After years of back and forth, the Grosvenor development for the 1300-block of Marine Drive won majority approval at West Vancouver council on Monday night.
The 4-2 vote in favour was less surprising than the fact that two councillors, Craig Cameron and Nora Gambioli, continued to hold out for a less massive edifice as the gateway to Ambleside.
The money from the sale will go towards building a new public safety building to house the West Vancouver Police Department and Fire and Rescue.
Throughout the years-long public process, we heard again and again that this development - and only this development - would revitalize Ambleside. But as critics pointed out, Ambleside would be revitalized with a smaller, more palatable building. This was never about revitalization. That was just the pitch.
The fact is, council did whatever it could to build a new cop/fire station without requiring current voters to pay for it while Grosvenor sought to maximize potential profit. The tortuous approval process saw the site given: a special but vague designation in West Vancouver's new OCP; open houses where the public could play with - but not remove - building blocks; and the ultimate red flag, a separated OCP and rezoning public process.
West Vancouver's leaders worship at the altar of no tax increases. If the majority of council was absolutely convinced that selling the land had to be done to preserve their religion, they should have at least put the police station on the open market and sought different bids and ideas, rather than accepting the first offer and passing off window dressing as a serious public process.
