Parksville Mayor Ed Mayne
PARKSVILLE – While industrial land may be scarce in Parksville, that hasn’t curtailed commercial and revenue-producing multi-family development in the Oceanside community.
Mayor Ed Mayne and council have made it known that Parksville is open for business, and since their election in 2018, over 1,000 new apartments and strata units have been built or announced in the city.
“We also have approvals for another 400 units as we speak, and we still need more,” says Mayne. “I know that we need significantly more affordable housing, geared to low-income rentals. We need all types of housing, and I’ve been talking to government agencies about setting up more. It ain’t over yet.”
Mayne is proud of the fact that vast improvements have been made to the issuing of building permits.
“This has become a priority for staff – to get building permits out quickly so there is no delay for developers,” Mayne observes. “Our CAO Keeva Kehler has implemented ‘yes we can’ approach has cut the time frames right down. On average it’s taking one week for residential permits and 3-4 weeks for commercial permits.
“I’ve had a number of people from other communities saying they’re making it really hard on us because people are saying they can do it that fast in Parksville. The whole approach of our Director of Community Planning and Building Blaine Russell is to find a way to make it happen – don’t find a way to say no. I think that’s really important.”
The new Quality Foods complex at the western, Highway 4 entrance to the city has raised the bar for commercial and residential construction.
“I went there the other night with some friends, and they have a little bar/restaurant on the second floor. The whole complex is doing well,” he states. “Behind the store is a low-income facility that the Nanaimo Housing Authority is building, and across from that, we’ve just approved putting three more 4-5 storey buildings in, with commercial space on the ground floor and residential on the top. We’ve also just approved two more buildings on the other side of Quality Foods for rentals, so it’s coming.”
Mayne says one of the biggest obstacles is that there aren’t substantially sized properties within the city for development.
“One company is wanting to put 800 housing units on the edge of the Parksville Industrial Park, but that is just at the rezoning stage. And that’s the biggest piece of property we have available,” he says.
Mayne also takes issue with the Agricultural Land Commission, which continues to stymie development on land that is technically designated for agricultural use, but is in reality more suitable and useful for development and other projects, including housing.
“I’m a firm believer that anything within the boundary of Parksville should be controlled and dictated to by Parksville, not by the Agricultural Land Commission that really doesn’t have anything invested in the properties,” Mayne states.
Some high visibility projects are on their way in Parksville, including new Wendy’s and Popeye’s restaurants at the southern entrance to the city, just beyond the bridge. Foundations have been poured, and the eateries should be open by Christmas.
The 86 unit Pacific Palms RV Resort next to The Beach Club on the downtown waterfront is now open.
“What the owners wanted to do was have three very large buildings, but they ran their own public meetings and found that the public wasn’t in favour of it,” Mayne explains. “So they didn’t proceed and come to Parksville council with their idea and they decided to go in this direction. It was a smart decision by them, and if in the future the attitude changes for development, then they can do it then. In the meantime, they can obtain revenue from the property.”