. The south to north flow also mimics the phases of development, with the industrial and commercial being built in the mid-1990's and the residential still under construction.

All of the uses provide a buffer between a more and less intensive use. The south end of the site is adjacent to heavy industrial uses, which the Centra Gas operations on site buffer. This buffer is important for preserving the City's industrial land base and provided a stable income on the site to allow for the phased development.

Moving north on the site, next to Centra Gas are office buildings and institutional uses (a school and daycare), with service, retail and lobby spaces in the ground floors. Finally, residential buildings are clustered in the northern half of the site and adjacent to the off-site Cecilia Creek and Galloping Goose Regional Trail. Apartments and townhouses are located around Selkirk Green, Viaduct Park and Cecilia Cove Park, and near the Cecilia Creek Pathway.

Importantly, this redevelopment reconnects the Burnside-Gorge neighbourhood with the waterfront that had been previously inaccessible because of continuous industrial, transportation and residential uses along the foreshore.

A network of public open spaces extends throughout the site, and the water's edge is publicly accessible from the streets, pathways and boardwalks. Continuous waterfront access is provided by the Railspur Boardwalk, built on the existing train trestle, and the Steamtrain Quay that was constructed along the stream crane track. The plaza at Sawmill Point, surrounded by cafes and restaurants on the waterfront, is the focal point of public activity on the site.

The site is adjacent to the Galloping Goose Regional Trail, a paved network for bikes, rollerbladers and pedestrians. Before the project began and before the Galloping Goose was a regional trail, the development team rejuvinated the section of the Goose beside the site. The Goose extends across the Gorge Waterway over the 150 metre Selkirk Trestle Bridge, and is now used as a significant bike-commute corridor into downtown. The number of people who bike to work at Selkirk is more than double the regional average, and only 44% of employees drive alone to work compared with 61% in the region. In addition, most employers participate in the BC Transit ProPass Program that allows employees to purchase twelve months of bus service for the price of ten.

As part of the rezoning the developer agreed to undertake some environmental restoration of the site. This included stabilizing the water's edge and restoring riparian vegetation, as well as planting hundreds of trees. Along the waterfront, the developer retained some of the industrial infrastructure in keeping with the site's historic past, but also created an intertidal shelf and planted eelgrass beds to provide spawning habitat for herring.

The developer installed new stormwater infrastructure, and added oil interceptors to decrease the pollution entering the Gorge Waterway. The roads are constructed of sand set pavers that allow some infiltration to occur. A surface stormwater detention facility, using bioswales and a pond, deals with the stormwater from the southern two acres of the site where the parking garage will be located. The City agreed to forego 27 surface parking spots on the waterfront to accommodate this stormwater management facility and amenity.

The first residential development was a 45 units non-market housing complex that included a café, townhouses for single parents, family townhouses on the lane, and seniors housing on top. The developer obtained a grant from the BC Housing Management Commission to build the project that is now owned and managed by the Capital Region Housing Corporation. The developer retains ownership of the commercial space in the building.

A complete variety of housing is available on site to create flexibility and market resilience. In addition to the non-market housing, Selkirk includes apartments and ground-oriented townhouses. Several of the townhouses allow for live/work arrangements. Unit sizes range from 800 to 2100 square feet.

The residential parking is located underground. Other parking is dual use with office workers using it during the day and people coming on site for recreation using it in the early morning and at night. A parkade abutting the industrial land is under construction because of increased density and daytime tenants indicating more parking is needed. The City and developer agreed to build 100 fewer spaces than is demanded by tenants to discourage single occupancy automobile modes of travel to the site. At a savings of $16,000 per space and one whole floor, the developer will undertake a transportation demand management study. The parkade will also contain more secure bike lock up than is required by the City, and will provide a separate entrance for bikers.

The CD Zone allows the developer to: 

• Transfer some of the floor space allocation for office/commercial to residential; 
• Use height and massing dimensions, not floor area ratio or floor space ratio, as the main building criteria to allow for innovation within the building envelope;
• Provides the developer with some flexibility as to what density and types of uites are developed;
• Gives the municipality security that what is approved as the CD zone plan and design guidelines will direct development

Design

The developer's urban design team worked with a technical committee of municipal staff from the parks, engineering, and planning departments, as well as the municipal administrator, to oversee the planning and approvals process. This interdisciplinary team met bi-weekly to resolve issues that arose in preparation for rezoning and subdivision. The planning process moved along faster than if each department had been asked to approve the project separately because features that contravened a particular profession's rule, for example narrow street widths, could be addressed by the team in dialogue, rather than rejected and sent back to the design team. Agreeing on the Urban Design Guidelines, rezoning and subdivision took only nine months.

The developer produced an Urban Design Manual of detailed design guidelines that were adopted by the City as part of the rezoning application. These were the first such guidelines for a large scale project in the City, and set a precedent. As some buildings were designed and constructed by new owners, the developer wanted to ensure continuity of design and attention to public spaces. See Appendix A - Urban Design Objectives. The manual provides details on the layout of the site and also contains development permit requirements for the character of the buildings on site (massing, height, entrances, wall cladding, roofs, colour, bike and car parking, signs and walkways).

Equal attention was paid to designing public spaces as was devoted to designing the buildings. The design also focused on ensuring that there are eyes on the street (from cafes, townhouses, public spaces) that would imply ownership and create safer streets.

Streets are shared by all types of uses. The bicycle routes are the streets; if cars are traveling slowly enough they do not need separate infrastructure. Traffic is slowed using sensory messages (signs and paving texture), traffic islands and landscaped medians, raised intersections and speed control, and textured pavement. The streets are narrower and constructed with soft edges so the boundary between the pedestrian and vehicle realms is blurred. This, coupled with the use of textured bricks for pavement, slows traffic.

The design of the traffic circles was based on the City of Los Angeles and City of Toronto engineering department specifications. The fire department, City engineering, and BC Transit test drove fire trucks, the top-heavy sewer pump truck and buses around the traffic circles. The centre of the circles are designed to be rolled over by larger vehicles.

The lanes are lower in the middle to allow for centre line drainage so that non-elevated pedestrian areas at the sides of the roads do not become stormwater conduits.

Each building at Selkirk is equipped with bike storage, shower and locker facilities.

Community Process

After a proposal by a previous owner to put a big box store on the site, neighbourhood residents were up in arms about the potential for increased traffic and the suitability of potential uses for the site. The City and community were developing the Burnside Neighbourhood Plan when the developer bought the property in 1991. The Plan called for a mix of uses, "focusing on residential development and a neighbourhood commercial centre to serve the developing neighbourhood. One portion is of the site is recommended for light industrial use as a buffer and transitional use from the adjacent heavy industries."

The developer stepped into this community process and attended community meetings to determine in what type of neighbourhood Selkirk was located, and to tailor the development to meet the interests of the various parties. Throughout the process the development team asked community members what the issues were, whether they agreed with the designs, and whether the team had missed anything of importance for the neighbourhood. The development team often interpreted municipal policy and bylaws for residents in explanation of why some aspects of the project had to be designed in a certain way.

The development team kept the project office open two evenings per week for eight months, and made dozens of presentations at community meetings. The developer revised the plans according to the feedback provided by the residents, and the community association endorsed the project when it went to City council. The Selkirk Waterfront proposal went to the City at the same time as the third draft of the Burnside Neighbourhood Plan. Both were endorsed by the Advisory Planning Commission and City Council in March 1992.

The development team continues to provide updates at community association meetings when new activities will be occurring on site.

Partnerships

The developer was keen to ensure that the mixed-use vision for the site was successful. Key to this vision was to provide quality services and amenities that would be attractive for people who had a reason to be on the site (residents and daytime workers), as well as others who would seek out Selkirk as a destination. To kick start this ambiance before commercial and residential densities were high enough to support it, the developer provided reduces rents to restaurants. The rent for the food services uses are still based on profitability. He also built the facilities for a rowing club and donated them to the non-profit association that runs the club with the expectation that a fitness facility would accompany the rowing club. The fitness centre, run by the Olympian Silken Laumen, has now been built.

City of Victoria

Selkirk was the first comprehensive development zone the City of Victoria undertook, and it required new cooperation and approaches at the staff level. For example, it was the first time the Parks and Engineering Departments worked together to share the same right-of-way space, and the development team had to prove to the engineering and fire departments that traffic circles do work to manage traffic safely. Key supporters included the Director of Planning at the time and the city council.

Finally, as a result of the extensive community process undertaken by the developer at Selkirk the City of Victoria now requires all developers to consult with the appropriate neighbourhood association before applying for a development permit.

Financing

The existing M3 heavy industrial zoning on the site allowed the developer to respond to Centra Gas' request for proposals for a Vancouver Island headquarters and post-emergency response facility. The developer won the competition and secured a ten year lease, which assisted him to carry the infrastructure costs for the remainder of the development. After the rezoning, the Government of BC bought a parcel of land on which to build an office building for what was then the Ministry of Environment. The developer reinvested the sale proceeds into the streetscapes to improve the saleability of the residential component of Selkirk.

The non-market housing element was built with a grant from the provincial government.

Challenges

Finally, in the early phase of the Selkirk Waterfront the financial carrying charges were $3,000 per day. In response the design team worked on the project full-time for a year and a half. However, by using an integrated design and project management approach, achieving agreement on the Urban Design Guidelines, rezoning conditions and subdivision specifics took only nine months.

The anticipated build out for the project was seven years. However, the B.C. leaky condominium crisis emerged as the first market condominium project at Selkirk was being built. As a result, this first building was used as an example of a rain screen performance building to show the industry how condominiums should be built. The crisis put a damper on the condominium market and slowed the build out at Selkirk.

Parking is an ongoing issue. The developers would like to minimize parking and work with employers to encourage non-automobile travel to the site. The City does not want parking problems to spill over into the neighbourhood. For example, the City of Victoria required the designers to find pockets of parking to make up for the "loss" of on street parking because of boulevard tree bulges (used for traffic calming).

For more information

Developer Team:
Franc D'Ambrosio, Architect, (250) 384-2400, fdambrosio@fdarc.ca

Municipality:
Doug Koch, (250) 361-0282, dougk@city.victoria.bc.ca

Zoning: CD-1 Zone, Selkirk Comprehensive District
http://www.city.victoria.bc.ca/common/pdfs/planning_zoning_121.pdf