1745 West 8th Avenue ODP and Rezoning
Motion 19 · Standing Committee of Council on Policy and Strategic Priorities, June 3, 2026
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Transcript
24 segments
Okay, that carries. I didn't hear any nays. Thank you. Moving on, we have one item of unfinished business on the agenda today, and that is the Vancouver ODP Amendment and CD1 rezoning, 1745 West 8th Avenue. At the public hearing on June 2nd, 2026, Council heard the staff presentation, asked questions of staff and the applicant. heard from the public and closed the speaker's list and receipt of public comments and referred applicant and staff closing comments, further questions to staff, debate and decision to this meeting as unfinished business. Council members who were absent for this item at the public hearing will need to confirm they reviewed the proceedings they missed and are therefore eligible to participate in debate and decision. Councillors Bly, Fry and Maloney and I, Oh, sorry, not I in this case. Councillors Bly, Fry, Maloney and Mayor Sim were absent for this item. Councillor Bligh has a leave of absence. Councillor Fry, have you reviewed the proceedings you missed and will you be participating in debate and decision?
Okay, noted.
Councillor Maloney. I have and I will. Thank you. Mayor Sim.
Thank you. Okay, do we have the applicant here or online and do they have any closing comments?
You do, and we don't have any comments other than to thank Council for considering this application.
Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. My name is Chi Chan. I am the Resuming Planner for this application. Staff would just like to make a few closing comments. We'd like to clarify some of the things which we heard from speakers last night. We heard concerns that the reduction in the amount of social housing increase in strata units and the increase in height and density between the original and the revised application was not commensurate with an increase in public benefits. As noted in the staff report, the original application's child care spaces did not meet the minimum size requirements for a 37-space child care, nor provide a sufficiently large privately owned outdoor space as determined by the plan. Staff then worked with the applicant to revise the application to provide both the larger outdoor and indoor child care spaces sufficient to meet requirements, as well as a privately owned public space that's more than twice as large as the originally proposed space. This space increases necessitated movings around some of the density towards a taller tower and adjusting the social housing amount to 17.9% to support the delivery of all of the in-kind public benefits. The site is one of the few large parcels in the Broadway plan area that allowed for flexibility to consider slightly taller buildings that still achieve the plan's form of development intent. The revised application balances some of that additional height to allow for the delivery of the significant in-kind turnkey facilities to the city that would not typically be the case on smaller sites. Together with the DCLs and public art, the public benefits are valued at approximately $70 million. Real estate staff have reviewed the revised developments pro forma and concluded that the total CAC value offered is appropriate. Staff overall feel strongly that the public benefit offering is robust and this project is highly aligned with the ambitions of the Broadway plan. And just as a reminder, there is a yellow memo attached to this application. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much. Does council have any final questions for staff noting no additional questions can be made to the applicant? So just to staff at this time.
Councillor Kirby-Young, go ahead. So just one quick point of clarification to staff, if I could, and that was when we heard consistently from speakers that it was below the social housing, which is 98 units, was below the 20%, and you referenced 17.9. Just for absolute clarity, that's because of the overall public benefits package, which also includes the POPs and the childcare?
That's correct. The applicant needed to balance the cost of delivering all of those public amenities, and one of the slight relaxations was a slight decrease in the social housing percentage.
Okay. And when we heard feedback, people were saying they needed social housing. This is 98 turnkey social housing units turned over to the city? That's correct. And the 37 space child care also turned over to the city?
Thank you.
Thank you, Councillor Kirby-Young. Councillor Maloney.
Just briefly, for the benefit of any of the public speakers who might be listening in now, I noticed that most of the public speakers were really concerned about there not being enough affordable housing in the city, which is a concern that obviously I'm completely... I completely agree with that. There isn't enough affordable housing in the city. What is the city doing to improve the amount of affordable housing? And what's out of our control? And what's the responsibility of the province and the federal government? I know that's a big question. Maybe just answer it in one minute.
You know, certainly in this particular example, I want to highlight for council that this in-kind delivery is, we don't see a lot of in-kind delivery. So the delivery of actual social housing rather than just taking in money is a very good asset for the city. The city does intend to take it on and run it either itself or through a nonprofit operator. And while the requirement is that 30% of the units are at Hills or below, or at least at the Hills rates, it doesn't stop the city from the 70% also trying to find ways to make that less than market. The other thing, of course, for the other levels of government, funding from the other levels of government, from the province and the federal government, is always desirable and always sought to deepen the affordability of all our social housing for not just city providers, but for non-profit providers in the metro area.
Right. You did a great job of making that a short answer. That's all for me.
Thank you, Councillor Maloney. Just a reminder, the council needs to move the recommendation for unfinished business item number one, together with the yellow memo dated May 29th, 2026, entitled Vancouver ODP Amendment and CD1 Rezoning 1745 West 8th Avenue. Council considerations when amending an ODP. Moved by Councillor Kirby Young, seconded by Councillor Zhou. Any discussion?
Councillor Maloney, is that a holdover? Yes, it does. I'll clear the queue.
I do want to just make a quick comment.
It's been moved in. Okay, go ahead. It's been moved and seconded. Go ahead, Councillor Maloney.
Thank you. This development has no displacement of existing tenants. It has a 37-place childcare centre to be handed over to the city, which is really rare. Parents in our city are desperate for more childcare places and turnkey childcare facilities handed over to the city as part of new developments is the principal way of us getting more childcare places. This development will provide... Over 500 new homes, 441 strata-titled units plus 98 in-kind social housing units. The development's close to transit and cycling routes and close to downtown. So on balance and also acknowledging the public speakers, a lot of whom live far away from, maybe I'm thinking of the other public hearing. We had a lot of public speakers last night talking about the challenges of housing affordability, which are real and need to be addressed.
However, this development, I think, is going to be of great benefit to the city, and I really hope that it goes ahead as soon as possible.
Thank you, Councillor Maloney. Seeing no one else on the queue, I'll take us to a vote. Please vote online. I will take a vote assist in favor, please, clerks. And for anyone online, please have your video enabled. It's Mayor Sim. Can I please get a vote assist in favor? Yes, you may. Noted. Thank you.
Chair, it's Councillor Meiszner. Vote assist in favor, please. Noted. Thank you. Thank you. Meisner, in favor.
And the mayor in favor.
Thank you, council. That application passes. And that concludes our unfinished business. Thank you. We are going to move in.
Statement Watch
Thank you. Thank you, everyone. And good morning. Like they said, my name is Katia Avalos. I'm the Community Engagement Director for the Multi-Agency Partnership of BC. Those figures are actually outdated. We now have over 100 members across the province of BC who are agencies or individuals that support and work with and for refugee claimants. World Refugee Day is a day to honor all refugees, and whether they've come to Canada as government-sponsored, privately-sponsored, or asylum seekers, all of them face very high barriers, and I know that the first years, having experienced them myself, are very hard. MAP's work focuses on asylum seekers and refugee claimants, and those statistics and the numbers that we hear a lot of the times in the media seem to be alarmist and a bit high. But the reality is that Canada only sees a very small proportion of asylum seekers compared to other countries around the world. And we're standing at a time where conflicts seem to be proliferating every single day. And the list of countries that Canada does not remove individuals to because of the humanitarian conditions of those countries keep growing. It's a very long list. Some of those countries have been there for decades. And we also know that a lot of those countries are the countries that produce most refugees, and many of them come to Canada to seek protection. Coming to Canada is a very complicated thing, and people make harrowing journeys. I'll give you an example. Somebody from Afghanistan who's fleeing the Taliban might in the past have been able to get a humanitarian visa to travel to Brazil. and then cross the entire American continent by foot, crossing jungles, rivers, deserts, dealing with human traffickers and gangs and cartels that prey on them. And so just having that image on your mind should make you think about the sacrifices and the complicated pathways that people make to come to Canada. And unfortunately, we're standing at a time when policies keep creating barriers for those individuals, whether they're arriving here by land or whether they're already in Canada, increased barriers to legal access to protection. And so that's very important that the city of Vancouver is doing this work at a time when, you know, the barriers keep increasing and supports seem to be lowering. So we would like to recognize and thank you for the work that you do, especially in the access without fear and to racism policies. Because, you know, these new laws are creating a population of individuals with precarious status or with no status. And the services and benefits that they're able to access are very small. And so having this policy that allows them to access services in the city of Vancouver is wonderful. and just a little bit about the work that we do. And when I say we, I mean the agencies that make up the MAP community. They're very incredibly dedicated individuals who work to make the lives of refugee claimants a little bit easier to give them support and comfort as they start new lives in a country that they're unfamiliar with. And so a lot of the time that work also comes with a lot of emotional and mental health costs for the staff that do the support and work alongside refugees. And so I'd also like to acknowledge the individuals and thank the individuals that do this work to support refugees at a time where it feels like the support that they have is dwindling away. And I would like to invite next my colleague, Sara Lopez, to say a few words as well. Thank you. Good morning. Thank you, everyone here. Thank you, Council, for this proclamation. As a person with lived experience, I arrived in Canada in 2025 to seek refugee protection. no, 2012, sorry, to seek refugee protection. And unfortunately, I was sent to provincial jail by CBSA. So I was here a few years ago in this place speaking about how and why it was important to stop using provincial jails to incarcerate asylum seekers and immigrants in this country. thanks to the city council that approved that motion, now the whole country is not using provincial jails anymore. So thank you for your work, and I trust in exactly this access without fear and city, because I experience that. Thank you so much. And now I'm part of a community that support Katia works. I work on Kimbrace Community Society. We are based in East Vancouver, a very small organization that provides transitional housing for asylum seekers and refugee claimants, as well as a national program named My Refugee Claim, that is a public legal education for those that are seeking protection in Canada in partnership with the Immigration and Refugee Board. And they are presenting... the stage of what they will expect during the refugee hearing. And we are part of this job, supporting thousands of people from around the world, providing interpreters and information that is very needed. Thank you so much.
Statement Watch
Sorry, thank you.
So one more thing to note is that, as Sarah said, there's individuals across this country who are facing these higher barriers. So we want to thank the work that Cambridge does on a national level to provide legal education and information for asylum seekers and refugee claimants. And I think that people tend to think of refugees as something that's happening now, something new. And we need to recognize that refugees have been coming to Canada for generations and they make They form part of Canadian history and have contributed to Canadian society for decades. So when we think of refugees today, just remember that in a few years or in a few decades, them and their children will be as Canadian as you and me and will have contributed with their lived experience, with their talents, with their great contributions to this country.
Thank you. Thanks, everyone.