With the building permit issued for 441 Trunk Road, fences went up and the earth started moving to begin construction on the proposed Copper Spirit Distillery. The project’s proponent, Miguel Kabantsov, says he is pleased to be in the construction phase but is still feeling frustrated by the time and cost it has taken to get to this stage.
Kabantsov made his first permit application for this project in October, 2014. Based on the building’s proposed size, he was told that he would need to provide 10 parking spaces. Kabantsov negotiated that down to six, based on the fact that most of the building would be warehouse-type space. This left him requiring five more spaces, given that there was only room for one spot along the street beside the proposed building.
“From there, I tried all kinds of ideas including a proposed, shuttle, bike racks, an EV charging station, I even offered to lease land for parking,” says Kabantsov. “Then someone proposed that I pay $20,000 for each parking spot I could not provide.”
Kabantsov says paying $100,000 to the municipality would have made the project un-viable, so the negotiations continued. In July of 2016, he proposed the inclusion of two one bedroom apartments into his building proposal, and a contribution of $40,000 to the Municipal Parking Reserve.
Since then, the plan has shifted to include three one-bedroom apartments, two of which will be under an affordable housing contract, and a contribution of $40,000 to the Municipal Parking Reserve.
Kabantsov says that including residential units as part of his project posed a challenge, as that it is against the building code to combine a distillery with housing.
“We hired a code-consultant to come up with a design that would be acceptable to the building inspector,” he says. “So this will be the only distillery in British Columbia, or maybe even Canada, to have residential units.”
Kabantsov says that now that construction is underway, he is focused on doing everything he can to make up for time lost in negotiating with the municipality over the parking and other project details.
“I hope to be in production by next January or February, that’s my goal,” he says. “Hopefully, this will turn out to be a viable business that will also be good for this community.”
