Council won’t need to once again debate the merits of a proposed banquet hall south on Marshall Road after the project’s developers withdrew a lawsuit relating to the 2015 rejection of the proposal.
A numbered company had sought to build a 600-seat banquet hall in an industrial area off of Marshall Road, south of Highway 1, near Clearbrook Road. The proposal was for light industrial on the building’s ground floor and a banquet hall above.
Council approved the plan on Sept. 28 by a 5-4 vote. But a week later, at the next council meeting, Coun. Dave Loewen – who had voted in favour of the project – asked council to reconsider the proposal. At that meeting, Loewen said he hadn’t given enough consideration to a staff report presented to council that referred to difficulties with such mixed-use sites in Surrey. He then cast a vote against the proposal, leading to the project’s defeat.
In a statement of claim filed following their project’s rejection, the developers said the staff report referred to by Loewen and Coun. Ross Siemens, who also voted against the project, was inaccurate in its description of the Surrey zoning bylaws and thus that the city’s decision was flawed and should be thrown out by the court.
In its response, the city said staff had consulted with the City of Surrey and that the report’s summary of that municipality’s experience was accurate.
On June 23, more than a year after the lawsuit was launched, the plaintiffs withdrew their lawsuit. Neither side will be required to pay costs.