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REVIEW RICHMONDREVIEW.COM
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2014
36 PAGES
Investment company buys 1% of Richmond 324.5 acre Gilmore Estates was put on market for $55 million last year by Martin van den Hemel Staff Reporter
The victim was found between a line of trees and the backyard fences to homes on Regina Avenue.
Shooting shocks school neighbourhood Man was found with bullet wounds early Thursday morning by Martin van den Hemel Staff Reporter Early Thursday morning gunfire near R.C. Talmey Elementary on Kilby Drive, northwest of Cambie and No. 4 Road, ended with one man dead and police with a murder mystery. The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team has identified the victim in what they are describing as a targeted shoot-
ing. But they won’t release the man’s name until his family have been notified. One area resident was studying when he heard four shots ring out all too close to his backyard fence around 12:30 a.m. Thursday. The victim was found between a line of trees and the backyard fences to homes on Regina Avenue. “I told my mom to turn off the lights,” the man said Thursday morning, shortly before he was interviewed by two sharply dressed plainclothes officers who looked like they’d been pulled straight from an episode of the TV crime drama Law & Order. A few seconds after hearing the gun-
fire, he peeked outside and saw a white truck or SUV speed off from a parking spot in front of a home at the corner of Regina Avenue and Kilby Drive, heading south. “It was pretty scary,” he said. “Nothing like this has happened before.” Another area resident, who was out for a walk Thursday, said her bedroom window was open a crack and she heard four loud shots. “It actually scared me awake,” the new mother said. Another neighbour said he initially thought the four bangs were Halloween firecrackers. See Page 3
A huge chunk of Richmond has now sold after decades of trying. The Gilmore Estates, which comprise 324.5 acres—about one per cent of Richmond’s landmass on Lulu Island and Sea Island— south of Steveston Highway and between No. 4 Road and Shell, encompasses 10 legal titles and boasts 800 feet of waterfront. It was listed by Colliers International for $55 million in 2013, which in a four-page brochure described the lot as representing “one per cent of the entire land area of the City of Richmond.” The Review learned this week that the property was officially sold, but not by Colliers. It was sold to Peterson Group, which did not return repeated requests for comment. How much did it sell for? That remains a mystery. Peterson’s CEO, Ben Yeung, who was a dentist before turning his interests to real estate, could not be reached for comment. Yeung is described on his company’s website, at petersonbc. com: “Ben’s vision has extended Peterson’s reach to overseas partnerships which have created the Shangri-la Vancouver and Shangri-la Toronto, icons as creative, mixed-used properties and in the skyline defining architecture.” Yeung, who sits on the board of the VGH and UBC Hospital Foundation, is credited with leading Peterson to “invest, manage and/or develop over nine million square feet of projects from new downtown office towers to urban shopping centres to some of Canada’s most iconic urban residential addresses. Between 2009 and 2013, Peterson has completed new residential and mixed-use projects totalling 3.7 million square feet,” the company website says. According to Richmond, Child of the Fraser, by Leslie J. Ross, efforts were made to remove the Gilmore Estates from the Agricultural Land Reserve in 1979, a bid rejected by Richmond council. Another bid was made to rezone the area, currently zoned AG-1 Agricultural District, into a golf course in 1989, but that was also rejected. The property had been owned by Gilmore Estates Ltd. since 1974 and comprises nine civic addresses. Much of the land is leased out to farmers as well as the occupants of six houses. See Page 3
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