Kutenai Landing developer in trouble over Kamloops project
By Nelson Daily Editor
By Timothy Schafer, The Nelson Daily
A story in the Kamloops This Week has suggested a project by Kutenai Landing developer New Future Building Group in Kamloops is in trouble.
The 54 units to be constructed in the first phase of the Mission Hill development — being built by Mike Rink and the New Future Building Group — are not on track, the newspaper reported Tuesday.
The phase one completion date has come and gone — originally July, 2009 with an extension to July 2010 — and the units are far from being ready. Rink has not said when phase one will be finished.
Rink asked for a similar extension in Nelson with the Kutenai Landing project in August of 2009. Citing a downturn in the economy, Rink received a two-year extension on the completion date of all phases of the project — and the re-zoning bylaw was re-opened for a third time and was passed without a public hearing.
Phase one was to have been completed by October of 2010, but the developers had just ‘resurrected’ their sales office on the site in order last summer to begin pre-selling units, said City director of corporate services, Linda Tynan, at the time.
She said the developers, New Future Building Group of Kamloops, did not have the financing in place yet to build because their product has not moved forward.
One year ago New Future Building Group’s sales manager Joel Desaulniers said the initial sales recorded for Kutenai Landing when the sales office first opened in Nelson Oct. 3 dropped from 24 to 20 — 12 units shy of the 50 per cent sales needed to arrange financing for the first phase of construction.
At the time, construction of the Nelson project was to be done by Northstar Builders, Desaulniers confirmed. Although the company was rumoured to be filing for bankruptcy, it was nothing more than a rumour, Desaulniers explained.
In Kamloops, Rink told Kamloops This Week bank lenders decided to suspend funding until they reviewed the project, based on changes in the market and extra costs incurred.
Doug Wittal, first vice-president of the Canadian Home Builders Association of B.C., noted New Future Building Group was not a member of the association, the KTW reported.
“It’s important for any project to be successful because it can give the town a bad name,” Wittal said.
With files from the Kamloops This Week.
