Douglas Todd: A public hearing is set for April on MST Partnership’s disputed plan to house up to 28,000 people in 66 highrises in the westside Vancouver development.
The biggest single property development project in recent Vancouver history will go to a public hearing in April.
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Developers of the one-kilometre-long Jericho Lands, above the beaches of Spanish Banks, want to house up to 28,000 people in 66 highrises, many in the 40- to 50-storey range.
One of many statistics that make the Jericho Lands proposal stand out, says architect Brian Palmquist, is that it will be 20 times more dense than the surrounding neighbourhood of Point Grey, which is predominantly single-family houses, some with rental suites.
The Jericho Lands, when completed, will also be three times more close-packed than the West End of downtown Vancouver, said Palmquist, a member of TEAM for a Livable Vancouver. That busy part of the city, adjacent to Stanley Park, has for four decades been dominated by highrise residential buildings.
The Jericho Lands are owned by MST Development Corp., a multibillion-dollar consortium put together by the Vancouver-area Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. It’s headed by former Aquilini Development executive David Negrin. Canada Lands Company, a federal Crown corporation, is a secondary owner. Together they’re known as the MST Partnership.
MST Partnership has long pushed for ultra-high density on Jericho Lands, maintaining that by doing so it would provide “much-needed housing and increased affordability in a part of Vancouver that is severely underdeveloped.”
MST Partnership has justified hiking the number of buildings and their heights in the name of “the spirit of the longhouse,” a reference to how some B.C. First Nations once lived with multiple families under one roof.
The plan, said Jericho Coalition spokeswoman Susan Fisher, who is also editor of NatureWILD magazine, “is an outrageous and extremely expensive giveaway by taxpayers to a developer intending to make huge profits while building luxury highrise towers that are strongly opposed by surrounding neighbourhoods.”
The Jericho Lands plan suggests the possibility of up to 30 per cent below-market and social housing on the site. But, said Fisher, there are loopholes. The plan acknowledges the city will drop its affordable housing requirements for market rental housing, she said, if federal or provincial governments don’t provide large subsidies.
The plan states that, should MST be required to contribute money to the SkyTrain extension, “this would further reduce the ability of the development to deliver social housing.”
Colleen Hardwick, a former city councillor who is running for one of two seats up for grabs in the April 5 byelection, said the Jericho Lands development proposal is “a major concern” for her civic party, TEAM.
“No other (civic) party has shown any resistance” to the current plans for dozens of high towers, she said.
Maintaining that the city’s approval process has lacked transparency, Hardwick said, if TEAM’s candidates are elected to council, they “would consider how the Jericho Lands could provide more ground-oriented family housing … in the low- to mid-rise scale of Arbutus Walk, which is at 12th Avenue and Arbutus.”
Like members of the Jericho Coalition, Hardwick was uneasy with how the main public amenities promised by the MST Partnership, such as an elementary school and community centre, wouldn’t be built until the final phase of the 25- to 30-year project.
Hardwick also noted that “MST Development Corp. will continue to own on-site amenities.” That’s not typical with such developments, said Hardwick, who gave up her councillor’s seat to run for mayor in the 2022 election, losing to ABC’s Ken Sim.
Theodore Abbot, who is also running for TEAM in the byelection, wants to see more meaningful consultations with the three First Nations: “This plan will not provide the kind of affordable housing the working people of Vancouver so desperately need.”
Asked for his views on the MST Partnership proposal, Pete Fry of the Green party would only say he will go into the April public hearing “with an open mind” and won’t be commenting until then.
City Coun. Lenny Zhou of the ruling ABC party couldn’t be reached for comment. Nor could a representative for MST Partnership.