Rupert - Renfrew Area Updates

[WarrenC12]

Wow Vin is outdoing himself in being spectacularly wrong across multiple threads this week. Bravo! Not an easy achievement with his track record.

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Okay, now we're moving the goalposts to include "headstarts." Burnaby was founded in 1892, six years after Vancouver... and yet Vancouver is getting almost twice the growth that Burnaby is. By everybody's standards except yours, that's success.

Well it wasn't a city until 1992

[Feathered Friend]

Given the activity at the Vancouver Technical Secondary School on Saturday, it wasn’t surprising to learn more people have engaged with this phase of the Rupert & Renfrew Area Plan than the entire previous stage. There’s also some clear consensus desires shaping up too.

More retail stores, & safer pedestrian connections were top of mind, as few seemed concerned about preserving the neighbourhood as it exists today. That said, the engineering department’s willingness to forgo requiring any parking stalls in the multi-plex areas caused some angst.

Conversely, those professionals were more worried that this planning process was getting ahead of their ability to study the capacity of the sewer system downstream of the Nanaimo Station area. As a result, those blocks might be cut out of this plan, & included in a later one.

Of course, you won’t have to wait until then, as there’s another open house today at the Renfrew Public Library & the online survey for this community design process is open until February 28th, 2023. You can find the latter at the link below.

https://www.shapeyourcity.ca/rupert-..._tool#tool_tab

https://www.instagram.com/p/CodVe31v...IT4I9eoGGOiWvQ

[Lexus]

2023, Feb 24

Untitled by Lexus LX600, on Flickr

Untitled by Lexus LX600, on Flickr

Untitled by Lexus LX600, on Flickr

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by Lexus

2023, Feb 24

Untitled by Lexus LX600, on Flickr

Thanks!
Those sites are for these two buildings:

2543-2583 Renfrew Street & 2895 East 10th Avenue
2603-2655 Renfrew Street

Originally Posted by Feathered Friend

https://council.vancouver.ca/2019121...licyreport.pdf


https://council.vancouver.ca/20191105/documents/p5.pdf

https://cityduo.wordpress.com/2019/1...-rental-homes/

[GMD]

It is good to finally see some new housing in this area. It was always so ridiculous to have a cluster of offices surrounded by single family homes so that it was impossible for anyone working in the offices to ever live nearby.

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by Lexus

2023, Feb 24

Untitled by Lexus LX600, on Flickr

Renfrew Business Centre
2710 Kaslo Street

Originally Posted by Feathered Friend

https://cityduo.wordpress.com/2020/0...tional-threat/

[madog222]

And that looks like excavation at 2525 Renfrew just to the north, Nicolaou Properties bought the project in 2021. 37 market rentals under the Rental 100 program.

Current render:

Image from Nicolano / Giar Williamson Architects https://npltd.ca/

Slight change of materials over previous design:

[officedweller]

Ah, 3 sites!
I guess we'll see another crane.

[madog222]

Lots happening there, I just hope the NW corner of Broadway & Renfrew stays as is for a while, the Mexican place there is great.

[csbvan]

Great to see this area finally start to develop. It's been underutilized for decades.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Nice to have more than just a series of office parks and a for-profit school.

[ecbin]

Originally Posted by GMD

It is good to finally see some new housing in this area. It was always so ridiculous to have a cluster of offices surrounded by single family homes so that it was impossible for anyone working in the offices to ever live nearby.

100% but why so short? Is there some sort of issue with the land (peat bog?) or did the city, as they often do, prioritise minimising NIMBY complaints? If the land can support it these should be 20+ story developments.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by ecbin

100% but why so short? Is there some sort of issue with the land (peat bog?) or did the city, as they often do, prioritise minimising NIMBY complaints? If the land can support it these should be 20+ story developments.

2525 Renfrew was submitted in 2015, and approved in 2016 (as 2894 E Broadway). It's taken from then until now for the developer to fund the project and move ahead with the 4 storey building.

The two 6 storey buildings being built further south are also rental, and wood-frame. Unless the developer builds with mass timber (which apparently costs pretty much the same as concrete), then six storeys is the maximum permitted under code. The economics of developing, especially in East Vancouver, tends to favour less expensive construction.

The exception is at Joyce Station, Westbank took the lead on building two towers, firstly condos and now rentals, in much taller towers, and presumably that has worked out for them, but they have much deeper pockets than the developers building here. There's a third tower there too, but that has a different developer and appears to have stalled before a public hearing.

[Feathered Friend]

Originally Posted by Changing City

The two 6 storey buildings being built further south are also rental, and wood-frame. Unless the developer builds with mass timber (which apparently costs pretty much the same as concrete), then six storeys is the maximum permitted under code. The economics of developing, especially in East Vancouver, tends to favour less expensive construction.

The exception is at Joyce Station, Westbank took the lead on building two towers, firstly condos and now rentals, in much taller towers, and presumably that has worked out for them, but they have much deeper pockets than the developers building here. There's a third tower there too, but that has a different developer and appears to have stalled before a public hearing.

The two MIRHPP buildings (2543 Renfrew St (DP-2020-00235) & 2603 Renfrew Street (DP-2020-00236)) were approved at eight floors, and will be concrete construction.

(Page 44)
https://web.archive.org/web/20211115...licyreport.pdf

As for the third tower at Joyce-Collingwood Station, it was redesigned twice, and then rejected by the UDP, so it was already on shaky ground. However, the biggest reason it didn't move forward was likely due to the huge backlash over the loss of the Filipino businesses that currently occupy the block.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...ondo-1.5946942

[ecbin]

Originally Posted by Changing City

The two 6 storey buildings being built further south are also rental, and wood-frame. Unless the developer builds with mass timber (which apparently costs pretty much the same as concrete), then six storeys is the maximum permitted under code. The economics of developing, especially in East Vancouver, tends to favour less expensive construction.

Curious to understand this more - why is that the case in East Van but seemingly not the case two stations over at Gilmore? (or even Brentwood or Holdom). Wouldn't the land costs in East Vancouver lead to the desire to build higher to make the financials work?

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by Feathered Friend

The two MIRHPP buildings (2543 Renfrew St (DP-2020-00235) & 2603 Renfrew Street (DP-2020-00236)) were approved at eight floors, and will be concrete construction.

(Page 44)
https://web.archive.org/web/20211115...licyreport.pdf

Right - I see that changed from the woodframe that was originally proposed to concrete. Also "Staff recommend a height and density higher than that of the submitted rezoning application". That's not exactly the narrative that is usually understood here! Glad to see the developer ran with it, and increased the density accordingly.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by ecbin

Curious to understand this more - why is that the case in East Van but seemingly not the case two stations over at Gilmore? (or even Brentwood or Holdom). Wouldn't the land costs in East Vancouver lead to the desire to build higher to make the financials work?

The context is so different, it's not really a direct comparison. Brentwood's a huge site, and so is Gilmore, so you're seeing major redevelopment with tall towers. (That's also true in Vancouver at Oakridge). Here's the developments that we're seeing today were proposed several years ago (many years in the case of 2525 Renfrew), under policies that allowed higher density than current zoning to build rental housing. They're more modest in scale because when they were proposed there was no plan in place to replace the single family (+ suite + laneway) zoning immediately adjacent to them.

It's maybe worth pointing out the distinction between density and height. The pair of towers at Holdom station are taller than the Renfrew buildings, but they're only 2.75 FSR, while the Renfrew rentals (with the extra density staff suggested) are 3.6 FSR. Several recent Burnaby towers, like Amacon's Alaska, Marcon's Tailor and Solterra's Bordeaux are also 3.6 FSR.

The previous Council introduced a new planning program for Rupert and Renfrew station areas, and it's likely that higher density developments will be permitted here. Initial indications suggest "mid to highrise buildings (generally 12-18 storeys)" near the station. These developers presumably didn't want to wait any longer for the results of that plan, but decided to build anyway. The large former LDB warehouse site, now owned by MSTDC at 3200 E Broadway and 2625 Rupert will probably see a much more ambitious proposal.

[officedweller]

I guess the direct comparison is the proposed tower on the NE corner of Broadway and Renfrew, just recently proposed.
Has there been a change that enabled that taller building versus the 2 8 storey ones along Renfrew?

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by officedweller

I guess the direct comparison is the proposed tower on the NE corner of Broadway and Renfrew, just recently proposed.
Has there been a change that enabled that taller building versus the 2 8 storey ones along Renfrew?

They're both approved under the same policy; the Moderate Income Rental Housing Pilot Program. The two on Renfrew were originally seven storey with fewer apartments. Staff recommended a height and density increase, and higher ceiling heights in the units. "The increase allows for approximately 12 additional rental units within 200 m of a Skytrain station and in a context that allows for higher building forms." They ended up at 3.5 and 3.6 FSR.

The 2406 Renfrew building, approved in 2022, was originally 12 storeys, with a six storey podium. The Urban Design Panel suggested splitting the block face in two, to create a courtyard and pedestrian mews, and having a six and a 14 storey tower, with the same overall density (4.08 FSR). The extra height was supported because "for RS- and C-zoned sites located at an arterial intersection, higher forms may be considered." The site was already a C-1 zone, not RS-1 like the sites down the street. The six storey building steps down to three at 8th Avenue.