Speaking notes for 2158 West 1st Avenue
A rental high-rise in Kitsilano
There’s a public hearing tonight for a number of rezonings, including one in Kitsilano near 1st and Yew (2158 West 1st Avenue), not far from Kits Point and Senakw. I’m planning to speak in support.
Hi, my name is Russil Wvong. I’m a resident of Vancouver. I’m here to speak in support of this rezoning.
More housing is good. When you don’t have enough housing, all sorts of terrible things happen: low real salaries, labour shortages, precarious housing, crowding, and homelessness. Unfortunately we seem to have set up our institutions to make it really hard to build new housing. This was back in the 1970s, when people thought that small was beautiful. Unfortunately small also means really, really expensive.
This project will add about 180 purpose-built rental apartments, with 20% non-market. It’s less than 400 metres from West 4th, and it’s 750 metres from the new SkyTrain station at Broadway and Arbutus. The 20-storey height is consistent with the limits set by the Broadway Plan for this particular zone.
It's understandable that people who live nearby want to minimize change to their neighbourhood. They like it the way it is. But the reason people want to build high-rises here is that lots of people want to live here. If opponents succeed in blocking this application, the people who would have lived there won’t vanish into thin air. They’ll end up competing with everyone else for existing housing, bidding up prices and rents.
I’d like to emphasize the need to protect the renters who are living in the existing buildings on the site, to make sure that they can return to the new building at their old rent, and that they have suitable interim housing during redevelopment. As I understand it, best practice is to hire a reputable and experienced third-party tenant relocation coordinator. They also need to be involved early on, because it takes time to build up trust. For this project, Somerville Consulting will be the tenant relocation coordinator. They’ve worked with renters affected by projects in Burnaby, which established a similar renter protection policy in 2018.
Thank you.
More
Agenda and staff report
21-storey rental housing tower proposed for West 1st Avenue in Kitsilano. Kenneth Chan, Daily Hive, August 2024.
From the opposing side: a petition with 2000 signatures so far.
From the staff report: a comparison of the cost of renting in a newer purpose-built rental building on the west side, versus the cost of owning a condo. Renting is still expensive, but much less expensive than owning a condo.
