An all-rental housing project in Lynn Creek has cleared its first hurdle at District of North Vancouver council and is headed for public hearing. A second, much larger proposal up the street, however, is facing a much tougher prospect of success.
District council voted on Nov. 2 to advance a six-storey, 140-unit rental building at 1515-1555 Oxford St. and 220 Mountain Highway near Main Street. Six of the units will be retained by Hollyburn Family Services for rentals at 20 per cent below market rates. The building will have 0.72 parking stalls per unit. The site currently holds six single-family homes.
Although there were quibbles over parking, potential greenhouse gas emissions and access to the below-market suites, the proposal stoked little opposition from council.
“I do think that it is the right kind of housing in close proximity to transit,” said Mayor Mike Little.
With only three per cent of the district’s homes purpose-built rentals, 140 new units coming onto the market will be a big improvement, added Coun. Mathew Bond.
Up the road at 420-460 Mountain Hwy. and 1510-1530 Crown St., where Dykhof Nurseries and a stretch of five single-family homes stand, a sizable mixed-use project is facing tougher scrutiny from council. The proposal, which is in the pre-application phase, would see 222 strata units built in a 29-storey tower and two townhouse buildings, 45 non-market rentals and 105 market rentals in two five-storey buildings, as well as more than 30,000 square feet of commercial space.
Couns. Lisa Muri, Jim Hanson and Betty Forbes said the project would be a non-starter for them largely because it had too many market strata units.
“From my point of view, it's too high. Twenty-nine stories in this location, at this time, I don't believe has community support,” said Hanson. “I would support a smaller project with lower height and with more rental.”
Couns. Bond and Jordan Back said they would like to see the proposal proceed through the usual process.
Back said property is meant to be an important piece in the Lynn Creek town centre and the strata units would be needed to make the rest of the rentals and commercial space viable.
“One of the important elements is the grocery store. I've talked to a lot of people down in that area and that's something that they were promised and we haven't delivered for them yet,” he said.
Little and Coun. Megan Curren both said they’d like to see the proposal revised rather than go ahead as-is or be scrapped.
Little said the site has long been envisioned for high density, although maybe not as much as the developer is proposing. And he worried the siting of a plaza at the north end of the site would hamper the district’s ability to build social housing on the site of the District of North Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services hall No. 2 if decommissioned at a future date.
District staff will now meet with the developer to see if the proposal can be changed in such a a way that it could achieve consensus support at council.
