The first of two Little Mountain Open House events is tomorrow.
The purpose of this project is to plan the redevelopment of the Little Mountain social housing site, after the federal government transferred ownership of the area to the provincial government in 2007.The Province (BC Housing) has selected Holborn Properties Ltd. to redevelop the site.
Saturday, November 28, 11:00am – 3:00pm, at General Brock Elementary School Gymnasium (4860 Main Street)
November 2015 – The City received a rezoning application from Holborn Properties and IBI Group for the 15-acre Little Mountain site on October 30. The application is based on Little Mountain Policy Statement, which was approved by City Council in 2012 after two-and-a-half years of consultation and design work.
The proposal includes:
- A variety of buildings between 3 and 12 storeys (12 storeys in 2 locations)
- Mainly residential uses (approximately 1,400 market housing units) with some commercial and civic uses
- 234 units of replacement social housing owned by BC Housing (53 are already built)
- A City-owned building with the new Little Mountain Neighbourhood House, a childcare facility, and 48 units of additional affordable rental housing
- A new City street and extension of 35th Avenue
- A new community plaza and public park
A second Open House is available: Thursday, December 3, 5:00pm – 8:00pm at the Holy Name of Jesus Parish Church (4925 Cambie Street)
And after all those years the density went from 3.0 to 2.5 FSR and the maximum heights from 15 to 12 storeys. An arduous process that ensured delivery of significant public benefits, but also indicates the developer paid too much for the site. Good negotiating, Vancouver staff!
Take a publicly owned 15 acre site and demolish 234 ground oriented social housing units and then replace them with dense double loaded corridor buildings, then give away enough land to build 1400 market units, give away more land for roads, give away more land for a neighbourhood house, give away more land for a park (when Q.E. Park is across the street), then spend two and half years negotiating for a paltry 48 affordable rental housing units, then hold a public meeting at Holy Name of Jesus Parish Church and proclaim the significant public benefits. Wow! Why is this a good deal for the many in need of social housing now wandering the streets of Vancouver?
The question is; why would BC Housing give up most of a 15 acre social housing site when there is so much need for social housing and when land is so scarce? Why not build nothing but social housing on this land using project managers and construction contracts? It’s not as if BC Housing can’t get a mortgage. This redevelopment proposal represents terrible stewardship of our common resources designated for the benefit of those in need.
+1 … see info on a great model for doing just that here: https://pricetags.wordpress.com/2015/11/27/items-from-ian-affordable-housing/
The City really needs to step up its game on cycling with this development. So far, protected bike lanes are not included on. Main or 33rd plus it looks like on street parking will be allowed on Ontario and 37th which means more traffic plus the risk of dooring. There are also no protected bike lanes on the new street in the development. It’s 2015 in Vancouver. Really surprising that we still need to push for this. The city really needs a complete streets policy. Burnaby is actually doing a lot better job on new developments. For example, on the planned redevelopment of Lougheed Towm Centre, all streets pretty much have protected bike lanes.