A policy requiring large offices to be located in downtown London has complicated a plan by local tech giant CARFAX Canada to relocate to Westmount Commons Mall. On Tuesday, the Planning and Environment Committee (PEC) was asked by a consultant to defer a decision about rezoning more of the shopping mall into office space (22,500 m2) until CARFAX Canada provides, “a suitable level of tenant commitment in support of the proposed Official Plan and Zoning By-law Amendments.” Westmount Commons was purchased last year by Farhi Holdings. City staff recommend the application be refused because of a policy that directs, “large-scale office developments, greater than 5,000m2, to the Downtown to prevent the deterioration of the important Downtown office market while still allowing for a reasonable supply of office uses outside of the Downtown.” Councillors attending the PEC meeting sparred over the potential implications to Downtown London and the local job market. Coun. Paul Van Meerbergen argued that the committee’s focus should be on keeping 600 existing jobs, plus 200 in a planned expansion, within the city, “And we’re going to jeopardize that through some kind of slavish devotion to some kind of bureaucratic regulation or rigid rules? That just doesn’t cut it for the people of London!” CARFAX Canada is a vehicle history and valuation service that is currently located at 100 Kellogg Lane. Van Meerbergen, whose ward includes Westmount Commons, speculated that CARFAX Canada would leave London if it doesn’t get permission to relocate to the mall. “Business decides what it needs, and if business decides that it has to tick several boxes and they can’t find it in London, Ontario (then) they will simply move,” he warned. “What a disaster that would be, 800 jobs going bye-bye.” “The sky is falling argument is not going to work,” countered Downtown Coun. David Ferreira. Ferreira argued that council should uphold the current policy that directs large offices to the downtown, or else other companies might make similar requests of Council. “We should realize the precedent that will be set will hurt downtown forever. Let’s not make the same mistakes that happened 30, 40-plus years ago. We need to be decisive right now,” he urged. Coun. Sam Trosow reminded colleagues that the staff recommendation is based on existing policies, “We just went through a long process of doing a downtown plan, and one of the recurring themes that keeps coming up is the vacancy rate is too high downtown, and here we have a commercial tenant that can help alleviate that.” The committee recommended deferring the issue to a future committee meeting. “We need firsthand information where we stand as a city (with CARFAX Canada),” explained Coun. Jerry Pribil. “We cannot lose them. Do we prefer downtown? Yes, but we need this information.” The office vacancy rate in downtown London exceeds 30 per cent. Council will make a final decision on July 21.
