Community Unanimously Against Mount Pleasant Tower

The results from the March 20th hearing were displayed last night at a City-hosted open house. The Heritage Hall on Main Street was full of concerned citizens giving feedback on the modifications that City staff have since made to the Rize Development’s rezoning application. Most of the changes had to do with the height and scale of the building. What had been a 26 story tower has been downsized to 19 floors. The massing has been decreased on Watson and 10th Avenue, but increased on the side facing Broadway. A huge majority of residents said that a building between 6 and 12 stories would be more appropriate for the location – the smallest option on the City’s feedback forms. The drop in height reduced the density from 6.44 FSR (Floor to Space ratio) to 5.33 FSR. This is still significantly higher than the standard 3 FSR for the neighbourhood. Another new development containing social housing was talked down at City Hall from 11 stories to only 8 last July.

The massing and form are now set to be similar to those of the Lee Building on the North-West corner of Broadway and Main. The developers have been trying to spin this new tower as becoming the “signature” building for Mount Pleasant, but most see the historic Lee Building as already filling that role.

While the City has lowered the building by a few floors, as proposed it is still almost twice as tall as anything else around the Main and Broadway hub. To meet the concerns of the community, the development will still have to change significantly. The City will also need to find a way to address the neighbourhood’s affordability concerns. As it stands the development would still be very detrimental to the socio-economic makeup of Mount Pleasant.

Most of the residents were also against the Community Amenities and Benefits that had originally proposed. People are concerned that even the STIR (Short Term Incentives for Rental) housing would not be affordable to people who currently live in Mount Pleasant. STIR units rent at market rates. Mount Pleasant has traditionally been an affordable, working class neighbourhood, and STIR rent in a luxury tower would likely be much higher than most in the neighbourhood could afford. In combination with the market rental, some community art space and public art have also been proposed to compensate the community for the developer’s gains from rezoning. Many were concerned that the proposed artist space would be too expensive for artists, and that artists are finding it increasingly difficult to afford to live in the neighbourhood.

At the open house, there was an opportunity for residents to express further concerns. The sense in the room was that 19 stories is still much too high. Height is being framed as the major issue for this development, but there are also serious concerns about who will be able to afford living in Mount Pleasant. Residents are worried that this development will have a domino effect, leading to further large luxury condos being built in the neighbourhood.

The council meeting for this development has not yet been announced. More information is available on the City’s website for the rezoning here.

2Comments

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1

Corey on July 13, 2011 at 8:24 pm

“Residents are worried that this development will have a domino effect, leading to further large luxury condos being built in the neighbourhood.”

Not so. I’m a resident of Mount Pleasant, and you know what I worry about? People who want to limit new housing supply, in Vancouver of all places!

If this development is limited to 6 storeys, where do you think the people who would otherwise buy condos in the extra 13 storeys will go? They’re not going to vanish into thin air – they’re going to bid up the price of other Vancouver housing.

High housing prices in Vancouver are an indication that a lot of people want to live here. Limiting new housing supply is the least effective possible way to address housing affordability. This project isn’t perfect (way too many parking spaces), but the height and number of units is something we should encourage.
2

Sean Antrim on July 13, 2011 at 8:34 pm

I agree that we need to build more in Vancouver. However, I also think think that people shouldn’t have to move out of their neighbourhoods to make way for new wealth.

These large luxury projects push up rents and property taxes in the area. We need more density in Mt. Pleasant, but we also need subsidized housing to make sure that the seniors, artists and young people who make the neighbourhood so great can afford to stay.

The way this project has been brought through so far has almost completely ignored the voice of the community. I would love to see higher development along Broadway, as would many other residents.

I tried to point out at the end of this article that the developer is trying to frame the issue around height. As you probably know, height and density, while sort of correlated, don’t mean the same thing. The developer has already lowered the height of the building from 26 to 19 stories. I think they’re trying to get people to be upset about the outrageousness of the height (which would normally only be seen downtown) instead of discussing the effects on the affordability that this building will have.

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