Login / RegisterMount Pleasant activist questions affordability of 19-storey tower and podium
A Mount Pleasant community activist has given a fiery presentation to council opposing Rize Alliance's application to rezone its property on the southwest corner of East Broadway and Kingsway.
Tonight, Sandeep Johal of the Residents Association of Mount Pleasant questioned assertions by city staff at last night's meeting that the Rize proposal for a 19-storey high-rise and podium meets the objectives of the Mount Pleasant community plan.
She noted that the plan mentions the importance of affordable housing 18 times, whereas it doesn't appear once in Rize's submission to the city. After she said this, she received loud applause from those in the council chamber attending the public hearing.
"I feel this development has violated the spirit and the intent of the community plan," she said.
Johal also told council that a one-bedroom apartment in the District building at Main Street and East 5th Avenue rents for $1,850 per month; a two-bedroom in a new building in the neighbourhood costs $2,050.
She suggested that rents in Mount Pleasant now exceed those in the West End.
"It's not affordable for the average Vancouverite," she asserted.
She claimed that Rize's $6.25-million community-amenity package will provide "no immediate public benefit" because the money is being set aside for future projects. Johal also said that there is a lack of "permeability" on the Rize site, which she maintained would not be open to the community, but only for the residents.
Near the end of her presentation, Johal mentioned that she heard a UBC architect speaking a while ago on a panel discussion, where he said that high-rises are suitable for certain areas, but not in Mount Pleasant.
"So you also have to take a look at the community," Johal stated. "It doesn't make sense in Mount Pleasant."
Later in the evening, community activist and design-firm owner Annabel Vaughan took aim at "the flawed process that the city uses for rezoning large development sites".
Unlike other speakers, who were quick to criticize Rize Alliance, Vaughan focused her comments on the city's reluctance to embrace modern planning principles as espoused by Toronto architect and urban designer Ken Greenberg.
"The current public process brings out the worst in everybody,” Vaughan maintained, claiming that the community is only brought into the process after the design is complete.
"Needless to say, the spaceship has landed," she said.
Vaughan stated that Greenberg, on the other hand, advocates balancing community aspirations and goals within a development in a give and take that is about achieving the best outcome for those at the table.
Surprisingly, Vaughan said she didn't have a big problem with a floor-space-ratio around five for large sites like the Rize property. However, she urged council to reincorporate affordable housing into the project and get rid of what she called the "big-box retail" component.
Her most daring recommendation was for council to reduce parking at the Rize project to about half the city requirement, which would drive down development costs and promote affordability. There are currently plans for underground parking for 320 vehicles for 241 units of housing and a two-storey commercial podium.
Vision Vancouver councillor Tim Stevenson characterized Vaughan's presentation as "very captivating and well thought out."
Green councillor Adriane Carr added that she was also impressed by Vaughan's comments.
"We have a flawed process," Carr claimed.
Vaughan then stated: “I think at the end of the day that Rize Development has its heart in its right place. I think at the end of the day, Acton Ostry is an architect who can solve this problem.”
However, she said that the project should be sent back to design development with "stringent recommendations".
"There has to be a way to incorporate affordable housing into every project we build in this city,” she said. "These guys can do it. They have the know-how. You, the elected people, have to do it on behalf of the people who vote for you, not the people who fund you.”
Related article: Rize Alliance proposal receives a thumbs up from Vancouver city staff
The sense of entitlement in this city is amazing.
If you really want affordable housing, just encourage supply to outstrip demand. Problem solved. That wasn't so hard, now was it?
You're welcome.
"f your argument held any water, why didn't the towers of Coal Harbour lower rents in the West End?"
Who said they didn't? Had they never been built, how much higher would rents be now?
"Instead they sent West End rents through the roof."
Interesting hypothesis. Can you prove causality?
"By the way, no one seems to actually live in Coal Harbour..."
Coal Harbour has a population of approxmiately 3800.
"...so it hasn't done much to ease our housing crisis"
Coal Harbour is a very small neighbourhood related to the rest of the city. Due to it's sheer size, it has limited ability to affect the overall municipal housing market.
"Building sterile glass towers full of expensive condos often owned by people outside of Vancouver (or Canada) doesn't solve our rental crisis one iota"
There's no such thing as building an "expensive" condo. A developer will build a unit and sell it for whatever the market is willing to pay for it. Whether they're owned by people inside or outside of Vancouver, well, that's a different story. If you open up the market to larger potential demand pool, and demand exists for the condos, then yes, prices will indeed increase, and given the restrictive nature of development in Vancouver, it's going to put upwards pressures on rents, too. Indeed, if you were to cut off non-local residents from owning/renting real estate in Vancouver, you'd do be doing exactly what I mentioned in my last post, and drive up the supply-side of the housing market, and you would absolutely see prices fall.
"Yes, let's increase density"
Now you're contradicting yourself. Increasing density will lead to further competition for space and drive UP prices, not down.
"do it while respecting zoning, building affordable rental housing, avoid sterile glass tower eyesores, preserve our neighbourhoods, and yes still allow developers to make some money. Other cities can do it, so can we."
Yeah, I suppose you can do all of that. That's more of a grab-bag of political slogans than an actual policy. I'm still interested in seeing how any policy that doesn't explicitly take into account addressing supply and demand -- which you'll notice, NONE of our political leads even both referencing -- would work.
The reality is that we have almost 600,000 people crammed into this tiny little city, we couple them with policies aimed at driving that number higher, and have little forethought on the most efficient way to house them all. But hearing rhetoric like "build more affordable units" sounds just as mindless as "drill baby drill" to me. It's just starting to get boring.
http://www.economist.com/node/21546057
We're basically building 500 square foot half million dollar investment packages for foreign speculators—who are purchasing two, three, four, five of these investments at a time. In the process, we're displacing longtime residents and driving the price of housing up for those who actually want to live and work in this communities. We're building a glorified resort town.
I would love for this hearing to more explicitly address that issue. I think one part of the solution is to subject investment properties to a business tax rate. (Right now residencies pay 4.2% and businesses 18%.)
Those speaking out against Rize's project, save for Annabel Vaughan, present very flawed arguments that demonstrate a blatant lack of understanding for simple land economics and the planning process in Vancouver.
Stating that rents in Mt. Pleasant have exceeded those in the West End as a whole is simply wrong. To support her case, Ms. Johal uses an example of new condominium construction in Mt. Pleasant, instead of comparing averages or similar building types in both neighbourhoods. Yes, a brand new unit at the District rents for $1395, but a beautiful unit in a heritage building at 8th and Fraser rents for $900.
Those speaking out against the project also fail to mention that the original plans had STIR units, but these were removed when the building height was lowered as per THEIR request. This will continue to occur unless residents in all Vancouver neighborhoods realize that if developers are allowed to build taller buildings that make it viable to include rental units, more rental units will be built.
They also fail to mention that it was the City decision to take the CAC as cash, not Rize's.
This development epitomizes intelligent growth!
If one's market was just local Canadians looking for affordable housing, you'd be correct - and developers/marketers would manipulate the market by building less. However, the market in Vancouver is not just local Canadians - it's foreign real estate speculators numbering in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. They want to see property values rise (Rize?), and they'll eventually take their profits by unloading properties onto other speculators. Chances are a lot of units recently built or currently being built will never be occupied by a Canadian, if anybody. So unfortunately supply/demand logic doesn't work in Vancouver, at least not for Canadians. For a council that keeps quacking on about affordability, that's a shocking state of affairs, one they are well aware of, and one which they appear to be completely happy to encourage.
I posted a long article after the first night of the public hearing, where city staff spoke very positively about the Rize proposal.
http://www.straight.com/article-619201/vancouver/rize-alliance-proposal-...
I feel our coverage has been very balanced.
Charlie Smith
Please note:
My comment regarding rent was not explained in its full context. Under the Residential Tenancy Act, "Annual Rent Increase", landlords are able to increase rent annually inflation + 2%. Under "Additional Rent Increase", landlords can apply to increase their rents if they are charging substantially less than similar rental units in the same geographic area. So, you can see how this is a real threat to affordability if for example, a 1 BR rental unit for $900 is geographically near a similar rental unit that charges a substantially higher rent like $1850. Also, check out Craigslist for rents.
It is all about payback for Vision Vancouver's developer friends.
Yes, and this is exactly what's happening, which is what I talked about in my first post. The supply can't meet the demand. The supply is municipal in nature and the demand is global. If those forces remain unbalanced with too much demand and too little supply, guess what happens to prices? It's being played out right in front of all of us. That's why a solution to lower prices is to either reduce demand, increase supply or both. Right now, no political party is doing anything for either end of the supply-demand curve (there's a bit of construction happening, but not much). But of course, why would they? Baby boomers are more likely than any other demographic to own property and there's more of them to vote in greater numbers -- you think they want to see the value of their homes come down?
"Chances are a lot of units recently built or currently being built will never be occupied by a Canadian, if anybody."
This I don't buy at all. Probably most homes built in Vancouver are owned by Canadians and/or Canadian residents. It's sort of impossible to tell, but the guys over at Urban Future figure that in 2010, only about 0.7% of assessed properties in Vancouver are foreigner-owned, and their numbers are probably as accurate as anyone else's.
http://vancouver.openfile.ca/vancouver/file/2011/05/role-or-foreign-owne...
"So unfortunately supply/demand logic doesn't work in Vancouver, at least not for Canadians"
It works equally well for everyone. Vancouver is actually a pretty solid case study on supply and demand. And, if we prove to be in a real estate bubble (which is quite likely), will prove to be a solid case study on what happens when demand decreases.
"For a council that keeps quacking on about affordability, that's a shocking state of affairs, one they are well aware of, and one which they appear to be completely happy to encourage. "
Yeah, I don't know what the demographics of the council are, but I'm going to guess that they're mostly home-owners, and I'd doubt they are really interested in depreciating real estate values in this city. Hell, if we wanted to, we could rezone Stanley Park, the UBC endowment lands, Jericho Park and a good chunk of parkland, create enough housing for 500,000 people and watch real estate prices in this city drop overnight. Betcha it doesn't happen, though.
240 units does next to nothing to resaturate supply, especially considering how easily this is sold to a global market. Speaking of "entitlement", the previous two comments seem to suggest that developers should be able to build as they please, what they please, as long as they can afford the permits. This is a world-class city, not the wild west. There needs to be room for everyone, and there is a very real housing crisis that continues to go un-addressed as the city panders to the business aims of developers and not the needs of the residents.
Then you're not going to see any appreciable change in price.
"Speaking of "entitlement", the previous two comments seem to suggest that developers should be able to build as they please, what they please, as long as they can afford the permits"
Guess you should read it again.
"This is a world-class city, not the wild west. There needs to be room for everyone."
There are 6.8 billion people in this world. Vancouver is 115 square kilometres. I wish you all the luck in the world trying to find a way to fit "everyone" in.
My point exactly. First you say supply should just be made to outstrip demand. Supposing that were be reasonable, how would the proposed 240 units affect supply, especially considering what their buy-in prices would be? As you've said, it would do nothing to affect prices, and so it's ridiculous to suggest that the Rize should be viewed a component to combat snowballing prices. If anything, it's simply there to help the developers take advantage of them.
"There are 6.8 billion people in this world. Vancouver is 115 square kilometres. I wish you all the luck in the world trying to find a way to fit "everyone" in"
OH HO HO YOU GOT ME THERE! Let me be clearer. As the city continues to grow, measures need to be taken to ensure that entire demographics of people (as determined by earnings or any other means) aren't pushed out of their neighborhoods or the city altogether. On that note I find it really laughable when developers argue their cases by saying things like "Vancouver's population is expected to grow by over a million people in another X years" as though they're solving a housing problem in advance and we should be thanking them. Those hypothetical people aren't going to show up at all if there's nowhere to live, so maybe instead of pretending that there's an imaginary future housing crisis that can be addressed by callously building stacks of retail units wherever they'll fit, the city and developers should focus on the very real current housing crisis. Spoiler: $240 half million dollar condo units with cash-grab big box retail units on a major intersection isn't the solution. Thanks for coming out though.