Chris Clement ‘Pushing Ahead’ With Artisan Village Project in ChemainusChris Clement has been building homes in Chemainus for three decades and he isn’t about to slow down.
It has been a terrific relationship for Clement and the Chemainus community, but it hasn’t been without challenges testing the patience of a man who worked with his father on his first housing projects 33 years ago.
Currently, Clement is working on the long-anticipated Artisan Village project, a development Clement has been attempting to get above ground for about 15 years after acquiring the land from the Oswald Smith Foundation.
The developer has completed a phase of the original concept on the north side, a 16-unit project with patio homes and four-plexes and he is nearing completion of another phase to the south that touches on the core Artisan Village property.
But it’s the centre portion of the parcel of land that includes the famous Hermit Trails that has garnered the most attention over the years, dating back to an open house that Clement hosted more than 15 years ago.
“It was a real positive meeting,” Clement recalls. “I think it was the most positive re-zoning the Municipality of North Cowichan ever had in its history.”
The meeting could have gone either way. Held in the Legion Hall, the evening gathering featured a packed house with Chemainus residents curious about what Clement planned to do with the Hermit Trails that have been a beloved walking area and tourist attraction for decades.
Clement pledged to protect the trails in his initial presentation, and he hasn’t changed his position over the years despite fears that surfaced as recently as four years ago.
In 2022, Clement told reporter Don Bodger that the famed Chemainus Hermit Trails will be retained in a response to social media claims that they were being destroyed as the housing developments crept closer.
“The Hermit Trail itself is all going to be saved,” he said. “Some of the trails – not the Hermit trails – are going to be rerouted.
“By all means there will be no damage to the Hermit trails,” Clement stressed. “They are very important to me,” he told Bodger in a July 2022 Cowichan Valley Citizen story.
The plan for the Artisan Village project has evolved over the years, and Clement says the concept now includes a mix of housing, retail and a small hotel. There will be a five-storey building and a four-storey building with housing units.
“I would like to see a little community retail area with a little boutique hotel and maybe a bakery and coffee shop. The retail would be about 6,000 square feet.
It has now been almost 20 years since Clement first started talking to the Oswald Smith Foundation – the family behind the development of the Chemainus Theatre Festival – about acquiring the Artisan Village land that was once owned by Karl Schutz, who had planned an ambitious development of his own. Market conditions, zoning challenges and other complications have stalled the project along the way.
“There have been zoning amendments, we’re dealing with the Island Corridor Foundation, and there are more levels of government that you have to go through,” Clement explains, adding there needs to be agreement on how to deal with the intersection leading to the development and the Chemainus baseball fields.
“Everything takes time. North Cowichan is short-staffed and they’re busier than ever. North Cowichan staff has been good but it’s a slow process sometimes.”
But Clement maintains “we’re close” and he intends to focus on the Artisan Village development in the very near future now that a Cobble Hill project is set to proceed.
Clement is arguably the best-liked developer to work in the Chemainus market. He first got involved with building duplexes on Cook Street and Douglas Street. Developments like Mill Creek Estates and the Caswell Street neighbourhood followed.
“I’ve built more than 300 houses in Chemainus, and it’s been a great relationship,” Clement says. “I’m not stopping.”