A rezoning proposal that would see the Marine Gardens housing complex knocked down in favour of towers goes before council Feb. 3. Staff are recommending the application be referred to public hearing.
Concord Pacific, which owns the property at 445 Southwest Marine Dr., wants to demolish 70 rental townhouses and replace them with a 27-storey and a 21-storey tower with 512 condominium units, and a third mid-rise, seven-storey tower with 70 market rental units above a ground-floor childcare facility with 37 spaces.
A proposed tenant relocation plan would provide tenants two months’ free rent, reimbursement for moving expenses, assistance in finding a rental unit or other form of alternative affordable housing and first right of refusal to relocate into a replacement unit on the site. They would get a 20 per cent discount on starting rents.
Tenants not planning to return would get a move-out bonus of $5,000 for households who have been at Marine Gardens less than three years and $8,500 for households who have been at Marine Gardens more than three years.
The complex was built in 1976, as a project for the United Nations Habitat Forum held in Vancouver. It features an enclosed courtyard open to all the townhouses where children often play.
Jillian Skeet, who’s lived at Marine Gardens for 11 years, has been fighting the redevelopment plans for years. She rents a three-bedroom townhouse for just under $1,100. (She suspects she pays less than some neighbours because her rent didn’t increase for the first five years she lived in the complex.)
About 50 of the 70 units in Marine Gardens are currently occupied, according to Skeet.
“There’s no question, I think because [residents have] been very active, that the city and Concord Pacific are very sensitive about how we’re dealt with in terms of the tenants relocation plan. It’s flexible, it’s generous,” she said. “The issue is there’s nowhere to go. That’s the bottom line.”
Skeet maintains even though council insists it’s concerned about affordable housing, it’s “played a major role in setting up the demolition of an affordable townhouse community.”
“It all comes down to the affordability in the City of Vancouver and the way things are being done where they’ll come in a approve the demolition rather than saying, OK, we’ve got a crisis in this city and we need to preserve the existing stocks we have while we’re trying to figure out how we increase the stock of affordable housing and maybe replace some of them. But that has to come before we start approving the demolition.”
Skeet plans to remain in her home until “the bitter end” to maintain as sense of stability for her 12-year-old son, but said neighbours who’ve looked for other accommodation haven’t found anything comparable. Marine Gardens, she maintains, offers a community and a lifestyle that highrises can’t provide.
“When you’ve been living in a townhouse community where you have a safe courtyard, where your children play and come and go, almost like free-range children, the idea of getting into an apartment building or a skyscraper where you’re going up and down in elevators and you’ve got long hallways and your children aren’t really within arms’ reach anymore, is not terribly appealing.”
Brian Jackson, the city’s manager of planning and development, said the relocation package in the application is one of the largest in recent memory and it recognizes that Marine Gardens is a family-oriented development so it takes more time and money for tenants to find somewhere else to live in Vancouver.
“The tenant relocation package that has been proposed in this particular application goes beyond others offered in the past in terms of the amount and the extent,” Jackson said. “One [reason] is it recognizes rental conditions in terms of availability of other replacement rentals is even harder to find than it was even six months or a year ago.”
Jackson said the last major redevelopment application to feature such a large relocation package was Shannon Mews. It’s not clear if it’s precedent setting.
“Our chief housing officer is looking at that right now — whether this is something that is a one-off related to the particular conditions here,” he said.
Jackson said the developer is also offering a significant community amenity contribution, but the handling of the displacement of existing tenants is the most unique aspect of the application.
“That’s why it’s taken the time that it has to come up with a package that recognizes the difficulty people have in finding rental accommodation and it ensures that the number and type of units that people are in now will be replaced like for like in the new proposal,” he said.
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