While the issue of demolition and what to do with the existing residents may have been resolved, I believe the ‘Little Mountain Mess’ may just be starting. There are two many outstanding planning issues and too many potential conflicts of interest that need to be carefully massaged.

The bid by Holborn was based on achieving a site density that was far in excess of what I thought was appropriate. And I suspect that Ned Jacobs and others will think that what I think is appropriate is far in excess of what they think is appropriate.

Now of course the deal can be renegotiated. But that will not be fair to those other bidders who operated in good faith. I should declare that I was on one of the other teams that bid on the land.

The problem as I see it is that the Province and City want to generate as much money as possible from the development of this site, in order to fund the replacement social housing on site, as well as a portion of the cost of the other much needed social housing projects.

However, the planning department and other departments….engineering, the Park Board, etc. may not have the same appetite for revenue producing densities….

While there have been similar situations in the past, there has never been anything quite like this, involving both the City and Province and so many other worthwhile projects.

For my part, while I think this site is still a potential mess, I hope there can be a happy outcome since there is a need to come up with a good redevelopment plan for this site, with significant revenues for the public purse, and there are many other public housing properties across Canada that need to be carefully regenerated (that’s the word we used when I worked for CMHC) in the future.

Contrary to what Gregor and his friends in Victoria would like to have the public believe, the 10 remaining families at Little Mountain are still being forced out. On the same day as the grand announcement of COV’s ‘deal’ with Holborn and the province, the tenants received (yet another) threatening letter from BC Housing telling them that they will not be able to remain on site, and that if they do not relocate now they will not be assisted with relocating in the future (when they are evicted, I suppose), nor will they be able to return to the new development (as had been promised).
Gregor Robertson spun this ‘deal’ to make himself look good while backhandedly selling out.

The city and province expected this site to sell for something in the order of $200 a square foot of buildable area. In other words the LAND COMPONENT for an 880 square foot, 2 bedroom apartment would be in the order of $200,000. Add in construction costs at $260 to $300 a foot for concrete construction (or more, depending on finishes); soft costs of say 20%, and an estimated developer’s profit of 20% of costs…

Oh, and did I mention that the developer is expected to pay for all the new roads through the site and the new park space, and make available the sites for the social housing at no cost…

And you are wondering whether this will be ‘affordable housing’.

So then the question is HOW DO WE CREATE AFFORDABLE HOUSING for firefighters, police officers, and other city personnel who we want to live in our city, let alone all the other families who would like to be here but can’t afford $800,000 and more?

You may not like these answers but here are some thoughts:

You don’t try to put too much affordable housing on prime sites on the waterfront or next to a beautiful park; instead you use the revenues generated from these lands to offset the cost of ‘affordable housing’ elsewhere;

You significantly reduce the parking standards, except for shared cars and visitors;

You promote alternative forms of tenure; coops, shared equity ownership; rent to own;

You lease, rather than sell sites, and place restrictions on who can live in certain developments on publicly owned land: eg: cannot be rented out; limited appreciation, etc. (This was done at Verdant at SFU)

You allow alternative forms of housing: duplexes and triplexes in and about single family areas; fee simple townhouses; small 6 suite walk-up apartment buildings, etc.

You allow residential development to be mixed with different uses, including light industrial, warehousing…just go to parts of Toronto where this is happening, quite successfully, I might add.

You allow and promote more prefabricated housing;

You simplify some of the rules and procedures…if you don’t know what I mean, check out the latest procedures to get approval for a laneway house…

http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/developmentservices/subreq/pdf/lanewayhouse.pdf

I could go on, but hopefully this gives you some idea of why some housing is more affordable than other housing.

Otis:

“Thanks to both IanS and Frances for their
responses.”

You’re welcome.

“Yes, Ian, I get the context and the euphemisms
we all use daily to describe different housing
types. And I guess ‘market’ rolls off the tongue
easier than, say, ‘wildly overpriced due to a
speculative market run amok’. ”

Absolutely, it’s easier to say. Not only that, it describes something different than “market”. In this context, it’s generally used to express the view that market prices are too high, often in support of the assertion that we need more “affordable” housing.

Taking into account most of the above comments, I can see the need for a major upgrade to the amenities on Main Street x 33rd Ave.

This would not only include rezoning for commercial storefronts south of 33rd Ave (therein promoting a walkable community), but improved transit, ideally a mid-level transit-oriented development based on the #3 and #33 buses.

A few years back the Main St Showcase project proposed bus signal-priority technology along with the sidewalk and bus stop improvements and new articulated trolleys, but that seems to have been dropped for some reason. It stands to reason it should be resurrected due to dense projects like Little Mountain and a host of other new low rise devlopents that have cropped up on the Main Street corridor.

They could not be left alone Mira, they were/are in a state of decay and needed major repairs. They were not built to last indefinately. The province’s options were sell to the highest bidder and use the money extract to build more and better housing, or pour money into trying to renovate the existing units. Those were the two options, status quo was not one of them.

I believe the decision to redevelop Little Mountain with a mix of market and replacement non-market units was very appropriate. It is something that has been contemplated for many years, and follows on the footsteps of other similar projects across Canada. In Vancouver, many of the Veterans’ properties in New Westminster, and along West 4th and West B’way were re-developed with varying degrees of success. In Toronto, perhaps the most high profile redevelopment of a public housing site is currently taking place at Regent Park.

This is the right thing to do. A large project with a high concentration of very low income people is being turned into a much more balanced community. Revenues are being generated to fund the new social housing. The land is being developed in a more intensive way, with a high regard for ‘sustainable’ planning practices.

Little Mountain had the potential to be a model redevelopment. I personally disagreed with the decision to try and vacate the entire project before offering it for sale, but the Province was concerned about the potential for some ‘hold-outs’ who might try and block the future purchaser from proceeding. As it turns out, they were right to have this concern.

If the project was not so well located, adjacent to a park, in what is becoming an increasingly affluent area, then there would likely have been a broader mix of more affordable housing. Similarly, if there wasn’t such a need for additional funds to finance other social housing units, one might not have aspired to such high densities (Urbanismo-I thought the upper limit on an appropriate density might be in the order of 2.0 FSR, given the 0.6 FSR single family housing, and 1.2FSR along Main Street. However, like JJJ, I have not seen the plans, but understand that the density is higher than 2.0. (The density calculations are complicated by the basis of measurement….are the area of roads and parks included in the calculations, etc.)

For those not familiar with the situation, the community indicated that they did not want to see any buildings higher than 4 storeys. Again, I disagreed with this constraint, and understand that all of the submissions, prepared by some very responsible and talented architects, included buildings higher than 4 storeys.

I hope this additional information will be helpful to anyone who thinks the old decaying, outdated buildings at Little Mountain (that grossly under-used a well located site) should have been allowed to remain.

Michael,

I’m not certain what you are getting at with respect to the Glen Robin condo report. From what you’ve described, it sounds like a typical leaky condo situation, albeit a somewhat older development. How does that relate to your point re coops projects?