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Posted Jul 16, 2022, 8:09 PM
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Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: BC
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I figured this was the best spot - 'This is just the beginning': First Nations' real estate megaprojects game-changing for Metro Vancouver
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Standing between a pair of gleaming apartment buildings, a condo tower, a park, a future grocery store, and massive holes in the ground that will soon provide a daycare, community centre and hundreds of additional homes, Musqueam Chief Wayne Sparrow said: “This is the future.”
After many years and steep legal bills, the Musqueam First Nation reached a landmark settlement with the B.C. government in 2008, for the return of some of its traditional territory. Now the Musqueam are using some of those lands near the University of B.C. to provide badly needed housing for the broader community and generate economic prosperity for their Nation.
Sparrow welcomed a group of elders to visit Leləm̓, the village their Nation has built in partnership with Polygon. The housing includes market and below-market rentals and leasehold stratas on 99-year leases.
That leasehold structure is crucial, emphasized Sparrow. It could have been more profitable in the short term, he said, to develop the land and sell condos outright. But that was never really a consideration.
“We’re never selling the land,” Sparrow said. “It took us 100-some-odd years to get it back. We ain’t gonna sell it after going to court to fight to get it back.”
The Leləm̓ community is just one of several major real estate developments in the pipeline from Vancouver-area First Nations, who have emerged as powerhouse developers in a region desperate for solutions to a housing shortage.
Postmedia analyzed eight major projects involving the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations, both individually and together under their MST Development Corporation joint venture. Their plans cover nearly 1.1 square kilometres of property in Vancouver, Burnaby and the North Shore, promising more than 25,500 homes.
That’s more than the total number of homes that exist today in the city of Port Coquitlam.
These megaprojects, which include social housing, market rentals, condos and townhouses, plus schools, retail, cultural amenities and commercial spaces, are in various stages. Residents started moving into Leləm̓ last year. Sen̓áḵw in Vancouver is scheduled to be done in five years. Others are a decade or more away from completion.
Like Leləm̓, all these major projects feature rental homes and leasehold stratas, meaning the First Nations retain ownership of the land underneath. The importance of this fact comes up repeatedly in conversations with local Indigenous leaders: the Nations will always own the land.
This is not new. For decades, the Musqueam Nation has generated revenue through rental and leasehold housing on their reserve on Vancouver’s southern edge. The Tsleil-Waututh Nation has built and sold more than 1,000 leasehold condos and townhomes on reserve land.
But the MST Nations’ real estate activity today is on a completely different scale than in the past, and observers say it is beyond what other Indigenous developers are doing elsewhere in Canada. Today, the joint venture’s portfolio of developable prime urban real estate, and the number of units in the pipeline, make it one of B.C.’s largest developers.
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For many of these megaprojects, the MST Nations have been partnering with some of B.C.’s largest developers: Polygon, Westbank, Aquilini.
A relatively small townhouse project planned in West Vancouver will be the first project MST Development handles on its own, and that is the eventual goal for all projects, Cook said. “In the future, development partners won’t be needed.”
Leaders from the Nations, including Sparrow and Thomas, say another part of the vision includes having more band members working on projects.
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The MST Nations’ real estate ventures have been applauded by local political leaders, and garnered positive international attention from the likes of The Economist and New York Times.
But not everyone is happy. Neighbours near some of the proposed developments have raised concerns about their size.
After concepts for MST’s plans at Jericho Lands were released earlier this year, including towers up to 38 storeys, a group of West Point Grey residents organized in opposition, hiring a well-known lobbyist and communications professional, and now city council candidate, Bill Tieleman, who told CTV News the fight against MST building tall towers at Jericho was part of “a battle for the soul of Vancouver.”
Last week, the Kits Point Residents Association issued a press release that said while they support the Squamish Nation’s ability to develop its own lands, they consider the high-density Sen̓áḵw proposal for Kits Point — of 11 towers of up to 57 storeys — “shockingly outside the boundaries” of existing city plans, resources and zoning.
This particular debate highlights the complexities of developing on reserve land, such as the 10-acre parcel near the south end of the Burrard Bridge where the Squamish Nation is planning Sen̓áḵw.
Half of the projects analyzed by Postmedia are MST joint ventures on “fee-simple” properties, which were acquired from the provincial and federal governments and must go through the same municipal rezoning processes as other major projects from private-sector and non-profit developers.
The Heather Lands, for example, received a rezoning approval in May from Vancouver council, the first MST joint venture to reach this stage, but still requires additional permits from city hall before construction can begin, which likely won’t be until 2024, almost a decade after planning began on the project.
In the other half of the projects, one of the Nations has individually partnered with a developer. If property is being developed is reserve land, as is the case with Sen̓ákw, municipal governments do not have the same authority. This has allowed the Squamish Nation to pursue far greater density for Sen̓ákw than the neighbouring area — and move far faster.
The Squamish Nation membership voted in 2019 with 87 per cent in favour of pursuing the project, with partner Westbank. Only three years later, they expect they could break ground on the project this year, a speed that would be unheard of for a 6,000-unit development going through city hall.
At a panel talk last month hosted by The Vancouver Sun, Bernd Christmas, CEO of the Squamish Nation’s economic development arm Nch’ḵay̓, said Sen̓ákw is not some kind of “Wild West” development. He insisted it is heavily regulated and rigorously planned, with environmental assessments, high architectural standards, and the rest.
“But we’ve just learned the secret of making it go quicker, by about five to 10 years,” Christmas told the panel, which included some of the biggest names in B.C.’s development industry. “If you have developments that are facing six-year, 10-year delays, come see us. Let’s move.”
The Tsleil-Waututh Nation has been trying for years to develop a large mixed-use community combining residential, commercial, educational, retail and community uses just off the Dollarton Highway, in partnership with Darwin Construction. But they faced “roadblocks” with the District of North Vancouver, “including three rejections of our rezoning application” in 2018 and 2019, the Tsleil-Waututh chief and council wrote last year in an op-ed in The North Shore News.
So, in 2019 the Tsleil-Waututh Nation decided to apply to the federal government to add the property to its reserve lands.
That “addition to reserve” application is under review by the federal government. If Ottawa approves it, that means the district council will lose any power to determine how the land is used or collect tax revenue on it.
The Kits Point Residents Association said this week that city leaders saying they “effectively have no jurisdiction” over Sen̓ákw is “an abdication” of their authority, arguing the municipality should have the power to negotiate plans for the site because it will rely on city services like water and sewer.
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A services agreement between the Squamish Nation and the city is nearly finalized, and the mayor predicted it will not generate many complaints from Vancouverites when it’s released publicly.
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Sen̓ákw has been described as groundbreaking — by both supporters and detractors — but it could be just the beginning. The Squamish Nation alone has dozens of parcels of reserve land, including along the North Shore, up the Howe Sound to Whistler, and on the Sunshine Coast. And that is just one First Nation.
Squamish First Nation Coun. Wilson Williams wouldn’t disclose details, but confirmed the Nation is discussing “a list of potential land developments.”
“We’re listening to our people and our ancestors who helped us get here,” Williams said. “There’s a lot of potential … but we want to do it the right way.
“We’re thinking seven generations down the road.”
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