DESPITE some concerns over the loss of industrial space, City of North Vancouver councillors signed off Monday on allowing more retail activity in eastern Lower Lonsdale and more office space in a Harbourside Drive building.
Property owners in the 200and 300-blocks of Esplanade and East First Avenue petitioned council last October to be given more flexibility in the use of their M4-zoned buildings. The current zoning allows for 20 per cent of those buildings' floor area to be used to sell products made on site. Ernest Corlett led a delegation asking for that to be enlarged to 30 per cent, and for the city to include film, television and music studios as permitted "industrial uses," as well as computer system and software development and data processing.
In his report to council, community development director Gary Penway noted that limited parking and potential competition with established retail areas gave him pause over attracting too many new storefront customers into the neighbourhood, but that "staff feels these changes would accommodate the request without turning the industrial lands into too commercial an area."
The zoning change was approved with virtually no debate. Coun. Rod Clark, a staunch advocate of preserving industrial space, said "I can live with this one."
More contentious was an application from a property owner at 850 Harbourside Drive. Those applicants put up their mixed-use commercialindustrial building in 2009, and their attached parkade allowed them to build more space than neighbouring buildings with a simple parking lot. But a third of the building has remained vacant, they said, because the zoning won't allow more commercial tenants.
Penway told council that even with an adjusted ratio of commercial use, the building still provided more industrial floor area than nearby buildings.
Clark asked Jahan Elizeh, the building's architect, what sort of businesses had asked to rent space. Real estate agent, lawyers and accountants, Elizeh replied.
Coun. Pam Bookham asked if a business case had been prepared before the building was constructed.
"I'm not sure if there was a comprehensive analysis of what was required," Elizeh said. "It seemed like a growing neighbourhood."
"I understand the owner's predicament of not being able to find tenants for his building," said Clark. "However that doesn't mean we should be opening up to accountants and lawyers and such firms an area that I say should be preserved for industrial-related uses."
Clark said even a one-off relaxation could prove to be "the thin end of the wedge." But he proved to be the sole dissenter in a 5-1 approval of the Harbourside Drive rezoning.
