Dan Fumano: Fate of hundreds of Vancouver rental homes hangs in balance this week
Credit to Author: Dan Fumano| Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2019 23:45:30 +0000
For those who want more rental housing in Vancouver — and you can count the mayor among them — there’s a lot riding on the public hearing this Thursday at city hall.
While Mayor Kennedy Stewart is required, as is the rest of council, to enter the hearing with an open mind about the three proposed buildings, he’s spoken publicly about the need for these kinds of developments. He also ran and won last year on a platform of dramatically boosting rental construction. And for those who track the city’s housing numbers like sports statistics, this week will have a big impact on how the rental totals end up for his first year in office.
These three apartment proposals, two on the east side and one on the west, total 241 homes. For context, that’s almost 40 per cent of the total number of rental homes this council has approved so far this year.
If council does approve all three projects this week, Vancouver would still finish the year at less than half of its target of 2,000 purpose-built rental homes per year. If council rejects all three, it would mean council approved only 649 rental homes in 2019, the lowest number since 2011.
Council’s decision will not only decide the fate of a significant chunk of the city’s market and non-market rental housing for 2019, it’ll also provide an indication of what to expect for hundreds of rental homes in the pipeline coming before council in the next few years.
This week’s three rental proposals are the first applications under the Moderate Income Rental Housing Pilot Project to come to a public hearing seeking council’s approval. The program essentially offers a trade-off that allows bigger buildings in exchange for better affordability. Under the project, 20 per cent of each building’s units are permanently secured at levels affordable for “moderate-income” households earning between $30,000 and $80,000 annually.
In interviews and public statements, Stewart has emphasized his support for the project’s goals and his hope to see it succeed. In October, Stewart told The Vancouver Sun he thinks it is the city’s best bet for building what he calls “workforce housing.”
“Each project will be evaluated on its merits,” Stewart said. “But as a policy, it has to succeed. It really does.”
Not everyone is such a fan of the moderate income project, and many of the program’s most vocal opponents are longtime homeowners who live near the proposed projects.
Stuart Rush plans to appear at city hall on Thursday to urge them to reject a five-storey rental building proposed for a site about 20 feet from the Kitsilano house he’s owned for 25 years. The proposed 63-unit building is too tall for the site, he says, adding: “Residents, if this thing goes ahead, will be able to look down and see how well the eggs have been cooked on their (neighbours’) morning breakfast.”
Rush, a longtime lawyer with a Queen’s Counsel designation, has also gone a step further. He sent out press releases urging Stewart and NPA Coun. Melissa De Genova to recuse themselves from Thursday’s vote because they accepted donations last year from the principals of Jameson Development, the company behind the Larch Street moderate income project proposal.
In an emailed statement, Stewart’s director of communications, Alvin Singh, said: “The mayor takes his role in the public hearing process very seriously and listens to all the comments from the public, proponent and staff prior to making a final decision, and the upcoming project on Larch is no different.”
“This issue of donations and public hearings has been brought up many times through various administrations and the answer has always been the same: A general donation does not amount to a conflict, real or perceived, around specific development applications,” Singh said.
In fact, previous civic governments accepted donations from Jameson and other developers several times larger than the amounts accepted last year by Stewart and De Genova.
Before the B.C. NDP passed legislation in 2017 banning corporate donations and limiting personal donations to $1,200, Jameson donated $30,000 in 2014 and 2015 to Vision Vancouver, without the then-reigning party’s members recusing themselves from votes. During that time, the NPA also accepted large donations from real estate companies, without its councillors recusing themselves.
Before this year’s Larch Street project came along, Rush had not previously inserted himself into civic politics this way, he said.
“This is the first time, I’ve never been involved in any of this,” Rush said. “But this is the sort of thing, it’s part of your neighbourhood. I’ve lived there for 25 years, and you say: What is the neighbourhood you want?”
Stuart Rush in front of 1805 Larch Street in Vancouver, BC, December 9, 2019. This week, Vancouver’s council will decide the fate of the first three projects under a pilot project aimed at building more affordable rental homes. Mayor Kennedy Stewart, who ran and won last year on a platform of dramatically boosting rental construction, has a lot riding on the results of Thursday’s votes, which, combined, would total almost a third of the rental approvals for his entire first year in office. (Arlen Redekop / PNG staff photo)