Approve 6525-6577 Oak Street Rezoning

All right. Does council have any final questions for staff, noting that no additional questions to the applicant are permitted?

Okay. Clerk, did we receive any additional public comments since the close of public comments?

Okay. Council will now make its decision on this application. Do we have a mover? Councillor Meiszner, seconded by?

Councillor Domenato? Okay. Council members, is there any discussion?

Go right ahead.

Yeah, I just want to thank the applicant for what I think is a really well thought out project. Obviously, adding rental to an important area of our city that needs more rental options. And I really like the inclusion of the grocery store. And I think it's great to hear that. It will be a relatively affordable grocery store. So no frills. I'm a frequent shopper. So I think it's a great project and more of what I want to see happen in the city. So I'm going to vote him. Full support. Thanks.

Thanks, Councillor. I'll cede the chair to Deputy Mayor Kirby Young for one moment. Go ahead. Make a few comments. Thanks very much. Yeah, I just want to just express my support for this project. Having seen it evolve, the fact that we're now getting 189 purpose-built rental homes, 39 below-market homes, 160 space child care facility facilities, secured rental, and I always joke that you had me on grocery stores, my sort of favorite line. These are really neighborhood-shaping amenities, and I know No Frills, which is about two blocks from my home, changed the neighborhood about 11 years, about 12 years ago when it moved into it. It's become an incredibly important amenity. affordable groceries. We think that the west side, that every resident over there has boundless amounts of money to spend on things. But the fact is, the truth is that there are a lot of elderly people living in the community. There are a lot of other families that would really appreciate having a close amenity, such as a grocery store and the childcare that makes life more affordable for them. And a lot of us will remember this as the old Cyclone Taylor sporting goods store right in the corner there. So I really appreciate the attention to the urban design. I think this is going to be something, notwithstanding people, some neighbors and some communities being a little concerned around the density. I think the density is very appropriate to the site. And there was some discussion earlier on about the amount of traffic in the area, and I know that I've seen a lot of construction that has been nearby where there's extra glazing on the windows. There are other ways of mitigating that, but I think generally speaking, this is a great project, and I'm really glad to see it. I hope to see it move forward. Thanks very much, and I'll advance to take the chair back from Councillor Kirby Young.

Yeah, thanks, Chair. Yeah, I'll just also be brief. I know the area very well. I'm in it often, obviously. And I think with the Canby corridor, I've often referred to sort of it. I know this is off of Oak, but as a food desert with the policy that didn't include. having some ground-level retail, and what that has resulted in is a lot of people have had to paradoxically drive to get sort of daily needs, and yet there's a good amount of green space in parks, and yet people are not able to meet that. So I'm happy to see the inclusion of that. Council has been making some... efforts for improvements in terms of accelerating bus speeds and others to eliminate congestion along here and balancing that with ensuring there's still parking for residents and things are flowing through but i think it's been proven many times that there's better uses than sort of parking lots and gas stations in terms of providing some housing so happy to support it and see more rental housing coming on stream thank you

Thanks, Councillor. Okay. All right. Just a reminder that any council member participating virtually whose video is disabled will be marked absent for the vote pursuant to Section 1413 of Procedure By-law. I'm now going to call the vote. Carrick, can you please take us to the voting panel?