Richmond property once owned by former premier Bill Vander Zalm now the subject of rezoning application
Larry Pynn
Sun
Fantasy Garden World, the Richmond theme park once owned by former premier Bill Vander Zalm and now fallen into disrepair, could soon be redeveloped.
Rick Ilich’s Townline Homes has received the unanimous support of Richmond’s planning committee for first reading of a request to rezone the site, at No. 5 Road and Steveston Highway, from botanical garden and service station to comprehensive development.
The 8.5-hectare site would be developed for multiple uses, including 550 housing units.
More than half the site is agricultural land and would be developed as a public botanical park and urban gardens.
The potential also exists for a boutique grocery store, a pharmacy, medical/dental offices, one or two restaurants, and one coffee shop.
An estimated 25 to 50 affordable units would be included, along with a child-care facility.
Vander Zalm paid $1.7 million in 1984 for the property and sold it for $16 million in 1991 to billionaire Tan Yu’s Asiaworld (Canada) Development Corp. The family of the late Tan Yu put the property up for sale in 2007.
Vander Zalm resigned as premier in 1991 after four and a half years in office when a provincial conflict-of-interest report found he had mixed private business with his public office in the sale of the gardens.
He was charged with criminal breach of trust but found not guilty in B.C. Supreme Court in 1992.
The court ruled that while Vander Zalm had put himself in a conflict of interest, he was not a criminal.
Richmond‘s planning committee has asked staff to see if the castle on the property, a replica of British-born Capt. George Vancouver’s ancestral home in Coevorden in the northeastern Netherlands, which was donated by the Dutch for Expo 86, could be spared during the redevelopment.
Vander Zalm bought the castle and had it barged in 1987 to Fantasy Garden World.
Neither Vander Zalm nor Ilich could be reached Friday.
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