Mike Howell
Van. Courier
With 8,000 families in Vancouver living in studio and one-bedroom apartments, city hall staff revealed Tuesday it is considering a city-wide rezoning policy to allow for the development of family housing near parks, schools and community centres.
Triggered by a shortage of three-bedroom units in a tight rental housing market and ownership of a home a distant dream for many, the city’s proposal looks to test the waters of neighbourhoods willing to allow new building forms such as townhouses and duplexes.
“This was a broad concept that was presented today for outlining the opportunities for affordable housing in other parts of the city,” said Brian Jackson, the city’s director of planning, in an interview with reporters following a presentation by housing staff to city council. “It’s the germination of the idea that has just started.”
Jackson emphasized “there are no grand plans to put this as an overlay across the city” or in specific neighbourhoods. He said the city has to first examine existing official community plans and zoning bylaws, along with reviewing what neighbourhoods previously indicated they could accommodate in terms of growth for rental and market housing.
City manager Penny Ballem noted the challenge of residents accepting change to their neighbourhoods, saying there was “mixed interest” from residents in discussions related to adopting new community plans in Grandview-Woodland, Marpole, the West End and Downtown Eastside. In Marpole, residents pushed back against large-scale rezoning plans for single-family home areas and Grandview-Woodland residents fought against proposed highrises and still haven’t finalized a community plan.
“We’ve got more work to do to understand — and help our public understand — what problems we’re trying to solve and what are the land economics of the possibilities,” said Ballem, noting the eventual shift of public acceptance of laneway houses and secondary suites. “The public are starting to realize that we do need more variety and there’s a journey we have to get them on, and the city has to understand and explain to them.”
Coun. Raymond Louie said he was concerned a new rezoning policy could lead to real estate speculation, as occurred with homeowners along Cambie and Granville agreeing to assemble their land as a big parcel to entice developers and make a bigger buck.
“I’m foreshadowing that we need to be very firm in how we go about this to ensure that we don’t have some individuals speculating because we know it’s rampant in our city,” he said, pointing to Mayor Gregor Robertson’s recent pitch to Premier Christy Clark for a speculation tax. “It will preclude family housing from ever occurring, if we don’t put that in place.”
Mukhtar Latif, the city’s housing director, said examining land prices will be part of the city’s ongoing work on developing policies to create family housing zones. Latif said measures will be put in place to “mitigate” land speculation but pointed out the city can’t prevent it.
Coun. Geoff Meggs said the city has already made some gains in allowing mixed housing in neighbourhoods. He pointed to the area between Heather and Oak streets, north of Douglas Park, which has a mix of townhouses, single-family homes and three-storey walk-ups. The area north of Broadway and west of Arbutus is another example of a mix of housing, he said.
“It’s important that when we talk about these zones that we indicate we’re moving forward from what I think has been a long established practice in certain neighbourhoods and we’ve had very successful outcomes,” Meggs said.
That shift in different types of housing is also evident in the city’s plans for the Cambie corridor, where planners want to include family-oriented housing such as townhouses, stacked townhouses and row housing as part of the development.
Other possible policy changes outlined Tuesday by the city’s housing staff included:
- Require social housing projects to have 50 per cent of units for families.
- Continue to allow co-housing projects.
- Research possibility of entry-level home ownership models to support families.
- Prioritize family housing on city property.
- Increase the current 25 per cent requirement for family housing in new developments to 35 per cent.
The policy proposals come two weeks after city council voted to continue with a controversial program that waives developers’ fees for construction of rental projects. Amendments to the Rental 100 program are aimed at encouraging the construction of three-bedroom units.
© 2015 Vancouver Courier
