Amendment – Refer 75 East 8th Avenue to New TRPP

I'll try to be very brief. Good morning, Mayor and Council. Thank you for your time and for considering our application today. Respectfully ask for your support. The project before you advances three priorities that Council has consistently identified. Delivering housing, preserving heritage, and supporting arts and culture. Projects that successfully deliver all three are exceptionally rare. Before addressing the specific comments raised in the staff report, I want to acknowledge the significant amount of work that has gone into this application from all sides. We've worked very closely with staff since before the Broadway plan was adopted, with the shared understanding that this project could advance while technical matters would be addressed through conditions and development and billing permit process. For that reason, I have to say we were deeply disappointed by the conclusions reached in the staff report. Rather than recognizing a project that advances Council's policy objectives, the report treats technical matters as fundamental barriers to approval. We respectfully but fundamentally disagree. Staff have already prepared the draft CD1 by-law and detailed conditions of approved covering urban design, housing, and engineering. To be clear, the issues before us are not policy or code barriers. There are matters that can be addressed through the normal approval process. Today, we're simply asking council to approve this rezoning and allow the technical work to proceed through the established process. I'd like to briefly address some of the comments in the reports. There were concerns about site frontage, lot depth, and tower separation. This proposal has been carefully designed to preserve future development on neighboring sites and maintaining more than 80 feet of separation from future tower developments. Where and when they may occur. We have demonstrated this in our application. Council has also already established precedents. Just last week, Council, following staff recommendation, approved the rezoning at 395 West Broadway, a site with similar physical constraints and a comparable development form at 33 stories. That's eight stories taller than this proposal. That project located on Yukon and West Broadway does not include heritage retention and does not provide any on-site parking. Respectfully ask this project to be given the same consideration. This is a highly constrained heritage site. Preserving the heritage building naturally creates physical limitations. Loading and operational details will continue to be refined with the engineering department through the normal development process. Student housing and unit sizes. One important issue before council is the proposed requirement for a minimum unit size of 320 square feet. There's currently no city policy establishing minimum unit sizes for purpose-built student housing because Vancouver has never approved a project of this kind. We ask council to use this project to establish an appropriate precedent and support the proposed 270 square foot minimum unit size. This is based on successful student housing models across North America and reflects accommodations already provided by local universities where many self-contained student rooms are approximately around 200 square feet. Last point, height and density. The proposed height and density under this project are carefully considered and are consistent with the provincial TOA registrations and Vancouver Official Development Plan. The Broadway Plan recognizes that additional height and density are appropriate where heritage retention and significant cultural amenities are being delivered. And that's precisely what this project does. Mayor and Council, this project in front of you delivers Vancouver's first purpose-built student housing project. It preserves a significant heritage building, expands one of Vancouver's leading art and culture institutions, and it does all of that without asking the city for financial assistance. We ask for your support and approval to establish an important precedent for the city today. Thank you. We'll be here to answer any questions you might have. Thank you.

Your Worship, may... City Manager? may i make a recommendation hearing all of council and trying to find compromise also having a good understanding of what our staff have is should council complete this item um that the in-camera meeting will occur at 1 o'clock, that as much as to leave room may not need two hours, and again, cognizant of making sure we get through everything, to reconvene at 2 o'clock. Should there be more time needed, this meeting can start up to 30 minutes later, but would suggest that 2 o'clock would be at least an adequate starting point.

Thank you for the question. I'm Miguel Castillo-Rena, and I'm a senior development planner. The proposal actually goes all the way to the northern property line, so this site doesn't provide any tower separation. Typically, that is equitable between this site and the other site. So for this one, the expectation is 40 feet. It doesn't provide anything, so everything will have to be accommodated 80 feet within the other site to the north.

It would need to meet not on the site immediately to the north, and I don't think on the site immediately, the next site adjacent to the north, it would be farther away. Okay.

Yeah, under the Broadway plan and in TOA legislation, now this is within 200 meters of our existing rapid transit station, we would expect towers on the site. And on this block, based on the dimensions of the block, we would expect something like a maximum of two towers with 80-foot tower separation accommodated. I think part of the challenge we have with this, given the site size, is that without any kind of site consolidation in combination with this one, the sites in media have no redevelopment opportunity. The only opportunity for them to develop at scale of any type in a tower typology would be, consolidation of the entire rest of the block to the north. For one tower? For one additional tower on the site. And so I think we have heard concerns from the landowner immediately to the north on some of the potential impacts it could have on their developability given that they're in a TOA.

Thanks for the question, Paul Chang, Assistant Director of Development Planning. Yes, that is also a site where it is somewhat small, and the council has approved the tower for that particular site. That's what staff recommended. The context is very different. Due north of that particular site on West Broadway is industrial land, so we're not nearly as concerned about tower separation, a fine-grained residential typology for the public realm and for the neighboring sites in itself. So it's very, very different. So we allow things to fit when it's up against industrial space, and we're not necessarily as concerned about a very, very high grade of public realm.

I only have 45 seconds, so – Good morning, Mayor and Council. Neil Peacock, Associate Director of Engineering Services. I would say that, yes, in general, this is an existing challenge. This would be exacerbated by the additional density. It's something we look to improve. Okay, so where is it proposed to be in this new development? Within this current proposal, it's deficient of the expected loading facilities, and the only real possibility is off the west edge of the site where there's a driveway crossing from 8th Avenue, but there's no lane on this site. No lane. Okay. Okay. Thanks. Councillor Orr?

To this point, we don't have clarity on that. That's one of the technical issues we've identified within the report that could be resolved through the DP, noting that there's significant amounts of demands at that ground plane. to address transportation. So in general, the current proposal, I believe, is to do it off of 8th Avenue. 8th, yeah.

to say that we've been on this site since 1985, right? And we've programmed our classes so that it's staggered, so for pick-up and drop-off, so that it's not everything starting at the same time. We're with understanding of the challenges, but also it's very acceptable because when I look at our counterparts in Winnipeg, in Toronto, with big schools, They don't have parking. They don't have loading. And they've made it work, which means for a ballet academy, it can work very well.

In short, I'd say no, we would not expect less traffic. I think we'd look for a continual modal shift towards more sustainable modes, but the demands on our street are expected to increase for sure.

Sure. Yeah, this project's being considered under Broadway plan, very similar to the workforce housing. We don't have policy specifically guiding us on how to contemplate such a housing arrangement. We are definitely open to those opportunities. The unit type mix, the sort of dormitory style, is a pretty significant deviation from a standard apartment. And so in that context, in the absence of policy, similar to VEJH, I think what we're seeking is some clarity in terms of the types of partnerships and arrangements that are necessary to operate a significant number of student housing units including the units Definitely will acknowledge there's a small number of units dedicated to Go Ballet, but the large balance of the project is intended for students. And I think before being able to give a very confident recommendation of approval, we think there is a project here. We think it's important to have greater clarity on what those relationships and operating models look like, and we just don't quite have that yet.

Well, I think that's part of what we want to understand better is like what is the pipeline in relationship to various one or more post-secondary institutions that help select tenants, how they're supported. That's something what a partnership agreement can help provide clarity on. The applicant has suggested those details can be sorted out. Staff is not quite comfortable. We're strongly recommending approval until we have maybe a bit more information or details around how those relationships will work.

Thank you, Josh, and thank you for the question. Just to clarify, the 100% of the housing that's being proposed is student housing, and it will be secured through agreements. It will be covenanted through the site, so the housing will remain as student housing fully. If you're already in discussions with other secondary public institutions or secondary institutions, Go Ballet is also an accredited institution.

Thank you for your question. So we are fully accredited and we give out diplomas. We have been fully accredited through the Ministry of Education for the past 16 years.

We would like to have an agreement and to be able to run the student housing ourselves, but we are very welcoming of other students in the city.

Students that can't find housing. There's so many institutions, private career colleges, SFU students, Emily Carr students, UBC students.

That would not be allowed. It's only for students.

Thanks for the question, Councillor. Yeah, so the covenant would require that all the students be registered in accredited post-secondary institutions that are provincially defined. So that's what the current covenant requires. There would also be conditions of approval of development that would require the units to meet the minimum unit sizes of 320 square feet because it's actually not possible for us to relax that beyond 320 square feet in this location.

Yeah, I mean, if the units were, that would be, we would be monitoring for that to ensure that the students were registered, or all the tenants were registered in post-secondary.

We would have to take, we would. We would have a housing agreement and conditions, and there would have to be monitoring compliance work done by the city, yes.

The size of the site is a little bit challenging, and you'll see that if the council should want to approve this, there are conditions about some design conditions where the design needs to change a little bit. Due to the smallest of the suites, we want to make sure that the livability works well. They need... at least one big window. Some of the suites are actually facing the property, the shared property line to the north. And as a result, there are building code issues that can come to effect and make the windows smaller. So that's another part of that kind of lack of resolution yet at this point that we want to kind of like explore a little bit. And that's our reason.

Yes. Yes.

Thank you for the question. So this project, as presented, is consistent with the official development plan, and so we're prohibited from having a public hearing on the merits of the rezoning application. And with the staff recommendation to refer back, it was appropriate to kind of split these. So if council does wish to approve this project, the next step would be a public hearing on the heritage-related matters.

Sorry, I missed that question.

Thank you for the question. Right now, it's about 10 units right now, but the application does allow for flexibility for us to increase. As Chan mentioned, there's 600 students, and we think there is definitely a lot more demand for that. There is flexibility in the bylaws right now that can be increased.

315 units.

The need is more than 10 units. They're just a minimum that's been provided. And without the proposal that we have right now, there won't be any projects. There won't be the preservation of the heritage. And we can't, Chan can speak to that as well. We can't expand the school. It just wouldn't be viable financially. And then the student housing piece would not be moving forward either. There won't be a project.

Yeah, 100%, and also expansion of the school.

Thank you for asking that. Yeah. I mean, I basically grew up in the neighborhood and it's gone through some changes, but we've talked to, they've known of our plans for forever, for a long time, and they don't want to come on board.

I don't know why they don't want to.

Thank you for the question. Yes. So again, it's very difficult to try to have a public hearing on a project where we're prohibited from having a public hearing on a matter associated with heritage where we're required to have a public hearing. So given the timelines and ability to get to this council, we wanted to make sure that the applicant had the opportunity to present this project. And if approved, we can come back with a public hearing for the heritage item at another date.

So the conditions of enactment for the zoning bylaw are to approve the heritage related aspects. There's certainly opportunity to explore those heritage elements at that future public hearing. So again, it would just be a matter of working with the applicant and council of the day around what is the appropriate heritage aspects of the project to consider.

Yeah, I'll let my staff team jump in on some of the details, but it has been conditioned and worked with the applicant to do the preservation requirements within there.

Hi, Jason Olnick, the Director of Development Planning. If I understand your question correctly, a restoration covenant is a requirement of approval for this item that you're hearing today. Charter requires we bring that back as a public hearing. Designations require a public hearing. So we can't couple these together. So it's a requirement, it's a condition of approval. It's condition 2.1, I believe. We bring it. However, council has to hear it again to approve that. That is not atypical. We bring development permits all the time with designation reports. It's a process we can work through, and we can tweak the design at that point as well.

It could be both.

It would be very much comparable to what SFU and UBC universities are charging. Because these are student housing, they will be affordable by definition because of their size, and they will be very much comparable to UBC, SFU, and other public secondary institutions that have student housing.

I'm sorry, Councillor, could you just rephrase?

Okay. So the post-secondary institution that was tenanting the units would set those rents. We don't have affordability requirements in this project. The assumption would be that a post-secondary institution would be setting the rents at a rate that worked for their students. which is why there is a requirement for accredited post-secondary institutions to be managing those units.

Thank you for the question. So again, just for some context, the Broadway plan actually only contemplated six stories in this area to preserve the kind of village heritage character as well. The reason towers are allowed here is because the TOA legislation came in, and that's been reflected in the ODP as a result. We don't have regulations or policies around... FIRST COME FIRST SERVE. THAT'S BASICALLY A PRACTICE WE'VE APPLIED. SO IT WOULD BE EFFECTIVELY OUR ABILITY TO WEIGH THE MERITS OF AN APPLICATION, BRING THOSE FORWARD FOR COUNCIL. THAT'S OFTEN WHY WE INTRODUCE TOWER SEPARATIONS AND SETBACK REQUIREMENTS TO PRESERVE THOSE OPPORTUNITIES. YOU DID HEAR EARLIER THAT THERE IS STILL THE ABILITY TO LOCATE A TOWER ELSEWHERE ON THIS BLOCK. BUT HAVING SAID THAT, AGAIN, THIS SITE IS ONLY 62 FEET WIDE WHERE A TYPICAL TOWER IS ON A 100 TO 150 FOOT SITE. And we have heard from the joining owners around their concerns around how this might impact their properties as well.

I don't believe that's the case. I don't know if law is on the line, but I'm not aware of any legal liability associated with that.

Yes, Council, that's correct. We don't have a definition of student housing, so we've had to, should Council wish to approve this, we've had to essentially create one as part of the CD1 by-law and conditions associated with this project.

Yes, that's the only place where that type of housing, that size of unit would be enabled below 320 square feet is in the downtown east side in relation to SRO replacement.

Yeah, I mean, from a housing perspective, that's really the rationale for why we have recommended. There's obviously other reasons related to form of development, but from a housing perspective, why we've recommended referral back to staff is to address those sorts of issues and make sure that we've... essentially ensured that something that is purported to be student housing actually is student housing.

Thanks for the question, Councillor. I just wanted to, I think, bring this up that I believe in the report there is a section that mentions the students need to be at least be renting the units just like any other residential unit for three months, which is also the same length as a semester. But that definition does exist in the project report.

I believe the housing reports that has a section that says the students, tenants required to have a minimum three months lease, just like any other rental units. And that's also the length of a semester for students. So that three months is a minimum required. That's already part of the conditions.

It does require this for the project, yes. That applies to the project.

It does prohibit, but that's more around prohibiting the units from being used for short-term rental. It doesn't confirm that the units would be under the residential tent, yeah.

Yeah, I'd say in discussions we've had with the applicant, that's something we've asked them to explore. Car elevators could be an option to make better use of the ground plane and appreciating the heritage, but that's not something that's currently proposed.

I can, if maybe I could just add something about the loading. We are proposing two loading spaces. That doesn't exist right now. We're working with staff, happy to work with staff. We've provided some plans to show that there are two loading spaces, Class A and Class B, that can be fit within the building, and we're happy to provide that and iron it out in the next stages of the project. Okay, well, that sounds like... Quickly add as well, Councillor Fry, thank you for the question, because I'm there every day. You know, none of our students, they don't have cars, and it's going to be right on the transit line, Main and Broadway. They cycle, and we staggered the class time so the drop-off and pick-up is not an issue. We've been there since 1985.

Our expansion is to be able to better serve the community. So there are only a certain amount of classes that we can have after school, right? Because all of the kids... Will you be having more classes than you have now? So there are only a certain amount of classes that we can host after school based on the number of... studios because they are only available at a certain time. Our expansion will speak to being able to better serve the community through our adult programs. I have very limited time.

I'd say at this point we're still struggling to prioritize the various needs. I'd like to point out that in the Broadway plan, public realm plan, this is one of those blocks that we've identified potentially for conversion to public space, appreciating the difficulties with the lack of lane, but we're also dealing with solid waste, which is not currently addressed to the application in addition to the loading and passenger facilities mentioned. So we'd still have to go through that more technical work with the applicant to try and prioritize it from a safety perspective.

Yeah, and certainly that was a very reasonable motion. Council moved and approved for staff. It was a motion that over the last couple of years we've had to prioritize the amount of council work that was coming. And so at the time the motion was moved and approved, there was a very significant acute issue with student housing as a result of the number of international students, et cetera, that were in the country. Since then, the federal government has changed immigration rules. We have a much... A smaller population of international students in the city looking for housing. And so the sort of acuteness of that issue meant that we deprioritized that work compared to other work just to get other work done. So that's still on the docket of work staff intend to do. We just had to prioritize other work in advance of it. So we haven't been able to get to it yet.

YEAH, CERTAINLY THE APPLICATION, I THINK THERE WAS SOME PRE-APPLICATION INFORMAL CONVERSATIONS THAT OCCURRED AS FAR BACK AS THE BROADWAY PLAN. AT THAT TIME, SOMETHING LIKE A 12-STORY MASS TIMBER PROPOSAL HAD COME FORWARD AND JUST WOULD CLARIFY THAT THE APPLICATION IN FRONT OF YOU WAS SUBMITTED 12 MONTHS AGO AND WE'VE BEEN PROCESSING IT IN, I WOULD SUGGEST, VERY NORMAL TIMEFRAMES FOR A FORMALLY SUBMITTED REZONING APPLICATION. I THINK WHAT THAT PROCESS LOOKS LIKE IS TRYING TO RESOLVE AND WORK THROUGH THE MAIN THREE OR FOUR ISSUES THAT WE'VE IDENTIFIED IN THE STAFF REPORT AND IN THE RECOMMENDATION. WE CERTAINLY WANT TO SUPPORT THE GOALS OF GO BALLET AS AN IMPORTANT INSTITUTION. WE UNDERSTAND THE VALUE AND OPPORTUNITY AND POTENTIAL OF STUDENT HOUSING. THERE'S SOME PHYSICAL AND LOGISTICAL CHALLENGES WITH A SITE THIS SMALL. perhaps there's opportunity to to better resolve those so that we can come back with a recommendation of approval having had the opportunity to to work through those issues in greater depth

YOU COULD ADD A TARGET FOR STAFF TO WORK TO COME BACK. YOU COULD ALSO ADD OTHER LANGUAGE IF YOU CHOSE TO DIRECT STAFF OR SPEAK TO COUNCIL'S INTENT ABOUT WHAT ISSUES YOU SPECIFICALLY WANT US TO MAKE SURE THAT WE ADDRESS THROUGH THAT REVIEW WITH A TARGET TIMELINE.

FOR EXAMPLE, TO SAY YOU COULD SAY SOMETHING LIKE WITH TO ADDRESS THE STUDENT HOW IT IS IN QUESTION, YOU COULD ADD LANGUAGE THAT SAYS SOMETHING LIKE WITH A PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT RESOLVED BEFORE COUNCIL CONSIDERATION, SOMETHING TO THOSE EFFECTS. IF YOU HAVE SPECIFIC INTENT ON THE TYPES OF ISSUES, WE WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT WE RESOLVE FOR A FUTURE COUNCIL DECISION.

Sure. Thank you for asking. Before I answer that question, I want to circle back to your previous question, if I may, please, because I feel like there probably won't be a project if this was referred back. we really want to work with city staff. We want to take their recommendations. We want to work with them. But we feel like we've exhausted everything and we've thought of a lot of things. And so to delay this would be really disheartening and I don't know if we can live through it. To answer your question about the need, I actually asked Arabella and Malia to be here because they're here in the summer with us in our summer intensive. We have students, as I mentioned, who've graduated from our academy and now are in the diploma program and they should have student housing. They shouldn't... have to live with their parents. They should feel the independence. So they are in the Greater Vancouver area. We also have applications, so many from Eastern Canada, Nova Scotia, Alberta, Winnipeg. And then because of the restriction, yes, the international student pool is less. And so we didn't want to be as... you know, confident to ask for so many units in this proposal because we don't know what's going to happen with the international student application and visa scenario. But we wanted to be a bit conservative and we also wanted to make provisions so that knowing that there are other students in the city with other career colleges that they can have their application. We hope to increase the number of units for Go Ballet, but we wanted to be conservative at this point.

Sure. Thank you. It's very real. We don't know what our options might be. We don't want to leave the city of Vancouver, but we also know what's before us. And that is that we're in a heritage building. And when we're there in the winter, there's like heat that's escaping. We're like, it's leaking. We have no money to repair that building. And that's a huge hindrance for us. Arabella will tell you that, you know, there's like, we have buckets in the studio because there's a leak. And we try our very best, but because it's heritage, it costs so much money. And so going back to that six-story building, If we tore it down and we build a six-story building, it will suffice Go Ballet's needs. But what will that do to the city? It's unbearable. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Oh, yes, go ahead. Just to circle back about the process, and you mentioned maybe extending this. I did mention it, and staff have mentioned it. Just to reiterate here, maybe for everybody, there are conditions. Staff have done a really good job, put all the conditions together for this to move forward, and the conditions address everything from engineering, from housing, from the tower portions, from setbacks. Everything is in there, and we're more than happy to work with them. to enactment, to iron out all those conditions and make sure they're satisfied, we're satisfied, and the project can move forward so we're not set back another year or so, which would end up no project.