Rental housing on an empty lot in West Point Grey
To opponents, it'll be "a big, brutal, impenetrable fortress"
[Update: thanks to everyone who wrote in! As of 5 pm, there were about 400 comments in support, 100 opposed.
At the public hearing, the plan is to get through the list of public speakers tonight, and then council will debate and decide on March 11.
Video from the February 25 public hearing.
Second update: passed unanimously! Video from March 11 council meeting.]
TLDR: The Safeway at West 10th and Sasamat, just east of UBC, has been closed since 2018. There's a proposal which has been underway for years to build badly needed purpose-built rental housing on the empty site, 450 market apartments and 115 non-market. It's going to a public hearing tonight. Opponents are trying to block it.
If you'd like to counterbalance the opponents (or write to express your own opposition), it takes literally 60 seconds to submit a comment. It can be as simple as "I support this project - we need more housing." Just set the Subject to "CD-1 Rezoning: 4545-4575 West 10th Avenue."
Agenda for tonight’s public hearing, including the staff report. As of Friday morning there were only 10 comments opposed, but there may be a lot more by now.
Housing being so scarce and expensive in Vancouver isn't a law of nature. Land here is limited, but elevators exist. We have people who want to live and work here, and other people who want to build housing for them.
Problem is, it's extremely difficult to get permission to build practically anything that's not a detached house. You need to get site-by-site discretionary permission from city staff and from council to build multifamily housing, which takes years. "It's easier to elect a pope."
One big reason is local opposition: almost everyone agrees that we need more housing, but they have all sorts of reasons why it should be built somewhere else, or it should be a different project.
I sympathize with their fear of the unknown, but because we're not building enough housing to keep up with jobs, prices and rents have to rise to unbearable levels to force people to give up and leave. Vacancy rates are near zero. Younger people are being crushed and driven out by high housing costs. It's a terrible situation. It's also bad for older homeowners themselves: how are we going to sustain the healthcare system when the only people who can afford to live in Vancouver are people who moved here and bought a place 20 years ago? How can younger nurses afford to live here?
New housing frees up existing housing. Every time new housing opens up with a few hundred apartments, that's a few hundred people who are no longer competing with everyone else for the limited supply of existing housing.
In this case, the opposition, Friends of Point Grey Village, is very well-organized. In fact one of the leaders used to work as a planner for the city. They've been encouraging people to email mayor and council directly, which is why it's important to counterbalance them.
What the opposition is saying:
Lots of concern about shadows, building height (there's two buildings on 10th that'll be 17 and 19 storeys), and the buildings being too close to 10th. (The current design is based on the city's requirements, which were to make the buildings narrower and taller, and to put them right on 10th to minimize shadows on 9th.)
As with the Jericho Lands, the opposition has hired their own architect to prepare an entirely different site concept with four-storey buildings.
Providing market and non-market rental housing isn't enough. The development should include a library branch. (A new library branch opened across the street last year!) The development should include a daycare. If there's not enough money to support that, then the project should be changed to condos instead of rentals.
Also, I hate to say it, but exactly the same group is complaining about how all the businesses in the neighbourhood are shutting down. When younger people can't afford to live in the neighbourhood (houses there are $3M), that's exactly what happens. Douglas Todd: The crumbling of Vancouver's affluent Point Grey Village, May 2023.
Speaking notes
Hi, my name is Russil Wvong. I’m a volunteer with the Vancouver Area Neighbours Association. I live in Vancouver, and I don't work in real estate or development. I’d like to speak in support of this application.
We have this paradoxical situation where land in Vancouver is limited, because of the ocean and the mountains, but at the same time, it’s really underused. The reason is, getting approval to build new housing is extremely slow and expensive. This lot is about 128,000 square feet, or about 30X the size of a standard lot. It’s been sitting empty for the last six years.
This project will provide 570 new rental homes, including 115 below-market rentals, in a neighbourhood with high demand, close to UBC, right on the 99 bus route. Because they’re purpose-built rentals, they’ll provide secure housing without your having to be rich enough to own. There's zero displacement. The project will also include a new grocery store.
As I understand it, there's a lot of concern about local businesses struggling, because there simply aren't enough people living in the neighbourhood. Adding more housing and more people will help to revitalize the neighbourhood.
I understand that opponents of this project are asking for it to pay more taxes, to pay for childcare and for a new library. Honestly, this is a good example of why housing is so scarce and expensive. When we tax new housing like it's a gold mine, it raises the floor on prices and rents. I’d suggest that if we want more community amenities, like childcare and libraries, we should pay for them through property taxes, not by putting heavy taxes on the narrow tax base of new housing. When we tax something, we get less of it. Housing is a good thing. We want more of it, not less of it.
Finally, I’d like to thank the people on the Vancouver Reddit who took the time to send in written comments to council. Whenever new housing is proposed, there's often vocal opposition from people who don't want their neighbourhood to change, which is natural. But when council makes a decision, I think it's really important to also hear from people across the city. Because housing is so unbelievably scarce and expensive, there's many people who are struggling with high rents and precarious housing, and who are frustrated with how slowly the city approves more housing.
Because we don’t have enough housing, prices and rents have to rise to unbearable levels to keep people out, and to force people to give up and move away. It's terrible for younger people and renters. But it's a bad situation even for older homeowners, because then we can’t find people to fill jobs, like nurses at our hospitals.
Thank you.
More
Vancouver council hopes added housing, new grocery store can save struggling Point Grey Village. Kevin Charach, CTV News, May 2023.
Can a mixed-use development revive a once-busy Vancouver neighbourhood? Peter Caulfield, Journal of Commerce, March 2024.
Vancouver neighbourhood divided: High-density housing vs. better amenities. Claire Wilson, Business in Vancouver, March 2024. With comments by Peter Dowdy of the Vancouver Area Neighbours Association.
This rental building is a must. The NIMBYs need to let this go for the betterment of the community. As you said, not enough entry level housing makes it difficult for people to work simple jobs in the area. Regular real estate in this area is out of reach for the average service worker. Hope it passes.