CD-1 Rezoning 816-860 West 13th Avenue Approved

Statement Watch

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Thank you for your time this evening. Thank you for the opportunity to support this exciting and innovative project. My name is Shelley Fleck. I'm the Chief Clinical Planning Officer for Vancouver General Hospital. I've been with Vancouver Coastal Health for over 20 years, and my work includes leading the capital build of the new surgical suite at VGH, the build of the new Paul Myers Tower on the Lionsgate campus, the zoning application for the VGH campus, which is currently in process with our colleagues at the city, operational responsibilities for the Vancouver Acute Perioperative Program, along with broader operational and strategic responsibilities across Vancouver Acute, which is comprised of GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre, the UBC Hospital, and Vancouver General Hospital. Over the course of my career, I have seen firsthand how critical stable housing is to the well-being and retention of healthcare workers, and by extension, to the patients and the communities that we serve. This application will meaningfully strengthen our health care system. At VCH, we are very mindful every day and grateful for our staff as we are very aware that the majority of them are commuting from across the Lower Mainland, and they do have the opportunity to turn off to a number of different hospitals to work. They have chosen to work at Vancouver General Hospital, at GF Strong, at UBC, as well as other hospitals across Vancouver Coastal Health. The time that will be saved by commuting, by not commuting these long distances, will allow for better work-life balance for them and their families. The availability of child care spaces will provide the necessary transition support to them as they are settling into the new city and have one less thing to worry about finding child care for their children. In the event of disasters, having a significant number of staff that are mere blocks away from the hospital will assist in readying our site for the disaster as it hits our doors. The inclusion of turnkey furnished homes, with everything included, will be important for new staff and medical staff. Many of our new hires relocate to Vancouver from other provinces or, as the applicant has indicated, are new graduates. Having move-in ready housing removes significant financial and logistical barriers at a critical transition time for such staff, allowing them to settle quickly, begin serving patients without delay, all the while becoming familiar with our beautiful city and finding out, taking some time where they do want to settle eventually. The possibility of a hostel-like model for existing staff who may not need the apartments that are in this building. But they're working shift and having the ability at the end of a three or four, five day, you know, run of 12 hour shifts to be able to spend a night or two in town as you're getting to your third and fourth shift. You're tired. You're going home after a 12 hour shift only to turn around and come back less than 10 hours later. If that's a model that we can pursue. With this application, that would go a long way as well to support staff that aren't looking for housing, but they are looking for the ability to just rest in between turnaround shifts, and you're not commuting two hours home one way and coming back two hours the next day. Vancouver urgently needs more housing, and healthcare workers face the same pressures as everyone else does, often compounded by demanding schedules and long commutes. Housing for healthcare workers, stands to support staff recruitment and better position the health care system within our city. Thank you for the opportunity to provide our insights into this innovative and exciting project. We believe, working with the partners at PC Urban, we will make this a successful project, and we will demonstrate that supporting housing for health care workers is something that we can all do as we provide an opportunity to continue delivering health care to our constituents. Thank you very much.

Statement Watch

Thank you. My name is Sean Parr. I am currently the Associate Vice President for Corporate Services at Vancouver Coastal Health, and I'm pleased to be here, so thank you for the opportunity. I did have some prepared remarks, but I believe they've been spoken to very well by PC Urban and as well as my colleague, Shelley. So I will actually try and address some of the questions that have been raised just in terms of our Vancouver Coastal Health perspective. I've worked at Vancouver Coastal Health for over 23 years now and had a variety of roles. In my current role as a Corporate Services AVP, my job is to make sure that our clinical and medical staff have the right tools, supplies, and facilities to do the work that they need to do, providing culturally safe, appropriate, and high-quality health care to our residents. I have worked in a variety of areas. I have done staffing. I have worked in the North Shore. as well as all across Vancouver Coastal Health. And I will tell you that my experience with PC Urban, I want to provide some assurance as a member of the senior executive team for Vancouver Coastal Health that we are very supportive of this. The proposal as put forth is very much in line with our strategic objectives for housing. Housing is a critical piece of making sure our infrastructure and our teams can do the work they need to do. It will come as no surprise to any of you that healthcare is having a staffing challenge across the system. And as noted, our staff will have to commute long distances, either by affordability or inventory. This is addressing that need for Vancouver. Some of the questions I want to speak to, I was raised around whether there has been some market sounding in terms of people who are willing to do this. I can assure you that our VP of HR has definitely done that work and is supportive of this proposal. So yes to that answer, the answer to that question. Housing in other areas. I do believe this is innovative for Vancouver, but I can tell you that in many of our areas in Sechelt, Powell River, Bella Bella, Bella Coola, we have staff housing options available there. So this is an innovative thing for Vancouver. All of our areas struggle with housing. And we've actually seen in the last couple of years, it's actually hitting Vancouver, which is new to us. But in the last couple of years, certainly since COVID, we've certainly seen that hit us. So it has been a challenge for us. And then the question around transplant and whether there's a willingness to partner, absolutely. We know that we have many, many residents from rural and remote areas of British Columbia who come to Vancouver for their care at Vancouver General Hospital. And so the idea of partnering with PC Urban and transplant and other groups to provide some temporary housing, we know there can be some challenges with that, but we certainly want to partner with that. So it's a very good opportunity for us as well. We are, I believe, the largest employer in Vancouver. As noted, we have about 12,000 employees in Vancouver, and we hire thousands of people every year, from our frontline care workers, nurses, physios, OTs, our physicians, all the way to the infrastructure of support services like housekeepers and dishwashers and people who make everything work behind the scenes. We hear from them that housing is a concern. All of them tell us that. So I would just like to say in closing, the model that we've prepared with Peace Urban is very, very innovative. And as I said, we're very supportive of the housing, the health care, the child care. All this comes together for the triple word score for us. So with that, I would like to just end by saying thank you very much for the time. And we very much support this proposal.

Statement Watch

I'm Dennis Agar. I live in Vancouver, and I support this project. You may know me from my day job. I push for better transit as the executive director of Movement Metro Vancouver Transit Riders, but I'm here today as a resident of downtown Vancouver. This is an excellent location to have dense housing. As you've just heard, VGH is slated to grow significantly, and we're going to need a lot more housing for medical professionals in the coming decades. Every nurse or doctor that lives here eliminates untold thousands of kilometers of driving over the course of their career. You can imagine building the exact same housing units in Burnaby or Langley. They're just going to be putting millions more miles on the road. What's more is this project doesn't displace any renters. That's a big deal for me. And that's a rare opportunity in this neighborhood. Furthermore, the child care facility is the icing on the cake. People are putting many more kilometers on the road, getting their kid to and from child care facilities as far as Richmond. If anything, I'd love for you to call the developer to provide more child care spaces, but maybe that ship has sailed. In any case, I'll also just add that the relatively low number of parking spaces reflect... you know, the tenant mix, the fact that a few people, a lot of the residents are going to be able to just walk across the street to get to work. And it'll mean this project doesn't contribute nearly as much to roadway congestion in the surrounding community. And it'll instead support the vitality and frequency of public transit because as transit grows in ridership, it becomes more viable. It kind of, its growth is fed. So in sum, I support this development and thank you so much for having me on.

Statement Watch

Hi, Luis. Yes, indeed.

Let's see if we have it today.

We're just going to double check.

Okay. There we go. First slide, please. Go ahead. My name is Louis Villegas. I am a Vancouver resident practicing urbanism in Canada and the U.S. for 40 years. Next slide, please. I oppose this proposal, although I don't oppose the concept of housing medical staff. I simply oppose building towers outside the downtown. The Broadway plan is the worst piece of planning I've encountered in my professional career. Next slide, please. The proof is in the pudding. I don't understand how professionals faced with results like this are advising building even more towers. My analysis returns SkyTrain and towers as the primary cause of the housing crisis. Next, please. When Paris was modernized in the mid-19th century, Charles Baudelaire dubbed the new products the flowers of evil. Next. Building concrete jungle, government looks to maximize profits, but harming the social good makes the Broadway towers the fleur de mel.

Next.

Elected officials posturing not to understand urbanism or to be simply following staff direction lack credibility, especially after the Auditor General gave us a peek behind the curtain, revealing there is corruption in the system. Next. Bare drawings like this one conceal information.

Next.

By turning neighborhood streets into dark canyons, turning owners into renters, and forcing citizens to live in tiny, puny apartments, the Broadway plan harms the vitality of our community.

Next.

One more. Thank you. Thank goodness. Go again. You got the wrong file. I updated the file.

Did you send a new one?

I sent a new one.

Just give us a minute just to check on the timing on that. And it has revision one on the headline. Councillor Claassen.

procedure here I expect we will be seeing again from this speaker and he has an opportunity to bring his case forward in future presentations I suggest that we continue we have a very long agenda tonight thanks very much well we certainly could give me a moment to confer the course I thank you

Council? Oh. Council? We're going to go get council. One minute.

Statement Watch

Clerks will bring that up. Go ahead. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Karen Conrad, and I live at 888. West 13th Avenue, adjacent to this proposed project. I'm also the Strata President, and I also work in the healthcare field, however, not for VCH. I've heard a lot of different things here this evening that maybe weren't all given in the public access, so my presentation has only what I had access to. and could get information of. So next slide, please. With this proposal, and I too oppose the proposal as presented, I do not oppose housing projects, housing our first responders and our healthcare workers. I opposed to this project as presented. It represents more of a hotel and short-term rental mix of micro units. I've heard the term housing used quite loosely. Nobody can really say, is this going to be some short-term 90-day rentals? Is this going to be rentals for a long term? Is it my stable housing as a VCH worker? What does that look like? That is a problem. I haven't heard any data. I haven't heard any information about that. Next slide, please. With the proposal that was available, 77% of the units averaged 400 square feet or less. 77%. We've been talking about family-friendly housing. We've been talking about the daycare. I don't know how many people in this room could raise a family in 400 square feet. can see the family sizes are also significantly reduced and don't really offer family dwelling this type of mix and density really speaks to a hotel or short-term living model the city itself as proposed doesn't fall under the purview of At the Broadway plan, city housing policies imply or say that we need much more amenities. I only heard about those amenities this evening. They were not in the proposal. This keeps changing and moving. And that's how do we know if we don't have some of these things concrete. The rents proposed are rents that currently you can find the same square footage or even more. done the research in Fairview and surrounding areas we do have a downtrend in in rental cost so as we move towards micro units and that downtrend will this be viable in a couple of years as a stable family-friendly long-term community-driven project That's my question. I haven't heard answers to that this evening. I think it's an exciting opportunity. I think there's a lot more to be done before something like this is actually approved. Next slide, please. This slide is from the Vancouver plan that will be presented on March 10th, I think is the first. So this, I assume, is the city team and council vision 2050. In this slide, you see that there are allowances to try and incorporate smooth transitions of large and small, setbacks being landscaped, creating community, this project does not do that mayor you're further away than the actual building will be from where I live so that's the next slide I'd like to give you some context please next slide please So you can see here there's a rendering, that small U-shaped building in the shade there, that's our building. That's where I live and 35 owners live. We're also a rental-friendly strata, so we have many VGH renters. We have UBC med students as renters. And what you see there in the vertical line is where the building will begin. Next slide, please. Now I want you to picture those towers where that yellow little bit and red line is going up 21 or 22 stories. Next slide, please. And how you would feel if you lived in this building, you had a rooftop deck, your bedroom windows faced the northeast, which is all along the side of the building, and you are now looking into balconies and literally a stone's throw, six meters. the setback that we've seen on proposals next slide please include the back area also has the same impact this is the back alley it's a normal residential back alley next slide please that's our garage driveway this is our garbage area and that hydro pole and to the right will be where the tower arcade starts And you can imagine that kind of traffic. You can imagine the safety issues, not to mention the vibration that's going to happen to our building because you can see where our building is. You can see people's bedroom windows. It's one thing to have a two- or three-story, 15-story, 10-story building. It's another thing to have 21 stories with balconies sitting over on that line. Next slide, please.

I'd have to stop you there because that's been your five minutes.

That's great, but I'd love to hear a lot more data and research before we go into something like this because nobody talks about the community.

Statement Watch

Yes. Hello?

Yes, go ahead, Dana.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Dana Garcia, and I am the Executive Director of the South Granville Senior Center. We serve older adults in this neighborhood and across Vancouver, many of whom depend heavily on the city's healthcare system. I am here today to express my support for this application. From our perspective, this is more than a housing proposal. It is an investment in the health and well-being of our city. Seniors are among the people who use health care services the most. As we age, timely and reliable care becomes essential to maintaining independence, dignity, and quality of life. That care is only possible when there is a strong, supported health care workplace in place. At the center, we often hear from seniors who are worried about long wait times. staff shortages, and the growing strain on our healthcare system. Creating housing for nurses, technicians, support staff, and other essential healthcare workers directly helps ease those pressures. This proposal understands that healthcare infrastructure is not just about buildings and equipment. It is also about the people who show up every day to care for others. Making sure those workers have secure, affordable housing close to where they work is essential to keeping the system functioning well. Housing essential workers near major employment areas also supports sustainability, reduces traffic, and helps workers feel connected to the communities they serve. I especially appreciate that this building will be furnished, removing one more barrier for people whose focus should be on caring for others. I respectfully urge Council to support this application as part of a broader commitment to straightening our healthcare system for seniors today and for future generations. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Statement Watch

Perfect. Thank you. Just a brief introduction. My name is Nadia Garriger. I'm a director of our development team at PC Urban. PC Urban is a local Vancouver-based developer. I'm accompanied here today by our full team, Brent Sauchin. Hey, Dolly. I'm just going to head over to City Hall, but I thought I'd just call and wish you good night.

Whoever's online, can you just mute yourselves, please? Thank you.

A&W?

Excuse me?

Oh, my God. Do you have pizza or spaghetti? What do you have? I love their pizzas.

I'm getting hungry with all this food talk. Can we mute? OK, thank you. Is anyone hungry now? You can start. Go ahead and start again if you wish. My apologies.

No worries. I'll continue with introductions quickly. We have our CEO, Brent Sauchin here, our COO, Steve Forrest, our Vice President of Development, Kirk Robinson, our Senior Development Manager, Court Brown. We also have our architect team here from Frankel Architects, Laura and Julian, and also our landscape architect, Jose. On behalf of PC Urban and also our partner on this development, Harrison Street, we'd like to thank staff and everyone involved to help make this project possible. We're really excited to be here tonight to discuss the first of its kind workforce housing. I'll briefly go through the history of this site, its location, the amendment, and why it's important.

Next page, please.

Just a brief timeline overview from when we originally submitted for rezoning in January 2024, which was then approved by Council in April 2025. Subsequent to getting approved, an opportunity came to recast this to provide housing, prioritizing health care workers. We therefore worked with staff to refocus this development and have worked really closely with Lucan team and with the housing team. We resubmitted our application October 2025. And last month, we already submitted our development permit and paid for it. So it's successful tonight. We plan to start construction early fall and deliver over 500 homes and a childcare facility in mid-2029.

Next page, please.

As Luke showed the location already, it's directly across from the VGH campus, the largest and most specialized hospital in BC, serving patients across the province. This site also benefits from the fact that it doesn't have any tenant displacement.

Next slide, please.

This is an opportunity to convert an already approved development into high-impact workforce housing, the first of its kind in BC. We're not changing the height, density, massing, use, or the overall design. This change is to support workforce housing for healthcare workers, and we're focusing on one bed. The total increase in the bed count of the whole development is 17 in total. We're also making all the homes more affordable by aligning with the maximum west area DCL rental rates, as Luke mentioned, and in perpetuity. All of these units are going to be fully furnished, and they're going to include utilities and Wi-Fi. So the city housing agreement will include the affordability rates and the health care priority requirement. And we have a staff housing agreement with Vancouver Coastal Health prioritizing all their workers for housing and for the daycare. To put the importance of this development into perspective, VCH is the largest employer in the city with over 12,000 employees and thousands of new recruits annually. We understand that over a third of VGH staff commute over two hours daily crossing multiple bridges and hospitals. Furthermore, we estimate that less than 15% of first responders actually live within the city limits. This development aligns with the city initiative for better emergency preparedness. We're prioritizing healthcare workers by providing move-in ready homes, reducing commute times, and enabling faster response times during crisis. It can also boost retention and productivity. This type of development is more critical as we encounter an aging population. The estimate is that the population of those aged over 70 is expected to grow by 47% by 2035. This will impact demand for care and health care workers. VGH Foundation has already put forward a proposal for over 800,000 square feet of additional medical facilities close to this site. And the VGH campus expansion has also been proposed, which could possibly add millions of additional square feet in the future. Next slide, please. We want to help build a resilient city. Vancouver's healthcare system is strained by recruitment and retention challenges, yet we're facing an increase in demand for healthcare services. Healthcare worker wellbeing is critical in providing essential emergency services. Move-in ready homes with a large two-level extended care childcare near VGH will provide immediate usability for employees, including shift workers, new hires, and relocations. BGH is the province's center of health excellence. Prioritizing its employees will contribute to ensuring care can be provided for the sickest and most complex patients in the province. We're privileged to have two senior BGH leaders registered to speak this evening as well. And with that, I'd like to thank you for your time, and we're here to answer any questions.

Statement Watch

opportunity to create housing for essential workers and health care workers, of course. We understand this might be one of the first in Canada, certainly the first in Vancouver, if not the province of British Columbia. It is precedent setting. Lots of steps still to figure out, but we're very excited to be working hand in hand with Vancouver Coastal Health. And I simply wanted to say thank you for your consideration tonight. As mentioned, hopefully we're successful this evening because we're standing by, shovel ready to get in the ground in October. to deliver this in about three and a half years. And a special shout out to our friends in the planning department, in particularly Dan Garrison and his team and Sarah in housing, turning quickly, working with us and working with Vancouver Coastal Health to see how we can bring this forward. And so thank you very much. That's all.

Statement Watch

GOOD EVENING, MAYOR AND COUNCIL. MY NAME IS LUKE REYNOLDS AND I'M THE REZONING PLANNER FOR THIS APPLICATION CONSIDERED UNDER THE BROADWAY PLAN. Council, this application before you is accompanied with a yellow memo that adds a new recommendation to the report. The memo specifies that recommendation C be added, which outlines that subject to the enactment of the CD1 bylaw. Council terminates the previous approval in principle from April 23, 2025, to rezone this property, including consequential amendments to the noise and sign bylaws. The site, shown in red, is located at the southwest corner of the West 13th Avenue and Willow Street. The site is on R33, and the surrounding area consists of a mix of uses, with Heather Place to the east, Vancouver General Hospital Parkade Energy Center to the north, and R33 and RT residential districts to the southeast. The property consists of a six-law assembly consisting of six duplexes, and the neighborhood is undergoing significant change with the future Oak BGH station located a five-minute walk away, which is scheduled to open in 2027. The site is located in the Uptown South Area B sub-area. The plan permits 20-story market rental buildings with 20% of the residential floor area secured as below-market rental units and a maximum density of 6.8 FSR with the inclusion of commercial. The applicant is proposing two 21-story towers with 507 rental units in a private 49-space child care center on the first two levels of the east tower. A density of 7.4 FSR and a height of 66.6 meters are proposed. As referenced in the yellow memo, a previous rezoning application was approved at this site at the April 23, 2025 public hearing. After receiving approval, the applicant reapplied to provide dedicated workforce housing to Vancouver Coastal Health employees. The form of development of the previous application, in terms of height and FSR, is consistent with this application. However, to support the dedicated workforce housing, flexibility was provided to family mix requirements, going from 35% of units to 8%, and affordability of the site would change from 20% of the units at below market rents to all units being provided at Class B DCL waiver rates. If approved, issuance of occupancy permit would be subject to the applicant entering into an agreement with VCH to offer to rent all rental housing units to VCH employees. During the public consultation period and one-week Q&A, 35 pieces of feedback were received. Support was expressed for added housing for healthcare staff, proximity to essential services, and community benefits indirectly created by supporting healthcare workers. Concerns were related to the proposed height, density and shadows, unit makes and livability, and traffic and parking. Regarding the proposed height, density, and shadowing, as the site has a frontage of approximately 300 feet, which is twice the length of a typical site frontage assumed under the plan, staff support the additional height and density requested for the site. This application also complies with the solar access policy in the plan, as the proposed towers do not create new shadow impacts onto adjacent parks or public school yards. Regarding unit mix and livability, Vancouver Coastal Health has outlined a demand primarily for studios and one-bedroom units, with some demand for two-bedroom units among its workforce. Conditions have been included to ensure each unit has access to private outdoor space. Regarding traffic and parking, the application would be required to meet the requirements of the parking bylaw, and rezoning conditions require improvements to address safety for all road users, including upgraded sidewalks, street lighting, parking signage, and curb ramp-ups along 13th Avenue and Willow Street. The public benefits of this application consists of 507 rental units at class B DCL rates, as well as half a million in public art contributions and 4.4 million in DCLs for a total contribution of 4.9 million. In conclusion, this proposal meets the intent of the Broadway plan. Staff recommend approval of this application subject to the conditions outlined in Appendix B of the report. Staff and the applicant team are available to answer any and all questions. Thank you.

Statement Watch

In comparison to I guess average rents in that area of the city Thank you for the question as Sarah Robin housing planner Yes, so that's correct a hundred percent of the units will be at the DCL waiver rents for the west side of Vancouver and those average from 2200 approximately for a studio to 3600 for two-bedroom unit and those are based on an on average average rents across the city for newer buildings so those would date back to 2015 to present so it's an average of those rents plus a premium for the rents being on the west side of Vancouver

but now I can't turn it back on. Thanks for the answer. The fact that the units are furnished, was that taken into account when setting those rents?

Yes, exactly, because they are inclusive of furnishings and utilities and Wi-Fi as well. That was factored in in terms of the affordability.

Okay, so those prices in the report are all inclusive in terms of the rent, the furnishing, and all the utility, Wi-Fi, et cetera?

Yes.

Okay, thank you. You're welcome. That's it for me.

Statement Watch

Thank you for the question, David Shadvon, planner. Yeah, the proposal is tower in the park typology instead of the podium and tower typology, which means that the setback is greater. So in this case, it's 20 feet. So typically, if it was a podium, And tower typology, it would have been eight feet. So it does exceed that setback requirement to the adjacent sites. Okay, so it's actually greater than the... Thank you very much. That's all my questions.