Vancouver council approves controversial Commercial Drive rental tower project
Vancouver city council has voted to approve the rezoning of a site near the Commercial-Broadway SkyTrain station, which is set to add more than 1,000 housing units across three towers.
Westbank Projects Corp. and Crombie REIT, on behalf of Snowcat Property Holdings, brought forward the proposal in 2023 to redevelop the site at 1780 East Broadway, which presently houses a Safeway supermarket and a car park.
There have been proposals to redevelop the site as far back as 2019, and now that rezoning has been approved, the controversial rental towers will proceed as planned.
They range in height from 36 to 43 storeys in an area that consists mostly of single-family homes, duplexes, low-rise apartments and retail buildings.A marathon public hearing saw over 100 people talk to council about the project, with critics saying the tall towers would lead to inflated property values in the area and that they would not be affordable for a majority of Vancouverites.
Ultimately, however, a majority of councillors voted in favour of the project, particularly talking up an accompanying retail space — including a grocery store, office and commercial space, a city-owned child-care facility, and a public plaza running parallel to the SkyTrain station.
"I don't want to see this site remain undeveloped for another 10 or 20 years," Coun. Lucy Maloney said. "I want to see a surface car park replaced with over 1,000 homes."
The units will be built across the three towers. Ten per cent of them will be secured at city-wide average rental market rates and the other 90 per cent listed at prices of the developer's choosing.
Maloney acknowledged that many speakers at the public hearing expressed concern about the affordability of the housing, but said "if this project fails, there will be no affordable homes at all."
Coun. Sean Orr said he thought using city-wide average rents for the 10 per cent of more affordable units was flawed, given how sky-high rents are in Vancouver.
"We need rental units, but I'm worried that we are giving the developer double the height and we're not seeing the full public benefits that we could be seeing at the site," he told council.
Orr was the only councillor who voted against the proposal, with Coun. Pete Fry abstaining and Coun. Brian Montague absent.
Application under community plan
The application was considered under the Grandview-Woodland Community Plan.
A referral report from city staff notes that the application "exceeds the anticipated height and density expected in the plan," but "otherwise generally meets the intent of the plan."
Proponents of the plan argued that the city was in dire need of rental spaces, with one advocate even playing the accordion in city council during the public hearing to encourage councillors to vote in favour.
"There's zero displacement of renters. It's mostly just a parking lot," said advocate Peter Waldkirch in a statement.
However, the megatowers also faced sharp criticism.
Speaking against the proposal, nurse Nancy Hay asked council to vote for rezoning applications guaranteeing at least 20 per cent below-market rental units, saying that many of her coworkers in the health-care sector could not afford to live in Vancouver due to skyrocketing rents.
"I wonder if these monoliths, these proposed monolith towers, are going to house workers ... who are these workers going to be?" she asked.
"They will not be my coworkers — health-care workers, lab technicians, respiratory therapists, occupational therapists, to name a few occupations ... the proposed rent, as you've heard, is way too expensive."
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