Lest anyone think it is only foreign investors from mainland China buying and holding land with no immediate development plans in a market starved for supply, think again.

One of the longest-held chunks of land in B.C. history was purchased by a “syndicate of British capitalists” almost 85 years ago and is slowly being dribbled out onto the market.

The company continues to hold more than 2,000 acres of land in exclusive West Vancouver, where some of Canada’s most expensive homes are built on sprawling terraces cut into the side of the North Shore mountains.

British Pacific Properties has been sitting on this land since 1931 when, backed by money from the Guinness family of beer fame, it acquired 4,000 acres of land from Capilano River to Horseshoe Bay.

It only paid $75,000 and committed to invest $1 million in infrastructure to purchase the sweeping piece of property.

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To view historical and current photos of the British Properties land deal and developments, click here. Or, if you're on a mobile device, tap the story image and swipe.

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“British Pacific Properties is a B.C. registered company,” said president Geoff Croll, who joined the company last year. “Our first president, A.J. Taylor, was born and grew up in Victoria. It has always been run as a local company with investment from overseas.”

The company built the Lions Gate Bridge in 1938 and Park Royal Shopping Centre in 1950. It spent many relatively quiet years selling lots of land to other developers and building single-family homes mostly in and around the area known as the British Properties.

In more recent years, the company has been slowly developing land it owns further west. It has also been adding townhomes, condos and duplexes to its mix.

“We changed with the community to offer a wider diversity of housing,” said Croll.

When the company started looking at developing its Rodgers Creek area, which it is doing in slow phases, “it was the first time since the 1930s that we looked at a community plan.”

Only 13 per cent of the total 736 homes slated for Rodgers Creek will include single-family homes, with the rest being apartments and condos, said Croll.

The company is showing off its new developments, including Aston Hill, which has 20 duplexes, approximately 3,700-square feet each, selling for up to $3.4 million. So far, 12 have been sold. Later this year, it will roll out eight single-family homes and apartment units in another development called Mulgrave Park.

Next up, there has been renewed attention on the company’s moves as the district of West Vancouver decides what to do with a large swath of undeveloped hillside land that sits above the highway between the British Properties and Cypress Provincial Park.

This area, known as the Upper Lands, is 6,000 acres in total, of which British Pacific Properties owns about 2,000 acres.

About half of this is above the 1,200-foot elevation line, which for ecological reasons cannot be developed into residential properties.

So far, the general plan is to concentrate density in small nodes surrounded by parkland and then to connect these with roads and pedestrian paths, said Croll. There is also talk of a village of commercial offerings such as restaurants and shops at the base of Cypress Mountain.

Because British Pacific Properties owns most of the land below the 1,200-foot mark, it has about 1,000 acres or so left to develop, which the company has said it plans to do over the next few decades. It’s a timetable that depends as much on the wishes of the community as it does the market, according to the company.

It’s still a sizable piece that is around the area of Stanley Park. The only comparable is a 1,169-acre plot in Mission that is co-owned by Genstar Development Company and Madison Development Company. They backed out of developing the property earlier this year and Colliers International is listing the property.

Colliers agent Morgan Dyer said there is no set asking price for the Mission property, with buyers being asked to lob in bids after assessing its development potential.

jlee-young@vancouversun.com