Opinion: Given Vancouver’s housing crisis, should the city council consider proposals that are out of step with existing rules and policies, against planners’ advice? The Council weighs that question this week.
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City of Vancouver staff is presenting a couple of outlier development proposals to the city council this week, which would produce hundreds of homes that do not meet city standards and policies.
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This week’s council agenda includes a pair of reports on two downtown developments proposed by major firms: an Intracorp two-tower proposal with condominiums, rental homes and child care in the 800 block of Thurlow in the edge of the West End, and a proposal by Reliance Properties for a 47-story rental tower in the 600 block of Thurlow, in the central business district.
The two proposals are, in many ways, similar to many other development projects that the Vancouver council considers every month at its regular meetings and public hearings. But these two are different: Both proposals are out of step with existing city policies and rules, so the fact that the council is looking at them is somewhat unusual.
Staff is seeking direction from the council on whether to begin processing rezoning applications from real estate developers. If the council directs staff this week to move forward with one or both of the rezoning requests, that would simply move the process forward: Any final decisions would be made by a future council later, after open houses and public hearings. If the council rejects the proposals this week, it looks like it will be the end of them, at least in their current form.
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Reliance Properties seeks to replace a two-story parking lot on Thurlow Street with a 47-story tower with retail space, offices and 484 rental homes, 104 of which the developer describes as “workforce housing” with below-market rents set to be affordable for households earning between $39,200 and $78,500 a year.
Reliance has obtained letters of support for the project from the presidents of BC restaurant chains, construction companies and ambulance paramedics. They all echo the familiar refrain of Vancouver-area employers, their workers unable to find adequate housing near their jobs and forced to make long commutes.
“We are forcing our essential workers to leave the city they spend their days supporting. They deserve and need more housing options close to where they work,” wrote the owner of the St. Regis Hotel, urging the city to support Reliance’s rezoning request.
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Reliance CEO Jon Stovell said he has been trying to move the project forward for about two years and is glad it will at least see a public broadcast this week when the council considers it. Many of the proposed developments, he said, tend to be “quietly weeded out at the research stage by staff.”
Stovell said he’s “disappointed” that city planning staff won’t support his proposal, but hopes that after it comes before council this week, they’ll “understand the benefits” and agree to at least let the project be considered. .
But city planners say there are good reasons not to move forward on Reliance’s rezoning proposal. The staff report to the council this week explains that in 2009, a previous council restricted residential development in the central business district “to provide key commercial space in the core of Metro… The reintroduction of residential uses in this commercial center key could destabilize land values in the area and make commercial development less viable.”
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“The proposal significantly contravenes board-approved policy and ignores the public trust and the board’s established policy framework,” the staff report says, adding that Reliance’s proposal “has not shown sufficient justification for deviating from the existing policies.
With Vancouver’s rental vacancy rate chronically low and rents on the rise, the City Council has fallen behind its own goals to build more rental housing. But that’s not because the council rejects the projects, the current council has approved nearly every rezoning request that has come before them.
In March 2021, Mayor Kennedy Stewart took the unusual step of publicly asking city staff to produce a spreadsheet listing all housing proposals in the pre-application stage. At the time, Stewart said he wanted to find a way to eliminate that “backlog” of thousands of homes that developers want to build, particularly for rents and below-market rental housing in the pipeline.
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Stewart told Postmedia in April 2021 that she would like to see more residential development proposals come to the council for decision, even those that staff don’t fully support: “And then the staff make their case, the developers make their case.” and then the council makes the decision. as a democratic body should do.
In the other default proposal coming to the council this week, Intracorp wants to build two towers at Thurlow and Haro streets: a 56-story building with 443 condo units and a 14-story building with 66 market-rent residential units. insured, and a 49-bed childcare facility to be delivered turnkey to the city.
The report going to council says that in city staff’s preliminary review of the Intracorp proposal, they found it “deviates significantly” from the height limitations set forth in the city’s sight protection guidelines, and would project shadows on Robson Street in violation of existing rules.
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The report outlines “the City’s existing policy to protect prominent views of the downtown skyline, the North Shore Mountains, and the waterfront for the benefit of current and future residents, and outlines the importance of sunlight to pedestrian activity in Robson Street”.
Stovell, the CEO of Reliance, says there’s a disconnect between politicians who publicly say they want more rental homes built and “the planning bureaucracy that just looks at their big policy bible and says ‘No, no, you won’t spend ‘”.
“There is a real problem, a built-in resistance to innovation, to change, to problem solving,” he said.
Stovell estimated that there could be dozens of projects in Vancouver that, like his, could contribute to some of the city’s goals, but don’t comply with all of the existing rules.
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Depending on what the council decides this week, Stovell expects more such applications will begin to come in, he said. “I guess the developers are watching and waiting.”
On the one hand, replacing an old parking lot with hundreds of rental homes seems like a relatively simple and attractive proposition. But it’s not an easy decision: should council members, none of whom are certified planners, go against the advice of their expert planning staff to allow a developer to build what they want? Or, given the current housing crisis, is that kind of innovative thinking and leadership needed?
