Social Housing in Vancouver - The 14 Sites

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

that doesn't seem like much... Richmond builds almost every building to the 45m max. and that is a suburb.

This is a historical district (Granville Entertainment District). Otherwise the entire street would be lined with 40 story towers.

Originally Posted by GenWhy?

Conditionally, not through a rezoning in most areas internally in the 'hood, you can build up to 190 feet or 58 metres, if I'm reading RM zoning correctly.

17 stories. Not too shabby.
They should be able to add 4x the current number of units to the Granville Site, so 440 rooms.

Haro Street... I know the problem with high-rise social housing in the past... but this is the West End. It should be reasonably integrated into the neighborhood instead of becoming a vertical ghetto.

Also, I find this comment in the DH article interesting.

For 55 million the gov could have bought 5-10 times more units in a less expensive area. I get that people (including homeless) want to be in the best areas (highest $ per square foot prices) but it might be time to rethink the relationship between where we provide help and where the homeless prefer to live.

Would that work?

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by fredinno

This is a historical district (Granville Entertainment District). Otherwise the entire street would be lined with 40 story towers.

17 stories. Not too shabby.
They should be able to add 4x the current number of units to the Granville Site, so 440 rooms.

I'm pretty sure GenWhy was describing the height allowed in the zoning in The West End (like Davie and Robson) - not Granville.

Originally Posted by fredinno

Haro Street... I know the problem with high-rise social housing in the past... but this is the West End. It should be reasonably integrated into the neighborhood instead of becoming a vertical ghetto.

Also, I find this comment in the DH article interesting. "For 55 million the gov could have bought 5-10 times more units in a less expensive area."
Would that work?

The $55m bought 110 rooms and a development site (which won't have anything like 440 more rooms). I can't think of anywhere in Vancouver where BC Housing could have bought 110 move-in ready units for $5 to $10 million. That number of Temporary Modular units would have cost around $20 million, and there would have to be a vacant site to put them on; as we have established; there aren't many, if any vacant public pieces of land with the potential to add temporary units.

[VancouverOfTheFuture]

Originally Posted by fredinno

This is a historical district (Granville Entertainment District). Otherwise the entire street would be lined with 40 story towers.

17 stories. Not too shabby.
They should be able to add 4x the current number of units to the Granville Site, so 440 rooms.

Haro Street... I know the problem with high-rise social housing in the past... but this is the West End. It should be reasonably integrated into the neighborhood instead of becoming a vertical ghetto.

Also, I find this comment in the DH article interesting.
Would that work?

sorry, i meant the West End, not Granville.

[scryer]

Originally Posted by SeymourDrake

Where is a good place to dump all of the homeless, mentally ill, drug addicts, so that some of you will stop complaining that your neighborhoods are ruined? Where?

That is a very good question. No area is immune to the scourge of criminal activity derived from drug use. That's why every neighbourhood is against it; no one wants to raise kids in areas where people are passed out with a needle in their arm under a play structure. I've seen it too many times in Strathcona Park (before the migration). People want to feel safe in their neighbourhoods and introducing larger demographics of users and the mentally ill in their neighbourhoods eliminates their sense of safety.

In the last 10-15 years, the city and developers have been pushing this "eutopia" of mixed income buildings that include a social housing component of some kind. Now there are some social housing complexes, as discussed in this very thread, that integrate quite well in neighbourhoods. And then there are other social housing complexes that are the very opposite.

The problem is that it's probably only a few individuals in a complex that are giving that complex a bad rep. And that there is no strategy to relocate repeat offenders that are simply too dangerous to themselves or they are just simply unfit for independent accommodation in a social housing complex. If people knew that violent users would be immediately relocated (and that it would be enforced) then they would have a reassurance to ease some of their worries.

Originally Posted by SeymourDrake

Is a neighborhood any better when the drug addicts are in million $ + Condos?

As most of you know there are various levels of our society that are drug addicts. From Street users to Dial a Doper users to High End users.

Well it isn't the high end users that are posting up tents across public parks that the majority of people living in Vancouver pay for.

I have even less sympathy for the high end users because they have access to a plethora of resources that any other addict wouldn't have access to... including the luxury of keeping their drug problem discreet.

Originally Posted by SeymourDrake

A drug addict is a drug addict.... not all homeless people are addicts. If medicated and properly cared for they are quite balanced. Are they not allowed to have an opinion just because they have a disability?

When they become a danger to themselves and to others then that's a whole other story. It's also rare that hardcore drug addicts check into rehab or that the naked guy on the car the other day, willingly seeks mental help. Metro Vancouver has a lot of hardcore drug users and mentally ill that do not seek treatment.

The 4 Pillars drug strategy developed by Vancouver includes enforcement and treatment yet we only see our public funding heavily dedicated to harm reduction when we need all 4 pillars working.

[SeymourDrake]

Next time some of you visit california drive through the 50 blocks of skid row. I guarantee your jaw will drop and you will never unsee the mass of humanity that has been given up on. it should be declared a disaster zone.

When we were driving through we kept on seeing ambulances dropping people off. i was told because of their healthcare system the homeless are dropped right off where they were picked up once ready for release from hospital.

Now obviously the populations and healthcare is different but if we don't care for our vulnerable one day vancouver could have a similar area that makes the DTES double..

There will always be homeless people as long as it's legal. but if you make it illegal and throw a bunch of charges at them including a 30 day stay under the mental health Act, they can be evaluated, medicated, financially secure and housing figured out. if they end up back on the street they go to the proper facility.

There has to be some kind of accountibility so either they make a change or the govt does it for them.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by Changing City

I'm pretty sure GenWhy was describing the height allowed in the zoning in The West End (like Davie and Robson) - not Granville.




The $55m bought 110 rooms and a development site (which won't have anything like 440 more rooms). I can't think of anywhere in Vancouver where BC Housing could have bought 110 move-in ready units for $5 to $10 million. That number of Temporary Modular units would have cost around $20 million, and there would have to be a vacant site to put them on; as we have established; there aren't many, if any vacant public pieces of land with the potential to add temporary units.

I mean, though, let's be honest, Vancouver could ignore them and go a story higher, since they're the ones writing the rules. Not that they likely will.

OK, so it seems like the height limit is more like 9-10 stories ( https://cd1-bylaws.vancouver.ca/CD-1(491).pdf ) Which is coincidentally the height of the proposed Concord Social Housing (10 stories). That's still somewhere around 275 units- assuming it's just one giant rectangular building, or course.

No, but I think the idea is that since you're going to be redeveloping these units eventually anyways, you may be better off with just buying up cheaper land in the suburbs and moving homeless there once the redevelopment happens.

Theoretically you could put some of the modular shelters in somewhere like Langara and temporarily close down a few of the Golf runs until more permanent housing is built.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by fredinno

I mean, though, let's be honest, Vancouver could ignore them and go a story higher, since they're the ones writing the rules. Not that they likely will.

OK, so it seems like the height limit is more like 9-10 stories ( https://cd1-bylaws.vancouver.ca/CD-1(491).pdf ) Which is coincidentally the height of the proposed Concord Social Housing (10 stories). That's still somewhere around 275 units- assuming it's just one giant rectangular building, or course.

No, but I think the idea is that since you're going to be redeveloping these units eventually anyways, you may be better off with just buying up cheaper land in the suburbs and moving homeless there once the redevelopment happens.

Theoretically you could put some of the modular shelters in somewhere like Langara and temporarily close down a few of the Golf runs until more permanent housing is built.

Concord don't build social housing, but I assume you're referencing the 58 West Hastings site they sold to The City. That' s going to have 231 units in a 10 storey building, but the site has a 268 foot frontage. The hotel site on Granville is 150 feet wide, so if the existing hotel is demolished you might get about 150 units. If the main hotel is retained, then the 3-storey addition and the parking lot combined would have a 100 foot frontage. That might see 100 to 120 units, depending on the mix of unit sizes.

The Parks Board control Langara golf course, not The City or BC Housing, but I look forward to you running for office with the idea of moving the homeless there. It would liven up the election. Other comments over the years have said 'move the problem somewhere else', but nobody has a realistic idea of where, and the idea ignores the response that it's not actually legal to 'force' someone to move somewhere else.

[VancouverOfTheFuture]

Originally Posted by fredinno

Theoretically you could put some of the modular shelters in somewhere like Langara and temporarily close down a few of the Golf runs until more permanent housing is built.

no you cannot, if you read and understood the Vancouver Charter you would see the the Board of Parks and Recreation is not part of the City of Vancouver. The Parks Board mandate is to maintain the integrity of the parks. One major aspect of this is expanding and creating better parks, not closing parts down to house vagrants.

If you wanted to do that, the Vancouver Charter would need amendments from the Province first, including the removal of elected members of the Board.

good luck with that. not to mention, that is also a terrible idea in general.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by Changing City

Concord don't build social housing, but I assume you're referencing the 58 West Hastings site they sold to The City. That' s going to have 231 units in a 10 storey building, but the site has a 268 foot frontage. The hotel site on Granville is 150 feet wide, so if the existing hotel is demolished you might get about 150 units. If the main hotel is retained, then the 3-storey addition and the parking lot combined would have a 100 foot frontage. That might see 100 to 120 units, depending on the mix of unit sizes.

The earlier estimate included the demolished hotels units.

[officedweller]

VPD increasing patrols downtown after residents raise concerns about safety
https://bc.ctvnews.ca/vpd-increasing-pat...ts-raise-concerns-about-safety-1.5002472

[cov]

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

no you cannot, if you read and understood the Vancouver Charter you would see the the Board of Parks and Recreation is not part of the City of Vancouver. The Parks Board mandate is to maintain the integrity of the parks. One major aspect of this is expanding and creating better parks, not closing parts down to house vagrants.

If you wanted to do that, the Vancouver Charter would need amendments from the Province first, including the removal of elected members of the Board.

good luck with that. not to mention, that is also a terrible idea in general.

I'm pretty certain that the park board will approve this initiative if Cityhall asked. Just looking at Oppenheimer Park, it's plenty evident that the current board is willing to compromise parks for housing purposes. Modular housing provides real shelters at least.

[VancouverOfTheFuture]

Originally Posted by cov

I'm pretty certain that the park board will approve this initiative if Cityhall asked. Just looking at Oppenheimer Park, it's plenty evident that the current board is willing to compromise parks for housing purposes. Modular housing provides real shelters at least.

they wouldn't, not quickly at least. Vison already asked about that in 2018.

and the Park Board is not okay with these people camping in parks. but the VPD works for the City and if they wont do their jobs, the Park Board can't have their own police doing it.

they very much dislike what is going on, it costs them butt loads of money in damages and repairs and puts other peoples live in danger. look at all the weapons/assaults/needles/explosions that were constantly found/happening in the camps.

it is against the law to camp or sleep in a park, but without the VPD doing their jobs, the Park Board is stuck.

[cyclinginvancouver]

1015 E Hastings

The proposal is to allow for the development of two 14-storey residential buildings. The zoning would change from M-1 (industrial) to CD-1 (comprehensive development). This proposal includes:

138 units of social housing
25 units of transitional housing
80-bed shelter and associated services
A social enterprise space
A floor space ratio (FSR) of 6.80
A net floor area of 14,510 sq. m (156,184 sq. ft.)
A building height of 42.5 m (139.44 ft.)
59 vehicle parking spaces and 318 bicycle parking spaces

[Sheba]

Long, winding road leads to 'twisting' tower pitched for ex-Expo site

The tower proposed for the north end of the Granville Bridge is striking, featuring what its architects call “undulating curves” inspired by a dancer. But the ground below also has a noteworthy story, which has been long, complex and, at times, legally contentious.

...

The property, at 601 Beach Crescent near False Creek’s north shore, was part of the Expo 86 lands. But in the decades since, this piece of prime real estate has sat undeveloped. The site was owned by Concord Pacific, the international player that bought the Expo land and has already developed much of it. During a four-year process with the City of Vancouver in the 1990s negotiating the rezoning of some of Concord’s lands, the developer transferred 601 Beach to the city in 1999 and the site was earmarked for social housing.

In 2016, the city put 601 Beach up for sale. The property was sold to a private developer, Pinnacle International, with the stipulation that future development must include 152 social housing units, with market housing making up the rest of the project, subject to council’s decision on the rezoning.

The sale was approved in 2016 by Vancouver’s then-Vision-majority council. As with all transactions involving the disposition of city-owned real estate, the decision was made behind in a closed meeting, a city representative said last week, so no further details were available, other than confirming it required an affirmative vote by two-thirds of council.

Within months of the city putting 601 Beach up for sale in 2016, Concord sued the city, alleging the plan to sell the lot for commercial development would violate the terms of the deal through which Concord had conveyed the land to the city.

Concord alleged in court filings that if the property was “sold by the City to a third party to be developed for purposes other than low-rise non-profit housing (e.g., for the purpose of creating a highrise condominium tower), Concord will suffer irreparable commercial harm.”

Concord had notified the city that it is “ready, willing and able” to purchase the site “at an equitable price,” the notice of claim said.

...

Ann McAfee, Vancouver’s co-director of planning before her retirement in 2006, said that in her three decades at city hall, the city generally didn’t generally sell city-owned property.

“During my time, any city lands stayed as city lands,” McAfee said.

Affordable homes are expensive. Even if the city received free land, building housing and operating it at below-market rents takes a lot of money, more than municipalities have typically been able to afford.

In earlier decades, McAfee said, the city worked with the federal government, which funded non-market housing on city-owned land, such as the development of False Creek’s south shore in the 1970s.

But the federal government pulled out of housing in the 1990s. In 2016, when the city sold 601 Beach, the provincial and federal governments weren’t investing in affordable housing, while Vancouver’s affordability crisis was escalating.

“I suppose that was understandable at the time,” McAfee said. “But I certainly didn’t recommend to council any sales during the time I was running it.”

Cameron Gray, the longtime director of the City of Vancouver’s Housing Centre, who retired in 2010, said that while the city generally tried to retain property instead of selling it, “in the absence of federal and provincial money, that’s probably what you end up having to do” to get social housing built.

The question before council this week is not whether it was a good idea for the city to sell 601 Beach in 2016. Instead, council must decide whether Pinnacle’s application in 2020 is good for the city now and in the future.

The non-market housing units’ affordability levels will be determined later, but those 152 units would get the city a fair bit closer to its social housing targets, which have lagged behind for years. That helps explain why several social housing groups, including the B.C. Non-Profit Housing Association, have written to the city to support 601 Beach.

Meanwhile, some neighbouring residents have mounted their opposition, with many addressing council earlier this month during the first four hours of public hearing for the project.

Some councillors, based on questions at the public hearing’s first night, seem to share those opponents’ concerns. Others seem interested in seeing housing on a site which has, for decades, been a gravel lot.

They’re set to decide Wednesday whether or not to add a new twist to Vancouver’s skyline.

[Sheba]

Controversial proposal to fast-track social housing towers heads to Vancouver council

More than 100 people have signed up to speak to a controversial proposal that could see multi-storey social housing projects fast-tracked in some Vancouver neighbourhoods.

Coun. Christine Boyle has proposed a motion that would allow the approval of non-profit or co-op housing projects of up to 12 storeys without a lengthy public hearing process.

It comes a month after council approved a plan allowing the same sped-up process for non-profit projects up to six storeys.

“I’m proposing that we make it easier to build a height that makes sense for each project, up to 12 storeys,” Boyle told Global News.

“What we’re likely to see is not a massive increase in the number of buildings, but it will make a difference where there are existing or co-op housing, older buildings that need to be redeveloped anyway, that those projects would have the flexibility to build to a height that makes the most sense for them.”

The proposal would apply to areas that are zoned RM-3A, RM-4, and RM-4N — lower-density multi-family housing — and mostly in the Kitsilano, Marpole, Grandview-Woodland, Mount Pleasant and Fairview.

Boyle argues that many non-profit housing buildings in those areas are nearing the end of their lifespan, and that allowing the taller buildings will give their operators greater certainty and the ability to fund more social housing.

But the proposal has drawn criticism for a number of reasons, not least of which is the city’s own definition of “social housing.”

In order to qualify for that definition, 30 per cent of the units in a development must be held at subsidized rates for low income people.

...

[SFUVancouver]

Oh wow, here's a blast from the past thread. I created this a decade ago. A lot has changed (and hasn't) in that time. 1050 Expo Boulevard still hasn't been built, I don't think.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by SFUVancouver

Oh wow, here's a blast from the past thread. I created this a decade ago. A lot has changed (and hasn't) in that time. 1050 Expo Boulevard still hasn't been built, I don't think.

You're correct, the other sites were developed, but 1050 Expo hasn't been built, although at least two projects were designed, but never funded. It was initially 129 studios in a 9 storey concrete building, and then redesigned as a 6 storey wood-frame building with 89 studios. It appears that Concord still own the site. There was a memorandum of understanding drawn up about the six remaining non-market sites owned by Concord but to be developed by the City or their agents, but it hasn't been put into effect. Concord were pissed about the way the City are developing 601 Beach (with a Pinnacle tower to develop the non-market podium) so for now nothing is happening. Concord can't develop the site, and for now it's a reserve bargaining chip for the City. Who knows whether there are negotiations betweenn Concord and the City, but there are a lot of complicated moves in play. Concord potentially can build towers at NEFC and want to change the zoning on Molson's Brewery, but the City control the approvals on both those. Council can't predetermine the outcome of rezonings, so both sides would have a lot to lose, as well as potentially gain. The site could sit unresolved for quite a while.

[osirisboy]

89 units on that expo site seems low

[officedweller]

That 1050 Expo Blvd site should be at least mid-rise.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Sheba

Controversial proposal to fast-track social housing towers heads to Vancouver council

Build a few in Shaughnessey or Vancouver West: the taller the better. Also build 10 blocks around City Hall. Plenty of City-owned land there.