WHETHER Ambleside Park will be home to a restaurant, a wine bar, a childcare centre or none of the above is up for public debate following West Vancouver council's unanimous decision Monday to move ahead with reshaping its prized strip of land.
The shoreline just below Bellevue Avenue between 13th and 18th Streets could also feature a ferry terminal, two equipment rental shops, an arts and culture facility or as many as two food and beverage concessions.
Public input on Ambleside Park is slated to begin at an April 22 council meeting.
The land is a park, a fact that should be established and understood before any waterfront development is entertained, according to Coun. Bill Soprovich. "Public dedication of that strip of the land for the public forevermore is the only direction that we should be going," he said.
Soprovich added he had no objections to any of the businesses being considered for the area, only with the way they were presented to council.
The district has sought to control waterfront land since 1975, buying 29 of 32 parcels in the area since then.
"It's all municipally owned land, so anything that actually gets built must get approved by council," said the district's director of planning, Bob Sokol.
Part of the debate is due to the relative strength of park dedication versus ordinary zoning. While zoning can be changed by a majority vote on council, removing park dedication is a more cumbersome process, requiring community input and potentially even a referendum.
A formal plan for park dedication at Ambleside will be released before the year is over, according to district parks director Anne Mooi.
"I haven't heard any plans that this council or any future council is going to all of a sudden vote to build a warehouse or something down there. We've spent tens of millions of dollars acquiring those lands for public use," Mayor Michael Smith said.
The exact shape and mass of the businesses that might occupy Ambleside Park is somewhat vague, according to a few councillors.
A restaurant in the area would be limited to 560 square metres and any bar would be capped at 75 seats. No similar specifics were offered in the case of a childcare facility or equipment rental shop.
Several councillors called for greater precision and explanation in the case of those limits.
"Seventy-five seats? Where did we get those numbers from?" asked Coun. Mary-Ann Booth.
Within council guidelines, the laws of supply and demand will ultimately decide just how big or small the waterfront establishments become, Smith said. "I trust the marketplace," he said.
Smith also vented at the bureaucracy council needs to wade through to move forward.
"Sometimes I think I landed in North Korea, some of the controls people want to put on what happens in our community," he said.
Coun. Michael Lewis was absent from the meeting.
