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Condo building waits until Lougheed Highway study done

Maple Ridge plotting future of transportation corridor
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Maple Ridge council has delayed a condo project on 203rd Street for a year. (Contributed)

Maple Ridge council has delayed a condo development for 203rd Street and Patterson Avenue until the city’s Lougheed Transit Corridor Study is completed in about a year from now.

Council voted 5-2 to defer the project at its Tuesday meeting, when residents spoke out against the project and the Hammond area plan, which allows development in the area.

The building would have about 82 units, ranging from bachelor suites to three-bedroom units, and fits with the city’s new Hammond area plan, which charts out the area’s future development.

That plan, completed in 2017, calls for medium-density residential development along major corridors such as 203rd St.

If eventually approved, the complex would be a short walk from one of the few stops, 203rd St., for the new B-Line bus service that’s expected to start late this year.

“There’s going to be a station at some point very close to where this site is,” Mayor Mike Morden said.

That will require staff to sort out the effects of that.

Morden added that 203rd St. “is clearly an arterial route and it has been for many years.”

Coun. Judy Dueck argued for deferral of the project and wanted to wait until the Lougheed Highway study was complete.

But Coun. Gordy Robson, wanted the project defeated and said the application was premature, adding that issues around roads, parking and transportation need to be settled first.

Coun. Ahmed Yousef also voted against deferral.

Staff told council that a commercial lot just north of the property on Lougheed Highway recently sold and will be developed as retail.

Hammond resident Greg Buerk said previously that increased traffic created by the new development would be “horrendous.

“Our subdivision is quiet with a very low crime rate. All that will be lost if this development goes ahead,” he said earlier.