Kelowna council stalls construction of 25-storey downtown highrise
Kelowna city council followed the advice of its staff and cancelled permits today for a 25-storey highrise on city-owned land downtown.
The decision today, Aug. 14, followed the revelation that JDH Naturals, a “vender” hired by developer Appelt Properties, paid a number of students to speak in favour of the project at a public hearing in July 2022.
“At Appelt Properties, we are extremely disappointed by City council’s decision to rescind the development and development variance permits for 350 Doyle Avenue, 236 long-term rentals and 26 below-market rentals should have been an important addition to our downtown rental stock at a time when the city urgently needs housing,” Appelt vice-president Rebecca Waring said in an email to iNFOnews.ca following the council meeting.
“For the students who spoke up in favour of increased housing options, this is a slap in the face and a clear message that their voices are not given the same weight by council as those of well-funded, well-organized opposition campaigns.”
Les Bellamy, the owner of Bellamy Homes in Kelowna, led the attack against the project from the beginning as head of the Legacy Group.
He is very troubled by Appelt’s contention that it’s common practice for speakers at public hearings to be paid.
READ MORE: Kelowna developer says its 'common' to pay people to speak at public hearings
“I would be very shocked if that is true and if that is true then we have a serious problem with the system,” Bellamy told iNFOnews.ca prior to the meeting. “I don’t think the public at large would find that acceptable at all.
“He with the most amount of money to buy as many people as possible wins the argument. That is just categorically wrong. That just can’t be. If that’s not against the law, it should be against the law.”
The Legacy Group was launched in October 2019 in an effort to stop the city-owned land from going out to a request for proposals until a new civic properties plan was drafted. That was rejected by council.
READ MORE: Kelowna group wants to slow sale of old RCMP building in favour of grander plan
Appelt won the bid and came forward with a plan for a 13-storey project that required a number of variances and filled too much of the property, according to those who petitioned against it.
It was redesigned to a narrower 25-storey tower.
READ MORE: Petition triggers redesign of controversial downtown Kelowna highrise
“That original design was so blatantly disregarding bylaws that no developer in their right mind would ever think that would be allowed or get approval,” Bellamy said. “It was meant to be a diversionary tactic so they could go straight to a tower.”
He dubbed it as a “bait and switch” tactic at the time and called for the city to restart the proposal process.
Council, again, refused.
Bellamy also raised concerns last year about the students being paid but doesn’t feel those were properly investigated.
That didn’t happen until one of the students told Mayor Tom Dyas in a January email that “he and several others had spoken in favour of the project and ‘was paid $250 via e-transfer for my comments,’" according to the report that went from staff to council on Monday.
Appelt's Waring said the students came forward supporting the project.
“They did not constitute organized special interest groups – they were individual students who held views based on their own lived experiences,” she wrote in an email to iNFOnews.ca.
JDH Naturals, which paid the students, was registered with the Canada Company Registry on March 8, 2020, but does not seem to have any other online presence.
Its address is listed with the registry as 378 Viewcrest Court. That’s the same address Jackson Hicks gave council when he spoke to them at the July 26, 2022 public hearing.
Hicks immediately followed Bellamy to the podium the hearing and read from a cell phone.
He said he was a third year UBC Okanagan student who had started a FinTech business located in the “new powerhouse district," even though Viewcrest Court is in the Okaview area of the South Mission.
Hicks spoke in support of student housing and said Bellamy was a resident of the nearby Madison “most likely trying to preserve the view from his luxury condo.”
Bellamy also pointed out that a number of the students read from cell phones during the public hearing, which is clearly evident in the video recording of that hearing.
“I find anything that Applet Properties says, now, not to be believable,” he said.
iNFOnews.ca contacted the Ministry of Municipal Affairs to see if it's legal to pay people who attend public hearings but did not hear back by publication time.
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