Now that the federal Jericho Lands have been sold for development, the city’s manager of planning and development expects to report to council in January asking it to direct staff to treat the 52-acre parcel as a special study area or policy statement. Three First Nations — Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh — partnered with Canada Lands, a federal Crown corporation, to acquire three Lower Mainland properties, including the Jericho Lands, as reported in the Courier last week.
Brian Jackson said city staff will lay out a planning process for moving forward with its study.
“It would be on a cost recovery basis, so the costs associated with that policy statement would be borne by Canada Lands and it would set out a process, likely of a year — if not more, as it did for Pearson-Dogwood [lands],” said Jackson. “At the end of that process we would be making recommendations to council on appropriate heights, densities and uses. That would then form the basis of Canada Lands and their partners to move forward with rezoning as the next stage.”
Open houses and any other type of “innovative consultation” that is appropriate will be part of the process, according to Jackson.
The Jericho Lands, formerly owned by the Department of National Defence, sit between West Fourth Avenue and Highbury Street to the east and Eighth Avenue to the south. The federal government sold the property for $237 million. The Department of Defence will remain on site until December 2015.
Property immediately to the west is owned by the provincial government, but it’s unclear what will happen to that 38-acre parcel. Portions are leased for community use until 2020.
Robert Howald, Canada Lands’ executive vice president of real estate, said he hasn’t had any discussions with the province.
“I don’t know what their plans are at all,” he said. “We were just concentrating with the DND on the federal Jericho piece.”
Jackson said he isn’t sure what the province plans to do either.
“The province, in order to move forward with its land, I believe, would have to go through a similar accommodation process with the First Nations,” he said. “And we have not heard from the province as to whether they’re in discussions with the First Nations or not.”
A call to Liberal MLA Andrew Wilkinson’s office was not returned before the Courier’s print deadline. Wilkinson is Minister of Technology, Innovation and Citizens’ Services.
Echoing what Howald told the Courier previously, Jackson said the city also has no preconceived notions about what should happen on the former federal Jericho Lands.
“We recognize there has to be a lot of community input into whatever happens there. It’s a very important piece of land. It’s adjacent to the beautiful resources of the park space that we have to the north and it’s adjacent to single-family residential, but it’s also near Broadway corridor. So we don’t have any preconceived ideas whatsoever,” he said.
The 2010 West Point Grey vision statement included a direction about the Jericho Lands planning process. It pointed to the need for a major study with significant public consultation if the lands were to be developed.
In an email to the Courier, the West Point Grey Residents’ Association noted that in 2011 the federal and provincial government commissioned a major study of future land use and development potential of the Jericho Lands. The association added that very little detailed information has been released.
“What’s clear, however, is that a range of land-use and development options have already been contemplated without any consultation with the local community,” the email states. “Nevertheless, the West Point Grey Residents’ Association appreciates recent assurances from the Canada Lands Company that there are ‘no preconceived plans for these sites’ and that development will ultimately ‘meet the desire and needs of the municipalities and the local communities.’ To ensure that these aims are realized, the community calls on the City of Vancouver to begin implementing the foregoing vision direction. Thus any subsequent planning policy developed by the city would be appropriately informed by and reflective of local vision.”
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