UBCO's proposed tower in downtown Kelowna is headed to city council on Monday

The proposed 46-storey UBCO campus in downtown Kelowna is finally headed to Kelowna City Council on Monday.

City council will only be giving initial consideration to the zoning amendment application for the property located at 550 Doyle Avenue.

A new zoning is being recommended for this large, complex proposal. City staff are calling it the CD 28 – University of British Columbia Downtown Campus zone.

The report headed to city council on July 11 explains that this new zoning would allow for the “orderly” and “comprehensive” development of the proposed campus building.

At the end of June, UBCO unveiled “bold new plans” for the campus. UBC Properties Trust submitted a zoning application mid-June that included the increase in height.

Those additional plans showed a two-storey grand atrium with eight storeys above dedicated to academic space which would include hospital-like wards to train nursing students.

The remaining 36 storeys would be dedicated to residential space, providing over 500 units to UBCO faculty and students.

There would be underground parking, a cafe, public art gallery, public engagement suite to encourage community-based research and public/private amenity space facing onto the surrounding streets.

“A regulation requiring 80% of Doyle Ave and 75% of St Paul St to be active commercial, cultural, educational, or civic space has been included to promote beneficial interaction between public and private space at grade,” explain Kelowna planning staff.

More plans detailing the building’s sustainability standards are also included in the report headed to city council on Monday.

This includes a south-facing solar wall which will help provide heat to the building in the winter. A system will extract energy from hot shower drain water to help with heating as well. The plans indicate that greywater will be recycled on site and ground source heat exchange.

City staff’s report explains that a reduction in parking requirements is proposed for this customized CD 28 zone.

“The proposed parking rates are 0.2 space per studio, 0.3 space per 1-bedroom, and 0.5 space per 2-bedroom,” explain planning staff in their report.

“To support the reduced vehicular parking, the applicant has provided long term bicycle storage at the rate of 1 space per bedroom for a total of 603 long term bicycle spaces.”

As for the commercial spaces, the developers are proposing 1.0 spaces per 100 m2, 1.8 spaces for education services and 0.5 space for office uses.

To make up for the reduction in vehicle parking, the developers are proposing more than 600 long-term bike spaces. City staff add that the location is close to a number of transit routes.

Kelowna City Council is only considering amendments to the zoning, the height of the building, increased density and the parking reduction. Any other consideration will be done at a later date.