Kelowna diamond baron loses bid to prevent condo development next to his lakefront home

One of Kelowna’s wealthiest persons has lost a last-ditch effort to prevent his Okanagan Lake waterfront neighbours from building a multi-residential housing complex alongside his single-family home.

According to a recently-released Court of Appeal for B.C. ruling, Charles Edgar Fipke’s appeal of an earlier court decision to reject a judicial review of another court decision against him and in favour of the City of Kelowna and Aqua Resort Ltd. had been rejected.

Fipke, who is credited with discovering commercial quantities of diamonds in the Northwest Territories, bought his home in the Mission Creek area south of downtown Kelowna in 2006. Two years later, Mission Group Enterprises bought up several of his neighbouring properties and in 2021 won the right from the city to turn that into three towers comprising 344 units – marketed as the Aqua Waterfront Village.

One of the towers will be 13-storeys high and be built right alongside Fipke’s home.