The owner of Williams Lake’s Boitanio Mall hopes to market the property for the second floor to be converted into a mixed residential and community care facility and construct a drive-thru restaurant in the southwest corner of the parking lot.
City council received zoning amendment bylaw applications for the two proposals from the mall’s owner Janda Group Holdings and developer ICE Development Ltd. at its regular council meeting Tuesday.
Janda Group representatives Sonny and Jeeven Janda and ICE Development Ltd.’s vice-president Manjit Sohi were in Williams Lake Tuesday to meet with council to discuss their plans.
The proposed drive-thru restaurant would be located at the front west end of the parking lot adjacent to Oliver Street.
Both applications were endorsed by council unanimously and received first reading.
They will now to go to the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure for approval and the applicants will be required to complete a traffic analysis before the applications are brought back for a public hearing on Oct. 3.
Mayor Walt Cobb asked how many vehicles the drive-thru grid would allow for.
“With other drive-thrus in town we have cars backed up to the road and we cannot have that,” Cobb said.
Responding Sonny said the queue actually can hold 14, but the plan only currently shows 10.
“When we do our traffic study we will maybe get more direction on that,” he added.
Coun. Scott Nelson praised the application, saying he appreciated the investment into Williams Lake.
“I think this is a very unique project. I’ve seen this take place across the country in terms of being able to create opportunities where you can have mixed development and bring it to the core of your community that really fits in with what our community is looking for,” Nelson said.
Here council discusses the project during the regular council meeting Tuesday, Aug. 29.