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Parksville council approves 4-storey apartment building development

Plan calls for 65 residential rental units
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The building at 115 McMillan St. in Parksville will be home to 65 residential rental units. (Daryoush Firouzli Architecture drawing. Screenshot from Parksville City Council Dec. 5 meeting agenda)

Parksville council has approved a development permit for a four-storey apartment building on McMillan Street.

The building will be home to 65 residential rental units, with parking being predominately underground, according to a report to council’s Dec. 5 meeting by Blaine Russell, the city’s director of community planning and building.

Thirty per cent of the building’s parking spaces will be capable of electric vehicle charging, according to Russell.

“And of that 30 per cent, 10 per cent of those would actually have the chargers bolted in, ready to plug in on day one,” he said.

Coun. Mary Beil said she had hoped to see more EV charging spaces.

“It’s not that much more expensive to do the rough-in,” she said. “And it’s certainly more expensive after the fact.”

Several councillors said they would prefer to see the building achieve Step 4 of the BC Energy Step Code — an optional compliance path in the BC Building Code that local governments may use to incentivize energy efficiency. The developer has indicated it intends to meet Step 3.

READ MORE: Supply chain issues cause delays for Parksville city projects

Coun. Amit Gaur asked if rain gardens or other stormwater management were integrated into the design.

Russell said the building’s site is fairly compact with a number of constraints, so it is difficult to include features such as a rain garden.

Beil added she was pleased to see the building plans call for a thoughtful lighting design intended to minimize the effects of LED lighting on the street at night.

The proposed development, at 115 McMillan St. South, is located next to the McMillan Arts Centre (MAC), and across the street from Waterford Place, a four-storey mixed commercial-residential building.

The plan calls for 29 one-bedroom units, seven one-bedroom plus den units and 29 two-bedroom units.

A motion to issue the development permit was carried unanimously. The application was made by by Daryoush Firouzli, Architect AIBC on behalf of the owner Camargue Properties Inc.


kevin.forsyth@pqbnews.com

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