North Vancouver’s second co-housing complex may be one narrow lane away from approval.
City council seemed poised to approve Driftwood Village’s 27-unit, five-storey Chesterfield Avenue project Monday night until a few concerned neighbours took the debate to the back alley.
A multi-generational family who would be next-door neighbours to the new complex argued their property would be inaccessible if the city follows through on a plan to drag the 10-foot wide lane behind Chesterfield eastward and erect a fence between the lane and Wagg Creek.
“The current plan will make it impossible to access one of our two precious parking spots,” Rodger Sabey told council, suggesting the new lane would only benefit auto body shops.
Reconfiguring the lane behind the 2100 block of Chesterfield Avenue will protect mature trees at the edge of the alley and keep cars and trucks away from the soft soil at the top of the riverbank, according to city staff.
Coun. Pam Bookham said her support for the co-housing project was: “directly contingent on leaving the lane exactly as it is.”
Because access to Driftwood would be provided solely through the rear lane, the alley needs to be realigned to accommodate garbage trucks and fire trucks, according to city staff.
With Monday’s meeting stretching past the four-hour mark, council elected to defer their vote in the hopes of finding common ground before revisiting the issue on July 16.
But while the alleyway was the main point of contention, Coun. Rod Clark said he was “choking” on the concept of the city subsidizing residents making more than $100,000 a year.
The project includes eight units to be sold at 25 per cent below market prices in perpetuity. Because those eight units would be counted as an in-kind contribution, the city would forgo a cash contribution of approximately $1.657 million.
“Those people are owners of that unit. They’re going to profit – admittedly 25 per cent less – . . . but they’re still going to profit,” Clark said. “The city’s not getting any percentage of that, and yet we’re putting up $200,000 per unit to create these things.”
Clark’s position was echoed by city resident Peter Thrift, who expressed concern about taxpayers taking a hit.
“This project should proceed or not – based on its own merits, not funded by CNV taxpayers,” he wrote in a letter to council.
The proposal also received a mixed reaction from Community Housing Action Committee chairman Don Peters.
The city passing up $1.657 million to “ease the purchase of the eight units” is contrary to CHAC’s mission to help lower-income renters, he wrote. “We urge Council to consider carefully whether this approach to the use of CAC’s is both a fair and equitable distribution of public funds.”
While Mayor Darrell Mussatto said he’d prefer rentals, he allowed that Driftwood likely needs a cash infusion to kickstart the development.
Driftwood Village founder Mackenzie Stonehocker extolled the importance of economic diversity in her remarks to council.
“If health-care workers, teachers, electricians and government employees can’t live here; who does the actual work at the hospital and the schools, the community services?” she asked.
The eight below-market units could be a boon for families, seniors, and people with disabilities, according to Coun. Linda Buchanan.
“If that’s not a community contribution, I don’t know what is,” she said.
One of the eight units is set to be accessible for an occupant with limited mobility.
Coun. Holly Back praised Driftwood’s project for putting buyers into the market.
“You’re hopefully not going to stay there for 20 years, you’re going to use that as a stepping stone,” she said to Driftwood’s prospective owners in council chambers. “Every three to four years you should be buying up.”
Co-housing offers social and financial benefits, according to UBC teaching fellow and post-doctoral researcher Allison Earl.
“The strength of the community bond results in higher contentedness, overall happiness, and lower levels of transience, as people tend to remain in their homes longer than average,” she wrote in a letter to council. “These factors are a necessity for community resilience, enabling people to cope not only with the minor struggles of daily modern life, but equally in potential future natural disasters.”
With 2,800 square feet of shared space, Driftwood Village’s concept is reminiscent of the days when lawnmowers were communal property and neighbours doubled as short-term child care, according to Coun. Don Bell.
“I live in a seven-storey midrise and we don’t have a sense of community,” he said.
At 54-feet tall, the project might cast a long shadow on Wagg Creek during summer mornings, contended Carol Ruth Oslund.
“Construction on the East side of Chesterfield has had an impact and the new building will only make it all worse,” she wrote in a letter to council.
The building will have “some effect” on morning sunlight but shadow studied showed minimal impact, according to city staff.
While the 2100 block of Chesterfield is the right place for the density, Mayor Darrell Mussatto said they need a solution that works for neighbours, the fire department and Wagg Creek.
