Vancouver city council has deferred a decision on whether to allow a developer to build an 18-storey rental housing tower in a Mount Pleasant neighbourhood populated by a high concentration of heritage houses over concerns related to shadowing of a park.
The proposal from HAVN Developments Ltd. is to redevelop three properties currently occupied by three detached houses in the 100-block of West 11th Ave. and build 165 rental units.
The development would border Major Matthews Park, a tennis-court sized green space on Manitoba Street. The ground floor of the tower would contain a commercial unit. The development calls for three levels of underground parking.
A recent public hearing saw substantial pushback from residents, who complained the project between Columbia and Manitoba streets is out of scale for the area and doesn’t align with the character of the neighbourhood.
Council was expected to make a decision Tuesday on the proposal, but concerns raised by councillors Sarah Kirby-Yung and Lisa Dominato over the tower shadowing the park sent the application back to city staff.
Council’s direction came despite city rezoning planner Chee Chan explaining that it would be “challenging to achieve further reductions in shadowing” because of limitations related to the proximity of the property to the park.
“It will be very difficult to achieve without a significant reduction in height and density on this application,” Chan told council.
'Special consideration'
BIV left phone and email messages this week with the project lead at HAVN Developments Ltd. to understand whether the project is still viable, given council’s concerns. The company did not respond before this story was published.
Kirby-Yung emphasized the need to approve more rental housing in Vancouver but said she can’t recall a time when staff told council that a proposed development would shadow a park from 2 p.m. onwards 365 days of the year.
“This is an incredibly difficult trade-off and consideration for me,” she said.
“It would result in a reduction in some housing units, which I fully believe can be made up on the many other sites and the projects that are coming forward in the Broadway corridor. But I think when you are next to a park, personally, that deserves special consideration.”
Kirby-Yung was also successful in adding another condition to HAVN’s proposal that forces the developer to meet a series of conditions — including adequate sewer and water service, street improvements and new trees planted — within 18 months of council approving the rezoning application.
If the conditions are not met, council’s approval could be terminated, revoked, rescinded or reconsidered at a new public hearing.
'Their backyard'
In an interview following the meeting, Kirby-Yung said she couldn’t recall whether she had ever made such an amendment that defined a timeline for a developer to meet conditions.
“It’s really important that when applicants are bringing these projects forward, that they intend to actually build and deliver that new housing,” she said, noting HAVN didn’t attend the public hearing.
“And I think that despite challenging economic conditions, sometimes we have applicants that are not necessarily attending to deliver that housing in a timely way.”
Added Kirby-Yung: “Council likes to hear from applicants. We want to hear about their plans, how are they going to be good kind of partners in building our city and delivering housing. And we did not hear that from this applicant.”
In the council chamber, Dominato echoed Kirby-Yung’s concerns over the tower shadowing the park and noted council heard “loud and clear” during the creation of the Broadway Plan that citizens valued public amenities such as parks.
“For many people, that is their backyard,” she said. “Not everyone has the benefit of having a single-detached home with a yard and the space to enjoy solar access.”
As Dominato noted, the application falls under the Broadway Plan, which has opened up the Broadway corridor to new developments and allows consideration of 18-storey rental housing towers.
The proposal also aligns with council’s push for more rental housing, with 34 below-market units included in the plan. A staff report said the neighbourhood is well served by transit, located within 700 metres of the Broadway-City Hall Canada Line Station and the future Mount Pleasant Station.
'Directly impacted'
Peter Prince owns a large heritage-style house built in 1910 across the street from the proposed development site. The same property has another house located at the back of the property that Prince believes was built before 1900.
Prince rents both houses.
He told BIV he’s worried about how an 18-storey tower could affect the tree-lined, quiet neighbourhood, citing concerns over an increase in traffic from new residents and visitors of the building.
Prince noted there is no alley behind the proposed tower, meaning all vehicles would be coming in and out of a parkade in front of his property. That would include garbage trucks and other large vehicles expected to service the building.
“They'll be coming up [from the parkade] right here, shining the lights up at the house,” he said, standing in his driveway on the morning before council met to defer HAVN’s application.
“I'm opposed to it not just because I'm a NIMBY. As a NIMBY, that means I'm very sensitive to what's going on in my own environment. I shouldn't be discredited because I'm being directly impacted.”
'Dumb density'
Tenants Jessica and Ian Bell were standing in the driveway with Prince while he was making his arguments against the proposal. Jessica called the project “dumb density,” noting the effect a tower has on community building.
“If you lock people in concrete towers up in the air, they are away from their community,” she said.
“The amazing thing about this community is the street community — the way people talk to each other, how welcoming it is. As soon as you build buildings like this [tower], they are agents of isolation. It's completely preposterous to imagine that this is a solution for livability.”
Monique Poncelet also lives on the block and attended Tuesday’s council meeting. Poncelet told BIV after the meeting that she was happy to see council defer debate and decision on the project until another time; council gave no timeframe on staff reporting back on the project.
“They didn't kill [the project], but they’ve made it so difficult [for the developer],” Poncelet said. “It's going to become so financially not viable that I think what might happen is HAVN is going to drop the project.”
During the public hearing, the city’s website listed 28 letters of support for the project, including from Mount Pleasant resident Jonathan Paulin, who wrote:
“I live one block from this location. This is a great location away from the main road. It's also located close to one of the future SkyTrain stations. I want more of these 18 to 20-storey buildings that are one to two blocks away from the main road. This a benefit for many. I support this change. Traffic is just a minor inconvenience against people that need to have a roof over their head.”
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