And with four votes, the mountain crumbled.
District of North Vancouver council has given approval for Polygon to tear down the Mountain Court apartment complex on East 27th Street, just south of Lynn Valley Centre and build 246 condos and 75 rental units in four five-storey buildings.
Much of the debate at council Monday night was not over the merits of Polygon’s proposal, but rather how the redevelopment would impact the 75 families who would be evicted as a result.
Costs for the new rental units would be substantially higher than what’s available in the building, with two-bedroom units starting at about $2,000 per month.
Coun. Lisa Muri led the charge to defeat the rezoning bylaw, arguing council should go back to the developer to come up with a different proposal offering more incentives that would allow the existing renters to stay.
“We have to keep people here in affordable housing and yet we’re going to consider saying goodbye to them. Those are people that work in this community. Those are people who have children in schools in this community. Those are people who have lived in this community for decades,” she said. “We have to look after them. That is our core responsibility as councillors in this community.”
District council is expected to begin working on an affordable housing plan including taking a more active role in providing housing, especially as its aging rental stock comes under threat.
There are similar applications to replace older, cheaper apartments in Maplewood, Deep Cove and Lynn Valley coming down the pipes and there have been almost no new rental buildings constructed in the last 20 years.
Coun. Jim Hanson said he couldn’t support rezoning any low-cost rental units until after that plan had been complete.
Coun. Doug MacKay-Dunn also came down on the side of the existing renters.
“Yes, the rental units are being replaced one-for-one but they’re not being replaced like-for-like,” he said.
But the aging Mountain Court is reaching the end of its life span and Polygon could simply tear the buildings down and replace them with 75 strata units, as the current zoning would allow, Coun. Roger Bassam countered. The property owner has said the complex needs electrical and plumbing upgrades, which would result in evictions and rents going up anyways.
Affordable housing is provincial jurisdiction but inclusion of the new rental units is costing the district $4 million in foregone community amenities, Bassam added.
If the district applied the same level of subsidy to protect every rental unit in its jurisdiction, it would cost $400 million at a time when council is already struggling to pay for big ticket items like the William Griffin Recreation Centre Rebuild, Highway 1 improvements and the Lions Gate Wastewater Treatment Plant, Bassam said.
Delaying the decision would only be delaying the inevitable, Coun. Mathew Bond added.
“We’re only loosening the noose around the neck of the residents of Mountain Court. Here, we’re basically a minute to midnight for these people and we’d just set that clock back to 11 p.m.,” he said.
Muri first moved a motion to quash the proposed rezoning, which only Hanson and MacKay-Dunn supported. After numerous outbursts interrupting other members of council who had the floor, Mayor Richard Walton warned Muri several times that she would have to abide by the rules or be kicked out of council chambers.
