The high rental costs of the North Shore has one non-profit society asking local government for help.
The North Shore Multicultural Society, an organization that has helped thousands of immigrants on the North Shore assimilate to Canadian life, is facing a substantial increase in rent on its 17,000-square-foot space just off Lonsdale Avenue. The annual rent for that space is $468,000.
“We’re currently in a crisis situation,” said Vera Radyo, volunteer president of the North Shore Multicultural Society, speaking at Monday’s City of North Vancouver council meeting.
“Even though we have been at our current location for 20 years, our landlord is demanding a 25 per cent increase in rent ... that’s money that’s going to the landlord and is not going to services and funders will only fund a certain amount in terms of rent,” she said.
The society’s executive director, Elizabeth Jones, said the 25 per cent, or approximately $117,000 increase in rent, could affect some of the programs at the society, such as youth, senior, and women’s and children’s programs.
With a lease expiry of March 2016, Jones said they’ve been looking at finding other rental accommodations but have so far been unsuccessful.
Council was supportive of the society, with Coun. Linda Buchanan introducing a motion for city staff to work with the society to explore options of relocating into a civic-owned facility. Buchanan suggested the society share space with another non-profit.
“I think there’s great value in looking at co-locating non-profits within the same facility because often (people) are accessing those other non-profits, whether it be rec facilities, preschool programs, seniors’ programs – everybody’s together.”
Coun. Don Bell suggested the city not just look at publicly owned spaces but also at commercial spaces that could be obtained at a cheaper rate through density bonusing the city provided, which staff will also look into.
Coun. Craig Keating, acting as mayor in City of North Vancouver Mayor Darrell Mussatto’s absence Monday, suggested provincial and federal representatives should be kept informed that “we as a community are in fact taking up the slack of rental charges that have traditionally been the purview of the federal government,” he said.
Council voted unanimously in favour of the motion.
Coun. Rod Clark was not present at Monday’s meeting.
