Buying Diamond Mountain properties ‘the right decision’ for city, developer says

KELOWNA – Troika Developments is out $2 million after the sale of Diamond Mountain but is still enthusiastic about the future of that land next to the Glenmore Landfill.

“The city is going to have to do some really serious looking at their planning and what they want for that area,” Troika Chief Executive Officer Renee Wasylyk told iNFOnews.ca. “In the meantime, I think it was the right decision. They can’t make landowners simply wait because they don’t know what they’re doing in-perpetuity.”

The City of Kelowna is spending $11.9 million to buy 189 acres south of the landfill to serve as a buffer instead of being developed.

Troika started working on plans for the area in 2006. That culminated in a proposal for 1,000 homes that was rejected by city council last year with councillors saying it was too close to the landfill. It cost the developer about $2 million, Wasylyk said.

“It’s money that just goes away,” she said. “It’s the risk of development. That’s why it’s not for everybody.”

Troika was in a joint venture with the two land-owning groups that sold to the city and will get only a “very insignificant” amount of compensation from the sale.

Wasylyk hopes the city makes a major shift from burying garbage in the landfill to “a completely renewable living laboratory,” in conjunction with the neighbouring University of B.C. – Okanagan by converting refuse to energy.

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