Yule Heibel’s Post Studio © 2003-2009

Windy

June 2, 2003 at 11:47 pm | In yulelogStories | 2 Comments

Whoa! I spent the better part of the evening at a furious, emotional community meeting that debated the merits of a development proposal in my neighbourhood, the Rockland district of Victoria. High on a hill sits a 110-year-old mansion, originally named Schuhum, a native word for windy place. Mansions aren’t uncommon in Rockland, but this one has acreage, which is indeed rare in a post-subdivision age: over 2 acres. Schuhum has many heritage trees (quercus garryanus) and rock, which is a heritage-protected substance in Rockland. The house came to be known as the Caroline Macklem Home, given in 1950 to the Anglican Church Women of the Diocese of British Columbia by a philanthropist, who presumably needed a tax write-off for a white elephant. The recipients turned the house into an old people’s home, but by 1999, staggering under the expense of upkeep on property like this, they actually gave the house over to a smooth-talking so-called Baron (in reality an American born in Santa Monica, California): the Baron somehow convinced the ladies, perhaps addled from too much sherry, into leasing the house to him for 99 years at $1 per year. Sweet deal.

They did realize relatively quickly that this had been a stupid move, and tried to get the so-called Baron out. But even though he has left the country, he has made enough trouble that the house has to be sold now (at an inflated price of about $2.25million), and lo!, the only buyer currently in sight is a developer with a plan that begins to sound pretty rickety when prodded and poked at. He needs to spend $20 million to turn the estate into an 85-unit independent living complex, complete with several additional buildings squeezed into the 2 acres.

The neighbourhood is having a NIMBY moment, but aside from that unsavoury reflex, the proposal really isn’t a good idea as it stands. The developer doesn’t appear to be playing with a straight deck, and he seems capable of pulling out aces as needed from his shirtsleeves. The only alternative anyone has floated thus far, however, is to build 10 additional single family homes on the site — make the property undergo the process of subdivision — which might alleviate traffic concerns, but which seems a sad and brutal deal for the Windy Place.