Another craft brewery may open in Port Coquitlam.
Yesterday, Sept. 3, the city’s committee of council renewed a development permit for a landowner who plans to construct a four-unit industrial building on a highly visible property: at the corner of Mary Hill Bypass and Kingsway Avenue.
City planner Graeme Muir said when council OK’d the property rezoning in 2019, the proposal was to turn one of the units into a craft brewery for up to 50 patrons, with a small outdoor patio, while the other three units would be leased.
That’s still the plan, Muir told the committee, noting the owner is “trying to make it work based on the costs.”
Muir said the applicant ran into financial difficulties and delays during the Covid-19 lockdowns, after the PoCo committee approved the development permit in June 2020.
With the pandemic over, he sought permission to extend his permit from June 2022 to December 2025 to build the two-storey structure on the triangular-shaped parcel at 1161 Kingsway Ave., which is surrounded by general and heavy industrial sites and impacted by the BC Hydro right of way.
Cleared in anticipation of the new development, the property is kitty-corner to the Chevron gas station and is fronted by the Traboulay PoCo Trail.
This week, the committee unanimously approved the permit extension and minor changes to the building design and landscaping.
Currently, Port Coquitlam has the craft breweries Patina, North Paw, Tinhouse, PoCo Brothers and Taylight. Boardwalk Brewing recently closed and Hastings Mill Brewing plans to make its way to 3110-580 Nicola Ave.
In other PoCo news:
Also on Tuesday, the city’s committee advanced a rezoning bid to council to consider a childcare facility expansion in a northside strip mall.
Dream Builders Early Learning Centre, by the Save-On-Foods grocery store at 1470 Prairie Ave., wants to double the size of its new facility into the adjacent unit and provide childcare for 74 infants and toddlers — instead of its current allowable size for 37 kids.
Coun. Steve Darling questioned the location of the new outdoor playground for the facility — on the eastern side of Save-On-Foods — that will be across the street from Firehall #2.
But Bruce Irvine, PoCo’s director of development services, said neither the provincial Building Code nor Fraser Health, which licenses childcare centres, has guidelines on outdoor noise limits.
Irvine also clarified the operators have consulted with Save-On-Foods about the proposed expansion and their wish to use its storefront pathway to get kids to the playground, as the mall’s delivery trucks use the back lane.
A public hearing is scheduled for later this month.
Fish-bearing creek
A previously unmapped watercourse on a large Port Coquitlam property that’s about to be subdivided will soon link with Watkins Creek.
And with the new connection will come fish, city staff say.
On Tuesday, the city’s committee of council unanimously voted for a watercourse development permit bid from HY Engineering to change, upgrade and protect the watercourse that’s partially on 1160 Victoria Dr., where 27 new lots are planned, as well as on a portion of an adjacent unopened road and the Hyde Creek Nature Reserve.
City planner Bryan Sherrell said the watercourse realignment would also create better riparian areas for wildlife and potentially open up more space for development.
He said the link to Watkins Creek, which has been approved by federal and provincial agencies, would be through a culvert under Lynnwood Avenue and would lift the unnamed watercourse to a Class A fish-bearing designation — a move supported by the Hyde Creek Watershed Society (HCWS).
Coun. Nancy McCurrach suggested the city hold a celebration once the watercourse is connected while Coun. Darrell Penner recommended a naming contest, as the HCWS did years ago with Watkins Creek (it is named after two brothers).
