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The irony of the one commenter on the article saying "they paved paradise to put up a parking lot" and the thumbs up it has. Knowing the average Sun commenter they were probably talking about the towers with small footprints, low parking requirements and built in a walkable place, but likely live in a large lot and car-dependent suburban detached home that the quote is actually referring to.
And you'd think the sky is falling but 7200 homes is only slightly more than a single 10-acre development at the Burrard Bridge.
The biggest development in the article is redeveloping the old MEC. MEC was literally a 1 story building with a parking lot on the roof.
Now it is going to be 530 rental homes, and guess what, a new public park on top of the podium.
It also takes an unfathomable amount of privilege to describe the current situation as "paradise", when the rental market is littered in listings for bunkbeds for $800/month.
Tbh, sounds great to me. It's crazy how low density Broadway is, so I'm glad to see it getting built up! Seems like there's very strong pre-existing tenant protections (some of the best I've ever seen) and a *significant* net positive for the number of rentals and homes.
Love it.
>Before and after the Broadway plan’s approval in 2022, planners and politicians pointed to Burnaby’s Metrotown area as something to avoid: older, more affordable apartment buildings being torn down and replaced by expensive condo towers. That development rush added homes, but yielded a net loss in rentals,
That's the choice of the Grand Bargin where the stock of SFH is preserved at the expense of affordable apartments.
As someone who will likely be demovicted as a result of all of this, I'm very conflicted. There's no question the city needs more rental housing, and my current building is clearly a perfect target for that. I'm in favour of all of this stuff in principle, but it's hard when it's your own housing being taken from you! If everything goes as planned, topped up rent and right of first refusal, I'll be happy. The new apartment will likely be 150-200 sq feet smaller than I currently have, but hey it will be nice and new. But I will lose a lot of money in more expensive rent while the new building gets built. They claim the average 1 bedroom in Mount pleasant is 2200 and that's just not true. I also have concerns about how easy it will be to collect my rent top up. I'm doing okay financially but a lot of my neighbours are in worse positions. If they have to pay full rent for just a couple of months before they get their subsidy, they're screwed. If the subsidy never comes, I'm screwed. Long term, this is all good for the city, but I'm pretty nervous about my own future, as it's no longer in my hands.
To be more specific... it's a toss up. Or is that more vague...
when the City hosts it's "all-tenant meeting" and you get contact info from both the developer handling the housing file and the person at the City's Housing Dept. make sure you can decide to yes / no moving into the "replacement unit" at the last minute (4-5 years from now). If that's the case you have the option to move ASAP, lock in a new apartment into rent control (of your choice! and on your schedule) and get the rich developer to pay for it. 5 years go by, you're rent locked, maybe things look okay. I would really consider moving at the same time as so many others being demovicted at the same time for all these other towers.
If I were you I would take the top up and secure a new apartment on the developer's dime to rent-control-lock the new apartment if you don't want to move into a smaller place in the same location as your old place. You won't move into the re-built aparmtent for maybe 4-5 years.
I was talking about this scheme with a buddy last month who's getting pushed out and he doesn't know what to do either.
Top -up will be immediate on moving to a new place. Get a contact at the City and connect your neighbours and make sure they get what they are legally allowed! Legally the developer has to pay the top up. The City is on this like flys on candy
EDIT: as someone living in a 1968 apartment with no dishwasher or in-suite laundry to new apartment at the same rent as I have now is tempting. Weight your options. You have until the last minute (if I recall) to accept the move-back apartment.
in a similar boat. i fully support new rentals, but theres a good number of truly affordable units that will be gone forever with these redevelopments. the protections aren't clear, especially with abc in power. i think we'll likely get screwed and many of us pushed out of the city or potentially onto the street. i hope to be proven wrong. projects like little mountain dont inspire any hope
The old apartments being torn down are replaced unit-per-unit in the below-market component and will be legally in place for 60 years or more. The affordability of the current units will live on in the below-market apartments. It's not perfect, not what I want or is ideal, but the affordability will live on, is the intent.
ill try to stay optimistic. 'below-market' can mean a lot of things. if they are able to provide replacement units for a similar cost as those being destroyed i will be pleasantly surprised :) more rental housing of all types is great! so also yay
On a side note: Does anyone know who has the authority to add or remove lanes / permanently reconfigure the traffic pattern on Broadway?
It seems like TransLink has jurisdiction over Lougheed Highway (including Broadway) between Granville Street, and the Cape Horn interchange. Can they just decide to make changes themselves, or do they still have to consult with the Province (MOTI), because Broadway is technically a numbered highway.
Great question.
I spoke with an MOTI employee once, and they said the roads that Hwy 7 & 99 follow within Vancouver are the city's jurisdiction. (I think it's because the city retained ownership of the right-of-ways, unlike outside Vancouver where the right-of-ways were transferred to/dedicated by the province)
The employee worked at the traffic management centre and while they didn't state it outright, it was heavily implied that the province is not happy that they have no say over how traffic runs on these roads
Translink doesn't have jurisdiction over Lougheed Highway per se, but they do have a responsibility to maintain the Major Road Network. That mostly comes in the form of paying for road maintenance & infradtructure upgrades, but they also require Cities to consult with them if any changes are proposed on the network.
In summary, the City owns and maintains Broadway and they're responsible for proposing changes to the road itself. Since Broadway is part of the Major Road Network, the City does have to consult with Translink first and receive approval from Translink for any changes to the traffic pattern.
Thanks for such an in-depth response.
I guess Broadway being one of only a few east-west truck routes that traverses the entire city, would also influence what kinds of changes could be made.
The city is very bad at changing arterials too.
Look at Renfrew. Way overbuilt, and when they completely redid it a few years ago they kept it at 6 lanes, and didn’t even include safer crosswalks at the schools.
It's wild to me that they clearly know there's room for improvement since they recognized that Nanaimo didn't need 4 lanes of thru-traffic. Wasted opportunity to do something about Renfrew as well.
I think it’s great, but I have a question: why are all of them rental projects? Why not focus on making people homeowners? There should be more projects aimed at first-time homeowners as well.
In any case tho, more housing is good news.
Well, Bloor St got a subway line in 1966 so it's not surprising that it has had more development given the 60 year head start on having a rapid transit line.
>1300 below market suites
congrats to the winners I guess, but who gets these and what about the rest of us that get to subsidize those people while we struggle to survive ourselves?
Most of these will likely go to the existing renters of the buildings being torn down. Any free units that are below-market for 60 years or more will be open to applciation based on income testing. These are not "subsidized units".
maybe not directly "subsidized" per se but by making them a requirement in projects it raises the cost and overall price for those that aren't getting the below market housing
I plan and build these buildings from an embryo to people moving in. That is not the case. It is a myth.
You can't charge above the market rate to "make up the below-market units rent".
so if you are taking directly out of developers' bottom line, where does it give? It has to come from somewhere, whether it translates to less projects coming to fruition or all developers' costs being higher therefore market rate becomes higher for new suites as they aren't going to purposely lose money
The below-market component does come out of the "bottom line", yes, if it was in the plan that said you COULD previously build a 20-storey only market rate rental building. The land lift is only possible because of the 20% below-market component. There is no alternative that gets you more profit.
For the Broadway Plan the profit is IN building the below-market rentals.
I don't understand, are you preferring a 100% market rental building over a 20% below-market / 80% market rental building being built? Even only the 80% market rental option you get a massive net increase of market rental through rezoning.
it is artificial zoning rules that cause a lot of the problem in the first place, I prefer that they build way more and the price comes down for everyone
Hundy-p. I'd rather single family homes make way for big rental buildings rather than old rental buildings getting torn down first. That's so frickin unjust.
Affordability via oversupply will benefit everyone in the long-term, but not providing housing to those displaced by development, will cause real harm to real people in the short-term.
Considering the amount of money those developments can generate, I don't think its unreasonable to demand that existing residents are taken care of throughout the process.
market rate is a function of supply and demand, like for anything, if you force a builder to provide suites for less than market rate, it is only logical that the market rate for regular suites will have to become higher
Not quite. This might be the case if no extra height and density was a provided to the redevelopment. It is not the case for these Broadway projects (and most Vancouver projects) that offer below-market rentals. You are correct that a lack of rentals drives the overall market rate up, which these Broadway buildings will be charging. The going market rate. No more. No less. Regardless if they provided any below-market rentals.
If I have 2 identically planned / looking / interior finished buildings in the same neighbourhood that are 20-storeys tall... one has 20% below-market units, the other zero. Both buildings will charge the same rent for the market rate units. You cannot charge (and successfully rent and try to get construction financing for) above what the market can bear.
I disagree. The rules allow more housing to be built than the current zoning. The current zoning (the existing building) might allow 45 apartments, while the new rules allow 150 apartments.
When I was in elementary school, we had classes on how to decipher news from opinion. Did they stop that? The Sun is now running full-page ads masquerading as news articles. Are you all not understanding that this is paid content from developers?
Honestly this piece is a bit of fresh air compared to the wealthy homeowner articles saying they don't want renters in their communities and how shadows will affect their quality of life and degrade their neighbourhood character, meanwhile rent is increasing through the roof.
How about you drive the heck off. There are only so many roads that are actually reasonable to drive on, and they've all become much busier over my driving career here.
Brought to here as a child. Folks thought the grass is greener on the other side. But you know, as a 4 years old, I should've said no and start living on my own back then. Might've the down-payment for a house and paid it off early.
They are now considering moving back too due to everything.
All streets in Canada are quiet and unpolluted compare to Asia.
In fact, it would be even better if there is a night market right under my building.
I can just wear my sweatpants with slippers on to grab food and everything else.
If moving isn't so expensive, I would definitely consider going back to Asia with the state of everything in here. 1am, go downstairs to grab cheap street food and a can of alcoholic beverage for a few dollars.
Where would you like existing traffic to go? Cut up through the side streets? 12th Ave is full. When your mom gets older, (because I assume you are young, based on your comment) how do you propose getting her to her cancer treatments at VGH...by bike? How do you propose the health care workers get there at all hours of the day and night to save lives? Your ER doctor ain't going to be bussing it there while on call all weekend. And you want to enjoy retail shops and restaurants along Broadway, correct? How do you propose the goods get delivered there? How will your half-foam, double caf caramel latte with extra sprinkles be available to you with nobody able to deliver the supplies to your favourite coffee shop?
I would like existing traffic to disappear, transformed into more appropriate modes of transportation. Here’s a great document that debunks the myth of road diets: https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/road_diets/resources/pdf/roadDiet_MythBuster.pdf
You’ll note that I’m not talking about reducing necessary vehicle trips that you seem to be focused on, I’m talking about the ones that can be done using other modes of transportation so that those necessary vehicle trips can still work, and possibly work better because they don’t end up stuck in needless congestion.
It will be! The City is bringing the best aspects of the West End into this section of the city. By simply allowing renters to no longer have to live on busy streets is a massive win, as opposed to previous policy which relegated us to noisy roads.
I admit I live in a tall building on a leafy quiet street. It's a luxury right now. It should not be a luxury. It should be so common we don't even talk about it.
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The irony of the one commenter on the article saying "they paved paradise to put up a parking lot" and the thumbs up it has. Knowing the average Sun commenter they were probably talking about the towers with small footprints, low parking requirements and built in a walkable place, but likely live in a large lot and car-dependent suburban detached home that the quote is actually referring to. And you'd think the sky is falling but 7200 homes is only slightly more than a single 10-acre development at the Burrard Bridge.
"How dare you ruin the exquisite cityscape that currently stretches from Main to Commercial by building new housing on it!"
The biggest development in the article is redeveloping the old MEC. MEC was literally a 1 story building with a parking lot on the roof. Now it is going to be 530 rental homes, and guess what, a new public park on top of the podium.
It also takes an unfathomable amount of privilege to describe the current situation as "paradise", when the rental market is littered in listings for bunkbeds for $800/month.
Tbh, sounds great to me. It's crazy how low density Broadway is, so I'm glad to see it getting built up! Seems like there's very strong pre-existing tenant protections (some of the best I've ever seen) and a *significant* net positive for the number of rentals and homes. Love it.
Broadway could really benefit from extensive revitalization. It’s kinda shit between each of the shopping streets
>Before and after the Broadway plan’s approval in 2022, planners and politicians pointed to Burnaby’s Metrotown area as something to avoid: older, more affordable apartment buildings being torn down and replaced by expensive condo towers. That development rush added homes, but yielded a net loss in rentals, That's the choice of the Grand Bargin where the stock of SFH is preserved at the expense of affordable apartments.
Cool presentation in the article. Even works on mobile
"It ain't fit the feel/vibe of the city. VETO." - NIMBY
As the young kids / young whipper snappers say **(clears throat as they lift up a queue card to read from):** "It doesn't pass the vibe check."
It's easy to be so glib when this plan isn't going to bulldoze your home
Their homes could / were being bulldozed without the Broadway Plan
Nobody was going to bulldoze my building until it got rezoned
Your building has not been rezoned yet. How old is your building?
As someone who will likely be demovicted as a result of all of this, I'm very conflicted. There's no question the city needs more rental housing, and my current building is clearly a perfect target for that. I'm in favour of all of this stuff in principle, but it's hard when it's your own housing being taken from you! If everything goes as planned, topped up rent and right of first refusal, I'll be happy. The new apartment will likely be 150-200 sq feet smaller than I currently have, but hey it will be nice and new. But I will lose a lot of money in more expensive rent while the new building gets built. They claim the average 1 bedroom in Mount pleasant is 2200 and that's just not true. I also have concerns about how easy it will be to collect my rent top up. I'm doing okay financially but a lot of my neighbours are in worse positions. If they have to pay full rent for just a couple of months before they get their subsidy, they're screwed. If the subsidy never comes, I'm screwed. Long term, this is all good for the city, but I'm pretty nervous about my own future, as it's no longer in my hands.
To be more specific... it's a toss up. Or is that more vague... when the City hosts it's "all-tenant meeting" and you get contact info from both the developer handling the housing file and the person at the City's Housing Dept. make sure you can decide to yes / no moving into the "replacement unit" at the last minute (4-5 years from now). If that's the case you have the option to move ASAP, lock in a new apartment into rent control (of your choice! and on your schedule) and get the rich developer to pay for it. 5 years go by, you're rent locked, maybe things look okay. I would really consider moving at the same time as so many others being demovicted at the same time for all these other towers.
If I were you I would take the top up and secure a new apartment on the developer's dime to rent-control-lock the new apartment if you don't want to move into a smaller place in the same location as your old place. You won't move into the re-built aparmtent for maybe 4-5 years. I was talking about this scheme with a buddy last month who's getting pushed out and he doesn't know what to do either. Top -up will be immediate on moving to a new place. Get a contact at the City and connect your neighbours and make sure they get what they are legally allowed! Legally the developer has to pay the top up. The City is on this like flys on candy EDIT: as someone living in a 1968 apartment with no dishwasher or in-suite laundry to new apartment at the same rent as I have now is tempting. Weight your options. You have until the last minute (if I recall) to accept the move-back apartment.
in a similar boat. i fully support new rentals, but theres a good number of truly affordable units that will be gone forever with these redevelopments. the protections aren't clear, especially with abc in power. i think we'll likely get screwed and many of us pushed out of the city or potentially onto the street. i hope to be proven wrong. projects like little mountain dont inspire any hope
The old apartments being torn down are replaced unit-per-unit in the below-market component and will be legally in place for 60 years or more. The affordability of the current units will live on in the below-market apartments. It's not perfect, not what I want or is ideal, but the affordability will live on, is the intent.
ill try to stay optimistic. 'below-market' can mean a lot of things. if they are able to provide replacement units for a similar cost as those being destroyed i will be pleasantly surprised :) more rental housing of all types is great! so also yay
You're being hosed, no two ways about it, along with a large number of other people in currently affordable apartments.
They can return at the same rent they're paying now tho, by law.
On a side note: Does anyone know who has the authority to add or remove lanes / permanently reconfigure the traffic pattern on Broadway? It seems like TransLink has jurisdiction over Lougheed Highway (including Broadway) between Granville Street, and the Cape Horn interchange. Can they just decide to make changes themselves, or do they still have to consult with the Province (MOTI), because Broadway is technically a numbered highway.
Great question. I spoke with an MOTI employee once, and they said the roads that Hwy 7 & 99 follow within Vancouver are the city's jurisdiction. (I think it's because the city retained ownership of the right-of-ways, unlike outside Vancouver where the right-of-ways were transferred to/dedicated by the province) The employee worked at the traffic management centre and while they didn't state it outright, it was heavily implied that the province is not happy that they have no say over how traffic runs on these roads Translink doesn't have jurisdiction over Lougheed Highway per se, but they do have a responsibility to maintain the Major Road Network. That mostly comes in the form of paying for road maintenance & infradtructure upgrades, but they also require Cities to consult with them if any changes are proposed on the network. In summary, the City owns and maintains Broadway and they're responsible for proposing changes to the road itself. Since Broadway is part of the Major Road Network, the City does have to consult with Translink first and receive approval from Translink for any changes to the traffic pattern.
Thanks for such an in-depth response. I guess Broadway being one of only a few east-west truck routes that traverses the entire city, would also influence what kinds of changes could be made.
The city is very bad at changing arterials too. Look at Renfrew. Way overbuilt, and when they completely redid it a few years ago they kept it at 6 lanes, and didn’t even include safer crosswalks at the schools.
It's wild to me that they clearly know there's room for improvement since they recognized that Nanaimo didn't need 4 lanes of thru-traffic. Wasted opportunity to do something about Renfrew as well.
I think it’s great, but I have a question: why are all of them rental projects? Why not focus on making people homeowners? There should be more projects aimed at first-time homeowners as well. In any case tho, more housing is good news.
Broadway has no density. Literally a shocking contrast compared to Bloor st in Toronto
Well, Bloor St got a subway line in 1966 so it's not surprising that it has had more development given the 60 year head start on having a rapid transit line.
Vancouver needs Plattenbau! ;-)
>1300 below market suites congrats to the winners I guess, but who gets these and what about the rest of us that get to subsidize those people while we struggle to survive ourselves?
Most of these will likely go to the existing renters of the buildings being torn down. Any free units that are below-market for 60 years or more will be open to applciation based on income testing. These are not "subsidized units".
maybe not directly "subsidized" per se but by making them a requirement in projects it raises the cost and overall price for those that aren't getting the below market housing
I plan and build these buildings from an embryo to people moving in. That is not the case. It is a myth. You can't charge above the market rate to "make up the below-market units rent".
so if you are taking directly out of developers' bottom line, where does it give? It has to come from somewhere, whether it translates to less projects coming to fruition or all developers' costs being higher therefore market rate becomes higher for new suites as they aren't going to purposely lose money
The below-market component does come out of the "bottom line", yes, if it was in the plan that said you COULD previously build a 20-storey only market rate rental building. The land lift is only possible because of the 20% below-market component. There is no alternative that gets you more profit. For the Broadway Plan the profit is IN building the below-market rentals.
so again, this is government interference causing less than maximum market rentals being built in the city
I agree that government interference (restrictive zoning) is prevent housing from being built = housing crisis.
I don't understand, are you preferring a 100% market rental building over a 20% below-market / 80% market rental building being built? Even only the 80% market rental option you get a massive net increase of market rental through rezoning.
it is artificial zoning rules that cause a lot of the problem in the first place, I prefer that they build way more and the price comes down for everyone
Hundy-p. I'd rather single family homes make way for big rental buildings rather than old rental buildings getting torn down first. That's so frickin unjust.
Affordability via oversupply will benefit everyone in the long-term, but not providing housing to those displaced by development, will cause real harm to real people in the short-term. Considering the amount of money those developments can generate, I don't think its unreasonable to demand that existing residents are taken care of throughout the process.
So they are literally just leaving money on the table? Is market rate defined by average place for rent?
market rate is a function of supply and demand, like for anything, if you force a builder to provide suites for less than market rate, it is only logical that the market rate for regular suites will have to become higher
Not quite. This might be the case if no extra height and density was a provided to the redevelopment. It is not the case for these Broadway projects (and most Vancouver projects) that offer below-market rentals. You are correct that a lack of rentals drives the overall market rate up, which these Broadway buildings will be charging. The going market rate. No more. No less. Regardless if they provided any below-market rentals.
No. They're charging as much as the market will allow.
If I have 2 identically planned / looking / interior finished buildings in the same neighbourhood that are 20-storeys tall... one has 20% below-market units, the other zero. Both buildings will charge the same rent for the market rate units. You cannot charge (and successfully rent and try to get construction financing for) above what the market can bear.
the key difference though is in what gets built in the first place, these and other rules cause less rentals to be built as a whole
I disagree. The rules allow more housing to be built than the current zoning. The current zoning (the existing building) might allow 45 apartments, while the new rules allow 150 apartments.
I live paycheck to paycheck but that won’t stop me from wanting stability for those who make less than me.
When I was in elementary school, we had classes on how to decipher news from opinion. Did they stop that? The Sun is now running full-page ads masquerading as news articles. Are you all not understanding that this is paid content from developers?
Honestly this piece is a bit of fresh air compared to the wealthy homeowner articles saying they don't want renters in their communities and how shadows will affect their quality of life and degrade their neighbourhood character, meanwhile rent is increasing through the roof.
Why would anyone want to live on a noisy, polluted car sewer like Broadway?
walkability you can't want both walkability and also live far from businesses, shops, restaurants, etc.
If you were a block or two away you'd still have that without all the grossness from cars and trucks all the time.
Maybe we should limit the amount of car traffic 🤷
Yes, once the Skytrain stations are built we should close Broadway to cars.
I'm in
This is the only sensible thing you've said on this whole thread.
How about you drive the heck off. There are only so many roads that are actually reasonable to drive on, and they've all become much busier over my driving career here.
As someone who came from Asia, I don't see the issue.
And you came here why? To get away from overcrowded cities perhaps?
Brought to here as a child. Folks thought the grass is greener on the other side. But you know, as a 4 years old, I should've said no and start living on my own back then. Might've the down-payment for a house and paid it off early. They are now considering moving back too due to everything.
Wouldn't you prefer to live on a quieter street with less polluted air? I bet most of these apartments will come with balconies that no one ever uses.
All streets in Canada are quiet and unpolluted compare to Asia. In fact, it would be even better if there is a night market right under my building. I can just wear my sweatpants with slippers on to grab food and everything else. If moving isn't so expensive, I would definitely consider going back to Asia with the state of everything in here. 1am, go downstairs to grab cheap street food and a can of alcoholic beverage for a few dollars.
Uh okay great.
Because Vancouver City council will barely allow new apartments on the quiet streets. NIMBY!
You’re right! Let’s slim Broadway down to one lane each way, add some bike lanes, trees, patios, and get it away from being a car sewer!
Where would you like existing traffic to go? Cut up through the side streets? 12th Ave is full. When your mom gets older, (because I assume you are young, based on your comment) how do you propose getting her to her cancer treatments at VGH...by bike? How do you propose the health care workers get there at all hours of the day and night to save lives? Your ER doctor ain't going to be bussing it there while on call all weekend. And you want to enjoy retail shops and restaurants along Broadway, correct? How do you propose the goods get delivered there? How will your half-foam, double caf caramel latte with extra sprinkles be available to you with nobody able to deliver the supplies to your favourite coffee shop?
I would like existing traffic to disappear, transformed into more appropriate modes of transportation. Here’s a great document that debunks the myth of road diets: https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/road_diets/resources/pdf/roadDiet_MythBuster.pdf You’ll note that I’m not talking about reducing necessary vehicle trips that you seem to be focused on, I’m talking about the ones that can be done using other modes of transportation so that those necessary vehicle trips can still work, and possibly work better because they don’t end up stuck in needless congestion.
Zero car lanes. There's a subway.
Most of the tower proposals are not on Broadway but on the quiet tree-lined side streets.
That'd be nice.
It will be! The City is bringing the best aspects of the West End into this section of the city. By simply allowing renters to no longer have to live on busy streets is a massive win, as opposed to previous policy which relegated us to noisy roads. I admit I live in a tall building on a leafy quiet street. It's a luxury right now. It should not be a luxury. It should be so common we don't even talk about it.
Large buildings on main streets reduce noise and pollution on neighouring streets. The larger building also usually have better HVAC systems.