THE City of North Vancouver has been handed some recommended guidelines on how to handle density bonusing the practice of letting developers build more than the official community plan allows in exchange for public amenities like community space or affordable housing.
The city should adopt a hybrid approach to how much residential density developers are allowed to build, according to consultants hired to examine the issue setting hard caps on the amount of density allowed in some cases and negotiating with all options on the table in others.
Those are some of the key recommendations in a report commissioned by council to help guide the often rocky process of density bonusing.
Council spent $45,000 to hire consultants to analyze the citys track record on past density bonusing and create a path to improving the system, after the citys practice of negotiating for perks behind closed doors became increasingly controversial.
The recommendations increase certainty in the process, said consultant Brent Toderian, principal of Toderian Urban Works, who co-wrote the report with Jay Wollenberg of Coriolus Consulting.
But the report stops short of saying which neighbourhoods or properties in the city should have a hard cap on density, which Toderian said would require a deeper level of study and public consultation than the consultants were hired to do. Council and planning staff should have an idea of which areas can accommodate more density based on the surrounding area and infrastructure, Toderian said.
The report said the practice of negotiating for community perks on a case-by-case basis should continue, as it has the ability to bring in desirable amenities, like the new city library. But Toderian said the city should also consider creating a formula that would mean every extra square foot of development in a new building would require a cash contribution at a predictable rate.
The city should also consider prioritizing the amenities it is willing to swap density for and creating a non-binding policy council can refer to, said Toderian. The only guidelines the city works under now are listed in the OCP. They include giving preference to heritage preservation, community amenity space, affordable or non-profit housing, market rental housing, adaptable designs geared towards seniors and people with disabilities, commercial space or higher environmental building standards but there isnt a set policy about which amenities council should be lobbying for.
Deciding which to keep and which to do more of is purely a political decision that must be informed by public input, Toderian said.
Ultimately, the city needs to remember what its first priority is when looking at development proposals creating a livable, workable urban environment while using density bonusing to complement that with needed amenities, Toderian said.
You need to have the credibility with the community that you are not increasing density to achieve amenities. There are many reasons to want to do density for the public interest but achieving amenities is not a reason to want to do density. Its a way of doing density well, he said. I think many in the community have a perception that councils, and not just yours, are increasing density just to achieve amenities. Thats what I call the tail wagging the dog.
To remedy that, Toderian said the city needs to do a better job communicating to the public about how the system works. It also needs to do a better job of tracking the value of amenities gained, he said. Both have been lacking and causing more frustration as projects make their way through the council process, Toderian added.
Following the presentation, council voted to send the report to staff, with the intention of doing more public consultation and a council vote on a new density bonusing policy.
