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Rental housing for teachers proposed as part of North Shore Innovation District project

The North Vancouver School District is working on a deal with the development company Darwin Properties that would provide rental housing for teachers and other employees at below-market rates – if the development is approved by council.
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The North Vancouver School District is working on a deal with the development company Darwin Properties that would provide rental housing for teachers and other employees at below-market rates – if the development is approved by council.

Under the deal, teachers and other North Vancouver school district workers would be offered rental apartments in the North Shore Innovation District project proposed by Darwin and the Tsleil-Waututh Nation off Dollarton Highway, for 20 per cent below market rates. Others who work on the North Shore would also be offered a discount on the rental apartments – at 10 per cent below market rates.

The idea of getting a special deal on housing for teachers came about after a school district employee survey indicated that just under 30 per cent of employees were commuting to work from off the North Shore, some of them for more than an hour. Those employees also indicated their lengthy commutes were adding to stress at work.

With approximately 2,500 employees, the school district is one of the larger employers in North Vancouver.

But the combination of high housing costs and long commutes can make it more difficult to attract teachers – particularly to specialized jobs like French immersion teachers, counsellors and speech pathologists, said Mark Pearmain, school district superintendent.

“Right now it’s very competitive in the education sector for qualified staff,” he said.

Pearmain said many of the details about a proposed deal – like how many and what type of apartments employees would be interested in – have yet to be discussed.

But the school district welcomes a chance to “think outside the box” on housing challenges for staff, he said.

Pearmain said the issue isn’t unique to education, adding other public sector employers such as those in health care and public safety are also looking at the issue. Nor is it unique to North Vancouver.

“When you look at jurisdictions like San Francisco and Silicon Valley, which have had spiralling housing costs, they’ve had challenges maintaining quality staff,” said Pearmain.

The housing for teachers and other school district employees is part of a revised plan for Darwin’s innovation district that the company resubmitted to the District of North Vancouver Jan. 21, after council failed to move the project forward last summer.

“There’s actually been significant changes,” said Oliver Webb, president of Darwin.

Chief among them is a reduction in density of the project, by removing about 600,000 square feet of office space.

Webb said the company made the change because traffic appeared to be one of the sticking points for local residents and “the office use generates the most traffic.”

Also gone from the plan is a new road connecting Mount Seymour Parkway to Dollarton Highway via a Berkley Road extension as well as a new location for the North Shore Winter Club at the former international school site Capilano University currently leases for student housing.

The total number of residential units in the project – 1,120 – remains the same. Those include 450 units of employee rental housing – which would include the school district units – offered at below market rates, 220 units of student/faculty rental housing, 230 units of market rental and 220 units of market housing for purchase.

Other changes to the plans include the addition of two acres to environmentally protected areas and two acres to parks and public space, which will now include a playing field for soccer.

“We deleted an entire office building and in place of that office building put in a playing field,” said Webb.

A boutique hotel and a Scandinave Spa remain a part of the plans.

Webb said the company has already started hosting public information meetings and hopes to have first reading for the revised project back before council in the next couple of months.

The plans for the “innovation district” project include 18 hectares of land stretching from the site of a former international school off Dollarton Highway to the Tsleil-Waututh Nation lands to the east.

Darwin Properties and the Tsleil-Waututh Nation bought the land in 2015 from the Port of Vancouver. The District of North Vancouver started a public process in February 2016 to rezone the property.

In July, district council voted to defer the project until after the October municipal election, following a public campaign that asked council to slow down the process.

Mayor Mike Little did not return a request for comment.