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Residents fight plan to subdivide estate
SENTINEL HILL homeowners don’t want a piece

of neighborhood estate property subdivided and
they’ve taken their beef te West Van District for

help. |

Residents are upset with an
application by Guaranty
Trust, executors of the estate
at 963 Anderson Crescent, to
break up a single, large lot in-
to three smaller properties.

: By CHARLES MAYE. |

Although’ under the cur-
rent zoring the property can
be legally subdivided, those

residents opposing the sub-
division fear ‘‘decay of the
character and quality”’ of the
neighborhood.

West Van council’s dilem-
ma, is that if the municipality
does give in to the petitioners
to change the zoning in the
area to block the proposed
subdivision, a large number

of currently conforming lots

unny-afternoons brought people to the beaches ducing the

in’ the few

Joy more ‘st shine: ;

would become
conforming.

This non-conforming
status would come about if
the protesting homeowners
got West Van to upgrade
Sentinel Hill’s neighborhood
zoning from RS-5 to a RS-3
designation.

Under the new zoning the
minimum lot size would in-

non-

crease from 6,000 square feet
to 12,000 square feet. [t
would mean 35 of 42 proper-
ties would not fit the new
zone.

West Van planning staff,
after examining implications
of the rezoning concluded it
has ‘‘been unable to find any
clear rationale for rezoning
the properties ...°”

* NEWS photo lan Smith

past week, ‘but fog is forecast

rings, so the silhouetted children seen here taking advan-
tage.of- the Ambleside playground. Facilities may. have to wait awhile before they can en-

. Suggested by

David Birnie, a Sentinel
Hill resident, disagreed and
said that any subdivision
would have a detrimental im-
pact on the neighborhood.

He argued that if council
doesn’t stop the intended
subidvision, it could result in
other propertics following
suit and applying for subdivi-
sion approval which would
further negatively impact the
area,

West Van's planning staff,
though, said rezoning to
RS-3 ‘‘to impose a minimum
lot size and width that is
higher than most existing lots
in the neighborhood still does
not seem warranted.”

Arthur Peaker, a Sentinel
Hill homeowner, said that
subdivision of the large cor-
ner lot into three properties
amounts to ‘‘deliberate ex-
ploitation of the larger
residential sites.”

He suggested perhaps West

Van should show greater in-

terest and ‘‘concern"’ in con-
trolling just what type of
houses are ‘‘inserted into
established localities.’

If West Van was to go
ahead and increase the
minimum iot size designation
for Sentinel Hill, those pro-
perties classified non-
conforming (35 houses) could
be in trouble if at any time

‘the owners wanted ta — or

had to — rebuild or add an
addition to their existing
structure.

That's because the increas-
ed lot size description (12,000
square feet) also requires an
increase in the sideyard set-
back (16 feet) and frontyard
setback (30 feet),

A possible compromise
West Van's
planning staff is to rezone to
RS-4 instead of RS-3.

In effect, this would still
make 22 lots non-
conforming, but 20 of the re-
tnaining = properiies would
mect the zone criteria,

Bad news for the peti-
tioners, however, is that the
property at 963) Anderson
Crescent would still qnalify
for subdivision into two
properties.