Master Planned Community in Canada

JODIE WARREN
The Vancouver Sun

Burnaby’s Lougheed Town Centre is poised for a dramatic transformation, as developer Shape Properties Corp. launches the first tower of The City of Lougheed, its master-planned 40-acre community which, when complete, will be home to more than 23 towers and 10,000 residents.

In addition to the towers, the City of Lougheed will include 1.4 million square feet of retail and one million square feet of office space. Through purposeful planning and a cohesive vision, Shape has designed the development to become “a super-regional shopping centre destination attracting shoppers, residents, business and workers from Burnaby, Co quit lam, New Westminster and throughout the region.”

According to Shape’s senior project manager Angelica Yang, the new community, which will be home to numerous character neighbourhoods housed ina lush ly landscaped environment, will be similar in feel to its 28-acre project, The Amazing Brentwood, but larger in scale and possessing some other unique qualities .“The City of Lougheed is nearly twice the size of The Amazing Brentwood,” says Yang. “The sheer size of The City of Lougheed, its strategic location where the Millennium SkyTrain and future Evergreen extension lines will intersect, and Shape’s long-term commitment to creating a new urban destination for the region truly differentiate this community from anyother project in the Lower Mainland.”

At 55-storeys, Tower One in The City of Lougheed will be the tallest in the community’s inaugural four-tower phase. Depending on where you are, it will offer commanding views – of downtown, the North Shore, Mount Baker, the Port Mann Bridge, the Fraser River and Simon Fraser University. The first phase is the work of GBL Architects, while the overall community is being designed by James K.M. Cheng Architects, the award-winning firm renowned for creating master-planned, mixeduse neighbourhoods, as well as such iconic Vancouver towers as Shaw Centre, the Shangri-La, and Fairmont Pacific Rim.

The one-, two- and three-bedroom homes in Tower One come with a host of impressive features. Offered in two standard colour schemes, all homes have standards such as European cabinetry, quartz countertops and marble herringbone backsplashes in the kitchens, as well as integrated Bosch appliances. A high-end, luxury scheme can be selected as an upgrade, which includes everything from premium marble slab countertops to cabinetry made of a scratch-resistant, repairable nanotech material.

Also included in The First Neighbourhood will be the main amenity building – 18,000 square feet on three levels, which will house a state-of-the-art fitness facility, craft room, lounges, and a rooftop garden with community garden plots.

Yang says early interest in the first tower is similar to what Shape Properties experienced in The Amazing Brentwood. “We anticipate a cross section of buyers – downsizers, first-time buyers, young families – the majority of them local,” she says.

“As one developer leading all components of The City of Lougheed, including long-term management of the asset, we have a vested interest in adding value to the project far into the future,” she says. “This for example, includes active involvement in upgrading amenities, strengthening the retail mix, programming event schedules and keeping theproperty immaculate. Ultimately, this translates to an accrual of long-term value for our homeowners.”

Tower One will be complete in 2020 and prices start at $329,900. The 18,000-square-foot presentation centre with three designer show homes are set to open Oct. 1. For more information and to register, v is itwww. the city of loug heed. com

Founded in 2005, Shape Properties Corp. is a Western Canadian real estate investment, management and development company that is passionate about creating dramatically better places. Shape is currently leading the development of some of the largest and most exciting projects underway in North America. In addition to The Amazing Brentwood and The City of Lougheed, the Shape portfolio includes Highstreet Fraser Valley and Destination: Deerfoot City in Calgary.

According to a January 2016 City of Burnaby council report, the Master Plan forth eLoug heed Core Area (in total a 72-acre site bounded by bordered by North Road to the east, Lougheed Highway to the south, Bartlett Court to the west, and Cameron Street to the north) involves “a plan that envisions its transformation, over time, into a vibrant, transit-connected, mixeduse area with diverse housing, employment, service, and recreation opportunities.

“This re-imagined district is comprised of seven unique neighbourhood precincts, each connected to one another and to the broader Lougheed community with a network of pedestrian and bicycle-friendly streets and public open spaces. The master plan sets out to create a truly memorable place where residents and the broader Loug heed community will want to live, work, shop, and play.”

© 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.

MAKING IT HOME

MICHAEL BERNARD
The Vancouver Sun

There’s no shortage of offerings among new residential projects throughout the region

The Metro Vancouver residential real estate scene has been red hot this year, and if the number of new projects set to launch is any indication, it won’t be slowing significantly any time soon.

In Burnaby alone, at least 33 towers are set to dramatically change the skyline in the years ahead. Of those, more than 23 will be included in Shape Properties’ City of Lougheed, with another 10 at Concord Pacific’s master-planned Concord Brentwood.

At 40 acres, the City of Lougheed is one of the largest new masterplanned communities in Canada, if not in North America, says the developer.

“As far as we are aware, other than Hudson Yard project in New York, this is the largest project,” said Darren Kwiatkowski, Shape’s executive vice-president, development and design. The sprawling development around Lougheed Mall is expected to house some 10,000 residents, more than double the number of residents planned for the New York project.

At the nexus of two SkyTrain lines, it will also have 300 shops, restaurants, fashion stores and other retail outlets. “In our minds, this is the game changer in terms of urban living in that I can live and walk everywhere to anything, and it’s all within about 400 metres of SkyTrain,” said Kwiatkowski.

A few kilometres west, Concord Pacific is transforming 26 acres in a community surrounding the Brentwood town centre, where this summer it sold out the first two towers it began marketing earlier this year.

Elsewhere in the Metrotown area of Burnaby, Station Square is poised to begin sales this fall for its fourth tower of 41 storeys after selling 900 homes in 90 days in its first two phases.

Condo marketers say they expect the hot spots this fall will continue to be downtown Vancouver as well as Burnaby.

Sales remain brisk for Bosa Properties, which is claiming a record in pre-selling 100 of its 119 homes at its Cardero project in Coal Harbour for an average per square foot price of $1,750.

Planned sales for this fall also suggest there are new kinds of product appearing in the condo market. Boffo Development’s The Smithe, a decidedly upscale 300foot tower, has only two- and threebedroom apartment homes, said Cam McNeill of Mac Marketing Systems.

Downtown opportunities are increasingly rare because we are running out of land,” says McNeill. “You may see over the next 10 years less than one project per year and within 10 or 15 years we’ll be done (for big downtown projects).”

The scale of such development in the region reinforces numbers from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., the country’s prime housing forecaster; its data from the first seven months of 2016 supports predictions that the Metro Vancouver market will be hitting new highs for both sales and housing starts this year.

“We are up quite a bit over last year in terms of housing starts,” says Robyn Adamache, principal, market analysis, in CMHC’s local office. Our forescast, now a range that recognizes the uncertainty in the markets, is from 35,300 to 36,700 housing starts, a 38-percent increase over the 31,446 starts in 2015.” Meanwhile, the MLS resales numbers are expected to finish between 103,800 units and 113,000 units, up from 103,000 units last year.

Adamache also says continuing strong in-migration — with increases from Alberta offsetting a decline in offshore arrivals — and a buoyant economy with three per cent job growth, are fuelling housing demand.

Meantime, housing market analyst Michael Ferreira, principal of the real estate forecasting firm Urban Analytics, says this year’s market has been characterized by anxiety among first-time buyers, some of whom are purchasing homes now, worried that if they wait, they’ll be shut out of the market.

“Our data shows that the supply has not been getting replaced as quickly as it has been absorbed so that tends to create a sense of urgency and a fear of loss in the market,” he said. “Once prices start to increase, people want to get in before the prices get beyond what they can afford.”

Building and buying fever has spread to surrounding areas as well. Townhouse and condo development on the North Shore has been picking up after years of lagging behind, as evidenced by Grosvenor International’s luxurypriced Ambleside and Edgemont village offerings. Also competing for the downsizing baby boomers is Cressey Development’s Bellevue, a 35-home high-priced project going on sale this fall in the Dundarave neighbourhood in West Vancouver.

In the suburban market, we are seeing the townhouse demand continuing to accelerate,” says Scott Brown, president of Fifth Avenue Real Estate Marketing. “More and more people are seeing this as an acceptable alternative to the single-family home.”

“We are also seeing a new category of executive townhomes emerging, which are 2,000 to 2,600 square feet in size and are priced $200,000 to $300,000 less than a single-family home, he said pointing to projects by Essence Properties in Langley. They (the new buyers) want a little yard for barbecuing and the dog, but they don’t want to maintain a large lot.”

Changing social patterns, such as kids being more active out in the community than the back yard, means lower townhouse prices, allow parents “to take a vacation and put the kids in private school or music lessons,” he said.

There are other new housing trends emerging, he said. More buyers are asking about air conditioning, showing a renewed interest in gas fireplaces, and looking for power outlets for recharging electric vehicles.

© 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.

Bella Terra by the Lake brings luxury living to Anmore

Michael Bernard
The Vancouver Sun

Project: Bella Terra by the Lake

Location: 3000 Sunnyside Road, Anmore

Project scope: 26 four-to-five bedroom custom-built single-family wood-frame homes, from 5,800 to 7,620 square feet, set on lots of .24 to .5 of an acre. Eight models to choose from. Homes will have mountain views and be three blocks from the Buntzen Lake recreation area.

Developer: Bella Terra Investments Inc.

Architect: Zed Studio, Coquitlam, and Oscar Woodman Design, Port Moody

Interior Design: Resolve Interior Concepts, Vancouver

Price: From $3.35 million

Presentation centre: 3000 Sunnyside Road, Anmore

Hours: Mon — Thurs noon — 6 p.m.; weekends noon — 5 p.m.; Closed Friday  

Telephone: 604-492-3144

 Website: www.bellaterraluxury.com

 Occupancy: 10 to 16 months from start of construction

 The luxury homes Tony Barone is building in the village of Anmore range from 5,800 to 7,620 square feet with prices starting at $3.35 million. But, suggests Barone, if you compare them to similar single-family houses in some major North American cities, they are something of a bargain.

“I think if you compare Vancouver to New York or Los Angeles, Vancouver is still a good deal,” Barone says. “If you are looking to buy a half acre with a house in these two metropolitan cities 35 minutes from the downtown, I think you would be challenged to find homes at the price with the features we are offering.”

 Anmore, located just north of Port Moody and along the shores of Indian Arm, has been populated for more than 120 years, but is probably unknown to many Vancouverites. Yet in 1905, the tiny community played an important role in the development of Vancouver. That year, the village’s 4.8-kilometre Buntzen Lake, about three blocks from Bella Terra by the Lake, became part of the first hydroelectric project to feed the growing region’s power needs. In fact, the Buntzen Lake waters still spin BC Hydro’s powerhouse turbines on Indian Arm.

 Back then, Anmore homesteaders could pick up several acres for just a few dollars and build a modest shack a stone’s throw from the village’s cedar mills and timber operations. Today, Bella Terra is offering eight upscale home models, based on houses built nearby by Christen Luxury Homes, of which Barone is owner. They range from the modern-style with floor-to-ceiling windows and low pitch roofs, to a more traditional European chateau-style with vaulted ceilings, and a Craftsman design with dormers.

 “I think Bella Terra will cater to a mix of young families and also those in middle life, as well as extended families,” Barone said reflecting on previous buyers. “We expect a mix of all types of people.”

 Bella Terra, which is being developed by Bella Terra Investments Inc., part of the Amron/Catara Group of real estate companies, aimed for what Barone called manageably sized lots up to half an acre. “There are some people that just don’t have the means or the time to take care of one acre, two acres, or three acre parcels anymore,” he said. “But there are a lot more people who want to have a nice yard, but want something larger than a city lot.”

 The builder offers a range of finishings in all of the new homes, Barone said. The four- to five-bedroom home layouts will have extensive wood millwork throughout and engineered wide-plank floors and staircases, and glass and wrought iron railings. Fireplaces are available in limestone or a contemporary walnut model with marble façade and hearth.

 Each bedroom will have its own ensuite bathroom and walk-in closet. The master bedroom will include a steam shower, and marble floor with in-laid tile. Many of the homes will include a media room, fitness room and a wine cellar.

 Kitchens will be equipped with German-made Miele dishwasher, wall oven and cooktop and refrigerator, extensive granite countertops and mosaic tiling, all lit by designer lights, Barone said.

 Mechanical systems will include air conditioning and a heat recovery ventilation system, and luxuries such as in-floor radiant heating.

 Some templates, such as the 7,590-square-foot ‘Empress’, will have one feature that’s growing in popularity in higher-end homes: a three-floor elevator.

 That model also has a prep or wok kitchen with a walk-in pantry that accesses a formal dining room, he said. The large main kitchen will have three-inch thick granite countertops with mosaic tile backsplashes, Kohler plumbing fixtures, an integrated dishwasher and custom maple cabinets.

On the exterior of the Empress, buyers can have a stone veneer contrasted by tongue and groove cedar siding offset by custom-coloured acrylic stucco, 50-year asphalt roof. The plan also includes a three-car garage with glass panels.

“Anmore is a place where people like to spend a lot of time outdoors so we will provide covered outdoor kitchens with barbecues, and patio heaters to warm up seating areas,” he said. The builder will even provide a flat-screen television outside with advanced sound systems throughout the home.

 Reflecting the latest developments in technology, homeowners will also have the benefit of a climate-control system, security with high-resolution video cameras, and even power blinds, all controlled by smartphones.

The village of Anmore has a general store, a village hall and an elementary school that serves about 165 pupils from kindergarten to Grade 5.

 One of the area’s prize assets is an extensive network of trails threaded throughout the subdivision and connecting with longer hike trails around the popular Buntzen Lake where powered boats are banned. Buntzen Lake has also served as a set for several Hollywood movies including Lake Placid, Highlander and Freddy vs. Jason and for episodes of the X-files.

© 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.

B.C.?S ECONOMY DANGEROUSLY ADDICTED TO REAL ESTATE

Pete McMartin
The Vancouver Sun

Is this good news or bad? 

On Thursday, the provincial government announced it had raked in $2.2 billion in revenue from the property transfer tax and the new 15 per cent tax on foreign buyers of Metro Vancouver homes. 

That’s a billion dollars more than the government had projected. 

That enormous windfall caused Liberal MLAs to break out into a spontaneous conga line through the legislature. Finance Minister Mike de Jong was forecasting a surplus of $1.94 billion, up from an earlier projection of $264 million. He then announced that $500 million from the property tax would fund a housing affordability program and another $400 million would go into the B.C. prosperity fund “as a legacy for future generations,” he said.

And this, for the cherry on top:

The surplus allowed the government to scrap a planned four per cent increase in medical service plan premiums. It wasn’t as tasty a treat as an announcement to revamp or scrap the loathsome MSP entirely would have been. But it did make the medicine go down easier.

Overall, the windfall made B.C. the brightest light on the country’s economic horizon. And those dire predictions of house-impoverished millennials fleeing Metro Vancouver and B.C. for cheaper house prices? It hasn’t happened. Net inter-provincial immigration has increased year over year for the last three years. You go where the work is. 

So, good news all around.

But: De Jong’s figures showed just how stark B.C.’s economic dependence on real estate has become. Real estate-related taxes are now the government’s single largest revenue generator. They not only outstripped the $1.2 billion gambling brings in — which is pernicious enough — but they also surpassed the tax revenue, individually, from forestry, mining, natural gas and all other resource industries. Only when you combine the tax revenue from those resource industries do they bring in more than real estate, and just by a few decimal points.

None of this takes into account the economic spin-offs that a hot real estate market generates. An angry public may chafe at the rising unaffordability of the market, and they may rightly grow livid at the influx of laundered monies, tax cheats and real estate scammers our hapless enforcement agencies have proven either too inept or too understaffed to catch.

But that hot market also employs law-abiding builders, lawyers, renovators, car salesmen, airline employees, retailers, etc. Those jobs can’t be ignored. Real estate’s reach in this province, and in this government’s bottom line, is much longer than just a matter of tax revenue. The danger is not just that real estate has become a windfall for us: The danger is we have become dependent on it. 

What happens if, in the wake of the government’s 15 per cent tax on foreign buyers, that real estate market cools off or, worse, collapses?

In a Friday afternoon seminar at the Hyatt Regency sponsored by the Urban Development Institute, a panel of economists, lawyers and developers tried to answer that and other questions. Would foreign buyers go elsewhere? Would prices fall dramatically if they did? And if prices plummet, would they rebound in the long-term?

Quick answer: Their guess would be as good as yours.

For the optimists, there was Helmut Pastrick, chief economist of Central Credit Union 1, who noted that the market had begun to weaken several months before the introduction of the 15 per cent tax — but in August, sales for detached homes in some neighbourhoods had plunged by $300,000-$400,000. (At which, some audience members gasped.)

However, Pastrick believed any downturn would take three to six months to play out. Then, if the economy remains sound — and here he made note of Metro Vancouver’s six-per-cent rise in employment — the usual market fundamentals would eventually come into play. Prices, he said, should begin to rise by next year. In two or three years, he said, he expects them to surpass present prices.

His advice to prospective sellers caught in the recent downturn: “Wait it out. If the economy doesn’t go bad, where’s the pressure to sell?”

That’s a big “if” given the space real estate takes up in the B.C. economy. Economist Tom Davidoff, associate professor with the University of B.C.’s Sauder School of Business, thought there was “a significant risk of a real correction.” How much? Thirty, 40 per cent, Davidoff guessed — but that, he said, was just that, a guess. Intangible factors that can’t be measured would be at play, he said — “a combination of uncertainty and pessimism.”

His colleague at the Sauder School, Tsur Somerville, agreed.

“I think there’s a real risk there if stuff turns south enough and it affects employment levels, then things could get real rough because real estate is such a large part of our economy now.”

After the seminar, what was it that Somerville called real estate tax revenue in B.C.? The government’s heroin?  

© 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.

other

Read the Intracorp EXTRA Magazine HERE.

other

Download Document

Housing affordability plan to launch

ROB SHAW
The Province

Premier Christy Clark will launch her government’s promised housing affordability plan next week, spending almost half a billion dollars from windfall real estate taxes to increase housing supply across the Lower Mainland.

B.C.’s take from property transfer taxes was sharply higher this year because of the increase in sales and prices in the real estate sector, Finance Minister Mike de Jong said Thursday. The province is expecting to take in $2.2 billion in property transfer taxes, a rise of $965 million from its February prediction, he said.

Besides the $500 million to be spent this year on housing, $800 million is set aside for the next two years for additional housing programs, climate leadership and other priorities, he said.

“We expect housing initiatives to continue and have already made provisions for that in the fiscal plan,” de Jong said at a quarterly financial briefing in which he announced B.C.’s surplus was projected to grow to $1.94 billion this year.

The announcement next week is expected to address at least part of the supply problem that the premier has said is an underlying cause of recent skyrocketing housing prices. Clark has said local residents are squeezed out of the market by an influx of wealthy foreign buyers and a lack of condos or homes available to purchase or rent.

De Jong offered few hints on government’s plan and wouldn’t say if it also contains provisions to help renters who are squeezed out the market by rent hikes and by landlords who’d prefer to put their units into short-term rental services like Airbnb.

The premier has made increasing rental supply, particularly in Vancouver, one of the goals of any housing plan.

Housing Minister Rich Coleman has said he’s exploring partnerships with municipalities, Ottawa and the private sector to leverage the limited cash.

In addition, B.C. expects to earn $165 million this year on the new 15-per-cent foreign buyer tax it imposed on Aug. 2. That rises to $255 million next year (on the assumption foreign citizens purchase five per cent of 40,000 home sales at an average price of $850,000). De Jong said he remains “nervous” about the housing sector and the tax estimates, and so has increased the government’s contingency fund to brace for any shortfall.

Next week, the government will release new figures on how home sales were affected by the foreign buyer tax in August. Realtors and industry analysts have said MLS listings have dropped since the tax, and figures prepared for Postmedia by Juwai.com, a popular website in China, indicate buying inquiries from Mainland China for Vancouver property have plunged 81 per cent.

“We have to be cautious about drawing conclusions on the basis of August because August was not a typical month,” said de Jong, noting many people bumped their purchases up to July to avoid the tax. “I think more revealing will be the data we’ll release for September and October in terms of evolving trends.”

He added that “no one knows for certain” the effect of the tax yet.

NDP finance critic Carole James said government is reaping the financial rewards in taxes after refusing to help on housing for months. “They are the ones that created the mess in the beginning,” she said.

© 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.

Couple claim they were told to fake assets to buy Richmond home

JOANNE LEE-YOUNG
The Vancouver Sun

The prospective buyers of a $2.46 million Richmond home put down a $120,000 deposit. When they were turned down at three major national banks for financing to complete the deal, an employee at RBC Royal Bank of Canada and a real estate agent at Richmond-based Metro Edge Realty advised them to exaggerate and/or fake assets in China in order to qualify for a mortgage here, according to a notice of civil claim filed in B.C. Supreme Court. None of the allegations in the claim have been proven in court.

Yan Zhao and Wei Na Hao, who currently live in Richmond and are originally from China, claim in court filings that they were told to persuade “family and friends in China to lend their (Chinese-language deposit slips)” and then to doctor them to look as if they were the ones with these Chinese assets.

The court documents state they were told “RBC would provide mortgage financing” if the couple did a good job of forging the certificates of deposit. 

In the end, the buyers did not apply for mortgage financing from RBC, according to court documents, but when the deal fell through they were unable to get back their deposit because the offer was subject-free. The pair launched the civil suit on June 15, 2016, for their deposit, plus legal costs.

In a response to that claim, Metro Edge denied “each and every allegation” and specifically “denied that any representations were made on its behalf as alleged”. The sellers of the home, named in the original claim as “the Chopras,” also filed a counterclaim, declaring the deposit as being “forfeitable” because the buyers didn’t complete the contract. They also filed a counterclaim against Metro Edge and, “more specifically Ms Yang.” If her “representations were not made fraudulently or recklessly” then they were made “negligently.” 

The claim states Metro Edge realtor Wendy Yang wrote the offer for the property on behalf of the buyers.

It also states a “Mr. Sun at Royal Bank of Canada” presented the buyers “with an example of a certificate of deposit that (he) indicated had been forged in the manner (he) described.”

It states the buyers told Yang they had no other assets in Canada or elsewhere with which to buy the house.

It claims Yang directed them to Sun to discuss mortgage funding, and that Sun and Yang are married.

The buyers were told, in detail by Yang, according to the court claim, they could “download forms from the internet to fake proof of assets in China” and offered a “template for the forgery.” 

Reached by telephone, Yang declined to comment, directing queries to her lawyer, who did not return a call to Postmedia News. The plaintiffs, Zhao and Hao, were also not available for comment, according to their lawyer.

Postmedia News contacted RBC ‘s Toronto-based office on Thursday afternoon, but did not get a reply by deadline.

In April 2016, the home named in the claim at 10191 Thirlmere Drive in Richmond was sold to a different buyer, Yu Lan Zhao, according to land title documents. According to information on the MLS, it was listed and sold by Yang. 

Yang was part of a group of former agents at New Coast Realty who, in March, alleged the company had not paid them commission fees for residential transactions they completed months ago. At the time, Yang estimated New Coast owed her around $200,000 in commission fees.

New Coast has been under investigation by the Real Estate Council of B.C. for its alleged high-pressure selling tactics, but nearly six months later, there has been no update. Several high-profile agents from New Coast have moved to Metro Edge.

© 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.

Developers say they will ask buyers to sign declaration they intend to live in the unit they buy, not leave it empty or flip it

Jane Seyd
other

A major development proposed for the West Vancouver waterfront in Horseshoe Bay will come back before the public on Monday, two months after developers pulled their application at the 11th hour. But this time, there’s a twist.

The Sewell’s Landing proposal – a megaproject that includes 159 condo units in six buildings of up to 11 storeys – is essentially unchanged from what longtime owners of Sewell’s Marina and development partners Westbank previously proposed – except for one important difference.

Facing blowback from municipal decision-makers who learned in the summer the project was being actively promoted overseas, developers say they’ve pulled their offshore campaign and will ask anyone buying into the project to sign a declaration that they or their family intends to live in the unit they buy – not leave it empty or flip it for investment.

“It’s an extremely rare thing for a developer to do. I don’t know any other developer doing it,” said Michael Braun, sales and marketing director for Westbank, who spoke about the project at a developer-hosted information meeting at the Gleneagles Golf Club Wednesday afternoon. “What you’re doing is you’re reducing your market.”

The plan, described as a “locals-first initiative,” is an about-face from the scenario in June, when marketing partners of Westbank advertised the project at a two-day open house in Hong Kong. Braun described the promotion – both locally and abroad – as “gauging the market.”

But at least some members of West Vancouver council weren’t amused when they heard of it.

At the time, the municipal council was preparing to pass a motion asking local governments to demand the province take action to discourage speculation by foreign buyers in the real estate market.

The offshore marketing of a project previously pitched as a local initiative “raised concerns among council about affordability and who was going to be buying the units,” said Coun. Mary-Ann Booth.

Booth noted the concerns were raised prior to the province bringing in a 15 per cent tax on real estate purchased by foreigners, imposed at the beginning of August.

Although other development projects have likely been marketed offshore in the past, “the times have changed,” she said. “I think the issue has really come to a head for many people in the metro region. It’s been percolating and percolating.”

Booth said it’s hard to justify asking communities to absorb impacts of construction and traffic for developments if they aren’t receiving the benefits of the housing being built.

Dan Sewell, who spoke on behalf of the Sewell family Wednesday, said when he found out about the overseas promotion, and council’s reaction to it, the project proposal was pulled immediately. He added he thought it would be better to delay the public hearing than take the project forward when concerns about foreign ownership were reaching a fever pitch.

Sewell said he thinks the new 15 per cent tax has put a damper on foreign investment, so it’s less of an issue now.

Braun said he thinks the locals-first plan can work. The company previously partnered with Vancity to do a similar “locals only” project in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, said Braun, which required all of the buyers to live, work or volunteer in the area. “This isn’t a ‘400 units at Metrotown under $400,000’ that you’re selling on a weekend to whoever shows up with a chequebook,” he said. “You really get to know each of your buyers.”

Booth said the question of how developers will screen buyers to ensure they keep their promises to live in the units will be “the million dollar question.” Prices of the units also remain key to affordability, she said.

At the meeting Wednesday, Rhiannon Mabberley, project manager for Westbank, told residents who attended that average prices for the Horseshoe Bay apartments would be $875 per square foot – adding that is lower than the prices in both the Evelyn Drive and Grosvenor projects.

Mabberley said the project offers needed housing options for West Vancouver, adding owners of local single family homes who want to move to a smaller space could sell their homes for $3 million and still downsize to a $1-million 1,300-square-foot condo in the project.

“It really is an affordable option for West Vancouver,” said Mabberley.

Not all of the approximately 50 people who attended the presentation were convinced.

Horseshoe Bay resident Lorilee Malleck said she’s still concerned about the impact a development of that scale will have on the village atmosphere and worried about construction and traffic disruptions. She also questioned whether a condo selling for $900,000 could be considered “affordable” for most people.

Copyright © Business In Vancouver.