Pheasant Glen Golf Resort is asking the Town of Qualicum Beach to approve the first step in its plans to provide a mixture of housing and resort amenities.
This application, which is expected to appear before council by the end of this month, asks for the town to approve the subdivision of lands at Pheasant Glen, basically setting aside for development land that's not part of the Agricultural Land Reserve from land that is part of the ALR (the golf course).
"In order for us to proceed (with a mixed residential resort development), this is the first step for that to happen," Pheasant Glen managing partner Craig Dutton said in an interview Wednesday.
In a news release issued this week, Dutton said Pheasant Glen plans a mixed residential resort complex including a swimming pool, a fitness center, links to the town's existing trail system, a new clubhouse, resort cabins, residential cottages and other amenities.
"We are pleased to be able to tell our members and the public that we are back in front of the town of Qualicum Beach planning department with an application to rezone the property to permit the subdivision of the resort land from the golf course and kick start the project," said Dutton. "We first submitted the application November 7, 2012 and we expected the amended application to be in front of council at the next council meeting possibly as early as (Monday)."
Dutton told The NEWS Wednesday he doesn't believe the application will be included Monday's agenda, but perhaps it will be in front of council by its next meeting, April 22.
"We have been in discussions with the planning department since prior to November 7, 2012 and after working for weeks with our legal and planning advisors we decided to submit the amended application," Dutton said in the release. "When the subdivision of the land is approved we will immediately submit our application for the changes we will need to begin building."
Pheasant Glen began working on the project in 2005. The golf rebuild was completed in 2006 at a cost of $6 million dollars. Pheasant Glen's estimates put the total economic value of the project when completed at as much as $27 million and Dutton said up to 80 per cent of that will be spent locally.
In its news release, Pheasant Glen also said a survey conducted in February of 2011 by Vancouver-based Stratcom found that 68 per cent of Qualicum Beach residents supported a mixed residential resort development at Pheasant Glen. Pheasant Glen said Stratcom's survey was demographically and statistically representative of the Qualicum Beach population and statistically accurate to within five per cent, 19 out of 20 times.