June 9, 2011
Council moves on Keys
Centre
by Vance Gutzman
Deep River council has taken the first steps towards determining the
development potential of the Keys Centre property.
Council passed a resolution declaring the property to be surplus land.
The resolution also calls on the town to seek an appraisal of the
property and, most significantly, to initiate a request for proposals
(RFP) process for any possible disposition or development of the Keys
Centre property.
"This has been a long time in coming," Councillor Terry Myers said last
week while introducing the resolution.
Myers chairs the town's housing committee, which has been tasked with
finding solutions to the municipality's chronic housing shortage.
As part of its work, the housing committee has been reviewing the
inventory of town-owned properties which could be freed up for either
residential or commercial development, and the Keys Centre has been a
part of that focus.
The property includes approximately five acres of land and 2,800 feet
of waterfront located beside the federal pier, across from the yacht
club.
The town purchased the property in 1994 for more than $800,000, and the
site was later slated for a hotel/resort type of development in the
town's waterfront master plan.
The housing committee has met with parties who are interested in the
property, and Myers said last week that moving forward with an RFP
process would be an accurate gauge of how interested those parties
really are.
"We'd like to move forward with the (RFP) process to see if we can turn
interest into concrete proposals," he told council.
Councillor Chris Carroll, however, who was on council when the Keys
Centre was originally purchased 17 years ago, wasn't completely on
board with the intent of the resolution that was being put forward.
"The notion that it's surplus land, I find somewhat disconcerting,"
Carroll said.
"I think it's worthy of a different status."
Carroll went on to suggest that the housing committee might want to
look at other properties in town with the potential for development,
rather than focusing on the Keys Centre, and he said the town's
rationale for purchasing the land was to avoid it being severed up and
sold in smaller parcels.
"It was going to be cut up into cottage lots," Carroll said.
"I don't think that issue has gone away."
"We have easier land to develop to satisfy housing demands than that
piece of property," he contended.
Myers, however, responded that, under auspices of the Municipal Act,
the town must declare the land to be surplus in order to proceed with
the RFP process.
"The wording may be unfortunate, but it's a technicality more than
anything," said Myers, adding that the housing committee has looked at
other parcels of land suitable for development.
"There are other pieces of property that could be more easily
developed. We don't control those properties."
The town's official plan and zoning bylaw, Myers went on to state, also
allow a wide range of uses for the Keys Centre property.
"I don't think we're shutting the door on commercial or mixed
development," Myers said.
"That's the appeal of going through this process. I'm not interested in
selling it just for the sake of selling it."
Mayor David Thompson concurred with that sentiment, saying that one of
the greatest frustrations, over the last six months, has been the
town's inability to move forward on the whole housing and development
issue because much of the available land lies in private hands.
"This is one piece of property we do have an element of control over,"
the mayor said, adding that the RFP process would not tie the town's
hands in any way at its conclusion.
"We'll still hold all the cards. There's no obligation to proceed."
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