Social Housing in Vancouver - The 14 Sites

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Zassk

What do you envision as "tough love"? Obviously not giving them a place to sleep indoors, so what then? Tolerate them living homeless on the streets? Incarceration until they agree to make a living? One-way bus tickets to Calgary? Labour camps?

Yup tough love means possibly incarceration till they boot their addiction or get better mentally, etc. Labour camp? Why not? Make them earn a living for the city through programs like removing graffiti, garbage pick-up, coastal clean-up, helping other homeless folks, etc, and then putting them up in a rooming facility (shared dormitories, etc), and make sure they understand the meaning of earning one's keep. The more they improve the more reward they get, with the shinny new subsidized housing as the ultimate prize in the program.

Currently, what's the point of picking up the homeless directly from the streets and placing them into expensive brand new suites in sought-after neighbourhoods? Hiding the homeless in shinny new buildings is analogous to sweeping dust under the carpet. Wouldn't that be sending the wrong message to others that not working does pay? You see problematic addicts and mentally ill people who never take responsibilities for themselves suddenly given expensive things that the very hardworking can't even afford. How is this going to help these people improve their own conditions? Shouldn't then we prescribe the pills of tough love instead? Without tough love, efforts by generations of do-gooders to help the down-trodden have certainly gone down the drain, as evident by the situation that still persists in East Hastings and even other places like Granville Street today. You know how that Einstein's quote goes about insanity.....and doing the same thing over and over again....

You can never educate by spoiling someone.

[osirisboy]

Regarding expo. 89 units for that lot??? That seems like ridiculously low density

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by osirisboy

Regarding expo. 89 units for that lot??? That seems like ridiculously low density

It's a pretty awkward shaped lot. Social housing doesn't tend to get any higher than 6-8 stories.

Did the BC government mandate "BC wood first" construction or anything for these?

[osirisboy]

It's not that awkward and it's pretty large. Even if 6-8 tall it could be way more than 89 units

[Bcasey25raptor]

Social housing should go on a priority basis.

Priority 1) seniors
Priority 2) the disabled
Priority 3) low income families
Priority 4) everybody else.

[officedweller]

Article from the Courier about the last of the 14 sites - the triangular one between Expo and Pacific Blvds:

http://www.vancourier.com/news/30-million-social-housing-site-in-doubt-1.2084739

$30-million social housing site in doubt
Mayor Gregor Robertson says Yaletown property 'still not workable'
Mike Howell / Vancouver Courier
October 13, 2015 04:28 PM


An 89-unit social housing site slated to be built in Yaletown has met with years of delays and may not go ahead.
Concord Pacific owns the property, which is currently a parking lot adjacent to the Cambie Bridge. Photo Dan Toulgoet
...

The triangular-shaped property at 1050 Expo Boulevard, which is currently a parking lot adjacent to the Cambie Bridge,
is the last of 14 properties slated to be developed under a partnership with the B.C. government, Concord Pacific and the Streetohome Foundation.

“There are complications with that site that have kept it from being doable,” Mayor Gregor Robertson told the Courier Tuesday. “
I don’t know what the latest is and if it’s actually going to be coming on stream, but the last I heard is that it was still not workable as a social housing site.”

The mayor cited the site’s “odd shape,” which is wedged between Expo and Pacific boulevards, that have led to concerns with design.
Contaminated soil left over from the area’s industrial past is also a factor, Robertson said. Asked whether there will ever be a so-called 14th site,
the mayor replied: "There may not be."

See more at: http://www.vancourier.com/news/30-millio...-in-doubt-1.2084739#sthash.scOS3ORX.dpuf

[WarrenC12]

Well, there should be something other than a lame surface parking lot.

[Prometheus]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Article from the Courier about the last of the 14 sites - the triangular one between Expo and Pacific Blvds:

http://www.vancourier.com/news/30-million-social-housing-site-in-doubt-1.2084739

See more at: http://www.vancourier.com/news/30-millio...-in-doubt-1.2084739#sthash.scOS3ORX.dpuf

Now, we just need to wait to hear they have abandoned their totally asinine and fiscally criminal plan to build a welfare housing project on the last remaining waterfront property in the heart of Coal Harbour (probably worth +$100 million).

[osirisboy]

89 units on a $30 million site (not including the cost of the actual building). have politicians gone crazy??? Why aren't the social housing advocates ie Pivot not protesting this as a huge waste of funds. There should easily be triple as many units built for that price

[Prometheus]

Originally Posted by osirisboy

89 units on a $30 million site (not including the cost of the actual building). have politicians gone crazy??? Why aren't the social housing advocates ie Pivot not protesting this as a huge waste of funds. There should easily be triple as many units built for that price

Do you really think that site is worth only $30 million? Coal Harbour luxury neighbourhood; last remaining seawall property; unlimited views of paradise; hottest real estate market in North America? Maybe, a downtown real estate person can weigh in, but I would be surprised if that site could not fetch over $60 million, if the city were to remove its yoke on Vancouver and re-zone that site for 600 feet or more.

The Westin Bayshore, a few metres away, just sold for a reported $350 million based on its redevelopment potential, notwithstanding that the city has been emphatic that it will not allow any tall towers on that site.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Prometheus

Do you really think that site is worth only $30 million? Coal Harbour luxury neighbourhood; last remaining seawall property; unlimited views of paradise? Maybe, a downtown real estate person can weigh in, but I would be surprised if that site could not fetch over $70 million, if the city were to remove its yoke on Vancouver and re-zone that site for 600 feet.

Which site is this?

[Prometheus]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Which site is this?

This site:

[Prometheus]

The Westin Bayshore sold for a reported $290 million, not $350 million. But that valuation was based on its redevelopment potential, notwithstanding that the city has been emphatic that any significant redevelopment will not be allowed:

Vancouver’s Bayshore Hotel sold for redevelopment potential

BY JEFF LEE, VANCOUVER SUN SEPTEMBER 5, 2015

VANCOUVER — The new owners of the Westin Bayshore Hotel will be in for a public fight if they expect to redevelop the site for more than the modest increases already allowed, according to the city's top planner.

Brian Jackson, the director of planning, said Friday he couldn't confirm that Concord Pacific Developments had bought the 2.4 hectare (six acre) site, which includes the elegant 510-room hotel and accompanying marina at 1601 Bayshore Drive. But he said any redevelopment is limited to two modest tower sites, and that he had warned all prospective buyers not to think they could fully redevelop the site and remove the hotel and convention centre. Any idea that the entire site could be converted to much higher density or heights, he said, would be met with "a very long and very contentious zoning process."

Jackson's comments come as Concord Pacific awaits the legal completion of a real estate deal it signed with the hotel's owners in early July. Concord Pacific won't confirm that it bought the complex, saying it was under a legal obligation not to comment on the proceedings. However, Bob Levine, a founding partner of Avison Young, which represented another interested buyer, confirmed the sale Friday.

Levine said he didn't know the final price but estimated it to be around $290 million. That is far more than what every other potential buyer thought the property was worth, he said, and indicates that Concord Pacific has hopes of developing it in the future.

Levine said based on the price Concord reportedly paid, the small amount of remaining development potential "is not what is driving that deal."

"No way. None of that makes any sense," he said. "I think what is driving the deal is a wish and a prayer that some time down the road the city will look at a new plan."

Jackson said the hotel had been on the market for up to a year, and drew interest from a handful of large development companies, many of whom appeared interested in whether the site could be redeveloped in its entirety. He said the city warned all comers.

"We were very clear that the redevelopment potential of that site is one rental tower and one additional hotel tower," Jackson said. "If they purchased it with the expectation that they could do more with it, that was not based on the advice they received from us."

Full story: http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Vanco...evelopment+potential/11341485/story.html

[Klazu]

What does it mean that the lot is "not workable"? They cannot copy and paste their bulky design for every social housing in town on a triangle-shaped lot?

Wasn't there going to be a social housing also on the empty lot at Nelson and Beatty? Or was someone confusing that with this one in one earlier comment?

[osirisboy]

Nelson and Beatty is social housing it's just not one of the 14

[jlousa]

Has Concord built any social units into their developments? They have seemed to offload all their commerical requirementsto other developers (ie made Henderson absorb all the commercial requirements from the Expo lands when they sold them their parcal) and they traded the city the empty parcel at 58W Hastings to get rid of providing units at Colours. Don't see too many other developers getting so lucky, altough Aspac was pretty successful in the Harbour Green redevelopment.

[Klazu]

Originally Posted by Prometheus

Now, we just need to wait to hear they have abandoned their totally asinine and fiscally criminal plan to build a welfare housing project on the last remaining waterfront property in the heart of Coal Harbour (probably worth +$100 million).

I have never thought that there actually is one remaining site to develop in there. It is not that noticable in real life. Amazing location.

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by jlousa

Has Concord built any social units into their developments? They have seemed to offload all their commerical requirementsto other developers (ie made Henderson absorb all the commercial requirements from the Expo lands when they sold them their parcal) and they traded the city the empty parcel at 58W Hastings to get rid of providing units at Colours. Don't see too many other developers getting so lucky, altough Aspac was pretty successful in the Harbour Green redevelopment.

They've built some, paid cash in lieu for one and have some empty sites:

- middle of the block @ Parkview (north side of Pacific Blvd) - though I think the whole north side of Pacific was sold off or built by an affiliate (?)
- senior's building next to the Concordias
- co-op buildings in Roundhouse Neighbourhood
- paid cash in lieu for Tower 4 above the HSBC at Marinaside
- co-op building at the east end of Marinaside
- daycare next to West One
- empty triangular site
- empty Beatty & Nelson site
- at least one empty site in the Beach Neighbourhood (next to Aqua)

For the commercial uses, Concord did a zoning swap between the Cambie Bridgehead area and the Spectrum site. The Spectrum site was supposed to be a commercial office tower district, but Concord didn't want to wait out the office market and swapped its zoning with residential from the Cambie Bridgehead zone, which became "choice of use" - with the PCI-built Pivotal Building being the only office block to emerge (the rest of the Cambie Bridgehead zone are The Max, One Pacific and The Arc). Early on, there was a Concord proposal to build office towers on the site of One Pacific and The Arc.

[osirisboy]

Originally Posted by jlousa

Has Concord built any social units into their developments? They have seemed to offload all their commerical requirementsto other developers (ie made Henderson absorb all the commercial requirements from the Expo lands when they sold them their parcal) and they traded the city the empty parcel at 58W Hastings to get rid of providing units at Colours. Don't see too many other developers getting so lucky, altough Aspac was pretty successful in the Harbour Green redevelopment.

Is concord responsible for building social housing on the sites by George Wainburn park off of pacific? They have been boarded up since the beginning of time lol

[officedweller]

Yes, as far as I know - contingent on government funding though...