District of North Vancouver council members have the toughest of decisions to make: pitting 411 homes including 81 rental units, half of which would be below market rates, against Emery Place, an aged-but-affordable townhome and apartment complex in Lynn Valley.
The project is in keeping with the official community plan – which targets new growth in walking distance of major town centres, transit and amenities – and new rental units are desperately needed. But it will also mean uprooting 61 families with scant hope of finding an affordable alternative here on the North Shore.
In the name of preserving the character of single-family neighbourhoods, our OCP has painted bull’s eyes on many older multi-family rental properties like Emery Village and Mountain Court. We feel this is a fatal blind spot in our town planning. It forces the new housing that we very much need to cannibalize the old housing that we still also need. And the OCP has the effect of exiling the people it expressly strives to keep.
Developers who see this inevitable conflict as a risk to their projects’ success at council would be wise to come to the table with generous offers to re-house the people they’re demovicting within their own new projects as they come online.
But thanks to our OCPs, the next tough decision about redeveloping an older rental building is always just around the corner. There is a human cost to this kind of planning and it’s not paid for by the people who are comfortably housed in neighbourhoods shielded from change. It’s paid for by the people who cut their hair, serve their coffee and fix their cars.
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