Back in May 2018 Kelowna West MLA Ben Stewart (left) and West Kelowna Mayor Doug Findlater used the Goats Peak development site as a backdrop for their campaign against the NDP's Speculation Tax. While it was claimed that the tax killed the project, it's heading back to council with the tax still firmly in place.

(JOHN MCDONALD / iNFOnews.ca)

One of the biggest proposed developments in West Kelowna’s history was purportedly killed in 2018 because of the Speculation Tax.

The Goats Peak project called for close to 1,000 single and multi-family homes on 161 acres across Highway 97 from Gorman’s lumber mill.

“We have now stopped all engineering, planning and design work and put the whole on the shelf until a change of government,” Scott Henderson, one of the developers wrote in a letter to the City of West Kelowna in May 2018.

READ MORE: Goat's Peak developer says spec tax has stopped his West Kelowna housing project

This is the outline of the full Goats Peak development proposal.

Image Credit: Submitted/City of West Kelowna

That letter was distributed to media at a news conference at the site hosted by then-mayor of West Kelowna Doug Findlater and Kelowna West MLA Ben Stewart.

At issue was the proposed Speculation Tax on absentee landowners that the NDP government was proposing and later implemented. West Kelowna was a strong opponent to the tax, which is targeted only at certain communities in B.C., with West Kelowna and Kelowna being the only two Interior cities.

The Goats Peak proposal came back to the West Kelowna Advisory Planning Commission last week to start the rezoning process that was dropped in 2018.

The application was submitted long before the provincial election was called.

Henderson, who is a partner with Staburn Property Group in Vancouver, could not be reached for comment. The person answering the phone said she had been told to direct all calls relating to Goats Peak to Vincent Yen, president of Yenik Realty, also in Vancouver. He did not return repeated calls from iNFOnews.ca.

The Goats Peak project had a Concept Development Plan approved in 2017.

The developers were about to submit a rezoning application for the first phase, which would have cost $8 million in servicing and infrastructure, Henderson said at the time.

The latest application proposes 933 housing units but deals only with a small part of the site with 60 single family lots and 130 townhouse units planned as a first phase.

It will be forwarded to a future council meeting.

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