Only days ago, the city posted a 263 page report for council on Tuesday proposing changes to RS & RT zones that undermine character house and heritage retention options. It would allow:
RS & RT zones
- 4 storey apartments covering most of the city, 150m from arterials & 400m around parks, schools and shopping.
- 4 storey mixed use with ground floor commercial where it is a full block consolidation on a side street.
C-2 Zones
- 6 storey apartments allowed on any block that is even partly C2 zoned, including where it is RS, RT or RM
12 Storey Wood Buildings
- Changes to zoning and building bylaws to allow 12 storey wood frame buildings.
Extension of the Moderate Income Rental Housing Pilot Program (MIRHPP)
- Allows precedent setting large scale rental buildings with 20% "affordable" units such as the proposed 14 storeys at Broadway & Alma and 28 storeys at Broadway & Birch
Rental Incentives Review Phase II Report Back
Staff Report here.
Agenda Tuesday Nov. 26, 2019 here.
It is urgent that there are a lot of letters to oppose this report. The following are some basic points from our letter that could be used or modified for an email to Council.
To: City of Vancouver, Mayor Stewart and Council
Re: Rental Incentives Review Phase II Report Back
This letter is opposed to the report recommendations that would undermine character and heritage retention incentives while undermining the City-wide Plan and ignoring neighbourhood-based planning processes.
Heritage properties listed on the Vancouver Heritage Registry should be exempt from rental incentive programs to allow for retention incentive options instead.
New apartment buildings should not be allowed in RS and RT zones unless community supported through neighbourhood-based planning. The RT zones in particular have concentrations of character houses and already support a lot of density, including rentals.
More rentals could be accommodated by allowing more character house incentives for secondary suites on main and upper floors and more ownership options for infill.
Although the recent motion to increase incentives for character house retention with more rental suites and a variety of options was not fully implemented as hoped, there are a number of those options council did direct for more work that has yet to be implemented. That should be considered before large scale policy initiatives that would preclude this work.
Add any other personal observations regarding continuing demolitions and concerns that these proposed measures would make this worse.
Email to:
kennedy.stewart@vancouver.ca; adriane.carr@vancouver.ca; melissa.degenova@vancouver.ca; lisa.dominato@vancouver.ca; pete.fry@vancouver.ca; colleen.hardwick@vancouver.ca; jean.swanson@vancouver.ca; michael.wiebe@vancouver.ca; rebecca.bligh@vancouver.ca; christine.boyle@vancouver.ca; CLRkirby-yung@vancouver.ca; ccclerk@vancouver.ca
Please send emails before 9:30 am Tuesday Nov. 26, 2019.
Sign up to speak to Council here or speaker.request@vancouver.ca
Thank you.