Some residents are outraged by the site chosen for a new housing project for low-income seniors in Chase. – Salmon Arm News

The Village of Chase held an information session on the upcoming senior housing development on October 24th.

About 40 people attended the meeting to hear from the Oncore Seniors Society, which is working with BC Housing on the project.

Mayor David Lepso, County Jane Herman and Coun. Colin Connett was also present.

The project is planned as a four-story, 37-unit building that will be a mix of subsidized and market-rate housing near the hockey arena at 221 Shepherd Rd.

However, not everyone is satisfied with the future development of events.

“I think it was horrible,” resident Kim Campbell said. “The village didn’t have to give it away because it was only donated for recreational purposes.”

“The person who donated the land was named Henry Grube, and it was guaranteed to be for recreational purposes only,” he added.

He also said he didn’t like the village giving the land to BC Housing for free and said he wanted the village to hold a referendum on the issue.

Village of Chase Chief Administrative Officer Joni Heinrich said the meeting went fairly well, with only a minority of people upset about the project.

“Some people said they didn’t like that they were giving away donated land,” she explained. “Actually the land wasn’t donated, the land was actually originally sold by Henry Grube.”

Heinrich said the land was sold by Grube to the Thompson-North Okanagan Regional District for about $15,000 in the 1980s.

In response, the TNRD gave the land to Chase with a land agreement stating that it was to be a recreation area.

In 2021, the mayor, with the approval of the village council, petitioned the TNRD to ask them to remove the covenant from the property to allow the project to move forward, and the TNRD granted the request.

“There is no deal now,” Heinrich said. “Once that approval is finalized by our council … we will adopt a rezoning bylaw, then the deed will be replaced for the rest of the land.”

Another complaint Campbell and some other residents have is how the project could affect parking near the arena.

“It’s going to be a really bad parking situation,” he said. “It will be a real cluster.”

Campbell believes the retirement housing project should have been built elsewhere in the city.

“It just doesn’t make sense to me that they want to put it there and not where all the senior housing complexes are already,” he said.

Campbell said he believes they should have chosen either Wilson Park or the vacant Chase Primary as the site for the project.

Joni Heinrich said she knew Campbell and several others were unhappy with the location, but she said it was considered the “least terrible” of the available sites for the project.

“Land is becoming a premium everywhere,” she added.

Zoning amendments needed to implement the project are expected to be on the agenda at one of the village council’s November meetings.