Vancouver approves 28-storey rental building in tightest of votes
Dan Fumano
The Province
Opinion: The question, basically, was whether it’s a worthwhile trade-off for the city to an increase from 17 to 28 storeys, despite strong neighbourhood resistance, for an extra 50 market rental units and about 50 below-market homes.
Vancouver city council narrowly approved Tuesday a 28-storey rental tower for West Broadway.
It was one of the most controversial and closely watched decisions of this council and could have gone the other way if not for an unusual turn of events last week.
The tower, proposed for the former Denny’s site at West Broadway and Birch streets, will provide 258 rental homes, 58 of which will be at below-market rents. The project had attracted neighbourhood opposition since late 2018, right around the same time this mayor and council were sworn in. It had long been flagged by detractors, supporters and senior city staff alike as a particularly important decision.
Mayor Kennedy Stewart, who voted in support of the proposal, told council Tuesday that the decision would be a watershed moment at the mid-point of their term. Many councillors said it wasn’t a decision they reached lightly. Nor was it one they reached quickly.
Tuesday’s decision came after council received almost 1,000 written comments and spent more than 15 hours during four days spread over four weeks, debating, asking questions of staff, and hearing from opponents and supporters.
A decision on the Birch proposal had been expected last week. But NPA Coun. Sarah Kirby-Yung indicated she hadn’t caught up on the portions of the public hearing she had missed, which would have meant she wouldn’t be allowed to vote. So council decided at that meeting — against Kirby-Yung’s wishes — to delay the decision until this week, when all 11 members could vote.
In the end, every vote counted and Kirby-Yung’s participation proved crucial.
Before casting their vote, each councillor had a chance to explain why they opposed or supported the project. Kirby-Yung happened to speak last, before the final vote came down to six votes in favour and five opposed.
Kirby-Yung said she was “conflicted,” but after weighing many factors, voted in favour.
If the vote had gone ahead last week without Kirby-Yung, it might have been a tie, which means the rezoning would have failed.
Before this week, this council had approved all eight proposals that had reached them under the city’s moderate-income rental housing program. But none was as big as the Birch one in building height or profile. A senior Vancouver planner had described the Birch project as “the big one,” and “the test case” for the city’s rental housing pilot.
A rendering showing a 28-storey rental tower proposed for the corner of West Broadway and Birch Street in Vancouver. PNG
Under the program, the city considers granting developers extra density and height on projects in exchange for keeping 20 per cent of residential floor space affordable for households earning between $30,000 and $80,000. The policy was approved in 2017 by Vancouver’s previous Vision-majority council, but decisions on projects then fell to the city’s current mixed council.
Seven of the first eight projects under the rental program were east of Main Street — a fact noted by many people who wrote the city calling for more rentals, including below-market homes, on the west side. The only project previously approved for the west side was a five-storey building OK’d last year in Kitsilano, the most controversial proposal under the program before the Birch tower.
Stewart, who campaigned in 2018 on a platform of boosting rental construction, told council before voting in favour: “I was elected because the status quo wasn’t working.”
The Birch proposal was also supported by NPA councillors Melissa De Genova and Lisa Dominato, Green Coun. Michael Wiebe and OneCity Coun. Christine Boyle.
Opposed were COPE Coun. Jean Swanson, NPA Coun. Colleen Hardwick, independent Coun. Rebecca Bligh, and Green councillors Adriane Carr and Pete Fry.
The developer behind the project, Jameson Development, had indicated that if the 28-storey tower was rejected, it would proceed with a 17-storey project on that site, already approved in 2018 by the previous council. The 17-storey building, which many neighbours supported, would have provided about 153 homes, all at market rents.
The question Tuesday was whether the tradeoff was worthwhile — to allow 11 extra storeys on the site despite strong neighbourhood resistance, for an extra 50 or so market rental units plus about 58 below-market homes, built by the private sector with no direct funding from government.
That math added up for six council members. But the final result came down to that single vote.
© 2020 Postmedia Network Inc.
