WITH their municipality's population growing at close to two per cent per year, density is a major issue as residents in the City of North Vancouver head to the polls Nov. 19.
There are currently several big projects in the works that will increase density in the city. Within the past month the Extra Foods building in Central Lonsdale has been demolished and will be replaced by a 180-foot residential tower.
A land swap deal made between the city and Darwin Properties will see a new disaster-proof public works yard built in exchange for 3.6 acres of land north of Mosquito Creek. Under the agreement, the developer will construct two five-storey and two six-storey residential buildings on top of an underground parking level, creating 375 homes.
Proposals for the Safeway site on 13th Street and Lonsdale Avenue, which may include two or three residential towers, are currently being reviewed and plans for Site 8 at the foot of Lonsdale are still up in the air. City council recently opted to put further study of developments at the Harbourside lands on hold until next year. Concert Properties, which owns the waterfront lots just south of North Shore Auto Mall, wants to develop a large mixed-use complex with homes for more than 1,000 people and 370,000 square feet of office space.
All this comes at a time when the city's Official Community Plan, last modified in 2002, is due for an update, which could mean looking at new ways to incorporate density.
The city's commitment to the B.C. Climate Action Charter will at least partially affect the new OCP, according to Richard White, director of community development.
"The Climate Action Charter says we should be trying to develop compact communities, where walking and transit are more typical forms of transit . . . where we reduce our energy demands and we create mixed use communities," said White, adding that one of the province's main targets is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050.
"Very significant changes are necessary, and creating more densely developed communities throughout the province is probably a necessity if we're going to be able to achieve that goal."
Since the beginning of 2005, 13 OCP amendments have been made to accommodate development applications, three of which were for public-serving bodies - North Vancouver school district, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese and Vancouver Coastal Health Authority.
While the OCP is meant to provide residents with some certainty about development, White said it's not surprising that a well-thought-out amendment might make more sense than a 10-year-old document. He pointed to the Safeway site as an example. Because the city has a height limit of 180 feet, the developer, Onni Group, originally proposed building three towers, as opposed to two taller ones, in order to avoid straying from the OCP.
"Some of the people in the neighbourhood around the Onni site, the Safeway site, that will be affected by whatever is built there actually prefer two taller towers to three shorter ones," said White.
"It's an interesting kind of situation that we've got ourselves into. We may be more restricted than we should be in our plan and that's something that we'll also be talking about with council as the new plan is developed."
Coun. Craig Keating said the OCP amendment he's most pleased with occurred at the former Lonsdale School site.
"It provided a modest amount of density but also a home for the Artists for Kids Gallery, 20 units or so of housing for youths with disabilities and millions of dollars of heritage restoration of Ridgeway school and Queen Mary school," he said.
Looking forward, he said the city should continue to accommodate modest growth concentrated along the Lonsdale corridor. He is also in favour of legalizing secondary suites in duplexes and allowing single-family dwellings to have coach houses as well as secondary suites.
Coun. Pam Bookham said she could not bring forward the idea of secondary suites in duplexes because of the stance she took against it while council was debating zoning in the "midblock" area of the city.
"Having taken that strong position in that particular area, I didn't feel I could be the one who would come forward and propose the change for duplexes elsewhere. But had any of the other councillors done so, I would've supported it," she said.
Bookham added the new OCP must offer more certainty as to where density will go and what form it will take.
"I'm very worried about what the 100 Year Sustainability Vision proposes for single-family neighbourhoods," she said.
"How they will transition from single-family neighbourhoods to medium density through the use of infill. I don't think our community knows nearly enough about that and how that transition will take place."
That's a concern echoed by Toni Bolton, a Lower Lonsdale homeowner who lives part time on the Sunshine Coast.
"All this density is being added without regard for the livability of the city. The traffic, parks, there's been no new green space added that I'm aware of, no new childcare spaces. . . . There won't be any more open areas," she said, adding she's not convinced that the new forms of housing are necessarily affordable.
"That type of density is not good for the people that will be living there or the people that are living there now."
mkrishnan@nsnews.com
