This is a machine-generated transcript. It was auto-transcribed from the council video, so names and wording contain errors (e.g. spelling of speakers' names) and should be checked against the official video before being quoted. The City's minutes are authoritative for who spoke. The timestamp links (▶) jump to roughly the right spot in the official video and may be off by a few seconds.
[00:00:33] ▶Speaker 0: Thanks for being here.
[00:00:35] ▶I'll now call the reconvening public, hearing of Thursday, May 7 to order.
[00:00:40] ▶This meeting is being held by,
[00:00:42] ▶is being held in person and by electronic means. Council members and the public may participate,
[00:00:47] ▶by either method, and council members joining electronically are reminded to enable their video to confirm quorum.
[00:00:54] ▶This meeting is being live streamed on the city's website and YouTube, and meeting progress will be updated regular regularly on x advanced city clerk.
[00:01:02] ▶In case of an emergency requiring evacuation,
[00:01:05] ▶there are two exits located beyond the glass doors and to the left.
[00:01:08] ▶If the glass doors are blocked, please use one of the four additional exits in the chamber.
[00:01:14] ▶Do not use the elevator and use the stairs instead.
[00:01:17] ▶If you need mobility assistance, remain where you are and security staff will guide you to a safe location.
[00:01:23] ▶A defibrillator is available at the end of the hallway outside the chamber.
[00:01:28] ▶I'd like to acknowledge that we are on the unceded homelands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil Waututh people. We thank them for having cared for these lands and look forward to working with them in partnership as we continue to build this great city together.
[00:01:40] ▶I would also like to recognize the immense contributions of the city of Vancouver's team members who work hard every day to help make our city an incredible place to live, work, and play.
[00:01:50] ▶So, clerk, may we have roll call, please?
[00:01:53] ▶Speaker 1: Yes, mayor Sim.
[00:01:55] ▶And noting mayor Sim has a leave of absence for civic business from 5PM onwards, councilor Kirby Young,
[00:02:00] ▶and noting councilor Kirby Young has a leave of absence for civic business from 6PM onwards. Councilor Dominato?
[00:02:06] ▶Present. Councilor
[00:02:08] ▶Bly? Councilor Bly has a leave of absence for civic business from 6PM onward. Councilor Frey?
[00:02:13] ▶Present. Councilor Montague?
[00:02:16] ▶Present. Councilor Klassen?
[00:02:19] ▶Acting mayor Meisner is in the chair. Councilor Joe? Present. Councilor Orr?
[00:02:24] ▶And councilor Maloney?
[00:02:27] ▶Speaker 0: You have quorum, acting mayor Meisner. Thanks so much. So before we begin, a few announcements. The public, may speak in person or by phone, or they may submit written, comments to mayor and council.
[00:02:37] ▶Speakers may only speak once and will have up to five minutes to comment on the merits of the application.
[00:02:42] ▶Speakers should state whether they're in support or, opposition of the application
[00:02:46] ▶and if they are a Vancouver resident.
[00:02:49] ▶Those representing four or more individuals or groups, including themselves,
[00:02:54] ▶may have up to eight minutes to speak.
[00:02:56] ▶Each person represented must confirm their name and presence in person or by phone and may not speak separately.
[00:03:03] ▶Please follow the live stream at Advance City Clerk on x to track meeting progress and know when your turn to speak is approaching. And please note the live the live stream has a slight delay.
[00:03:13] ▶Written comments can also be submitted through the mayor and council public hearing feedback form on the city's website,
[00:03:19] ▶and also linked on x.
[00:03:22] ▶And if you preregistered with the presentation,
[00:03:24] ▶please say next,
[00:03:26] ▶to have the clerk advance your slides.
[00:03:28] ▶As a reminder, at public hearings, council acts as a quasi judicial body and must focus solely on the merits of the rezoning or heritage application.
[00:03:38] ▶Members may ask clarifying questions of staff or speakers, including the applicant,
[00:03:43] ▶but they should reserve debate until after the speaker's list has closed.
[00:03:47] ▶After hearing from speakers, counsel may approve the application of principle,
[00:03:51] ▶approve the application of principle with amendments,
[00:03:54] ▶refuse the application,
[00:03:56] ▶or refer the application to staff for further consideration.
[00:04:00] ▶At the public hearing on 05/05/2026,
[00:04:02] ▶council varied the agenda and completed item two. So today, we will now consider item one.
[00:04:08] ▶Item one is CD one rezoning August
[00:04:13] ▶and 111191
[00:04:15] ▶Smythe Street.
[00:04:17] ▶Before we begin this agenda item, if anyone believes they have a conflict of interest, now is the time to declare it. Does anyone have a conflict to disclose?
[00:04:25] ▶K. So the clerk will now read the application and a summary of correspondence received.
[00:04:30] ▶Speaker 3: This is an application by Noni Property Group to rezone 888 Dash 896 Cambi Street and 111
[00:04:38] ▶Dash 191
[00:04:40] ▶Smythe Street from DD Downtown District to CD Dash 1 Comprehensive Development District to permit the development of a 29 story mixed use building containing
[00:04:49] ▶165
[00:04:50] ▶rental units, 246
[00:04:52] ▶hotel rooms, commercial space on the Ground Floor, and the retention of a Vancouver heritage register listed building,
[00:04:59] ▶Stanley Brock Building. A floor space ratio, FSR, of 19.5
[00:05:04] ▶and a height of 85.4
[00:05:06] ▶meters,
[00:05:07] ▶280 feet are proposed.
[00:05:09] ▶The general manager of planning, urban design, and sustainability
[00:05:12] ▶recommends approval
[00:05:14] ▶subject to conditions set out in the summary and recommendation.
[00:05:17] ▶The following correspondence has been received since referral to public hearing. 76 pieces of correspondence in support, 26 pieces of correspondence and opposition,
[00:05:26] ▶and two pieces of correspondence
[00:05:28] ▶regarding other ass aspects related to the application.
[00:05:32] ▶This represents all correspondence received up to 2PM today. Correspondence is presented as submitted and may include multiple or duplicate entries.
[00:05:43] ▶Speaker 0: Thank you. So this is the first call for speakers. If you wish to speak to counsel about this item, please call, toll free
[00:05:49] ▶at +1 (833)
[00:05:51] ▶353-8610
[00:05:52] ▶followed by participant code 1061445Pound
[00:05:56] ▶before the close of the speakers list. The phone number will be posted on x and displayed during the recess. There will be an opportunity for new speakers and missed speakers to to be heard at the end of the registered speakers list. So now we have staff from planning, urban design, and sustainability
[00:06:10] ▶here to present the application. Good afternoon.
[00:06:20] ▶Speaker 4: You can just let me know when the presentation's bill visible.
[00:06:27] ▶Good afternoon,
[00:06:28] ▶chair, mayor, council, and members of the public. My name is Lauren Whitney, rezoning planner for this application being considered under the downtown rezoning policy.
[00:06:45] ▶The site in Red is comprised of five parcels at the Northeast Corner of Cambie And Smythe Streets.
[00:06:50] ▶The surrounding neighborhood is a consists of residential,
[00:06:53] ▶office, institutional, and commercial buildings with BC Place and Rogers Arena two blocks to the east.
[00:06:59] ▶The buildings on this block are all listed on the Vancouver Heritage Register,
[00:07:03] ▶and the sites under development include heritage facade or building retention.
[00:07:08] ▶The two existing buildings on this site were constructed in 1928
[00:07:11] ▶to 1944
[00:07:12] ▶and are both listed on the register.
[00:07:14] ▶They are occupied by office and retail service uses.
[00:07:20] ▶Under the Vancouver ODP, this site is identified as business district generalized land use for high rise buildings above 26 stories with a variety of building forms.
[00:07:30] ▶Land use in this area is focused on job space, including office, hotel, and tourism.
[00:07:36] ▶Residential is permitted in certain limited circumstances.
[00:07:42] ▶The proposal is in the Central business district area of the downtown rezoning policy.
[00:07:47] ▶In this area, residential proposals must be accompanied by a minimum of two FSR density
[00:07:52] ▶of non residential
[00:07:54] ▶floor area.
[00:07:56] ▶Allowable heights and densities are determined by form of development, including alignment with council approved public view corridors.
[00:08:02] ▶The review of this application also considered the hotel development policy to facilitate the delivery of 10,000 new hotel rooms by 2050,
[00:08:10] ▶as well as heritage policies, which recognize and preserve heritage value of listed properties where possible.
[00:08:20] ▶The application proposes a 29 story mixed use building with a density of 19.5
[00:08:25] ▶FSR.
[00:08:26] ▶The proposal includes 246
[00:08:28] ▶hotel rooms, 165
[00:08:30] ▶market rental units, commercial space on the Ground Floor, as well as heritage facade retention and designation of 888 Campey Street.
[00:08:38] ▶Loading and seven levels of underground parking are accessed from the lane.
[00:08:44] ▶The site is currently occupied by two heritage register listed properties.
[00:08:48] ▶The heritage facade of 888 Cambie Street, known as the Stanley Brock Building, pictured on the left,
[00:08:54] ▶is proposed to be retained and protected by designation,
[00:08:57] ▶as can be seen in the rendering on the right.
[00:09:00] ▶The Vancouver Heritage Commission encouraged the retention, conservation, and designation of the Stanley Brock Building's Canby Street facade and the salvaging of building materials from the Hori Building at 896 Cambie Street for integration within the new building.
[00:09:16] ▶40 submissions were received during the public consultation period.
[00:09:20] ▶Support was expressed for the addition of new rental housing and hotel rooms to the downtown area,
[00:09:25] ▶active commercial space, which would contribute to the streetscape, and pro and the proposed heightened density in proximity to transit and stadiums.
[00:09:33] ▶Concerns were related to construction and the cumulative
[00:09:36] ▶impacts of development over time.
[00:09:39] ▶Staff note that noise, construction,
[00:09:41] ▶and traffic impacts
[00:09:42] ▶are managed and regulated by engineering management plans.
[00:09:47] ▶There were concerns regarding the proposed height and density impacting views, daylight, and privacy.
[00:09:52] ▶This application is in line with policy for height and density and meets building separation requirements to enable access to daylight and privacy.
[00:10:00] ▶Lastly,
[00:10:02] ▶some respondents communicated that the facade retention alone was not adequate to preserve the site's heritage value.
[00:10:09] ▶Through project review, staff concluded that the retention of 896 Cambie was not viable and that the complete building retention of 88 Cambie was not feasible due to incompatibility of the existing building with the requirements for floor to floor, floor to floor heights for hotels.
[00:10:28] ▶The public benefits from this application include a cash, CAC,
[00:10:32] ▶DCLs, and public art con contribution just over $10,800,000.
[00:10:36] ▶In addition, the proposal will contribute a 165
[00:10:39] ▶rental housing units to the the to the Vancouver housing stock and provide retention
[00:10:44] ▶of and designation of the Stanley Brock Building, Kempe Street facade.
[00:10:50] ▶In summary, staff have concluded that the proposal is consistent with the downtown rezoning policy and and support the application subject to conditions in appendix b of the report.
[00:10:59] ▶Lastly, I'd like to remind council that there is a yellow memo attached to this report and that staff and applicant teams are available to answer any questions. Thank you.
[00:11:07] ▶Speaker 0: Hey. Thanks very much. Would the applicant like to present the application?
[00:11:16] ▶Speaker 5: Mayor, chair, and council, can you hear me?
[00:11:19] ▶Yes.
[00:11:20] ▶Speaker 6: Good afternoon. My name is Gino Noni, and I'm CEO and owner of Noni Property Group.
[00:11:24] ▶Speaker 5: I appreciate the opportunity to speak on behalf and in support of Noni Property Group and our project ID to Decambi.
[00:11:30] ▶This project represents a culmination of nearly three decades of hard work and perseverance,
[00:11:36] ▶having owned the site since 1997.
[00:11:38] ▶It is our intention and vision to create a high quality project that Noni Property Group will design,
[00:11:43] ▶retain, and manage for the long term within our company.
[00:11:46] ▶When you plan to own when you build, the quality of the architecture, the durability of the materials, and the successful business applications
[00:11:53] ▶need to stand the test of time.
[00:11:55] ▶These are not abstractions, but real considerations that we must live with, and ones that my company and the city will be proud of. We're a Vancouver based family company with no external investors.
[00:12:06] ▶Decision making is efficient and direct. Throughout my career, I've always endeavored to use local consultants, architects, and constructors,
[00:12:13] ▶and it may it remains my objective to continue to work collaboratively and ultimately enhance employment
[00:12:18] ▶and excellence with local expertise.
[00:12:21] ▶Aided It Can Be ticks a lot of these boxes from land acquisition,
[00:12:25] ▶to hotel operations,
[00:12:26] ▶as well as property and facilities management
[00:12:29] ▶for residential rental.
[00:12:30] ▶We have and will employ a lot of skilled people.
[00:12:35] ▶A to D Can be strategically located in proximity to Rogers Arena,
[00:12:38] ▶DC Place, and the vibrancy of the old town. Brings forward a 180 secondured purpose built rentals, increased at a planning stage from January that was originally proposed by Lauren. A 246,
[00:12:50] ▶room hotel under, Marriott's autograph collection anchored by a twenty five year
[00:12:55] ▶franchise agreement with Marriott.
[00:12:58] ▶A destination restaurant, a cafe, and a lobby lounge as well as conference spaces and in house dual amenity areas for both the hotel and residential rentals. This will be a spectacular
[00:13:07] ▶addition to the city of Vancouver.
[00:13:09] ▶This development is unique
[00:13:12] ▶and complex with both hotel space and residential rental units in one development.
[00:13:16] ▶Both programs are much needed in our city and will activate and animate what is currently a transitional area that feels closed off with existing antiquated buildings and poor street presence. It is our responsibility
[00:13:27] ▶and my desire
[00:13:29] ▶to consider and incorporate all three frontages,
[00:13:32] ▶Canby, Smythe, and a double wide lane.
[00:13:35] ▶How do we make this an inviting place? How do we include a lane that was so important, but apart from parking has been disregarded?
[00:13:43] ▶Our plan improves urban design
[00:13:45] ▶with appealing street fronts
[00:13:46] ▶and architecture,
[00:13:48] ▶and at the same time, programs
[00:13:50] ▶program uses that are brand compliant with Myriad's advice and consistent with Noni Property Group's track record. These applications will increase the probability of a successful hotel business as well as residential rental.
[00:14:01] ▶Our goal is simple. Make this corner of the city more alive, more inviting, and worth living in, walking through, and enjoying,
[00:14:08] ▶and more fun.
[00:14:11] ▶I must stress our contractual obligations with Marriott
[00:14:14] ▶International. We have a we've signed a twenty five year franchise agreement, which includes certain timing milestones in relation to zoning and delivery of the product. That agreement matters because it is a it is a cons a sustained,
[00:14:25] ▶contractually backed commitment from one of the world's leading
[00:14:28] ▶hospitality
[00:14:29] ▶brands to operate in Vancouver
[00:14:31] ▶with 271,000,000
[00:14:33] ▶members in its Bonvoy membership program. That was increased by 40,000,000 since 2025.
[00:14:38] ▶Spectacular.
[00:14:40] ▶The relevance of timing of council's approval of this pro of this application
[00:14:43] ▶is therefore respectfully critical.
[00:14:45] ▶The mixed use nature of this project will contribute to the housing supply in Downtown Vancouver
[00:14:50] ▶and the inclusion of hotel accommodation
[00:14:52] ▶and will have a positive impact on visitor stays, which is well documented by Destination Vancouver
[00:14:58] ▶as a real constraint on our tourism economy.
[00:15:01] ▶We believe it's the right use at the right time at the right location.
[00:15:04] ▶Endorsements of Destination Vancouver,
[00:15:07] ▶the Yelton BIA, and Paul Cahill of Marriott International, and numerous other supporters are evident that there is significant endorsement in our community who share the same beliefs.
[00:15:16] ▶Heritage conservation has been one of the most demanding and frankly speaking, one of the most rewarding parts of the application.
[00:15:22] ▶Eight eight eight and eight nine six are part of the the industrial story of this part of the city, and we took the responsibility of carrying that story forward seriously.
[00:15:30] ▶The hotel, restaurant, and rental units carried a challenge to ensure we were able to meet the rigorous business applications of a Marriott branded hotel and our own internal rental management applications.
[00:15:40] ▶We were collaboratively with heritage consultant, Don Luxon heritage consultants, and the city, and will completely
[00:15:46] ▶deconstruct and store off-site,
[00:15:48] ▶and then reconstruct the original brick bricks of 88 Cambie's facade and the timber posts and beams of 896 Cambie for future reuse,
[00:15:56] ▶and build a new facade at the Lane Of 88 Cambie that pays homage to our industrial history. This is a genuine commitment, and we are pleased that our heritage approach is in full support of the city's heritage commission.
[00:16:07] ▶The broader contributions of 88 Cambie are substantial.
[00:16:10] ▶Approximately a 164
[00:16:11] ▶new permanent jobs will will be created. More than 135,000,000
[00:16:15] ▶in annual economic activity will be generated.
[00:16:17] ▶A meaningful addition to the city's tax base, purpose built rental inventory in the downtown core, which is a critical requirement for people who want to work and live downtown,
[00:16:27] ▶and hotel capacity that supports Vancouver's constrained and growing visitor economy.
[00:16:31] ▶We will be positively impacting employment
[00:16:34] ▶in finance,
[00:16:36] ▶construction,
[00:16:37] ▶real estate advisory,
[00:16:39] ▶hospitality sectors, commensurate with a 300,000 square foot 29 story mixed use structure.
[00:16:45] ▶Wanna be candid
[00:16:47] ▶about the current real estate environment. Construction and borrowing costs remain elevated as we've, I'm sure, all
[00:16:52] ▶heard. Capital is selective
[00:16:54] ▶and revenue across rental, hotel, and commercial sectors is under significant pressure. While many projects across the industry are being deferred or canceled, bringing forward a proposal of this quality and ambition is a clear statement of our belief in Vancouver's future.
[00:17:07] ▶We are prepared to advance this investment even in diff with difficult conditions.
[00:17:11] ▶A long history with this project and my confidence in the enduring viability of Vancouver real estate
[00:17:17] ▶drive my my colleagues and my myself to believe that the future holds great promise.
[00:17:22] ▶This project represents nearly thirty years of ownership,
[00:17:25] ▶a long term investment philosophy,
[00:17:28] ▶a serious commitment to heritage,
[00:17:30] ▶twenty five year partnership with Meriden International, and a project that's designed to contribute to the fabric sorry, to the fabric of the city for decades to come.
[00:17:38] ▶We respectfully ask for your consideration and support.
[00:17:41] ▶Thank you.
[00:17:43] ▶Speaker 0: Thank you very much.
[00:17:44] ▶So,
[00:17:45] ▶are there any questions from council to staff for the applicant? And I wanna note this is the only opportunity for council to ask questions of the applicant.
[00:17:53] ▶First on the queue is councilor Kirby Young.
[00:17:55] ▶Speaker 7: Yeah. Thanks, chair. I will direct my first questions to the applicants since this is the only opportunity.
[00:18:01] ▶You said that you've had the site since 1997,
[00:18:05] ▶and I'm curious as to whether any of the,
[00:18:08] ▶policy
[00:18:09] ▶updates and changes such as the hotel development policy that envisions mixed tenure,
[00:18:14] ▶or, other,
[00:18:15] ▶policies have impacted how you've,
[00:18:18] ▶Speaker 5: framed this project or bringing it forward. The the the do you mean the current hotel policy in terms of the 10,000,
[00:18:25] ▶really thought we were deficient?
[00:18:27] ▶It indeed had a significant impact.
[00:18:29] ▶It allowed us to,
[00:18:31] ▶design the property, enter into discussions with Marriott,
[00:18:34] ▶look to advance our interest and the city's interest in that regard,
[00:18:39] ▶in in a more expeditious manner. So it had a very positive effect indeed.
[00:18:44] ▶Speaker 7: Okay.
[00:18:45] ▶I appreciate that. The other part is just to follow-up with respects to the,
[00:18:49] ▶the one of the questions that we will get asked inevitably will be about affordability. There's hotel rooms and there's
[00:18:54] ▶residential here, but there isn't, for example, below market rental, etcetera. Can you speak to,
[00:19:01] ▶if that's possible in this project? And if not, why not?
[00:19:05] ▶Speaker 5: Unfortunately, it's not.
[00:19:07] ▶The the cost
[00:19:08] ▶of these developments and the cash flow take years before it's stabilized,
[00:19:13] ▶and and imposing an affordability,
[00:19:16] ▶requirement on the rental would would render the
[00:19:19] ▶project not
[00:19:20] ▶Speaker 7: feasible. Because of the both the the component of the hotel rooms and the fact it's rental versus strata, for example, on the not that, the fact that it's below market rental
[00:19:31] ▶Speaker 5: in terms of the revenue of the property in relation to the profitability of it. Okay. Because it takes longer to recover the investment for hotel and rental versus other ten years. Is that is that Low the return requirements that one would need for something of this nature. In order to in the sense that it's both hotel and apartment. So,
[00:19:48] ▶Speaker 7: it's an it's an expensive building to build. Okay. Thank you. And then I'll maybe I'll pivot and and direct this question to staff. On the heritage piece,
[00:19:58] ▶you mentioned that there's a facade retention and,
[00:20:01] ▶retention of some materials, then the applicant has described how those would be used to build a new facade.
[00:20:06] ▶What is the it based on that it's not feasible to retain the heritage just for further clarity?
[00:20:11] ▶Are you asking why that can't be retained in situ, like, without Sort of more than just the facade. I'm responding to the the desire, the feedback from the heritage,
[00:20:21] ▶commission.
[00:20:22] ▶Speaker 4: Yeah. Maybe I think we have our heritage staff on the line, James, Bolt, who can maybe take that question.
[00:20:32] ▶Speaker 7: In the meantime, can somebody repeat how many jobs? I didn't catch the number of jobs. 130,000,000
[00:20:37] ▶in economic impact, and how many jobs would the site generate ongoing? One sixty four. One sixty four. That's the response from the applicant. And is that is that, for building, or is that ongoing jobs once it's built?
[00:20:48] ▶It doesn't
[00:20:51] ▶Speaker 5: in the building.
[00:20:52] ▶Speaker 6: Ongoing hotel staff. Right. Yeah.
[00:20:55] ▶Speaker 7: So that's so so I'm hearing 164
[00:20:57] ▶jobs, regular ongoing jobs for hotel staff, new hotel
[00:21:00] ▶jobs. Okay.
[00:21:01] ▶And then a question, I guess, this one's also to the applicants. We don't have someone answering the other question.
[00:21:06] ▶Is,
[00:21:07] ▶with Marriott Autograph coming on board, this is intended to operate as a regular hotel, not a long term stay, but in a regular
[00:21:14] ▶Speaker 5: kind of, more shorter stay hotel. Four and a half star hotel,
[00:21:19] ▶and it's it's it's basically
[00:21:21] ▶what's called a soft branded hotel,
[00:21:23] ▶which allows us to
[00:21:25] ▶positively impact interior design
[00:21:27] ▶Speaker 7: the things such as But is it a short just because I'm tight for time, and I appreciate that. I'm very familiar with Autograph. They're a great brand. But is it a is it a regular sort of short term stay, regular hotel visitors kind of Just a regular hotel. Okay.
[00:21:40] ▶And if we don't have an answer I can try I can give you a response. I can come back. Perfect. Yeah. If you wanna try. Sure. So,
[00:21:47] ▶Speaker 4: retention of the building at the corner, that's 896 Cambie Street, was deemed,
[00:21:52] ▶not feasible because of viability and the scale of the project.
[00:21:56] ▶So staff,
[00:21:57] ▶analyzed it from that perspective, and so that's why that decision was made to not retain that building.
[00:22:03] ▶And then facade retention was deemed to be the only possible,
[00:22:06] ▶form of retention for 888 Kambi, and this is because of the floor to floor heights in the existing building not being compatible
[00:22:13] ▶with the requirements for a hotel use. It would just not
[00:22:17] ▶match up physically.
[00:22:18] ▶Speaker 7: Okay. Great. Thank you. I'll leave it there. Thanks, chair. Thank you.
[00:22:22] ▶Speaker 0: I'll advance myself, for a few questions.
[00:22:27] ▶I was wondering,
[00:22:28] ▶maybe a bit more clarity on,
[00:22:31] ▶if your application is approved. You mentioned the agreement with Marriott,
[00:22:35] ▶and sounds like there's some pretty,
[00:22:38] ▶firm timelines in terms of when you need to get going on this.
[00:22:42] ▶Should this be approved, when are you looking to break ground?
[00:22:46] ▶Or when do you need to break ground by?
[00:22:49] ▶Speaker 5: Well, we'd like to break break ground by 2028.
[00:22:53] ▶Speaker 0: Okay.
[00:22:54] ▶Okay. Thank you for that. And then maybe another question for the applicant. You know, you don't wanna sit down just yet.
[00:23:01] ▶What What about the laneway? You mentioned the laneway. I'm I'm familiar with it double wide. You know, it goes back to the history of Yaletown.
[00:23:07] ▶Can you talk about how the building will meet that laneway and what will be on that side of the building in terms of activating that laneway?
[00:23:15] ▶Speaker 5: Maybe I should, ask that our architects comment on that if it's okay, councilor Majer. Sure.
[00:23:25] ▶Speaker 12: Hi. It's Gianpaolo Tagliati from McKinney Studios,
[00:23:29] ▶designers of the building.
[00:23:30] ▶So what we did, we on both corners of Smite Street, so both from Cambia and Elaine, we introduced to privately owned,
[00:23:39] ▶public spaces.
[00:23:40] ▶So that's a little wide widened space at the corners, so to facilitate traffic pedestrian traffic.
[00:23:48] ▶And, so we have two entrances at the corners of SMITE, so that's how we activate it.
[00:23:54] ▶And, we also have a drop off area
[00:23:57] ▶for
[00:23:57] ▶vehicles Okay. At the lane.
[00:24:00] ▶Speaker 0: So there's an entrance at the corner of the laneway and Smythe as well as Yeah. There's two pedestrian entrances at the two corners Okay. And there's a drop off area on the lane. Okay. Thanks for that additional detail. Can you talk about what's going to be in the heritage
[00:24:14] ▶facade component of the building? Is that what's that gonna look like? Is it retail? Is it something else? It's gonna be on the Ground Floor. As you enter, it's gonna be a restaurant.
[00:24:22] ▶Speaker 12: And then,
[00:24:23] ▶I think the top story of the heritage part,
[00:24:26] ▶Speaker 0: will be hotel rooms. Okay. Thank you. And another design really question for you is what about the materiality of the building? Like, what is the facade made out of? Okay. We Sort of wood almost, but I presume it's not.
[00:24:39] ▶Speaker 12: Yeah. Well, the facade, actually, it's a limestone like material.
[00:24:43] ▶Like, it will depend when we get to it budget wise and everything. We have listed it as limestone like.
[00:24:50] ▶If the budget allows, we would like at least
[00:24:52] ▶the lower part of the podium to be limestone, so a a richer material to address the street
[00:24:59] ▶and, make it feel more of a palazzo
[00:25:02] ▶Speaker 0: Okay. More elegant. Thank you for that additional detail.
[00:25:05] ▶Speaker 12: And the wood sorry. No. Your question. Oh. There is wood on the on the,
[00:25:10] ▶canopies,
[00:25:11] ▶and that's again to tie in with
[00:25:14] ▶the Vancouver narrative. So that's why you introduced some green and some
[00:25:18] ▶Speaker 0: wood like tones. K. And another question that I just thought about and I'll just preface this, but I am very familiar with this location. I lived across the street for ten years. I don't live there anymore, just for clarity's sake. Mhmm.
[00:25:29] ▶The building,
[00:25:30] ▶that you're going to retain the the facade of,
[00:25:34] ▶I would imagine, you know, a lot of the wood and beams and that sort of thing in that building,
[00:25:38] ▶I think there's, like, some quite mass timber components to it. Yeah. Perfect. What is the plan for for those,
[00:25:45] ▶Speaker 12: components? We're planning to reutilize them. Obviously, we can't reutilize them as structural elements. So,
[00:25:51] ▶it's probably gonna be some either furniture pieces or,
[00:25:55] ▶cladding of columns for
[00:25:58] ▶the lobby area, some kind of uses that we do plan on reusing. Salvage and reuse potentially within the development.
[00:26:05] ▶Speaker 0: Definitely within the development. Yeah. Great. Thanks so much. Appreciate it. That's it for me. Councilor Klassen.
[00:26:13] ▶Speaker 14: Thanks,
[00:26:14] ▶chair.
[00:26:18] ▶Councilor
[00:26:19] ▶asked questions,
[00:26:20] ▶around affordability.
[00:26:23] ▶Just a first question for for staff really quickly.
[00:26:25] ▶I know that,
[00:26:27] ▶we've got a number of initiatives around,
[00:26:30] ▶working to to address the,
[00:26:34] ▶shortage of affordable housing here.
[00:26:37] ▶Is
[00:26:38] ▶is this neighborhood and and a project like this,
[00:26:44] ▶in in any way sort of representative
[00:26:46] ▶of that kind of work, or is that,
[00:26:49] ▶is that work sort of going on in other initiatives?
[00:26:52] ▶Speaker 4: Yeah. So the policy, the rezoning policy that this project has come on in under, which is the downtown rezoning policy, there is no below market or affordability requirement.
[00:27:01] ▶So, yeah, different.
[00:27:03] ▶Speaker 14: Okay. Mhmm. Maybe I'll,
[00:27:05] ▶with the time I have to ask questions of of the applicant.
[00:27:10] ▶You are,
[00:27:11] ▶I gather,
[00:27:12] ▶in
[00:27:13] ▶discussions, and obviously, this is public if you said it, in discussions with Marriott?
[00:27:18] ▶Yes. Yeah.
[00:27:19] ▶And you anticipate I think I overheard you,
[00:27:23] ▶say how many, employees you might be seeing. How many How many employees
[00:27:28] ▶Speaker 5: might be working at That's approximately us. Yeah. 164.
[00:27:31] ▶Yeah. We understand.
[00:27:34] ▶Speaker 14: What kind of,
[00:27:36] ▶consideration is given,
[00:27:39] ▶for for the people that are going to be working for you in terms of supporting
[00:27:44] ▶some of their,
[00:27:47] ▶their
[00:27:47] ▶their needs in terms of being able to afford to live in the city or or work in the city?
[00:27:53] ▶I I realize, is that something that,
[00:27:55] ▶the the the employer and the sort of factors into some of their considerations?
[00:28:02] ▶Speaker 5: Well, it's a difficult question to answer. You know, we're from at an operating level, we are five years away
[00:28:08] ▶from
[00:28:09] ▶opening. That's being,
[00:28:11] ▶optimistic.
[00:28:12] ▶Speaker 0: Mhmm.
[00:28:13] ▶Speaker 5: We all know that Vancouver is an expensive
[00:28:16] ▶city to live in. And I I think we have to be, sensitive to that as an employer in relation to what we end up compensating
[00:28:23] ▶our our staff and how they get paid
[00:28:26] ▶Mhmm. Whether that's assistance with transportation or
[00:28:29] ▶other methods.
[00:28:30] ▶Speaker 0: Okay.
[00:28:33] ▶Speaker 14: The,
[00:28:35] ▶the hotel industry, I I don't know a lot about the hotel industry, and I know that we're,
[00:28:41] ▶fairly aggressively trying to build more room capacity in our city because we've lost so much over time.
[00:28:47] ▶Do you know from and, obviously, you're not a hotelier. You're you're a landowner and an applicant here today. But what is your understanding about what the the margins are like for for typical hotel,
[00:29:00] ▶I'm gonna say average? I mean, there's obviously a range of different types of quality of hotel rooms. But do you know what the
[00:29:06] ▶kind of the business margins are? Are they fairly narrow? I mean, it's pretty competitive, I imagine. Right?
[00:29:11] ▶Speaker 5: Well, I think it's competitive, and, I wouldn't be able to to
[00:29:15] ▶to provide you with
[00:29:17] ▶data in relation to returns.
[00:29:19] ▶I know that it's an operating business that's perceived that way by the capital markets banks.
[00:29:25] ▶It's not a typical real estate with, an office building with a long term lease in terms of the financeability of it. But it has some,
[00:29:33] ▶inherent challenges there. I think the amount of time that it takes
[00:29:38] ▶to
[00:29:39] ▶stabilize
[00:29:40] ▶the operations,
[00:29:41] ▶so
[00:29:42] ▶people are aware of it.
[00:29:44] ▶They're wanting to stay. The the brand is strong,
[00:29:48] ▶and it's getting and also trying to get repeat customers, I think, is is the goal.
[00:29:54] ▶But it is it is indeed an operating business, and it's treated differently in that regard.
[00:29:58] ▶Speaker 14: Okay.
[00:30:00] ▶We,
[00:30:03] ▶we're we will hear,
[00:30:05] ▶comments and concerns and sort of reading some of the the correspondence that we're seeing. There's been a small number,
[00:30:11] ▶repeating sort of the same
[00:30:13] ▶concerns around,
[00:30:16] ▶the trade off between,
[00:30:18] ▶hotel
[00:30:19] ▶development and
[00:30:22] ▶and,
[00:30:23] ▶and
[00:30:23] ▶supply of of affordable housing.
[00:30:27] ▶Probably not that it's a tough question to answer, but can we have both in this city? I realize that we have a,
[00:30:33] ▶a lot of pressure on
[00:30:35] ▶on both,
[00:30:36] ▶demand for for,
[00:30:38] ▶hotel,
[00:30:39] ▶and affordable housing. But
[00:30:41] ▶it's not an either or,
[00:30:44] ▶proposition,
[00:30:45] ▶is it?
[00:30:46] ▶Speaker 5: I don't believe it is. I think council has to, as you have, work diligently to find,
[00:30:52] ▶methods and ways to,
[00:30:54] ▶allow some sense of of affordability. I mean, we're challenged in
[00:30:59] ▶Vancouver with,
[00:31:00] ▶constrained land supply,
[00:31:02] ▶geographical impediments,
[00:31:04] ▶and and and high cost.
[00:31:07] ▶But I I I think the programs that,
[00:31:10] ▶you've initiated, you know, go a long way to attempting to mitigate that. Thanks very much. That's my time. Thank you. Councilor Maloney.
[00:31:17] ▶Speaker 15: Thanks. A lot of my questions have been asked, but I did wanna ask the applicant sorry to,
[00:31:23] ▶get you off mute. Pull my chair up here.
[00:31:25] ▶Yeah.
[00:31:27] ▶I just did wanna ask because this
[00:31:31] ▶this site is on,
[00:31:33] ▶any very important downtown cycling route and,
[00:31:37] ▶close to other,
[00:31:39] ▶cycling routes. What are your plans to make sure that,
[00:31:43] ▶hotel traffic doesn't
[00:31:45] ▶endanger or interfere with cycling traffic
[00:31:48] ▶and that you,
[00:31:50] ▶make it as easy, convenient, and safe as possible for people to arrive and leave,
[00:31:56] ▶Speaker 5: this building by by bicycle. Great question. And I think, I may defer to Gianpaolo, but we will safety is, is of utmost importance to us. We will work with engineering. You know, at the same time, we're trying to animate that lane and create a create a people place with the the dual entrance that Gianpaolo mentioned,
[00:32:14] ▶the area to of access for the hotel and concierge. So,
[00:32:19] ▶but I don't know if you have anything to add, Jampol.
[00:32:24] ▶Speaker 12: Exactly what Gino said is what I mentioned before, like the privately operated public spaces at the corner. So, basically,
[00:32:30] ▶we're just pushing the corners of the building back to allow more space. And then the drop off area is not exactly in the corner. It just set back a bit exactly for that concern that you mentioned. Yeah. I know I commute by bike to all my city meetings, and I know I I attend a lot of meetings at hotels. And sometimes
[00:32:49] ▶Speaker 15: it hasn't been contemplated in the design Yeah. Where I will park and and how I will get in safely in amongst the vehicle traffic. So I'd I'd very much appreciate if that's contemplated in the detailed design. We also have a one meter setback
[00:33:03] ▶Speaker 12: as well on this mine.
[00:33:05] ▶Speaker 15: Great. Thanks very much.
[00:33:07] ▶Speaker 5: We I should add that Cambyshy will also be a drop off as well, so it's not just the one area.
[00:33:12] ▶Speaker 0: Okay. Thanks.
[00:33:15] ▶Thanks, councilor Maloney.
[00:33:17] ▶Okay. This is the second call for speakers. If you wish to speak to council about this item, please call, toll, free at +1 (833) 353-8610
[00:33:26] ▶followed by participant code, 1061445
[00:33:30] ▶pound before the close of the speakers list. The phone number will be posted on x and displayed during the recess.
[00:33:36] ▶We will now hear from the public.
[00:33:38] ▶Any speakers in the council chamber, please come forward to the public speaker podium on the left when it's your turn.
[00:33:45] ▶The podium height can be adjusted using the controls on the right hand side of the podium,
[00:33:50] ▶and, phone in speakers will be unmuted when it's your time to speak.
[00:33:54] ▶And just a reminder so I'm not awkwardly cutting people off. I know, time can go by pretty fast, but speakers,
[00:34:01] ▶have up to five minutes to make their comments and should, limit their comments to the merits of the application being considered. So our first registered speaker is speaker number one, Michelle Travis.
[00:34:12] ▶Good afternoon.
[00:34:15] ▶Speaker 11: Hi. Good afternoon.
[00:34:17] ▶I'm a representative of Unite Here Local forty and a resident of Vancouver.
[00:34:21] ▶We urge you to vote no in this proposal.
[00:34:23] ▶It raises the question, who is this project really for?
[00:34:27] ▶If approved, many hospitality workers will not be able to afford to live in this building.
[00:34:33] ▶Some of you,
[00:34:34] ▶would argue that the hotel portion brings more jobs.
[00:34:37] ▶We ask you, where do you think these future workers will live?
[00:34:41] ▶Coquitlam,
[00:34:42] ▶Langley, Surrey? Because chances are they won't be living in this proposed building.
[00:34:46] ▶They're being squeezed by our affordability crisis, and too many of them cannot afford the cost of living in Vancouver.
[00:34:52] ▶We hear that this is that affordability is not the intent of this project. There is no goal for providing affordable or below market rents in this project because there's no requirement for them to do so. That's for some other location, somewhere else in the city, or some other project.
[00:35:06] ▶Her question is, why isn't affordability the goal for every single project coming through council right now? We deeply we need deeply affordable housing, in Downtown Vancouver. We need it in Mount Pleasant. We need it in Hastings Sunrise. We need it in every neighborhood across the city.
[00:35:19] ▶The staff referral referral report for this project notes that the average downtown market rents for a 369
[00:35:25] ▶square foot studio
[00:35:26] ▶is more than 2,300 a month. That's the equivalent of living in a typical hotel room.
[00:35:31] ▶To be considered affordable, one would need to earn an out household income of over $93,000
[00:35:36] ▶annually, which is obscene.
[00:35:38] ▶For a one bedroom at an average market rate of $26.50 a month, one would need to earn over a 100,000 a year for it to be considered affordable and the price goes
[00:35:47] ▶up. By 2,030, imagine how much, a market rate rental will be
[00:35:52] ▶if this project is approved.
[00:35:54] ▶So you basically need a 6 figure income to live in this proposed project, and the city is not committed to ensuring
[00:36:00] ▶projects like this have affordable units.
[00:36:03] ▶Market rentals coming out to market are still out of reach for many, which is why some new units are sitting empty.
[00:36:08] ▶Trickle down housing supply is unlikely to deliver the deeply affordable housing needed to house the average tourism worker.
[00:36:15] ▶I imagine we'll hear that, you know, market rents have declined somewhat, but expensive is still expensive.
[00:36:20] ▶Those crumbs are not enough to placate working people. Market rentals are out of reach for many tourism workers, particularly those who have to cobble together two or three jobs to make a living. It's tantamount to a pat on the head that says they're there. And be quiet now because the market is working.
[00:36:35] ▶To be clear, for the well-to-do, the market always seems to be working.
[00:36:39] ▶Again, I ask, who is this project for?
[00:36:42] ▶Thousands of hotel rooms have been approved by council already,
[00:36:45] ▶and city hall is incentivizing developers to build more hotels at a time when developers have overbuilt condos, overbuilt commercial office, and can't unload all their market rate units.
[00:36:54] ▶Meanwhile, hotels have become the hot real estate play for investors who are drawn to revenues that come from the high hotel room rates and high occupancy.
[00:37:01] ▶And amid a housing crisis, prioritizing visitors over residents feels misaligned.
[00:37:07] ▶We don't think council should be incentivizing
[00:37:09] ▶developers to build more hotels and expect
[00:37:12] ▶expensive market housing.
[00:37:14] ▶Developers aren't building what we need, but they're rewarded for building what we don't need. This project seeks approval of a major increase in density with a jump from five point zero to 19.5
[00:37:25] ▶FSR. That will be a significant land lift in value for the developer.
[00:37:29] ▶Because incentives added to the hotel policy last year, the hotel portion excludes over 50,000
[00:37:34] ▶square foot square feet of from the community amenity contribution calculation.
[00:37:39] ▶That's less money for affordable housing, childcare facilities, parks, community centers, libraries, other public benefits.
[00:37:45] ▶And what does the public get in return?
[00:37:47] ▶Hotel rooms instead of affordable housing, no below market rentals or deeply affordable units, and a small community amenity contribution of 1,380,000.
[00:37:57] ▶Finally, this proposal is before a public hearing largely because of the impact on heritage sites, including the Stanley Brock Building.
[00:38:04] ▶The referral report notes that demolition and or reconstruction in the context of rezoning is usually not supportable by the city.
[00:38:11] ▶But preservation,
[00:38:13] ▶of historic buildings, particularly one that is apparently in good condition,
[00:38:17] ▶is deemed to be less important than yet another high end Marriott branded hotel.
[00:38:22] ▶The referral report suggests the developer will be encouraged to explore a retaining part of the facade, which suggests the developer may not be fully committed to retaining the heritage facade at all.
[00:38:31] ▶This raises the question whether the developer has benefited from the city's heritage incentive program.
[00:38:36] ▶If so, how much does the developer receive from the program? And will these funds be clawed back by the city if this building is demolished?
[00:38:43] ▶If city policies are producing outcomes like this, where affordability is sidelined,
[00:38:48] ▶where how where hotels outweigh housing, and where public benefit is minimal, then the problem isn't the project alone. It's the framework that the city is using to approve it.
[00:38:57] ▶This proposal fails to meet the moment that we're in. Council should reject the proposal or send it back for a rethink, one that puts affordability at the center and not the margins.
[00:39:06] ▶Thank you.
[00:39:08] ▶Speaker 0: K. We'll now, go to speaker two, Juanita McNeil.
[00:39:13] ▶Speaker 1: Chair, speaker two is not on the line. K. We can, come back to them.
[00:39:18] ▶Speaker 0: Let's go to speaker three.
[00:39:20] ▶Raul,
[00:39:21] ▶Sansoya.
[00:39:28] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker three is not on the line.
[00:39:31] ▶Speaker 0: How about speaker four, Matthew DeCorbi?
[00:39:36] ▶Speaker 10: Hello. Yes. I am here.
[00:39:38] ▶Speaker 0: Please go ahead.
[00:39:42] ▶Speaker 10: Hi there. Thank you.
[00:39:44] ▶Good sunny afternoon,
[00:39:45] ▶mayor and council.
[00:39:47] ▶As you heard, my name is Matthew DeCarbi, and I am here this afternoon
[00:39:51] ▶just because, I simply just cannot stay silent anymore.
[00:39:56] ▶So I personally have spent many years
[00:39:59] ▶in Downtown Vancouver's hotel industry, actually, and I am very proud to call the West End, Downtown Vancouver,
[00:40:06] ▶home for the last ten years.
[00:40:08] ▶However, I am standing before you as one of thousands of working people.
[00:40:13] ▶Feel like we are literally being forced out of this place as we
[00:40:18] ▶are so proud to be building.
[00:40:20] ▶However, we cannot afford to live in the place that we are building.
[00:40:25] ▶So I actually do come here to ask you to please peep
[00:40:30] ▶continue to put people before profits
[00:40:32] ▶and to put working families,
[00:40:35] ▶working
[00:40:37] ▶everyone,
[00:40:38] ▶disabilities,
[00:40:39] ▶and the elderly
[00:40:41] ▶before all the developers.
[00:40:44] ▶I personally pick up every shift that I can. I have
[00:40:47] ▶personally budgeted everything
[00:40:50] ▶down to the dollar.
[00:40:52] ▶I have cut all costs. I am an avid highland dancer, and I cannot
[00:40:57] ▶join the classes anymore
[00:40:59] ▶as I simply cannot afford it.
[00:41:03] ▶The
[00:41:04] ▶affordability crisis is, not a re
[00:41:07] ▶it's not a sorry. It's not a headline.
[00:41:09] ▶It's actually my reality.
[00:41:12] ▶And it's not just my reality. It's all my coworkers, my neighbors, it's all the seniors,
[00:41:17] ▶the disabled
[00:41:18] ▶on my block, around my block, and actually in my building alone who have all
[00:41:23] ▶many of them have lived for more than forty years here.
[00:41:27] ▶We are all being cleaned out and it does not feel fair
[00:41:30] ▶whatsoever.
[00:41:32] ▶That's why these projects here, like, the one at 888896
[00:41:35] ▶Cambie are so frustrating.
[00:41:38] ▶Speaker 16: Just massive 29 story tower
[00:41:40] ▶Speaker 10: is being proposed there.
[00:41:48] ▶Speaker 16: With that 29 story tower, 246
[00:41:51] ▶Speaker 10: hotel rooms, a 165
[00:41:52] ▶market rental units, and not one single unit is affordable housing.
[00:41:56] ▶To make it happen, we're talking about tearing down a heritage building
[00:42:00] ▶and handling we're handing over the developers a massive density increase
[00:42:05] ▶from just a small little number, 60,000
[00:42:08] ▶square feet to almost four times higher, a 195,000
[00:42:13] ▶square feet.
[00:42:15] ▶And what is the city getting back? Just a little
[00:42:18] ▶$1,380,000
[00:42:19] ▶in community amenities contributions.
[00:42:22] ▶So, unfortunately,
[00:42:23] ▶pennies are still existent in the developer's world.
[00:42:29] ▶I do wanna touch base on the rental part that we have to be honest about who those 165
[00:42:35] ▶market rentals are really for.
[00:42:38] ▶Right now, the average downtown rent need an income of 90,000 to 150,000
[00:42:43] ▶a year. And so in reality, like myself, hotel a hotel worker for the last ten years,
[00:42:49] ▶plus the hotel cooks, cleaners, and all the caregivers,
[00:42:53] ▶we don't make that.
[00:42:55] ▶Is it possible to make that?
[00:42:58] ▶Those units will be way out of reach for the very people that keep the city running.
[00:43:02] ▶We're approving luxury
[00:43:04] ▶and calling it housing.
[00:43:06] ▶Speaker 9: So I do have to ask, when the project come before you,
[00:43:10] ▶Speaker 10: does anyone at this table bring up job quality? Does anyone ask, hey. How many living wage jobs will this create for local?
[00:43:18] ▶Does anyone ask, hey. Where will these people who are
[00:43:21] ▶working in these hotels actually live?
[00:43:24] ▶Because from what I I am standing, it does feel like the developers have access to city hall and to the mayor while working people are left outside the room.
[00:43:34] ▶And, yes, we may do hear that the developers are getting out, but what do we get in response?
[00:43:40] ▶Oh, maybe transportation.
[00:43:42] ▶No response.
[00:43:44] ▶No clue.
[00:43:45] ▶I personally don't drive, so I have to consider
[00:43:49] ▶transportation
[00:43:50] ▶is very important for me if I have to live outside of the city.
[00:43:55] ▶Why isn't housing affordability the number one item on every agenda? If it is, we're not hearing it, and what we are seeing instead are cranes for towers that all of us, most of us, could never afford.
[00:44:08] ▶While these people who pour the coffee,
[00:44:11] ▶myself who clean the hotel room, drive the buses, and care for the kids all around here, teachers,
[00:44:17] ▶are planning their exit all from Downtown Vancouver.
[00:44:20] ▶If nothing changes, I am going to be one of them, not because I want to leave, but because the city under this council has made it clear that the working people are not the priority.
[00:44:29] ▶Us working class
[00:44:31] ▶are the very last people.
[00:44:33] ▶So when you do vote on the triple eight eight ninety six Cambie and projects all like this, remember that it's not
[00:44:40] ▶Speaker 0: call or we are at time.
[00:44:42] ▶Speaker 10: Sounds good. Remember that the working class
[00:44:45] ▶Speaker 0: We are a time.
[00:44:47] ▶Speaker 10: Thank you.
[00:44:49] ▶Speaker 0: Just to remind all speakers,
[00:44:51] ▶we're here to speak to the merits of the the project.
[00:44:54] ▶This is a public hearing.
[00:44:56] ▶So just a
[00:44:59] ▶just a friendly reminder.
[00:45:01] ▶We'll go to speaker five,
[00:45:02] ▶Kirsten LeBrun.
[00:45:07] ▶Speaker 17: I'm gonna interrupt in the background.
[00:45:13] ▶Speaker 16: So good evening, mayor and council. My name is Kirsten.
[00:45:16] ▶I work in a a hotel in Vancouver, and I was born and raised
[00:45:20] ▶in Vancouver. I was actually born at Saint Paul's Hospital,
[00:45:23] ▶and Vancouver is the only city I ever wanted to call home.
[00:45:28] ▶Growing up here was beautiful. I mean, obviously, the city was a lot smaller. I was born in the eighties.
[00:45:33] ▶And
[00:45:35] ▶and I wanted to have a family.
[00:45:38] ▶My husband and I were working very hard, but we can't afford anything even close. So
[00:45:43] ▶I drive from, Maple Ridge every day.
[00:45:47] ▶And,
[00:45:50] ▶so that's why I wanted to speak to the affordability
[00:45:52] ▶crisis.
[00:45:54] ▶Housing cost is so high and so few options, so we came out here.
[00:45:58] ▶So my commute's over an hour and a half,
[00:46:01] ▶every day
[00:46:02] ▶each way.
[00:46:05] ▶Makes really tight with the kids.
[00:46:07] ▶I know many of my coworkers in the same position,
[00:46:09] ▶hotel workers, cooks, cleaners, servers. So many of us who help Vancouver's hot Kelly industry thrive,
[00:46:16] ▶are living outside of the city because we can't afford it here. We just haven't kept up with the rent, groceries, gas, or childcare. It's getting harder and harder for working families to see a future here.
[00:46:27] ▶That's why I was concerned when I learned about the proposal at 888 And 896 Cambie,
[00:46:33] ▶29 story tower with 246
[00:46:35] ▶Speaker 18: hotel rooms and a 165
[00:46:38] ▶Speaker 16: market rental units
[00:46:40] ▶being considered, and there are no affordable units included.
[00:46:43] ▶The project would also mean demolishing a heritage building
[00:46:47] ▶and increasing the density on that site.
[00:46:51] ▶In exchange, the community amenity contribution is 1,380,000.
[00:46:56] ▶I understand that the market rentals are part of our housing supply, but the average downtown rent,
[00:47:02] ▶needs a very high income.
[00:47:03] ▶I'm still hoping for a way back. I wanna believe Vancouver can be a city where people who work here can also live here. I want my kids to have that chance to grow up in the community that I grew up in. So I'm here tonight to ask you, mayor and council, to make affordable housing and real affordable
[00:47:18] ▶facility a top priority,
[00:47:20] ▶not fast tracking
[00:47:23] ▶luxury for those that are just there to make money off of the city. Thank you for listening, and thank you for the work you do. Here's
[00:47:31] ▶but does everything I have to say. Sorry. The kids are fighting.
[00:47:36] ▶Speaker 0: Hey. Thank you for calling. Thank you. Thanks for calling. Yeah. Thank you.
[00:47:40] ▶We'll now go to speaker six.
[00:47:43] ▶Beau, Jomo.
[00:47:46] ▶Speaker 8: Good evening.
[00:47:47] ▶Hello?
[00:47:48] ▶Speaker 0: Hi. Please go ahead.
[00:47:51] ▶Speaker 13: Hi. Good evening, councilors, and thank you for the opportunity to speak here today.
[00:47:56] ▶My name is Beau.
[00:47:57] ▶I work in the hospitality
[00:47:59] ▶industry,
[00:48:00] ▶and I'll oppose this proposal.
[00:48:03] ▶I've watched the city become increasingly unaffordable
[00:48:06] ▶for the very workers who helped keep it running every day.
[00:48:11] ▶I want to speak here today because
[00:48:13] ▶I do not think this proposal reflects the the realities
[00:48:16] ▶facing hospitality workers in Vancouver right now.
[00:48:21] ▶I can confidently say that a lack of hotel rooms is not the biggest problem facing this city.
[00:48:27] ▶The biggest problem is affordability.
[00:48:30] ▶We're in the middle of a housing and cost of living crisis that is impacting working people across the Lower Mainland.
[00:48:38] ▶Rent is unaffordable.
[00:48:41] ▶Groceries
[00:48:42] ▶are overly expensive.
[00:48:44] ▶Transit and gas prices continue to rise.
[00:48:48] ▶Even people with decent incomes are struggling to keep up.
[00:48:52] ▶And yet despite all of that, council is focusing on more hotel development and expensive market housing.
[00:49:00] ▶I want council to understand something very clearly today.
[00:49:04] ▶Hospitality workers are struggling.
[00:49:07] ▶Over the years, I've had countless conversations with coworkers
[00:49:11] ▶who feel exhausted,
[00:49:13] ▶discouraged,
[00:49:14] ▶and increasingly pushed out of the communities we work in.
[00:49:19] ▶Many workers
[00:49:20] ▶are commuting
[00:49:21] ▶from further and further away because housing costs in Vancouver are completely disconnected
[00:49:26] ▶from what hospitality workers earn.
[00:49:31] ▶We are housekeepers, kitchen staff, servers, laundry attendants, and maintenance workers, as well as front desk agents.
[00:49:39] ▶We work hard. We provide important services.
[00:49:42] ▶We help create the experience
[00:49:44] ▶that the visitors and tourists have when they come to Vancouver.
[00:49:49] ▶Our wages are not enough to afford
[00:49:52] ▶market rent in this city anymore.
[00:49:55] ▶That is the reality.
[00:49:57] ▶It feels like Vancouver is becoming a city designed more and more for wealthy
[00:50:01] ▶investment and luxury development.
[00:50:04] ▶While ordinary people
[00:50:06] ▶are expected to simply adapt
[00:50:08] ▶to worsening affordability
[00:50:10] ▶and longer commute.
[00:50:13] ▶But there's a serious problem in that approach.
[00:50:16] ▶We cannot continue
[00:50:18] ▶expanding the tourism and hotel industries while simultaneously
[00:50:21] ▶pricing hospitality workers out of the city.
[00:50:25] ▶Hotels do not operate on their own. Cardism doesn't exist in a vacuum.
[00:50:31] ▶If workers cannot afford to live here,
[00:50:35] ▶eventually, staffing shortages
[00:50:37] ▶get worse,
[00:50:39] ▶turnout increases, and people
[00:50:42] ▶leave the industry altogether.
[00:50:44] ▶Honestly, I already see signs of this happening.
[00:50:47] ▶I know workers who are considering leaving Metro Vancouver
[00:50:51] ▶because they no longer believe they can build a stable future here.
[00:50:56] ▶Others are living in overcrowded housing
[00:50:59] ▶situations
[00:51:00] ▶just just to stay close enough to work.
[00:51:05] ▶That should be a warning sign to counsel
[00:51:08] ▶because this issue is not just about one development proposal. It is about what kind of city Vancouver is becoming.
[00:51:17] ▶Are we building
[00:51:19] ▶are we building a city where working people can still live, participate, and thrive? Or are we building a city where only higher income earners
[00:51:27] ▶are realistically
[00:51:29] ▶affording to stay?
[00:51:32] ▶Hospitality workers contribute enormously to Vancouver's economy.
[00:51:36] ▶We help sustain one of the city's most important industries.
[00:51:41] ▶We welcome visitors to ride services and keep businesses operating
[00:51:45] ▶every single day, yet many of us feel increasingly invisible in conversations about development and affordability.
[00:51:54] ▶Development should serve the broader public, especially during a housing affordability
[00:51:59] ▶crisis.
[00:52:00] ▶Right now, this city does not need more hotel rooms,
[00:52:04] ▶nearly as badly as it needs generally affordable housing for workers and residents.
[00:52:10] ▶Council
[00:52:11] ▶has already approved thousands of hotel rooms across Vancouver. Meanwhile, workers are still struggling
[00:52:18] ▶to find stable housing.
[00:52:20] ▶We can actually afford hospitality
[00:52:22] ▶wages.
[00:52:25] ▶That imbalance is impossible to ignore.
[00:52:29] ▶So today, I'm asking council to think about the workers already supporting the city
[00:52:34] ▶before approving yet another hotel focused development.
[00:52:40] ▶Please serve prioritize affordability,
[00:52:42] ▶housing stability, and long term well-being of working people.
[00:52:47] ▶Please vote against this proposal.
[00:52:51] ▶Speaker 0: Thank you for your time. K. Thank you for calling.
[00:52:55] ▶We'll now go to speaker seven,
[00:52:57] ▶Shao,
[00:52:59] ▶Li Tang.
[00:53:02] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker seven is not on the line.
[00:53:06] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker eight, Fabiola
[00:53:08] ▶Salguero.
[00:53:12] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker eight is not on the line.
[00:53:15] ▶Speaker 0: Nine,
[00:53:17] ▶Rekhas Sharma.
[00:53:20] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker nine is not on the line.
[00:53:23] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker 10,
[00:53:25] ▶Felisma
[00:53:27] ▶Bellingon.
[00:53:29] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 10 is not on the line.
[00:53:33] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker 11 is withdrawn.
[00:53:35] ▶Speaker 12, Sashi Singh.
[00:53:41] ▶Speaker 1: Alright. Speaker 12 is not on the line.
[00:53:45] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker 13, Angel
[00:53:46] ▶Bataan.
[00:53:50] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 13 is not on the line.
[00:53:53] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker 14 is withdrawn.
[00:53:55] ▶Speaker 15, Catherine Dela Cruz.
[00:53:59] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 15 is not on the line.
[00:54:03] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker 16,
[00:54:04] ▶Rajwinder Parmar.
[00:54:07] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 16 is not on the line.
[00:54:10] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker 17, Connie Chan.
[00:54:13] ▶Speaker 17 is not on the line.
[00:54:17] ▶Speaker 18,
[00:54:18] ▶Akpal
[00:54:20] ▶Isla.
[00:54:21] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 18 is not on the line.
[00:54:25] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker 19,
[00:54:26] ▶Katya Moreno.
[00:54:28] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 19 is not on the line.
[00:54:31] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker 20, Ravi Kumar.
[00:54:33] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 20 is not on the line.
[00:54:37] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker 21, Janet
[00:54:38] ▶Budd. Yes.
[00:54:41] ▶Speaker 9: Hi.
[00:54:42] ▶Speaker 19: Please go ahead. Can you hear? Okay.
[00:54:45] ▶Speaker 20: Hi. My name is Janet. I'm a resident of Vancouver, and I strongly oppose the proposed hotel project that can be in Smythe.
[00:54:52] ▶Vancouver is already facing a serious affordability
[00:54:55] ▶crisis.
[00:54:56] ▶Many residents,
[00:54:57] ▶including myself,
[00:54:59] ▶are struggling to find stable and affordable housing.
[00:55:02] ▶Building more hotels
[00:55:04] ▶does not address this urgent need. Instead, the city should prioritize
[00:55:08] ▶developing affordable housing for the people who live and work here. While tourism is important, it should not come at the expense of residents' ability
[00:55:18] ▶to live in their own city. I urge the city to reconsider this project and focus on solutions that improve housing availability
[00:55:25] ▶and affordability.
[00:55:27] ▶And as you can hear, I'm completely surrounded by
[00:55:30] ▶construction on three sides, and my building is on the chopping block. And it was
[00:55:36] ▶an affordable housing, but I don't know where I'm gonna be living soon.
[00:55:40] ▶Okay. Anyway, thank you for your time.
[00:55:43] ▶Speaker 0: K. Thank you for calling.
[00:55:45] ▶Speaker number 22,
[00:55:48] ▶Zylida Chan.
[00:55:59] ▶Speaker 16: I'm sorry. Can you hear me?
[00:56:02] ▶Speaker 0: Yes. We can. Hello?
[00:56:04] ▶Speaker 16: You can? Okay. Alright. Sorry. So I'm
[00:56:10] ▶here I'm here today to speak for the people,
[00:56:12] ▶who make the city run.
[00:56:15] ▶The nurses, the teachers,
[00:56:17] ▶service workers, hospitality
[00:56:19] ▶workers, and bus drivers.
[00:56:21] ▶Speaker 21: You know, all of these people are being priced out of our community.
[00:56:26] ▶Speaker 16: We're living through an affordability
[00:56:28] ▶catastrophe. For many, the dream of living in Vancouver has turned into a survival,
[00:56:34] ▶calculation.
[00:56:36] ▶Let's talk about the biggest elephant in the room, housing.
[00:56:40] ▶Rent for a one bedroom apartment now averages between 2,600
[00:56:44] ▶and $2,800
[00:56:46] ▶a month. For a two bedroom, you're looking at over $3,500.
[00:56:51] ▶We hear a lot about density and new supply from this council.
[00:56:55] ▶But when I look around, I don't see any affordable homes for residents. I see luxury condos.
[00:57:01] ▶I see developers pitching luxury,
[00:57:03] ▶short term, and hotel style,
[00:57:06] ▶high density projects that do nothing for the local
[00:57:09] ▶family earning a median income.
[00:57:11] ▶We do not need more investor focused
[00:57:14] ▶dot trade apartments that cost between 3,000
[00:57:17] ▶to for a 400 square foot space.
[00:57:20] ▶We need non market housing. We need affordable below market route housing.
[00:57:26] ▶We need co op housing,
[00:57:27] ▶like the models that built built in the Champlain Heights where a family can actually afford to raise a family.
[00:57:34] ▶But this crisis isn't just about rent.
[00:57:37] ▶It's walking into a grocery store and seeing a bag of coffee
[00:57:41] ▶for $30.
[00:57:43] ▶It's
[00:57:44] ▶between paying rent or buying healthy food.
[00:57:47] ▶The cost of living in Vancouver for a single person is now pushing
[00:57:51] ▶$4,000
[00:57:52] ▶a month.
[00:57:53] ▶For those who drive,
[00:57:55] ▶gas prices are amongst the highest in North America.
[00:57:58] ▶Even for those using transit, the cost of living means that owning a car is a luxury few can afford, but transit alone cannot solve the housing crisis.
[00:58:08] ▶The living wage in Metro Vancouver has risen to over $27
[00:58:14] ▶an hour.
[00:58:15] ▶That means if you aren't making that, you're definitely
[00:58:19] ▶in deficit every single month.
[00:58:22] ▶Many of many housekeepers
[00:58:24] ▶make beyond that. Currently, they make about 33 or $34
[00:58:28] ▶an hour. And even then, they're living paycheck to paycheck.
[00:58:33] ▶This council has a choice. You can continue
[00:58:36] ▶to allow the agenda
[00:58:39] ▶to be run by billionaire developers
[00:58:42] ▶where they will ultimately benefit,
[00:58:45] ▶or you can take a stand and actually
[00:58:48] ▶put your foot down and make decisions that are gonna benefit
[00:58:52] ▶and resolve the affordability
[00:58:54] ▶crisis.
[00:58:56] ▶So what we need
[00:58:57] ▶is for you to make,
[00:59:00] ▶make decisions
[00:59:01] ▶that allow for immediate investment
[00:59:04] ▶in nonmarket
[00:59:05] ▶and social housing.
[00:59:07] ▶We need to stop the replacement of existing
[00:59:10] ▶affordable rental units with luxury developments.
[00:59:14] ▶Speaker 22: We need real tenant protection.
[00:59:17] ▶Speaker 16: We need affordable housing for locals, not suits,
[00:59:21] ▶not suites for speculators and tourists.
[00:59:24] ▶The future of the of the city depends on keeping its people,
[00:59:29] ▶not just its investments.
[00:59:31] ▶Please start making decisions that serve the people who call the city a home.
[00:59:36] ▶Thank
[00:59:37] ▶you.
[00:59:38] ▶Speaker 0: K. Thank you.
[00:59:39] ▶Speaker
[00:59:40] ▶number,
[00:59:42] ▶23,
[00:59:43] ▶Steve Cashmore.
[00:59:45] ▶Speaker 23: Yeah. Hello. I'm can you hear me? Yes. Please go ahead.
[00:59:49] ▶Hi. My name is Steve Cashmore. I live in Vancouver,
[00:59:52] ▶and I work as a at a hotel in in Vancouver as well. I strongly oppose this proposal. I'm nearing retirement age, and after decades of working in the city, I'm deeply concerned about what Vancouver is becoming for ordinary people. I never imagined that full time workers would one day be unable to afford even the smallest departments in the city they serve. But, unfortunately, this is where we are now. And, unfortunately, this proposal moves us further in the wrong direction.
[01:00:17] ▶At the time when Vancouver's faces an extreme affordability crisis, this project prioritizes more hotel space and market rate housing instead of truly affordable homes.
[01:00:27] ▶The 165
[01:00:28] ▶rental units being proposed are all market rate units.
[01:00:31] ▶That means rents far beyond
[01:00:33] ▶what many workers, seniors, and moderate incomes can afford.
[01:00:36] ▶We're talking about studio apartments averaging about $2,300
[01:00:40] ▶a month. This is not affordable.
[01:00:42] ▶This is financial pressure packages housing supply.
[01:00:46] ▶There's no nonmarket housing here. No low market housing. No meaningful
[01:00:51] ▶affordable measures despite the scale of the project and the severity of the crisis facing residents.
[01:00:56] ▶I think many people are asking whether the council is losing sight of what the city actually needs.
[01:01:01] ▶Because while workers are struggling to remain housed in the city
[01:01:04] ▶and remain housed, the city continues approving hotel development at an aggressive pace.
[01:01:10] ▶More than 3,000 hotels have already been approved with thousands more in the pipeline.
[01:01:15] ▶Meanwhile, where is the same urgency for deeply affordable housing?
[01:01:19] ▶Where is the ambition for work workforce housing?
[01:01:22] ▶Where is the recognition that housing is the infrastructure just as essential as the roads and transit?
[01:01:27] ▶This project also raises serious concern about public value.
[01:01:31] ▶The developer stands to gain substantial land lift through rezoning approvals, yet community amenity
[01:01:37] ▶contribution is only 1,380,000.
[01:01:40] ▶This is not adequate return for the public. Thank you very much.
[01:01:44] ▶Speaker 0: Thank you.
[01:01:45] ▶Speaker 24, Andrea
[01:01:47] ▶Fuentes.
[01:01:50] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 24 is not on the line.
[01:01:53] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker 25,
[01:01:54] ▶Alfina Lambertus.
[01:02:03] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 25 is not on the line. K. Speaker 26, Sonia,
[01:02:09] ▶Speaker 0: Chua.
[01:02:11] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 26 is not on the line.
[01:02:14] ▶Speaker 0: K. Speaker 27 with Drew. Speaker 28 with Drew. Speaker 29,
[01:02:18] ▶Wilma
[01:02:19] ▶Ayok.
[01:02:28] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 29 is not on the line.
[01:02:30] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker 30 with Drew. Speaker 31, Betty Colvin.
[01:02:37] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 31 is not on the line. Speaker 32,
[01:02:41] ▶Speaker 0: Domiodor,
[01:02:43] ▶Chantula.
[01:02:46] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 32 is not on the line.
[01:02:50] ▶Speaker 0: May I have pronounced that incorrectly? Apologies.
[01:02:52] ▶Speaker 33, Jean Philippe,
[01:02:54] ▶seven
[01:02:55] ▶seven go
[01:02:57] ▶seven go.
[01:02:58] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 33 is not on the line.
[01:03:01] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker 34 was true. Speaker 35, Sean Lervold.
[01:03:17] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 35 is not on the line.
[01:03:20] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker 36, Natasha Kerik.
[01:03:32] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 36 is not on the line.
[01:03:35] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker 37,
[01:03:36] ▶Rankika
[01:03:38] ▶Ubichina.
[01:03:44] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 37 is not on the line. You're 38, Nasca
[01:03:48] ▶Speaker 0: Spasic.
[01:04:07] ▶Speaker 1: Moment chair. Sorry.
[01:04:14] ▶Speaker 38 is not on the line.
[01:04:18] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker 39, Joshua Young.
[01:04:25] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 39 is not on the line.
[01:04:28] ▶Speaker 0: 40, Kim, Young Joo.
[01:04:34] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 40 is not on the line.
[01:04:37] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker 41 with Drew. Speaker 42 with Drew. Speaker 43, Robert Bader.
[01:04:45] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 43 is not on the line.
[01:04:48] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker 44 with Drew. Speaker 45 with Drew. Speaker 46,
[01:04:51] ▶Adena Natino.
[01:04:58] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 46 is not on the line.
[01:05:00] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker 47, Omar Mac Mahmoud.
[01:05:04] ▶Mahmoud.
[01:05:07] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 47 is not on the line. You're 48, Marissa.
[01:05:13] ▶Speaker 48 has withdrawn, chair. K. Thank you.
[01:05:17] ▶Speaker 49, Vesna Sorry, chair. Just give me one moment, please. Yep.
[01:05:49] ▶Speaker 0: They're on the line? Or They're not. They're not on the line. Okay.
[01:05:52] ▶40 sorry. Was that 49?
[01:05:54] ▶49.
[01:05:56] ▶And,
[01:05:57] ▶Vesna, per per perno perno perno perno perno perno perno perno perno perno perno perno perno perno perno perno perno perno perno perno perno perno perno perno perno perno perno perno perno perno perno perno perno perno perno per
[01:06:02] ▶pernovenc.
[01:06:17] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 49 is not on the line. K.
[01:06:21] ▶Speaker 0: 50, Linda Ong.
[01:06:26] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 50 is not on the line.
[01:06:30] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker 51,
[01:06:32] ▶Gulzar or Graywall.
[01:06:34] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 51 is not on the line.
[01:06:37] ▶Speaker 0: For 52, Preet Sangha.
[01:06:39] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 52 is not on the line.
[01:06:42] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker 53, Gilby,
[01:06:45] ▶Charan.
[01:06:47] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 53 is not on the line.
[01:06:50] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker 54, Andrea Aubrey Augustine.
[01:06:54] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 54 is not on the line.
[01:06:56] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker 55, Tory Cooper.
[01:06:58] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 55 is not on the line.
[01:07:01] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker 56, Pat Deep Tunde.
[01:07:04] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 56 is not on the line.
[01:07:07] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker 57,
[01:07:08] ▶Robert Bibb.
[01:07:10] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 57 is not on the line. Speaker 58, Joseph Bostonish.
[01:07:15] ▶Speaker 58 is not on the line.
[01:07:19] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker 59, Karanji Dillon.
[01:07:21] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 59 is not on the line.
[01:07:24] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker 60, Cindy Jane Mag Magbunia.
[01:07:28] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker
[01:07:29] ▶Speaker 0: Cindy Jane.
[01:07:32] ▶Speaker 1: 60 is not on the line. Sorry, chair. Just one moment. Yep.
[01:07:41] ▶Speaker 0: But they weren't on the line when we called.
[01:07:50] ▶Speaker 61,
[01:07:51] ▶Aya Holers.
[01:07:54] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 61 is on the line. Can you hear me? Hi. Yes. Please go ahead.
[01:07:59] ▶Speaker 24: Hello? Hi.
[01:08:01] ▶I oppose this proposal,
[01:08:03] ▶for a similar reason as the people before it because this project does not seriously address
[01:08:08] ▶Vancouver's affordability crisis.
[01:08:10] ▶Like many people in this city, I've seen housing become increasingly out of reach for workers, renters, students, and families.
[01:08:17] ▶And we need housing that can actually,
[01:08:21] ▶be accessible for for regular people, not more luxury development.
[01:08:27] ▶This pro
[01:08:28] ▶this proposal fundamentally is misaligned
[01:08:30] ▶with the city's most urgent need.
[01:08:32] ▶We don't need more hotel rooms as much as we need affordable housing.
[01:08:37] ▶Yet the City continues prioritizing hotel development over solving the structural housing crisis
[01:08:42] ▶affecting ordinary residents.
[01:08:44] ▶While this proposal includes 165
[01:08:47] ▶rental units, they're all market rate.
[01:08:50] ▶There's no non market or below market housing included.
[01:08:54] ▶All at current downtown rents, these units will be unaffordable for many working people.
[01:08:59] ▶Studios renting for over $2,300
[01:09:03] ▶and one bedrooms for around $2,600
[01:09:06] ▶are simply not realistic for modest income households.
[01:09:10] ▶Council has already approved thousands of hotel rooms with thousands more planned.
[01:09:15] ▶What Vancouver actually needs is thousands of genuinely affordable homes.
[01:09:20] ▶I'm also concerned about the incentives being given to developers throughout this through this proposal.
[01:09:26] ▶The project would receive a massive increase in density
[01:09:29] ▶from
[01:09:31] ▶five to 19.5
[01:09:33] ▶FSR
[01:09:34] ▶while providing relatively little public benefit in return.
[01:09:38] ▶The community amenity
[01:09:40] ▶contribution
[01:09:41] ▶is only $1,380,000
[01:09:44] ▶despite the enormous increase in land value being granted by the City.
[01:09:48] ▶On top of that, the City's hotel development policies
[01:09:52] ▶allow large portions of hotel space to be excluded from CAC calculations.
[01:09:57] ▶In this project,
[01:09:58] ▶over 50,000 square feet would be excluded.
[01:10:01] ▶That means less funding for affordable housing, childcare,
[01:10:05] ▶parks, libraries, and other public amenities.
[01:10:09] ▶At a time when working people, renters, and seniors are struggling with affordability,
[01:10:13] ▶the City should not be giving additional relief to private developers,
[01:10:17] ▶building hotels, and expensive market housing.
[01:10:21] ▶I'm also concerned about the impact
[01:10:23] ▶on the heritage preservation.
[01:10:25] ▶This proposal would affect the Stanley Block Building, a heritage building at
[01:10:31] ▶888
[01:10:31] ▶in Canby.
[01:10:33] ▶City staff themselves note that demolition
[01:10:35] ▶or reconstruction of heritage buildings during rezonings
[01:10:38] ▶is usually not supportable.
[01:10:41] ▶Yet, this project would allow demolition of the site with only vague encouragement to retain part of the facade.
[01:10:47] ▶This raises important questions about whether the developer previously benefited from heritage incentives or grants
[01:10:54] ▶and whether those public funds would ever be recovered if the building is demolished.
[01:10:59] ▶For all of those reasons, I urge counsel to reject this proposal.
[01:11:03] ▶Thank you.
[01:11:04] ▶Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you.
[01:11:06] ▶Speaker 62,
[01:11:08] ▶with Drew. Speaker 63 is, Kendra Strauss.
[01:11:15] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 63 is not on the line. K. Speaker 64, Lian Sheng Lin.
[01:11:21] ▶Speaker 64 is not on the line. Speaker 65, Marlon
[01:11:26] ▶Speaker 0: Selmar.
[01:11:27] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 65 is not on the line. Speaker 66,
[01:11:31] ▶Speaker 0: Pres Prasansha
[01:11:34] ▶Quadina.
[01:11:36] ▶Quadina.
[01:11:37] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 66 is not on the line. Speaker 67,
[01:11:41] ▶Speaker 0: go
[01:11:42] ▶Gurpurnam
[01:11:44] ▶or
[01:11:45] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker speaker 67 is not on the line. Speaker 68, Jacqueline Tay. Speaker 68 is not on the line. Speaker 69, Christina Figueroa.
[01:11:56] ▶Speaker 0: Good afternoon.
[01:12:00] ▶Speaker 25: Good afternoon, council.
[01:12:02] ▶My name is Christina Figueroa, and I'm a resident of Vancouver, and I oppose this proposal.
[01:12:07] ▶So we need affordable housing in Vancouver, not hotel rooms. This project only proposes a 165
[01:12:13] ▶rental units, which does not address our housing crisis.
[01:12:16] ▶Additionally, there's no below market or nonmarket housing included.
[01:12:21] ▶Therefore, it is,
[01:12:23] ▶the units will likely be unaffordable, and it's not normal that regular people in the city struggle to keep up with the housing prices every day. Almost everyone I know is struggling right now despite working forty plus hours in good jobs. This is not normal. We need reasonable housing now.
[01:12:39] ▶To make matters worse,
[01:12:40] ▶the city has decided to incentivize
[01:12:42] ▶developers to build these unaffordable rentals and unnecessary
[01:12:45] ▶hotel rooms.
[01:12:47] ▶I was alarmed to see that the communityamenitycom
[01:12:50] ▶contribution is only 1.3,
[01:12:53] ▶8,000,000.
[01:12:54] ▶1,380,000
[01:12:56] ▶is the price of a low to mid range home in Burnaby or New West.
[01:13:00] ▶Surely, the developers
[01:13:02] ▶in Vancouver can afford to contribute more.
[01:13:05] ▶I would hope that our counselors would secure a larger community amenity contribution for the residents you represent.
[01:13:11] ▶We need parks, childcare facilities, libraries,
[01:13:14] ▶and other community spaces to ensure everyone can thrive.
[01:13:18] ▶I hope that council will think of how this project impacts all residents, not just developers.
[01:13:23] ▶If council can approve thousands of hotel rooms, then why not push for thousands of units of affordable housing or community projects?
[01:13:31] ▶It would be unfortunate for councilors to turn a blind eye to your constituents tonight.
[01:13:36] ▶I am lucky to live on Smythe Street myself.
[01:13:39] ▶Smythe has more of a residential feel on the on the part that I am at, and I would like it to stay that way.
[01:13:46] ▶I like knowing my neighbors across the street. I like the theaters. I like the cafes, the parks,
[01:13:51] ▶and a hotel doesn't really fit.
[01:13:54] ▶I know that towards your town near Canby, there's more of an industrial space,
[01:13:58] ▶but I don't want this to be reinforced.
[01:14:01] ▶Please think of the folks that already live and work on Smythe. We don't need a hotel. We need community amenities, spaces for congregation and community.
[01:14:10] ▶Why should the council care more about a hotel for foreigners than about the folks that already live on Smythe?
[01:14:16] ▶So I ask the council today,
[01:14:18] ▶do developers matter or residents?
[01:14:20] ▶Your choice today reflects your care for Vancouver residents, and this choice will be disseminated behind beyond the constraints of this room.
[01:14:29] ▶Public hearings sometimes are quiet and secluded,
[01:14:32] ▶but young people like myself are fed up with the affordability crisis.
[01:14:36] ▶So I'm asking you to stop giving handouts to developers and think of residents first.
[01:14:41] ▶I urge you to reject this proposal. Thank you.
[01:14:46] ▶Speaker 0: Thanks for speaking to counsel.
[01:14:48] ▶Speaker,
[01:14:49] ▶pardon me, 70 withdrew.
[01:14:51] ▶Speaker 71, Lovepreet Core.
[01:14:54] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 71 is not on the line.
[01:14:56] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker 72, Matthew Dimarchi.
[01:15:01] ▶Can you hear me? Hi, Matthew. Please go ahead.
[01:15:06] ▶Speaker 26: Alright.
[01:15:07] ▶Thank you, guys. Thank you all for for having,
[01:15:12] ▶me,
[01:15:13] ▶today. I really appreciate,
[01:15:16] ▶the time,
[01:15:17] ▶and I am calling today to oppose this project.
[01:15:22] ▶First of all,
[01:15:24] ▶the rental units in this project
[01:15:26] ▶are not really made for families.
[01:15:29] ▶It took me a while to find out and figure it out, but when I finally saw,
[01:15:34] ▶the prints, it looked like two bedrooms were the max amount of bedrooms through the entire
[01:15:40] ▶rental portion of this building.
[01:15:43] ▶In my opinion, families need three bedrooms,
[01:15:46] ▶whether that's for children,
[01:15:48] ▶you know, a special playroom if you only have one kid maybe, or maybe it's just for the reprieve of the parents,
[01:15:55] ▶you know, or for whatever reason, you know, three bedrooms, I think, is really important if we wanna keep families in Vancouver.
[01:16:03] ▶Now, I mean, everybody knows. I mean, we all know people,
[01:16:08] ▶who have had kids and they gotta move.
[01:16:11] ▶You know, we are losing families to Burnaby and Coquitlam
[01:16:15] ▶and Langley
[01:16:17] ▶and Surrey,
[01:16:19] ▶you know, even Chilliwack and Abbotsford are gaining families, and we're losing them
[01:16:24] ▶because they have many more available three bedroom homes.
[01:16:30] ▶Not only do they have the three bedroom homes that are needed for families,
[01:16:35] ▶they have communities
[01:16:36] ▶oriented towards supporting these families in many different ways.
[01:16:42] ▶Not just the rental buildings, but also the community supports. It's very important to not just have the rentals, but the community supports.
[01:16:50] ▶Both of these, I think, are important to attracting families
[01:16:54] ▶back to Vancouver
[01:16:55] ▶because we've seen so many families leaving Vancouver.
[01:17:00] ▶I think on top of that, you know, building affordable three bedroom rentals would allow a family to rent in the city while putting some savings away
[01:17:12] ▶to one day
[01:17:13] ▶maybe buy their own three bedroom home.
[01:17:16] ▶I think that's the dream for everyone.
[01:17:18] ▶It would be great to be able to rent at a price where we could put a few $100 away
[01:17:24] ▶and save that so that one day we can accomplish a dream of owning our own home in Vancouver.
[01:17:31] ▶Once again, three bedrooms would be ideal.
[01:17:34] ▶We need to figure out how to keep families in this city,
[01:17:38] ▶and this should be a priority for this council.
[01:17:41] ▶And, yes, downtown is a great place for families.
[01:17:46] ▶This location is only a few blocks away from Rainbow Park.
[01:17:51] ▶Why wouldn't we want to build family oriented housing so near to this very awesome and fun park that the city has invested so much in.
[01:18:01] ▶Why not have the developer
[01:18:03] ▶add more family housing here
[01:18:06] ▶to take full advantage of this park
[01:18:09] ▶and the beach and all the great amenities that downtown can provide to a family
[01:18:14] ▶if there was adequate housing for the families.
[01:18:19] ▶Secondly,
[01:18:20] ▶the contribution to the city is not enough. We need big developers and corporations
[01:18:26] ▶like Marriott to invest more in Vancouver.
[01:18:30] ▶They're making hundreds of millions of dollars here.
[01:18:33] ▶In cities around the world, primary industries help fund important infrastructure and community projects.
[01:18:39] ▶The development industry and hotel industry here need to step up now and help Vancouver with its dire financial shape.
[01:18:48] ▶In the papers, I read of a $400,000,000
[01:18:52] ▶commitment
[01:18:52] ▶to a number of community centers.
[01:18:55] ▶And then on the very next page, I read that kids pool alone will take $300,000,000
[01:19:00] ▶to fix. How does this make sense?
[01:19:03] ▶Many community centers need complete rebuilding or renovation.
[01:19:07] ▶How will this be paid for?
[01:19:09] ▶Why are we not demanding more out of Vancouver's two most important industries, the development slash construction industry
[01:19:16] ▶and the tourism slash hotel industry?
[01:19:20] ▶Why are these thriving industries
[01:19:23] ▶not helping with our community centers?
[01:19:26] ▶Vancouver's
[01:19:27] ▶community centers and parks are in crisis.
[01:19:30] ▶We need to reject this proposal and demand more from these
[01:19:35] ▶key industries.
[01:19:36] ▶I wanna thank counsel for the time tonight.
[01:19:40] ▶Have a great day.
[01:19:42] ▶Speaker 0: K. Thank you.
[01:19:44] ▶Speaker number 73,
[01:19:49] ▶Hi.
[01:19:50] ▶Speaker 10: Hello.
[01:19:53] ▶Speaker 8: Marjina.
[01:19:57] ▶Translator.
[01:19:59] ▶Speaker 19: Hi. My name is.
[01:20:02] ▶I I want to, thank city and council for the chance to speak today, and I have my translator with me.
[01:20:09] ▶Speaker 0: Okay. Just to confirm, are you a representative
[01:20:12] ▶speaker?
[01:20:15] ▶Speaker 10: Oh,
[01:20:16] ▶Speaker 19: Oh, sorry. I'm I'm the translator. I understand you're translating.
[01:20:21] ▶Speaker 0: So you do have up to ten minutes as a result. So please go ahead.
[01:20:25] ▶Speaker 8: Thank you. Thank you.
[01:20:28] ▶Yeah. So, Subramat Mahapur and
[01:20:59] ▶Speaker 19: I'm an immigrant. I came to Canada as a student.
[01:21:05] ▶Sorry. I'll restart. Good evening. Mayor and councilor. My name is.
[01:21:08] ▶I want to thank you for the chance to speak today. I'm here to oppose this proposal. I want to tell you why. Not as a number on a list, but as a person.
[01:21:18] ▶I'm an immigrant.
[01:22:02] ▶I'm an immigrant. I came to Vancouver as a student,
[01:22:06] ▶full of hope. I left my home, my family, my friends, everything I knew to come here because I believed in what the city proposed,
[01:22:15] ▶Opportunity, education,
[01:22:17] ▶a future,
[01:22:18] ▶a place where if you worked hard and played by the rules, you could build a life.
[01:22:26] ▶Speaker 8: Meet Downtown Vancouver, Newwood Lake.
[01:22:32] ▶Kala. Me maja sixhana 30 at haza
[01:22:37] ▶Canadian dollars
[01:22:38] ▶in West Chile.
[01:22:40] ▶At haza dollars.
[01:22:49] ▶Savings
[01:22:51] ▶retirement funds.
[01:23:18] ▶Speaker 19: I chose Downtown Vancouver because I believed in that promise. I paid 60,000
[01:23:23] ▶Canadian dollars in tuition for my studies.
[01:23:26] ▶60,000
[01:23:27] ▶Canadian dollars.
[01:23:29] ▶That is not pocket change.
[01:23:31] ▶That is years of savings.
[01:23:33] ▶That is family support.
[01:23:35] ▶That is late night and weekend shift. That is sacrifice my parents made on the other side of the world so that their child could come to Canada and have a chance.
[01:23:47] ▶Speaker 8: Chance.
[01:24:24] ▶Speaker 19: I did everything that was asked of me. I studied. I worked. I followed every rule.
[01:24:31] ▶I gave the city my best years and my savings. I gave it my trust. And now I'm standing here to tell you that I cannot afford to live in the city I studied in.
[01:25:02] ▶Let me say that again because I want it to land. I paid $60,000
[01:25:06] ▶to come to Downtown Vancouver
[01:25:08] ▶and live here, and I cannot afford to live in Downtown Vancouver. And I don't think it's a reality in the near future either.
[01:26:00] ▶Speaker 8: Cafe, hotels,
[01:26:24] ▶Speaker 19: The rents here are not built for people like me. They are not built for working class people.
[01:26:30] ▶They are not built for international students the city actively recruits, takes tuition from, and then quietly pushes out the moment we graduate.
[01:26:38] ▶We are good enough to pay for our rent, for our seats.
[01:26:42] ▶We are good enough to fill the lecture halls.
[01:26:44] ▶We are good enough to staff the cafes and the hotels and the offices.
[01:26:50] ▶But when it comes to having a home in the city we help build, suddenly,
[01:26:55] ▶we are not good enough
[01:26:57] ▶for that.
[01:27:33] ▶Speaker 13: Dollar.
[01:28:13] ▶Speaker 19: I want counsel to do the math with me for a moment. A working person in the city, after taxes, might bring home 2,500
[01:28:22] ▶to $3,000
[01:28:24] ▶a month. Average rent for a one bedroom in Downtown Vancouver is well over
[01:28:29] ▶$2,500.
[01:28:32] ▶That is not housing. That is choosing between rent and food.
[01:28:36] ▶That is roommates well well into their thirties.
[01:28:40] ▶That is sleeping on a friend's couch. That is moving back to a different country
[01:28:45] ▶because the country you're in no longer has space for you.
[01:29:35] ▶I want counsel to do
[01:29:37] ▶I am not alone. There are thousands of us. We came as students. We stayed as workers. We helped build the city. We work in restaurants, in hotels, in shops, in offices,
[01:29:48] ▶in hospitals.
[01:29:49] ▶We pay taxes. We pay rent
[01:29:52] ▶when we can find it. We contribute every single day. And every single year, we watch the city become more and more out of reach.
[01:30:25] ▶Speaker 13: I
[01:30:33] ▶Speaker 0: apologize
[01:30:34] ▶for the interruption.
[01:30:36] ▶Apologies to the speaker for the interruption, but,
[01:30:39] ▶we are we are at time. And, thank you for your comments to counsel.
[01:30:45] ▶Speaker 19: Sorry. We're at ten minutes? Yes. Over ten minutes.
[01:30:49] ▶Speaker 18: Okay.
[01:30:50] ▶Speaker 0: Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thanks for calling.
[01:30:54] ▶Speaker number 74, Emily
[01:30:56] ▶Armitage.
[01:31:02] ▶Is that Emily Armitage? Can you hear me? Hi, Emily. Yeah. I just need to ask a question of you as it's not indicated on our speakers list. Are you a resident of Vancouver?
[01:31:12] ▶No. I'm not. You're not a resident. Okay. Go ahead, please.
[01:31:16] ▶Speaker 22: Okay. Thank you.
[01:31:18] ▶Good evening to mayor and council.
[01:31:20] ▶Like was announced, my name is Emily. I live in the Lower Mainland, although not in Vancouver.
[01:31:26] ▶And I'm here tonight to oppose this proposal.
[01:31:30] ▶To explain why,
[01:31:31] ▶I want to tell you all a little bit about my family's story.
[01:31:35] ▶So my grandparents
[01:31:36] ▶came to Canada right after World War two.
[01:31:39] ▶They were both very poor.
[01:31:41] ▶Speaker 21: Both of them took up a collection
[01:31:43] ▶Speaker 22: in their home village,
[01:31:45] ▶to pool the funds, to afford to buy a ticket, to get on a ship, and then on a train across the country to come to Vancouver.
[01:31:55] ▶And when they arrived, they were both able to find work as new immigrants.
[01:31:59] ▶My grandmother actually worked as a maid or a housekeeper in a hotel in Downtown Vancouver,
[01:32:05] ▶and my grandfather worked up north in the lumber industry.
[01:32:09] ▶Speaker 16: So it was two, you know, working class people,
[01:32:12] ▶Speaker 22: working very hard to raise a family of four kids,
[01:32:16] ▶and they were able to afford
[01:32:18] ▶to rent a small house
[01:32:20] ▶near Trout Lake
[01:32:22] ▶to, you know, working class people raising a family.
[01:32:26] ▶Back then,
[01:32:27] ▶hospitality workers like my grandmother,
[01:32:30] ▶you know, blue collar workers like my grandfather
[01:32:33] ▶could afford to actually live in the city and not only
[01:32:37] ▶afford it, but afford to raise four kids here.
[01:32:40] ▶But now
[01:32:41] ▶there's no way that we could say the same thing. Other speakers before me have already done the math.
[01:32:47] ▶There's no chance that a housekeeper
[01:32:49] ▶working in this proposed hotel, if it passes,
[01:32:52] ▶could afford to do what my grandparents did, raise a family here where they're in the city where they work.
[01:32:58] ▶Now fast forward to myself,
[01:33:00] ▶I work in Downtown Vancouver.
[01:33:03] ▶Every day, I commute, you know, an hour in my car,
[01:33:06] ▶from Coquitlam
[01:33:07] ▶to get to my job,
[01:33:09] ▶which is getting more and more expensive to do as gas prices raise,
[01:33:13] ▶higher and higher.
[01:33:15] ▶And there's really no chance that I could ever afford to live in the same city that my grandparents came to back in the forties when they when they arrived,
[01:33:23] ▶much less raise a family here.
[01:33:25] ▶You know,
[01:33:27] ▶being able to afford enough,
[01:33:29] ▶rent to actually rent a two bedroom apartment anywhere in the city
[01:33:33] ▶is more than most people,
[01:33:36] ▶are ever going to achieve in Vancouver.
[01:33:38] ▶You know, I work full time. I work hard. I work long hours. And because I'm commuting an hour each way to my job, I have long days.
[01:33:46] ▶And that's just part of the reality for so many workers in Vancouver who love this city, who work hard to keep the city running, but can never afford to live here, much less raise their family here.
[01:33:57] ▶So when we talk about, you know, jobs being created or hotel rooms being opened in the city, I think it's so important that we remember
[01:34:04] ▶that
[01:34:05] ▶those are not gonna be workers who can afford to live in the city as well. You know, we're building,
[01:34:11] ▶workplaces,
[01:34:12] ▶and we're building apartments
[01:34:14] ▶for
[01:34:15] ▶people with you know, who make 6 figures.
[01:34:17] ▶And we're, you know, making jobs for people who are gonna be commuting in from the suburbs.
[01:34:22] ▶And I think that's what's so frustrating about proposals like this one.
[01:34:25] ▶We keep being told time and time again by developers
[01:34:29] ▶that luxury developments will somehow help affordability,
[01:34:33] ▶but regular working class people are still being pushed further and further away.
[01:34:38] ▶The people benefiting from the project, the proposal in front of you are not gonna be workers like me or workers like my grandparents.
[01:34:46] ▶The people benefiting are developers,
[01:34:49] ▶investors,
[01:34:49] ▶and people already making very high income.
[01:34:53] ▶Meanwhile, the people who actually work to make this city run, cleaners,
[01:34:58] ▶housekeepers,
[01:34:58] ▶hotel staff,
[01:35:00] ▶retail workers, cooks, drivers,
[01:35:02] ▶caries, and more,
[01:35:04] ▶office workers like me, they're being priced out.
[01:35:07] ▶So a city cannot survive
[01:35:09] ▶if the people doing everyday jobs can no longer afford to live anywhere near where they worked.
[01:35:14] ▶And right now, Vancouver is becoming a city where only wealthy people can afford to live comfortably.
[01:35:19] ▶Everyone else is expected to commute those long distances,
[01:35:23] ▶spend hours in traffic or on transit,
[01:35:25] ▶and sacrifice more and more of their time and their family's time to get by.
[01:35:31] ▶So what worries me also is that projects like this will just continue to drive land values and rents even higher.
[01:35:38] ▶We've seen it happen before.
[01:35:40] ▶All around me where I live in Coquitlam,
[01:35:43] ▶older apartment buildings, you know, built in the seventies are being demolished and replaced
[01:35:48] ▶by, you know, luxury condo towers, and more and more people are being pushed even further to the margins of the Lower Mainland.
[01:35:56] ▶You know, we hear statistics about, you know, new housing supply, but what kind of housing is actually being built and who is it really for? Because it's not for working people. It's not for families.
[01:36:07] ▶It's not for hotel workers.
[01:36:09] ▶It's just for, you know, hotel owners and the people in that same income bracket.
[01:36:15] ▶Speaker 0: You know, in front of you right now, council has a decision But, you are over time. So I'll have to leave it there. Thank you.
[01:36:22] ▶Speaker 16: Yep.
[01:36:24] ▶Speaker 0: We'll now go to speaker
[01:36:26] ▶75,
[01:36:28] ▶Faye Casas.
[01:36:32] ▶Hello? Hi. Is that Faye?
[01:36:34] ▶Yes. Please go ahead. Hi.
[01:36:37] ▶Speaker 18: Okay. My name is Faye Casas, a resident of Vancouver City.
[01:36:41] ▶I strongly oppose the proposed more hotel project.
[01:36:45] ▶Vancouver is already facing a serious housing affordability
[01:36:49] ▶crisis. Meanwhile,
[01:36:51] ▶why Vancouver City serving
[01:36:54] ▶tourism more than Vancouver resident?
[01:36:57] ▶Vancouver City is focusing on tourist affordability
[01:37:00] ▶and accommodation.
[01:37:02] ▶City council should
[01:37:04] ▶not keep approving
[01:37:06] ▶expensive market housing and hotels development.
[01:37:10] ▶This is not a solution.
[01:37:12] ▶What about Vancouver residents' needs? How many parents giving birth every day?
[01:37:18] ▶Meaning,
[01:37:19] ▶Vancouver population growing every day. How many sick people run to the hospital every day? Meaning,
[01:37:26] ▶we need more hospitals.
[01:37:29] ▶Because of the market rent and shortage of affordable housing,
[01:37:34] ▶family of six or more
[01:37:36] ▶squeeze themselves
[01:37:37] ▶in two one or two
[01:37:39] ▶bedroom apartment units in order to survive.
[01:37:43] ▶In order to have a decent life here in Vancouver,
[01:37:48] ▶you need to work
[01:37:49] ▶two to three jobs.
[01:37:51] ▶Meanwhile,
[01:37:52] ▶one job should be enough
[01:37:54] ▶so we can spend more time to our family.
[01:37:57] ▶And this is also very frustrating.
[01:38:00] ▶The more you work, the more you pay taxes.
[01:38:04] ▶If you live into a condo apartment,
[01:38:07] ▶so when building gets older,
[01:38:10] ▶the strata fee gets higher to pay.
[01:38:13] ▶City council should not keep approving expensive market
[01:38:17] ▶housing and hotels.
[01:38:20] ▶City council should find solutions
[01:38:23] ▶in order to provide more affordable housing.
[01:38:26] ▶City council should consider to build more hospitals,
[01:38:30] ▶hospital rooms, and recovery rooms.
[01:38:33] ▶City council should consider to build more schools.
[01:38:37] ▶These are most needed,
[01:38:39] ▶not a luxury
[01:38:40] ▶hotel.
[01:38:41] ▶I urge the city council to reject this proposal
[01:38:46] ▶focused on solutions that improve
[01:38:48] ▶housing
[01:38:49] ▶availability
[01:38:50] ▶and affordability.
[01:38:52] ▶Thank you.
[01:38:54] ▶Speaker 0: Hey. Thanks for calling.
[01:38:55] ▶Speakers,
[01:38:56] ▶76,
[01:38:57] ▶Ronan Hanneken.
[01:39:02] ▶Hello? Hi. Present speaking. Hi, Ronan. I just have to ask you, as per procedure by law, as it's not indicated on our list, are you a resident of Vancouver?
[01:39:12] ▶Speaker 28: Not at the time of this phone call. Okay. Please go ahead.
[01:39:16] ▶Speaker 10: Hi. My name is Ronan. I,
[01:39:19] ▶Speaker 28: I was born in Mount Saint Joe's Hospital. I took my first steps in in a three story walk up in Kitsilano.
[01:39:25] ▶And,
[01:39:27] ▶because of a similar pattern as is on display here today, that three story walk up is no longer there.
[01:39:35] ▶A lot of the affordable housing in this city is no longer there. And what instead we've seen is sort of a mad dash
[01:39:44] ▶to try to
[01:39:45] ▶stimulate and spur on the increasing,
[01:39:48] ▶land value in our city.
[01:39:51] ▶This development on Cambie is just another one of those. Let's build a big massive luxury hotel.
[01:39:58] ▶Let's put market,
[01:40:00] ▶market rent market housing above, which means we charge whatever we want for it. No consideration
[01:40:06] ▶to the people who make this city run, the regular working class people of this city.
[01:40:11] ▶Let's,
[01:40:12] ▶you know and let's not spend any of the council's time trying to push through affordable housing, which is what we really need in this city.
[01:40:22] ▶We've taken
[01:40:23] ▶we've we've we've taken a massive,
[01:40:27] ▶$11,000,000,000
[01:40:28] ▶surplus, which the city currently has accumulated
[01:40:31] ▶is, that I read in the news the other day and done a sum total of what seems to be nothing with it besides upgrade a few community centers and a couple wealthy neighborhoods.
[01:40:46] ▶While
[01:40:47] ▶it seems like council or this council has infinite time to
[01:40:53] ▶satiate the needs of large development corporations
[01:40:56] ▶when they want to build a new hotel,
[01:40:59] ▶a new mall,
[01:41:01] ▶a new this, a new that.
[01:41:03] ▶While I can we could take a tour of some of the neighborhoods
[01:41:07] ▶in this city and check-in on the basements
[01:41:10] ▶where you will find three or even sometimes four or five young people
[01:41:16] ▶sharing a two bedroom,
[01:41:19] ▶basement den,
[01:41:21] ▶and it's just atrocious.
[01:41:24] ▶The the policies
[01:41:26] ▶and the priorities
[01:41:27] ▶of this council seem to be completely backwards.
[01:41:31] ▶Every minute spent
[01:41:33] ▶on
[01:41:34] ▶trying to build a new hotel
[01:41:37] ▶or
[01:41:37] ▶in in a city that is absolutely perforated
[01:41:41] ▶with hotels
[01:41:42] ▶is wasted time and wasted tax dollars.
[01:41:46] ▶We should be building and building and building.
[01:41:49] ▶In chartering more co ops, we should be building more affordable housing with our massive surplus that we've accumulated.
[01:41:56] ▶There should be not another minute spent on a
[01:42:00] ▶on a
[01:42:01] ▶over 200 room hotel
[01:42:04] ▶for
[01:42:05] ▶that is going to serve a rich and powerful interests.
[01:42:11] ▶The three story walk up I grew up in is gone, but we could be bringing things like that back.
[01:42:18] ▶It my poor destitute parents were able to afford a a two bedroom in Kitsilano
[01:42:26] ▶in Kitsilano in the nineties.
[01:42:28] ▶Today,
[01:42:29] ▶fat chance
[01:42:31] ▶that that that was going to fly. My hairdresser mother and my waiter bartender father were able to afford that with two children.
[01:42:41] ▶What
[01:42:42] ▶I'd like to see from counsel
[01:42:44] ▶and clear you know, I won't hold my breath, but is
[01:42:49] ▶seek out and push forward
[01:42:52] ▶things that a regular person on an average salary could afford to either rent or maybe even buy. Crazy idea.
[01:43:01] ▶The last thing we need is something that is just going to drive the average price of
[01:43:07] ▶square footage apart square footage for apartments up. The last thing we need is just something that is is going to increase average land value.
[01:43:16] ▶The last thing we need
[01:43:18] ▶is this
[01:43:19] ▶this mad dash, which if I if I didn't know better, seems to be have been spurred on by
[01:43:27] ▶people who have a vested interest in increasing the land value in Vancouver
[01:43:32] ▶over anything else.
[01:43:35] ▶And
[01:43:37] ▶and another thing is
[01:43:40] ▶city council or this council seems to have
[01:43:43] ▶taken the position that there's just there's very little that they can do about affordability in this city while
[01:43:51] ▶they seem to have infinite time to give out,
[01:43:55] ▶tracks of land to large developers,
[01:43:58] ▶like we're seeing on Canby Street right now, like we're discussing.
[01:44:04] ▶Other cities had put this council to shame with,
[01:44:08] ▶while Toronto is building
[01:44:10] ▶not for profit public grocery stores
[01:44:13] ▶with taxpayer dollars.
[01:44:15] ▶Speaker 0: We seem to be building a hotel right now. Sorry, speaker. Well That's that's your time. Thank you for calling today.
[01:44:21] ▶Speaker 28: Well, the other people didn't use all their time. Could I, like, borrow some or
[01:44:25] ▶Speaker 0: set no? You're out of time. Thanks.
[01:44:28] ▶Speaker 2: Okay.
[01:44:31] ▶Speaker 0: K.
[01:44:32] ▶Speaker 77.
[01:44:34] ▶Mel Melijan,
[01:44:35] ▶Pang.
[01:44:44] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 77 is not on the line. K. Speaker 78 with Drew. Speaker 79,
[01:44:50] ▶Speaker 0: Shaylin Arnold.
[01:44:53] ▶Hello? Hi. Please go ahead. Hi.
[01:44:57] ▶Speaker 17: Perfect.
[01:44:58] ▶Hi. My name is Shaylyn.
[01:45:00] ▶I worked in Vancouver and just lived,
[01:45:03] ▶East Of Boundary Road, technically in Burnaby.
[01:45:06] ▶I strongly oppose this rezoning because once again, this is not contributing to the housing and affordability crisis the city is facing.
[01:45:14] ▶I've worked in the hotel industry for near ten years,
[01:45:17] ▶including working directly for the Marriott International Company.
[01:45:22] ▶And I can tell you that most Marriott places
[01:45:26] ▶of work do not pay enough
[01:45:28] ▶near enough to survive in the city. I worked at the Sheraton Airport Hotel,
[01:45:33] ▶where we had to strike for over a year to get as close to a livable wage as possible. So
[01:45:38] ▶to assume that the company is going to take care of their staff is a vast understatement.
[01:45:44] ▶I also spoke the other night,
[01:45:46] ▶during the hearing where I stated how tired I am of seeing the news every day and being, let down by the city of Vancouver. I'm 27 years old and can barely escape by to live here, and every day the peep
[01:45:59] ▶the for people my age, we are losing hope in our future. The other night, I mentioned all the wonderful things being done by other cities across North America, like the mayor of Chicago.
[01:46:08] ▶Top priority is making communities safer.
[01:46:11] ▶He built a hospital for the South Side,
[01:46:13] ▶New York City,
[01:46:16] ▶somehow more affordable than here. I don't know how that's even possible.
[01:46:20] ▶The City Of Of New York has gone after bad landlords and won 30,000,000 settlements and has repaired over 6,000 units for low income households.
[01:46:28] ▶They just announced free Wi Fi for thousands of households in the Bronx. And might I add, this Tuesday evening, the city of New York has just announced City Rand grocery stores, where groceries will be set at an affordable price to counter the price gouging from the rich.
[01:46:43] ▶I think that's awesome.
[01:46:45] ▶Speaker 0: Where are our city run grocery stores? Even Toronto has started them. That sounds like something a vast majority of people in the city Sorry. I I hate to interrupt you, but, we just we really wanna focus on the merits of the project. I know you're talking about, City Rung Road. Yeah. I in in another country, but we're gonna have to focus on the project.
[01:47:04] ▶Speaker 17: Oh, I'm Toronto, but, yeah, I was just about to get there.
[01:47:08] ▶So,
[01:47:12] ▶yeah, so so all I'm hearing from this,
[01:47:15] ▶hearing is how poor the quality of life is in this city.
[01:47:21] ▶And entertaining the World Cup is obviously much more important, and that's why we need more hotels and why we need,
[01:47:27] ▶all this stuff.
[01:47:29] ▶And,
[01:47:30] ▶so I'm assuming that's why we're letting,
[01:47:33] ▶these developers get away with this. Right? How about some affordable housing? True affordable housing. Market rentals are not even close to being affordable. If market rentals were the answer, you'd think everyone wouldn't be freaking out about the price of rent.
[01:47:47] ▶I also would like to bring up the two thousand ten Olympics in comparison to the World Cup because,
[01:47:53] ▶Vancouver still has a very significant homeless problem.
[01:47:57] ▶The prices are way too high. Smaller cell phone businesses are struggling.
[01:48:00] ▶Speaker 7: Sure. And I wonder Yes.
[01:48:03] ▶Sarah, I'm so sorry to interrupt. I did appreciate your guidance earlier about trying to zero in on the application, and now we're
[01:48:09] ▶talking about the Olympics. I wonder if we could just pull it back. Yeah. I'll just remind the speaker,
[01:48:14] ▶Speaker 0: this is a public hearing, and we're here to focus on the merits of the application in front of us.
[01:48:19] ▶Specifically the development,
[01:48:22] ▶and, Smythe.
[01:48:25] ▶So feel free to continue, but, we'll need to focus on the merits of the application given the quasi judicial,
[01:48:32] ▶Speaker 17: nature for the public hearing. Yeah. Well, as far as I I've I've listened through this whole hearing, and everyone's talking about, you know, the affordability
[01:48:40] ▶and the cost of living, and and and and that's what I'm talking about. So,
[01:48:45] ▶that's well, those are my points to use,
[01:48:48] ▶because it shows,
[01:48:51] ▶you know,
[01:48:53] ▶where
[01:48:54] ▶the city is at in regards to construction and just regards to development.
[01:49:00] ▶So, yeah, anyways, I would like to continue.
[01:49:05] ▶So, anyways,
[01:49:08] ▶we
[01:49:09] ▶need to stop giving these types of handouts to the developers
[01:49:12] ▶Speaker 0: who are doing nothing but putting more money into the pockets of the rich of the rich of the city, and we've all had it with the people. Caution you for the last time. We have to focus on the merits of the application for the public hearing. This is gonna be my last warning.
[01:49:27] ▶Speaker 18: Okay.
[01:49:31] ▶Speaker 17: Well,
[01:49:33] ▶what I'm saying is
[01:49:34] ▶don't build more business opportunities
[01:49:37] ▶for the rich while people are sleeping on the streets outside of those establishments.
[01:49:41] ▶I strongly urge the entire council to oppose this rezoning.
[01:49:45] ▶Start helping the workers in the low income households for the city first. We are not in a hotel crisis. We are in a housing crisis.
[01:49:53] ▶Hosting FIFA is clearly more important than all the crisis you were facing.
[01:49:58] ▶Vancouver is the city that I was born in, I grew up in. My family has been here for over a hundred and twenty years.
[01:50:06] ▶It's becoming a city that I can't even recognize from ten years ago, and I don't mean this by landmarks and new developments.
[01:50:13] ▶I mean in values and integrity
[01:50:15] ▶and in principles.
[01:50:17] ▶So
[01:50:18] ▶I urge everyone to oppose this rezoning.
[01:50:21] ▶I oppose this rezoning.
[01:50:23] ▶And just to be clear,
[01:50:25] ▶everything that I was going to state today
[01:50:28] ▶was directly
[01:50:29] ▶impacted to the hotel and the affordable
[01:50:32] ▶living industry,
[01:50:33] ▶and I don't feel very respected
[01:50:36] ▶that I've been interrupted three times. Thank you. Have a good night.
[01:50:40] ▶Speaker 0: Thanks for calling. Speaker 79,
[01:50:42] ▶Shailen
[01:50:43] ▶pardon me. That was Shailen Arnoud. Right? K.
[01:50:47] ▶Speaker 80,
[01:50:49] ▶Nereda
[01:50:50] ▶Abattara.
[01:50:54] ▶Speaker 1: Speaker 80 is not on the line. K. Speaker 81, Mike Biscar.
[01:51:00] ▶Speaker 81 is not on the line. Speaker 82, Roanna,
[01:51:04] ▶Speaker 0: Umali.
[01:51:08] ▶Hello? Hi. Is that Rowena?
[01:51:11] ▶Yes. Speaking. Please go ahead. You have five minutes.
[01:51:17] ▶Speaker 18: I need,
[01:51:18] ▶trans translator, please.
[01:51:20] ▶Yeah. I have, I have translator.
[01:51:23] ▶Speaker 19: K. I'll be her translator.
[01:51:24] ▶Speaker 0: Just before we,
[01:51:27] ▶jump into your speaking,
[01:51:29] ▶I just noting that as you have a translator,
[01:51:32] ▶you will, receive ten minutes in speaking time. So I'm just noting, the time,
[01:51:37] ▶here. It's almost coming up to 05:00.
[01:51:41] ▶I have a proposal,
[01:51:42] ▶but I want to hear, feedback from counselors.
[01:51:46] ▶My proposal would be to get through the speakers list. We only have five,
[01:51:51] ▶five no. Pardon me. Four speakers left,
[01:51:54] ▶on the list,
[01:51:56] ▶and then close the speakers list,
[01:51:58] ▶and receive a public comments, and then take a thirty minute dinner break and come back for a debate and decision.
[01:52:04] ▶So that's what I'm proposing. I would be,
[01:52:07] ▶interested to hear from any councilors who wanna move that, or if any councilors,
[01:52:11] ▶are opposed to that or have feedback or comments, please address that. Happy to move that. Sure. Thanks, councilor Frey.
[01:52:19] ▶Seconder?
[01:52:21] ▶Councilor Klassen. Councilor Maloney, I see you have, you're on the queue. So, open to you for your feedback and comments.
[01:52:27] ▶Speaker 15: I'm I'm just aware that as this is a public hearing, there's actually no guarantees that we only have four speakers left, and in fact, we'll be cycling back through the list. So
[01:52:39] ▶Speaker 0: we don't actually go back through the list in a public hearing, but people could still call in. So that is, yeah. Yeah.
[01:52:45] ▶Speaker 16: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Clerks are having a bit of feedback. Yeah.
[01:52:50] ▶Speaker 0: So just to reiterate,
[01:52:52] ▶we don't go back through the list, but people could still call in. So that is a question. Alright. Well, given that it is early and,
[01:53:03] ▶Yeah. Okay. I will vote in favor of that. Okay. Thank you for the feedback. Okay. So that motion's on the floor. All in favor say aye?
[01:53:11] ▶K. Anyone oppose say nay?
[01:53:13] ▶K. We're gonna, move forward with that plan.
[01:53:17] ▶So apologies for that interruption. It's just a procedural thing we had to deal with. So, Christina, you mentioned
[01:53:23] ▶you or we Rowena.
[01:53:25] ▶Correct? Are you on the line still?
[01:53:28] ▶Speaker 19: Yes. Yes. Okay. And and you're gonna be looking for a second. That the ten minutes will be starting right now? Sorry?
[01:53:34] ▶Will the ten minutes be starting right now?
[01:53:37] ▶Speaker 0: Yes. Just give me one second here to to confirm something with you. So you have a trans a translator. Correct?
[01:53:44] ▶Speaker 19: Yes. I have a translator, and and she's,
[01:53:47] ▶Speaker 0: yeah, she's beside me. Okay. So we'll start your, timer right now, and please go ahead.
[01:54:04] ▶Speaker 19: At Narito
[01:54:08] ▶888896
[01:54:11] ▶Cammie Street.
[01:55:07] ▶Good evening, mayor and council.
[01:55:09] ▶My name is Rowena. I work in Downtown Vancouver,
[01:55:13] ▶and I'm here tonight to oppose this proposal at 888896
[01:55:18] ▶Cammie Street.
[01:55:19] ▶I'm also a mother to a daughter with medical problems that requires ongoing care at BC Children's Hospital.
[01:55:25] ▶Sometimes we are there for several days at a time. I want to start by asking you to remember something very simple tonight.
[01:55:33] ▶The decision you make in this room
[01:55:35] ▶will affect real people's lives
[01:55:38] ▶far beyond these chambers.
[01:55:40] ▶For me, this is not an abstract planning discussion. It is not just about density numbers, hotel policy,
[01:55:48] ▶or zoning maps.
[01:55:50] ▶It's about time,
[01:55:52] ▶Time with my daughter. Time I don't get back.
[01:57:34] ▶I really wish this proposal at 888896
[01:57:38] ▶Candy Street had more affordable housing. I live in Maple Ridge because it is one of the only places my family can barely afford.
[01:57:46] ▶While I work is in Downtown Vancouver, and my daughter's medical care is here too.
[01:57:51] ▶So week after week, I spent hours commuting back and forth between home, work, and the BC Children's Hospital.
[01:57:59] ▶Hours in traffic,
[01:58:00] ▶hours in on transit,
[01:58:02] ▶hours exhausted and stressed and trying to hold everything together. And every hour I spend commuting is an hour I lose with my child who needs me.
[01:58:12] ▶When your child is sick,
[01:58:14] ▶time comes precious in a way that is hard to explain.
[01:58:18] ▶You start measuring life differently.
[01:58:20] ▶A quiet evening
[01:58:22] ▶together matters.
[01:58:23] ▶Reading a bedtime story matters.
[01:58:25] ▶Sitting beside them when they are scared matters.
[01:58:29] ▶But the city has become so unaffordable
[01:58:32] ▶that families like mine are being pushed further and further away from the places we actually
[01:58:38] ▶need to be. And then I look at proposals like this one, and honestly, it hurts
[01:58:43] ▶because the city keeps telling pea working people that affordability matters
[01:58:49] ▶while continuing to approve projects that do not do anything
[01:58:53] ▶to make life more affordable for us.
[01:58:55] ▶This proposal include includes 246
[01:58:59] ▶hotel rooms and 165
[01:59:01] ▶market rental units, but there is no there is no true affordable housing here.
[01:59:08] ▶No non market housing,
[01:59:09] ▶no deeply affordable home,
[01:59:12] ▶no housing for families like mine.
[01:59:25] ▶Speaker 18: At
[01:59:26] ▶market rental
[01:59:29] ▶Speaker 19: units.
[01:59:31] ▶Market housing
[01:59:53] ▶studio
[01:59:54] ▶2,300
[01:59:57] ▶one bedroom
[01:59:58] ▶2,600
[02:00:00] ▶two bedroom
[02:00:02] ▶$4,000.
[02:01:05] ▶And we all know what market rent means in Downtown Vancouver now.
[02:01:09] ▶It means rent so high that ordinary people are locked out before before they even get a chance.
[02:01:15] ▶Studios for over $2,300
[02:01:17] ▶a month, one bedrooms for over 2,600,
[02:01:21] ▶two bedrooms
[02:01:22] ▶approaching 4,000.
[02:01:24] ▶That is not affordability.
[02:01:26] ▶That is survival for the wealthy.
[02:01:29] ▶Who exactly is the city being built for anymore?
[02:01:33] ▶Because
[02:01:34] ▶it does not feel like it's being built for working parents.
[02:01:37] ▶It does not feel like it is being built for families caring for sick children.
[02:01:42] ▶It does not feel like it's being built for people who clean offices, serve food,
[02:01:46] ▶stock shelves,
[02:01:48] ▶answer calls,
[02:01:49] ▶care for seniors, or keep hospitals running.
[02:01:52] ▶It seems like every decision is being made for developers
[02:01:56] ▶first and ordinary people second.
[02:01:59] ▶And every time council approves another project like this,
[02:02:03] ▶you are making a choice.
[02:02:06] ▶You are choosing what kind of city Vancouver will become.
[02:02:10] ▶You are
[02:02:11] ▶choosing whether working families
[02:02:13] ▶still belong here.
[02:03:54] ▶You are treating whether children growing up with health challenges get to live quote to the care.
[02:04:00] ▶Speaker 0: Apologies for the interruption, but, we are at the the ten minute mark. So we'll we'll need to leave it there.
[02:04:05] ▶Speaker 19: Thanks for calling. Can I finish this last import really important
[02:04:09] ▶Speaker 0: line that Rowena wanted to reiterate? We have to be fair to all of our speakers,
[02:04:14] ▶and, we did allocate you, ten minutes, so we'll have to go the next speaker.
[02:04:18] ▶Thanks.
[02:04:19] ▶Speaker 19: Okay. Thank you. Bye bye. You. Thanks for calling.
[02:04:22] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker 83, Christina Benzi.
[02:04:26] ▶Speaker 27: Yes.
[02:04:26] ▶Speaker 0: Hi, Christina. Please go ahead.
[02:04:30] ▶Speaker 22: Good evening to mayor and council.
[02:04:33] ▶My name is Christina.
[02:04:34] ▶I'm here to oppose this proposal at 888 Camby Street.
[02:04:40] ▶So I work in Vancouver.
[02:04:42] ▶I, split my time between downtown,
[02:04:44] ▶and then I also work at the airport.
[02:04:47] ▶Like many working people in this region,
[02:04:49] ▶my days are built around commuting because living anywhere near my work is just completely
[02:04:55] ▶out of reach financially.
[02:04:57] ▶So every day, I spend hours traveling back and forth just to make it to work and home again,
[02:05:04] ▶and I'm far from alone.
[02:05:06] ▶Many of my coworkers have been pushed further and further away from Vancouver
[02:05:10] ▶because of housing costs.
[02:05:12] ▶People are commuting in every day from Surrey,
[02:05:15] ▶Langley,
[02:05:17] ▶Coquitlam,
[02:05:18] ▶Maple Ridge, and even further.
[02:05:20] ▶So we're spending hundreds of dollars every month on gas,
[02:05:24] ▶parking,
[02:05:25] ▶car maintenance.
[02:05:26] ▶And I know some of my coworkers are waking up before sunrise just to make it to work on time because they can't afford to live in the city where they're working and they're supporting the business industry there here.
[02:05:38] ▶The frustrating thing is it does not have to be this way. You know, as a city, we keep talking about affordability.
[02:05:44] ▶But then when projects like this come forward, affordable housing somehow disappears
[02:05:49] ▶from the conversation.
[02:05:50] ▶So I saw that this proposal includes,
[02:05:53] ▶like, 246
[02:05:54] ▶hotel rooms and a 165
[02:05:57] ▶market rental units,
[02:05:59] ▶but no affordable housing.
[02:06:01] ▶And with the housing crisis that we're in, I gotta ask, how can it be possible that the council will approve any redevelopment
[02:06:08] ▶that includes rental housing, but not any affordable units for working people to afford to live in and raise their families?
[02:06:15] ▶There's no nonmarket housing, no below market housing, in this proposal,
[02:06:20] ▶and nothing that would allow actual working class people to live close to where they work in the city where they work.
[02:06:26] ▶And after all, we all know what, you know, market rent means in Downtown Vancouver now.
[02:06:31] ▶Studios renting for over 2,300 a month,
[02:06:34] ▶two bedrooms nearing $3,000,
[02:06:37] ▶which isn't affordable for any ordinary worker.
[02:06:40] ▶The people who keep this city functioning every single day are being forced out.
[02:06:45] ▶And every time council approves another luxury project like this, you're shaping the future of this city.
[02:06:52] ▶Every single redevelopment proposal, that's a block of land that is not going to be affordable housing anytime in the next, you know, a hundred years. So it's a lost opportunity,
[02:07:03] ▶and basically a present that you're giving to developers who are making so much money off of these proposals.
[02:07:08] ▶You know, council has already approved thousands of hotel rooms across the city with thousands more still planned. Meanwhile, workers are commuting
[02:07:16] ▶two to three hours a day.
[02:07:18] ▶We cannot live in hotel rooms. We need affordable housing or else people are just gonna getting gonna keep being pushed to the margins.
[02:07:26] ▶And that should be setting alarm bells off for everybody in this room.
[02:07:30] ▶This proposal also gives the developer a massive density increase,
[02:07:34] ▶from five point zero to 19.5
[02:07:37] ▶s f SSR,
[02:07:39] ▶while offering very little meaningful public benefit in return.
[02:07:43] ▶I saw that the community amenity contribution is only around, you know, 1,380,000,
[02:07:49] ▶which, you know, on the scale of projects like this, is not much. It doesn't go very far to actually building things this community needs.
[02:07:56] ▶And at the same time, huge portions of the hotel are being excluded from the calculations used to determine those contributions, which to me makes no sense. So the public gives away enormous land value, but the city receives less funding for affordable housing, childcare, parks,
[02:08:12] ▶libraries, and community spaces. This is not a fair deal for any Vancouver resident.
[02:08:18] ▶And, honestly, I think people are tired of hearing that we just need to keep approving luxury development and affordability will just somehow
[02:08:25] ▶appear. We've been hearing that for years, but affordability in the city has only gotten worse.
[02:08:31] ▶And the reality is simple. When affordable housing is not required,
[02:08:35] ▶developers will build what makes them the most money.
[02:08:38] ▶And right now is the time when you as a council has the most leverage to actually demand meaningful affordability,
[02:08:45] ▶and you're letting it,
[02:08:46] ▶pass you by without actually getting anything,
[02:08:49] ▶or very much of anything from this developer.
[02:08:53] ▶So, you know, instead, we're gonna be getting another project that does not meaningfully address the affordability crisis at all.
[02:08:59] ▶Another thing as well is I'm concerned about the heritage implications of this project.
[02:09:04] ▶Even the city's own staff
[02:09:06] ▶report, says demolition or reconstruction of heritage buildings
[02:09:10] ▶during rezoning is usually, not supportable.
[02:09:14] ▶So, you know, once again, exceptions are being made because hotel development has become the priority.
[02:09:20] ▶When are working people gonna be your priority? When is affordable housing going to be your priority?
[02:09:25] ▶It seems like whenever
[02:09:26] ▶something concerning the working class or affordable housing is, you know, before you speaker, everyone's really considerate about We we are at time. We are at time.
[02:09:36] ▶Speaker 0: Thanks for calling to speak to council.
[02:09:39] ▶Speaker number 84, Anika Anderson.
[02:09:51] ▶Hello? Hi. Is that Anika?
[02:09:54] ▶Yes. Hi. Can you hear me? Hi. Yes. Anika, I just need to ask for procedural reasons,
[02:09:59] ▶if you're a resident of Vancouver.
[02:10:02] ▶Speaker 31: I am not. I work in Vancouver. Okay. Thanks. Please go ahead.
[02:10:08] ▶Hi.
[02:10:09] ▶I am in opposition
[02:10:10] ▶to, this proposal.
[02:10:13] ▶I am a paramedic who works in Vancouver and cannot afford to live in Vancouver because of the lack of affordable housing and the obscene
[02:10:22] ▶high price of market rentals in Vancouver.
[02:10:26] ▶This city council proceeds to cancel projects like SROs, like take injection sites close to Saint Paul's Hospital, yet will allow luxury hotel to be built in an unaffordable city with the endangering
[02:10:40] ▶large amount of overdose crisis of,
[02:10:43] ▶an endangered homeless population
[02:10:45] ▶and people being pushed out further from the city.
[02:10:48] ▶They're my coworkers who have worked in Vancouver for decades who are leaving to go to places like Hope, to go to the Sunshine Coast, to buy farms up north in cities that can support them because this city is not supporting first responders, not supporting the people that actually decide to work
[02:11:06] ▶and live in the city.
[02:11:08] ▶If we could afford it, people would be living here, but we are being forced further and further away from the city and not being able to live in the city itself.
[02:11:18] ▶I have saved countless lives. I worked in heat dome, the opioid crisis, and COVID nineteen, and still I cannot afford to live in Vancouver
[02:11:26] ▶or sustain myself in Vancouver.
[02:11:30] ▶Proposing things like this luxury hotel without trying to compensate the city, the populace,
[02:11:36] ▶is
[02:11:37] ▶insurmountably
[02:11:39] ▶negligent.
[02:11:40] ▶It is,
[02:11:41] ▶causing people to be pushed out. It's causing people to be left on the streets.
[02:11:47] ▶It is not allowing the city to be built up how it needs to be.
[02:11:51] ▶You are not
[02:11:52] ▶asking for any compensation from these developers to push for SROs, to push for more safe injection site, to push for anything that would actually support the city and support your community.
[02:12:04] ▶We find ourselves being pushed out more and more, and it's just not acceptable to be
[02:12:10] ▶Speaker 30: That's all I have.
[02:12:12] ▶Speaker 0: K. Thanks.
[02:12:13] ▶Speaker 85, Robert Demand.
[02:12:25] ▶Speaker 2: Shine.
[02:12:27] ▶I wanna speak in opposition to this project at Cambian Smythe.
[02:12:33] ▶I'm joining a long list of people that have cited
[02:12:37] ▶the lack of affordability
[02:12:38] ▶in this particular project.
[02:12:44] ▶The Cambie project fails
[02:12:47] ▶to be able to address the needs of
[02:12:49] ▶average working families
[02:12:51] ▶here in Vancouver.
[02:12:53] ▶I was gonna speak particularly to
[02:12:56] ▶the tens of thousands of service workers that are here in the city.
[02:13:00] ▶But my comments are
[02:13:02] ▶applicable to my friends who are
[02:13:06] ▶working in health care.
[02:13:09] ▶Really appreciated hearing from our brother from the paramedics.
[02:13:14] ▶City and public service workers
[02:13:16] ▶share these kinds of concerns.
[02:13:19] ▶And overwhelmingly
[02:13:21] ▶for from anyone
[02:13:24] ▶I'm I'm a 60
[02:13:25] ▶year old man,
[02:13:27] ▶but when I talk to my coworkers who were in their twenties and thirties,
[02:13:32] ▶they're being pushed out of the city, and I have real concerns about what that's gonna do to the larger community.
[02:13:38] ▶Mhmm. When it comes to
[02:13:40] ▶the tens of thousands of service workers in Vancouver,
[02:13:44] ▶most earn an average income of about 60 to $65,000
[02:13:48] ▶a year.
[02:13:49] ▶And
[02:13:50] ▶for the lucky few, they can do that with one job. For most, they are working multiple jobs to achieve that.
[02:13:57] ▶This project talks about having a 165
[02:14:00] ▶to a 180 market rent
[02:14:07] ▶a 165
[02:14:09] ▶to a 180 units of
[02:14:12] ▶rentals
[02:14:15] ▶at market rate. And with that, it's certainly not affordable,
[02:14:20] ▶for people here in the city. When we look at the city's own report and they talk about average market rentals,
[02:14:28] ▶a two bedroom at close to $4,000
[02:14:31] ▶a month,
[02:14:33] ▶it talks about needing a down payment
[02:14:35] ▶of a $152,000
[02:14:38] ▶on average.
[02:14:39] ▶So we just start to think about that. It absolutely
[02:14:43] ▶prices out
[02:14:44] ▶service workers,
[02:14:46] ▶most of the public sector.
[02:14:48] ▶People are not able to stay and
[02:14:51] ▶work in the community
[02:14:53] ▶live in the community where they work.
[02:14:56] ▶When we start to look at
[02:14:58] ▶that $60,000
[02:15:00] ▶a year for an average
[02:15:03] ▶service worker,
[02:15:05] ▶their families are gonna be pushed out of the city.
[02:15:12] ▶In order for them to be able to afford to live here,
[02:15:16] ▶the kinds of wages we'd end up talking about I know the developer,
[02:15:21] ▶when asked about affordability
[02:15:23] ▶and how that related to
[02:15:25] ▶opening up a hotel of 240
[02:15:27] ▶rooms, he said, well, that's gonna have to be linked with wages and our compensation.
[02:15:31] ▶But if you start to look at,
[02:15:33] ▶you know, a one bedroom
[02:15:36] ▶with a a down payment of a $106,000
[02:15:40] ▶a year, it's gonna cost
[02:15:43] ▶a worker would need to be making $53
[02:15:45] ▶an hour.
[02:15:47] ▶That's what it would take for a hotel worker to be able to
[02:15:50] ▶work at that project and to think about
[02:15:53] ▶being able to live in that particular building,
[02:15:57] ▶which we think should be
[02:15:59] ▶common sense.
[02:16:02] ▶If they wanted to be in a two bedroom at a $152,000
[02:16:07] ▶for a down payment, they need to earn $76
[02:16:10] ▶an hour.
[02:16:13] ▶I don't believe that in 2028,
[02:16:16] ▶when they break ground and when they open up
[02:16:19] ▶the hotel after that, that they're gonna be paying 53 to $76
[02:16:23] ▶an hour. Something is just wrong here with the whole equation.
[02:16:28] ▶What we need are
[02:16:30] ▶nonmarket and below market
[02:16:34] ▶rentals that are available to
[02:16:37] ▶the service and public sector workers that make Vancouver run,
[02:16:42] ▶that bring the diversity and the character that we see in current neighborhoods.
[02:16:47] ▶But without
[02:16:49] ▶really affordable housing,
[02:16:52] ▶we are gonna push more and more people out.
[02:16:56] ▶As a father, my concern is
[02:16:58] ▶I don't believe that my son is gonna be able to live in the city that he was born in. I know many people have spoken to the today about that exact experience,
[02:17:09] ▶and that's not acceptable.
[02:17:11] ▶I want my son to be able to enjoy all the things that are great about Vancouver,
[02:17:17] ▶but he could never get into
[02:17:19] ▶any kind of affordable housing
[02:17:22] ▶if we're pushing for projects like this one in Cambium SMITE.
[02:17:26] ▶It just doesn't
[02:17:28] ▶make the grade. It doesn't provide for affordable housing, and it's desperately need year over time. So, appreciate you calling in and for your comments. Mhmm.
[02:17:39] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker number 86,
[02:17:41] ▶Aaron
[02:17:45] ▶Ollie. Speaker 86 has withdrawn. K. Thank you.
[02:17:49] ▶That is the end of our speakers list. If there's any additional speakers in the chamber, please come forward to the podium.
[02:17:59] ▶Not seeing anyone coming forward.
[02:18:01] ▶Clerk, are there any additional speakers on the line?
[02:18:04] ▶Speaker 1: Chair, we do have additional speakers on the line,
[02:18:08] ▶starting with registered speaker number seven.
[02:18:11] ▶Speaker 0: Okay. We can go to
[02:18:13] ▶go to them now.
[02:18:17] ▶Registered speaker seven is
[02:18:20] ▶Shaoli Tang.
[02:18:22] ▶Are they on the line? Hello?
[02:18:24] ▶Speaker 10: Hi. Hello?
[02:18:26] ▶Speaker 32: Hi there. Yes. This is, Ali Tang speaking.
[02:18:29] ▶Speaker 0: Please, go ahead. You have up to five minutes.
[02:18:33] ▶Speaker 32: Okay. Good evening, mayor and the council. My name is Charli Tang, and I'm here tonight to oppose this, proposal at,
[02:18:42] ▶Canby Street.
[02:18:44] ▶I work as a housekeeper at Hyatt Alberni downtown Vancouver
[02:18:49] ▶as a a housekeeper room attendant.
[02:18:52] ▶I worked very hard, and,
[02:18:56] ▶every day after I my work, I I got many pain, like,
[02:19:02] ▶exhausted.
[02:19:03] ▶And, I I hear many people talk, speakers talk in front of me. They said the didn't even cost. It's very expensive. So
[02:19:11] ▶the same same to me. I spend
[02:19:14] ▶a a lot of money rent a place.
[02:19:17] ▶I cannot afford in downtown. I have to,
[02:19:20] ▶live in Burnaby
[02:19:22] ▶and, travel, like,
[02:19:26] ▶yeah, like, commuting,
[02:19:28] ▶like,
[02:19:29] ▶hours and hours.
[02:19:33] ▶Speaker 22: So,
[02:19:34] ▶Speaker 32: today, I think I think,
[02:19:38] ▶lots of people already talking about the reason why we oppose, so I'm not going to repeat about that.
[02:19:44] ▶So,
[02:19:45] ▶I'm asking council,
[02:19:47] ▶to think about this.
[02:19:49] ▶It's really, it's really, like,
[02:19:52] ▶going to build for this
[02:19:54] ▶project.
[02:19:56] ▶Because this this proposal will, help developers, not for our,
[02:20:02] ▶our,
[02:20:03] ▶workers like me, like,
[02:20:06] ▶like a cooker, like, maybe, like,
[02:20:08] ▶laundry people or, like, kind of, like, a wait waitress or people like us.
[02:20:14] ▶So maybe it's only good for the for the builder and the investment people.
[02:20:19] ▶So that's why I'm asking council to think about that.
[02:20:23] ▶Thank you for that. That's all.
[02:20:25] ▶Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you for calling.
[02:20:28] ▶Speaker,
[02:20:30] ▶I understand, on the line is, speaker 29,
[02:20:33] ▶Wilma
[02:20:34] ▶Ayog.
[02:20:38] ▶Speaker 18: Hi.
[02:20:38] ▶Hi. Good evening, council. My name is Wilma, and I live in Burnaby and work as a room attendant in Vancouver.
[02:20:46] ▶Like many hotel workers, I live outside the city because housing cost in Vancouver are completely out of reach for hospitality wages.
[02:20:56] ▶Downtown rents are now averaging
[02:20:58] ▶around $2,300
[02:21:00] ▶for a tiny three sixty nine square foot studio apartment,
[02:21:04] ▶$26.50
[02:21:05] ▶100 for a one bedroom, and nearly 3,800
[02:21:08] ▶for a two bedroom apartment.
[02:21:10] ▶Those numbers are impossible for ordinary hotel workers,
[02:21:15] ▶Speaker 27: and that is why this proposal is a problem.
[02:21:18] ▶Speaker 18: Council is being asked to prove
[02:21:20] ▶another
[02:21:21] ▶to approve another hotel development and another set of market rental units
[02:21:26] ▶during one of the worst afford affordability
[02:21:29] ▶arise crisis Vancouver has ever experienced.
[02:21:33] ▶But these market rentals are not affordable for workers like me. They are not affordable for the people already cleaning rooms, checking in guests, cooking meals, or maintaining hotels across the city.
[02:21:47] ▶I think council needs to ask it itself a serious question tonight.
[02:21:52] ▶Who exactly is Vancouver being built for?
[02:21:55] ▶Because from where many workers stand, it feels like this city is increasingly being designed for the wealthy,
[02:22:02] ▶while working people are expected to simply accept longer commutes and declining quality of life.
[02:22:09] ▶At work, people are exhausted from commuting hours every day because they cannot afford rent nearby.
[02:22:15] ▶Walkers are cutting back on groceries and other essentials
[02:22:19] ▶just to survive.
[02:22:21] ▶Some are considering leaving Metro Vancouver altogether.
[02:22:25] ▶And, honestly, I I don't blame them.
[02:22:28] ▶The issue facing the city is not a hotel shortage.
[02:22:32] ▶The issue is affordability.
[02:22:34] ▶What expand the hotel industry
[02:22:37] ▶why expand the hotel industry
[02:22:39] ▶while the workers expected to support the industry cannot afford to live anywhere close to their jobs?
[02:22:46] ▶Hotels do not operate on their own.
[02:22:48] ▶Tourism depends on worker.
[02:22:51] ▶Without front desk staffs,
[02:22:53] ▶cleaners,
[02:22:53] ▶kitchen workers, maintenance staffs, and servers,
[02:22:57] ▶the hotel industry simply does not function.
[02:23:00] ▶But workers are
[02:23:01] ▶increasingly being pushed farther away
[02:23:04] ▶because wages are nowhere close to matching housing costs.
[02:23:08] ▶I believe council should be prioritizing
[02:23:11] ▶genuinely affordable house housing instead of continuing
[02:23:14] ▶to approve developments that mainly benefit developers
[02:23:18] ▶while workers
[02:23:20] ▶continue struggling to survive.
[02:23:22] ▶Because the people affected
[02:23:24] ▶by these decisions are the workers helping keep Vancouver running every day.
[02:23:29] ▶We matter too. Please reject this proposal and focus instead on creating housing that ordinary working people can actually afford.
[02:23:38] ▶Thank you for your
[02:23:39] ▶Speaker 0: time. Hey. Thanks for speaking to council.
[02:23:42] ▶The next speaker that's on the line is, speaker
[02:23:46] ▶51,
[02:23:48] ▶Preet Sangha.
[02:23:50] ▶Speaker 21: Oh, sorry. Golzar Greywall. Pardon pardon me. Yeah. Hi. Golzar. I'm here. Golzar. Yeah. Hi. This is Golzar Greywall, and, I'm living in Surrey and working in Vancouver.
[02:24:03] ▶I just came from India. Like,
[02:24:06] ▶I want like, I thought that Vancouver is a beautiful city. I'm going to live here
[02:24:11] ▶and, grow up my family.
[02:24:14] ▶And but the Vancouver is now going,
[02:24:17] ▶like, can nobody can afford it. Because my son, he has computer science degree, and he living with me. He move want to move from
[02:24:27] ▶two years,
[02:24:28] ▶and he's looking for the bachelor's suite is 2,500.
[02:24:33] ▶He cannot afford it while he's making good money, but still, it's went over is expensive.
[02:24:40] ▶People cannot afford it. And mostly, he's, like, people 30,
[02:24:47] ▶early thirties,
[02:24:48] ▶they want to move from they want to be,
[02:24:52] ▶moved from their parents and want,
[02:24:55] ▶a a live own, but they can't.
[02:24:58] ▶They like, before, they said I just think, like, right there, 30 before the people get is living with the parents, only 13%,
[02:25:08] ▶but now go up,
[02:25:10] ▶these days, 33%.
[02:25:12] ▶We need to
[02:25:15] ▶like, if the
[02:25:16] ▶is, like, so expensive, like, people are just, like, struggling here.
[02:25:23] ▶They cannot afford it. We need to be make people living here
[02:25:28] ▶and, they because
[02:25:30] ▶these days, grocery
[02:25:32] ▶gas
[02:25:33] ▶and,
[02:25:34] ▶bills, hydro bills, everything going so
[02:25:38] ▶up up, and,
[02:25:40] ▶it's hard to live in Vancouver.
[02:25:43] ▶I just
[02:25:45] ▶that's why I paused this,
[02:25:48] ▶project. I know one to like, the people can live poor poor lives. They can
[02:25:55] ▶the working people who is working in Vancouver,
[02:25:57] ▶they can live in Vancouver. They cannot,
[02:26:00] ▶go far away. Like my friend, she working in JW,
[02:26:04] ▶but she moved now, Langley,
[02:26:07] ▶because she cannot afford clothes to here. And she drive every day two, four hours and come to work.
[02:26:14] ▶That's getting, like, worse and worse,
[02:26:16] ▶people.
[02:26:18] ▶We need to be people who want to, like, close to work. They can live close to work here.
[02:26:25] ▶And Vancouver went they all that project,
[02:26:28] ▶they're making for the for their people working people.
[02:26:33] ▶They can live here close to work. They cannot they can spend their time with the families
[02:26:38] ▶because they are going to, like,
[02:26:41] ▶I I want to Vancouver. I four hours, like, going here and there and eight hours work, and you have twelve hours odd. What time for your family?
[02:26:50] ▶There's nothing for the family.
[02:26:53] ▶Like, for the young young generation,
[02:26:55] ▶we need to rethink about that, not for the business people we make rich, and, we give away everything to them. We think about our
[02:27:06] ▶coming generation, future generation,
[02:27:08] ▶and give them, like, they can live
[02:27:12] ▶nicely and
[02:27:14] ▶easy life, and they can have,
[02:27:17] ▶for the future for their kids too because they they are so frustrated.
[02:27:22] ▶They cannot think about their, like, they got married, or they can grow their family.
[02:27:28] ▶That's why I call this this, project. I don't want, like, the
[02:27:33] ▶these concert.
[02:27:34] ▶Think about that for the future of the people, not future of the like, some few people.
[02:27:40] ▶Give away all that because they reach people, and they become more rich. Thank you.
[02:27:46] ▶Speaker 0: K. Thanks for calling.
[02:27:48] ▶Now we'll go, to speaker 52,
[02:27:50] ▶Preet Sangha.
[02:27:57] ▶Speaker 27: Hello?
[02:27:58] ▶Speaker 0: Hi. Is that Preet?
[02:28:01] ▶Yes. Okay. Please go ahead. You have five minutes.
[02:28:05] ▶Speaker 8: I'm gonna be the translator for the Preet.
[02:28:09] ▶Speaker 0: Okay.
[02:28:10] ▶And I understand from the clerks that you will be allocated ten minutes,
[02:28:14] ▶for the translator.
[02:28:16] ▶Yep. Thank you. Yep. So please go ahead. Good evening.
[02:28:20] ▶Speaker 19: Good evening, mayor and council new.
[02:28:27] ▶The project at
[02:28:29] ▶888896
[02:28:31] ▶Cambie.
[02:28:32] ▶Vancouver.
[02:28:37] ▶School actually Cambie and,
[02:28:39] ▶Broadway
[02:28:45] ▶when,
[02:28:47] ▶Vancouver.
[02:28:51] ▶City
[02:28:52] ▶city
[02:28:57] ▶which Reina afford
[02:29:26] ▶family, friends,
[02:29:44] ▶Half an hour each way.
[02:29:52] ▶Traffic
[02:30:43] ▶Speaker 33: market
[02:30:45] ▶rent
[02:30:47] ▶Speaker 27: unit
[02:30:50] ▶Speaker 32: normal market
[02:31:12] ▶Speaker 21: the gas
[02:31:16] ▶Speaker 33: daily
[02:31:17] ▶gas
[02:31:18] ▶forecast
[02:31:20] ▶savings savings
[02:31:35] ▶Speaker 19: family because
[02:31:37] ▶bedroom bedroom, the, the condo
[02:31:41] ▶Speaker 33: family broke
[02:32:10] ▶Speaker 19: 888896
[02:32:11] ▶can be
[02:32:15] ▶there. Story building
[02:32:17] ▶246
[02:32:19] ▶hotel room,
[02:32:21] ▶Speaker 33: 165
[02:32:22] ▶market rental
[02:32:24] ▶unit
[02:32:26] ▶Speaker 19: of
[02:32:27] ▶And there is not
[02:32:30] ▶unit
[02:32:41] ▶affordable
[02:32:42] ▶housing land
[02:32:47] ▶heritage building
[02:32:50] ▶Speaker 32: community
[02:32:52] ▶Speaker 19: both important part.
[02:32:59] ▶Public value
[02:33:00] ▶to see a developer
[02:33:03] ▶multiple million dollar
[02:33:07] ▶Speaker 33: 1,380,000
[02:33:09] ▶community community community contribution
[02:33:15] ▶Speaker 26: unit.
[02:33:20] ▶Speaker 19: I joined at the American Council in number,
[02:33:24] ▶$380,000
[02:33:27] ▶to the exchange gathering on 29 Story
[02:33:30] ▶tower,
[02:33:31] ▶public land value there.
[02:33:33] ▶Affordable
[02:33:38] ▶Speaker 9: housing
[02:34:28] ▶Speaker 33: 246
[02:34:29] ▶hotel rooms soft
[02:35:07] ▶Speaker 18: proposal
[02:35:10] ▶Speaker 19: with zero affordable housing.
[02:35:12] ▶Speaker 33: Decision
[02:35:15] ▶Speaker 9: Vancouver.
[02:35:20] ▶Speaker 19: Immigrant
[02:35:48] ▶Speaker 32: housing
[02:36:03] ▶Speaker 33: supply
[02:36:05] ▶Speaker 18: hotel room
[02:36:08] ▶Speaker 22: traffic which
[02:36:13] ▶Speaker 32: hotel room towards Delhi priority
[02:36:18] ▶Speaker 33: housing luxury
[02:36:24] ▶Speaker 19: rental
[02:36:26] ▶I apologize.
[02:36:29] ▶Speaker 0: Speaker, just,
[02:36:31] ▶I I just wanna confirm that this is a bilingual.
[02:36:35] ▶You you're planning to speak in English as well. I hadn't,
[02:36:38] ▶heard any English for quite a little while here.
[02:36:43] ▶Okay. Okay. I will translate her part into the English. I I just wanted to know how much time do we have. You have a total of ten minutes, but that's because you are using a translator. So that's just why I'm interjecting to ensure that, the the comments are in both languages.
[02:36:56] ▶You have a minute and a half left.
[02:36:59] ▶Speaker 8: Okay. Sure. So,
[02:37:01] ▶I'm just gonna transfer to what she's saying.
[02:37:04] ▶Good evening, mayor and councilor. My name is Preet. I am here today to say I strongly oppose the proposal at 888896
[02:37:13] ▶Cambly. I was raised in Vancouver.
[02:37:16] ▶I want, I went to elementary school near Cambie and Broadway.
[02:37:20] ▶I got my first job downtown at
[02:37:23] ▶when I was 16 years of age. Vancouver isn't just where I work. It's where I am from. But right now, I cannot afford to live in city that raised me. I remember
[02:37:34] ▶when I I was young, my parents had to leave the city, leave their friends and family because things were getting so expensive, and we could not purchase a whole house for our growing family.
[02:37:47] ▶Nothing
[02:37:48] ▶had changed.
[02:37:49] ▶For the past several years, I have been committing three hours a day to get to the job here in Downtown Vancouver,
[02:37:57] ▶an hour and a half each way. I have lost thousands of hours to traffic.
[02:38:03] ▶That's time
[02:38:05] ▶I don't get back with my family.
[02:38:08] ▶Time I cannot use to go back to school or volunteer or even thus
[02:38:13] ▶decompress after the shift. And I do it because I have no choice.
[02:38:18] ▶I have been searching for affordable housing in Vancouver for years now.
[02:38:23] ▶I'm on every weekly Sorry to interrupt. Qualify a speaker.
[02:38:27] ▶Speaker 0: I appreciate, the English translation,
[02:38:30] ▶but, we are at time. So thank you for calling in, this afternoon. Okay. Okay. Thank you. K. Have a good night.
[02:38:37] ▶Speaker 56,
[02:38:40] ▶I understand is on the line. Adeep Tandy.
[02:38:49] ▶Speaker 18: Hello?
[02:38:50] ▶Speaker 0: Hi. Is that Patte?
[02:38:52] ▶Speaker 18: Yes.
[02:38:53] ▶Speaker 0: Hi. So you have, up to five minutes. Please go ahead.
[02:38:57] ▶Speaker 33: Okay. Can I speak Punjabi?
[02:39:02] ▶Speaker 19: Hello?
[02:39:03] ▶Speaker 0: Just a moment while I confer with the clerk's,
[02:39:06] ▶speaker. Just a moment.
[02:39:19] ▶Hi there.
[02:39:20] ▶Do you have a separate translator,
[02:39:22] ▶with you currently?
[02:39:26] ▶Speaker 27: No.
[02:39:26] ▶Speaker 0: Okay. So you are able to speak in either English or Punjabi for up to five minutes.
[02:39:33] ▶If you had a translator with you, then you could speak for ten. But since you you don't, feel free to speak in whatever language you prefer for up to five minutes.
[02:40:46] ▶Speaker 21: Teacher.
[02:44:45] ▶Speaker 0: Sorry, speaker.
[02:44:46] ▶Sorry for the interruption. We are at time. Thank you for, speaking to counsel.
[02:44:51] ▶Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 59,
[02:44:56] ▶Kiranjit
[02:44:57] ▶Dillon.
[02:45:02] ▶Do we have Kiranjit on the line?
[02:45:07] ▶Speaker 9: Yes. Can you hear me? Yes. We can.
[02:45:11] ▶Yeah.
[02:45:12] ▶My name is Karen,
[02:45:14] ▶and
[02:45:15] ▶I am working in the restaurant at Edison Blue Hotel
[02:45:19] ▶for twenty six years.
[02:45:21] ▶And I live in Surrey,
[02:45:23] ▶and I take more than one hour to go to work and one hour to come back home.
[02:45:29] ▶I want to live in Vancouver,
[02:45:32] ▶so I can take only fifteen, twenty minutes to go to work,
[02:45:36] ▶but I can't. I cannot afford it because it's really, really expensive.
[02:45:41] ▶Middle class cannot afford Vancouver anymore
[02:45:44] ▶because the rent is so high,
[02:45:46] ▶grocery and everything is going up and up every day.
[02:45:51] ▶So many people
[02:45:53] ▶leaving Vancouver
[02:45:55] ▶and going somewhere else. They are moving somewhere else because of
[02:46:00] ▶that sensitivity.
[02:46:02] ▶So I am totally a gauge of this project.
[02:46:06] ▶So
[02:46:07] ▶when we go grocery shopping, the people in Vancouver and everywhere,
[02:46:12] ▶and they check.
[02:46:13] ▶They buy the lower quality food.
[02:46:16] ▶The cheaper, the same thing. They're looking for these things. And the in the back of years, we went over. We do not do that. But the city needs to be affordable
[02:46:30] ▶for middle class too. Should not be for the rich people.
[02:46:35] ▶And I am told this
[02:46:38] ▶project should not be found.
[02:46:41] ▶Everybody
[02:46:42] ▶is against
[02:46:43] ▶of this project.
[02:46:44] ▶For the middle class
[02:46:46] ▶has not any,
[02:46:47] ▶like, a
[02:46:49] ▶in this thing.
[02:46:51] ▶So do something
[02:46:52] ▶for the taxpayers,
[02:46:55] ▶the middle class people, that is in Vancouver.
[02:46:59] ▶Not everything for the tourists, for the rich people.
[02:47:03] ▶So, please,
[02:47:06] ▶according to me,
[02:47:07] ▶this project should not be passed.
[02:47:10] ▶Thank you.
[02:47:12] ▶Speaker 0: Hey. Thank you for calling. 66.
[02:47:15] ▶We'll now go to speakers,
[02:47:17] ▶64,
[02:47:18] ▶Lee Lian Sheng Lin.
[02:47:28] ▶Do we have that speaker on the line?
[02:47:31] ▶Hello. Hi. Is this Leon? Hear me?
[02:47:33] ▶Yeah. Leon. Hi. Please go ahead.
[02:47:37] ▶Speaker 8: Yeah. So I'm speaking tonight as hospitality worker and the union work union member who represent workers
[02:47:45] ▶struggling to serve in this city.
[02:47:48] ▶I'm here to oppose this proposal
[02:47:50] ▶because
[02:47:51] ▶I think it represent a broader failure
[02:47:55] ▶in how
[02:47:56] ▶we are approaching development and affordability in Vancouver.
[02:48:00] ▶Workers are being asked to accept
[02:48:03] ▶more and more
[02:48:04] ▶sacrifice while developers continue receiving
[02:48:08] ▶enormous benefits
[02:48:10] ▶from rezoning and rising
[02:48:13] ▶land values,
[02:48:15] ▶and people are reaching a breaking point.
[02:48:18] ▶I talk to workers every day
[02:48:21] ▶across the hospitality
[02:48:23] ▶industry.
[02:48:24] ▶Housekeepers,
[02:48:25] ▶kitchen staff,
[02:48:27] ▶front desk workers,
[02:48:29] ▶maintenance workers,
[02:48:30] ▶servers,
[02:48:31] ▶security staff.
[02:48:34] ▶These are people working full time jobs in one of the wealthiest city in North America, and yet
[02:48:41] ▶many of them
[02:48:42] ▶cannot afford
[02:48:43] ▶basically
[02:48:45] ▶basic stability.
[02:48:47] ▶Many workers
[02:48:48] ▶are living paycheck to paycheck
[02:48:50] ▶despite working constantly.
[02:48:53] ▶Some are sharing crowded houses with multiple families
[02:48:57] ▶under one roof because
[02:48:59] ▶rent has become impossible.
[02:49:02] ▶Others are commuting
[02:49:03] ▶several hours a day because they have been pushed out of the vanquor entirely,
[02:49:09] ▶and the situation keeps getting worse.
[02:49:12] ▶Workers are not seeing the benefit of all the development.
[02:49:16] ▶They are
[02:49:17] ▶seeing higher rents, longer commutes,
[02:49:20] ▶more financial stress, and less security
[02:49:24] ▶about the future.
[02:49:25] ▶This is why proposals like this are so frustrating.
[02:49:30] ▶Another luxury hotels, another market rate development,
[02:49:33] ▶another project
[02:49:35] ▶that will generate enormous profits
[02:49:38] ▶while providing little meaningful
[02:49:40] ▶relief to workers who actually keep this city functioning.
[02:49:46] ▶We keep hearing that growth is good for everyone,
[02:49:50] ▶but working people are asking a very simple question now.
[02:49:55] ▶When do we actually see the benefits?
[02:49:59] ▶Because right now,
[02:50:01] ▶workers feel like they are crying
[02:50:04] ▶the cost of this city's growth without sharing in any of the rewards.
[02:50:10] ▶And
[02:50:11] ▶I think council
[02:50:13] ▶need to understand how serious that frustration
[02:50:16] ▶has become.
[02:50:18] ▶There is growing sense
[02:50:20] ▶among
[02:50:21] ▶ordinary people that
[02:50:23] ▶this city is no longer being planned around human needs.
[02:50:28] ▶It is being planned around investment opportunities.
[02:50:32] ▶Housing is treated like a community
[02:50:37] ▶first and place for people to live second,
[02:50:41] ▶and consequences
[02:50:42] ▶of that approach
[02:50:44] ▶are visible
[02:50:46] ▶everywhere.
[02:50:49] ▶Workers delaying
[02:50:50] ▶having children
[02:50:51] ▶because
[02:50:53] ▶they cannot afford space for a family.
[02:50:56] ▶Young people giving up on the idea of ownership
[02:51:01] ▶entirely.
[02:51:02] ▶Seniors
[02:51:04] ▶afraid of losing their housing
[02:51:06] ▶after decades in their commune communities.
[02:51:10] ▶Entire generations feeling like stability
[02:51:13] ▶is slipping further out of
[02:51:16] ▶reach no matter how hard they work.
[02:51:19] ▶That is not healthy for a city.
[02:51:22] ▶In my family,
[02:51:23] ▶six people worked hard for years,
[02:51:26] ▶saved, and pulled out money to
[02:51:29] ▶finally achieve our dream of owning a house.
[02:51:33] ▶It shouldn't be that hard
[02:51:35] ▶to finally own a roof
[02:51:37] ▶over our heads, but that's the reality. And yet development continue moving forward with affordability
[02:51:45] ▶creates
[02:51:46] ▶as a afterthought.
[02:51:48] ▶That is what concerns me
[02:51:50] ▶most about this proposal.
[02:51:52] ▶If council is considering granting additional value to private developers
[02:51:57] ▶through rezoning and approvals,
[02:51:59] ▶then the public should receive something meaningful in Britain.
[02:52:04] ▶That means real affordable housing,
[02:52:07] ▶not units that are technically renting,
[02:52:10] ▶but price completely
[02:52:12] ▶out of reach of ordinary workers,
[02:52:15] ▶not vague promises about filtering affordability
[02:52:19] ▶years from now.
[02:52:20] ▶Real affordability
[02:52:21] ▶tied to real income
[02:52:24] ▶because workers are tied to being
[02:52:27] ▶sold to wait.
[02:52:29] ▶Wait for the market to collect itself.
[02:52:31] ▶Wait for supply to lower prices. Wait for affordability
[02:52:36] ▶to trickle down. Meanwhile,
[02:52:38] ▶rent
[02:52:39] ▶Speaker 0: when why immediately? Speaker, sorry for the interruption, but, you you are out of time. So, thank you for calling.
[02:52:47] ▶Speaker 8: Okay. Thank you. Thanks for calling.
[02:52:49] ▶Speaker 0: We'll now go to speaker,
[02:52:51] ▶60,
[02:52:52] ▶Naya,
[02:52:53] ▶Holders.
[02:52:55] ▶Oh, not 60?
[02:52:58] ▶Oh,
[02:52:59] ▶pardon me. Cindy Jane
[02:53:01] ▶Magabania.
[02:53:06] ▶Is, Cindy on the line? Cindy Jane?
[02:53:21] ▶Speaker 1: Just checking the line. Check one moment. They may have dropped off.
[02:53:31] ▶Speaker 0: Hello? Hi. Is that Cindy Jane?
[02:53:34] ▶Yes. This is Cindy. Hi. Who is it? Please go ahead.
[02:53:38] ▶Speaker 29: Okay. Hello, counselors.
[02:53:40] ▶My name is Cindy Magbanua, and I work at Vancouver International Airport.
[02:53:44] ▶I am here because I strongly oppose this proposal.
[02:53:48] ▶Every day, it helps support one of the busiest and most important transportation hubs in the country.
[02:53:54] ▶Thousands of visitors pass through YVR every day, and workers like me are expected to provide excellent service,
[02:54:01] ▶represent our city, and help keep the tourism industry running smoothly.
[02:54:06] ▶We do that work proudly.
[02:54:08] ▶But behind the scenes, many airport and hospitality workers are struggling just to survive in this region.
[02:54:15] ▶I cannot afford to live in here. Many of my coworkers
[02:54:18] ▶cannot either. Many of us are working two or three jobs just to stay afloat.
[02:54:23] ▶We are commuting longer and longer distances because housing prices and rents have become completely disconnected
[02:54:30] ▶from what ordinary
[02:54:31] ▶working people earn. And that is why
[02:54:35] ▶this proposal
[02:54:36] ▶is so frustrating.
[02:54:38] ▶At a time when workers are being priced out
[02:54:41] ▶of the communities we serve, council is likely to approve another hotel and market rental project,
[02:54:47] ▶but we'll do nothing for up for affordability.
[02:54:52] ▶Units won't be affordable for airport workers, cleaners, food service workers,
[02:54:57] ▶security staff, and others who keep Vancouver's tourism economy functioning every day.
[02:55:03] ▶We keep hearing about the need to support tourism, but supporting tourism
[02:55:08] ▶should also mean supporting tourism workers.
[02:55:11] ▶Because the reality is simple. If workers cannot afford to live here, they leave. And when
[02:55:18] ▶enough workers leave, industries can find workers. Staffing shortages grow.
[02:55:23] ▶Service quality suffers. Burnout increases.
[02:55:26] ▶That hurts everyone.
[02:55:29] ▶I already see this happening around me. Coworkers are moving farther away every year because they have no other option.
[02:55:36] ▶Some are considering leaving the Lower Mainland entirely because they no longer believe they can build a stable future here.
[02:55:43] ▶This city depends on frontline workers, yet
[02:55:46] ▶too often, it feels like developments are designed for investors,
[02:55:51] ▶visitors, and higher income earners,
[02:55:53] ▶not for the people who actually keep the city operating day to day. I also think there is something discouraging about hearing over and over again that more hotel space is urgently needed.
[02:56:05] ▶While workers are told to simply accept impossible housing costs and exhausting commutes.
[02:56:11] ▶Where is the urgency for us? Where is the urgency for the people working working early mornings,
[02:56:18] ▶late nights, weekends, and holidays to keep Vancouver's economy moving.
[02:56:23] ▶Council has a choice tonight. You can continue approving projects that prioritize private
[02:56:29] ▶expensive housing and hotels, or you can start sending a message that working people matter in this city too.
[02:56:35] ▶I am asking you to reject this proposal, and instead focus on what Vancouver actually needs,
[02:56:41] ▶genuinely
[02:56:42] ▶affordable housing for workers and residents.
[02:56:46] ▶Thank you for your time.
[02:56:48] ▶Speaker 0: Hey. Thanks for calling.
[02:56:50] ▶Speaker
[02:56:51] ▶number,
[02:56:54] ▶65,
[02:56:55] ▶Marlon
[02:56:56] ▶Selmar.
[02:56:59] ▶Speaker 22: Hello?
[02:57:00] ▶Hi.
[02:57:01] ▶Speaker 0: Please go ahead.
[02:57:03] ▶Speaker 27: Good evening, counselor.
[02:57:05] ▶I am Marlyn Selmar, a resident of New Westminster.
[02:57:09] ▶I am working in Downtown Vancouver.
[02:57:12] ▶I want to live close to my work, but I cannot afford.
[02:57:17] ▶I strongly oppose
[02:57:18] ▶the proposed hotel project.
[02:57:20] ▶Vancouver is already facing a serious housing affordability
[02:57:24] ▶crisis.
[02:57:26] ▶Many residents,
[02:57:27] ▶including myself,
[02:57:28] ▶are struggling to find a stable and affordable housing in Vancouver.
[02:57:34] ▶Building more hotels does not address this urgent need.
[02:57:38] ▶Instead, the city should prioritize
[02:57:41] ▶developing affordable housing
[02:57:43] ▶for the people who live and work here.
[02:57:46] ▶While tourism is important,
[02:57:48] ▶it should not come at the expense of residents' ability
[02:57:53] ▶to live in their own city.
[02:57:55] ▶I urge the city to reconsider this project
[02:57:59] ▶and focus on solutions
[02:58:01] ▶that improve housing availability
[02:58:03] ▶and affordability.
[02:58:05] ▶Thank you.
[02:58:07] ▶Speaker 0: Hey. Thank you for calling.
[02:58:09] ▶Okay. That is,
[02:58:11] ▶the end
[02:58:12] ▶or not the end. Apologies. One moment here. Now we're gonna do the third and final call,
[02:58:16] ▶for speakers. So if you wish to speak to counsel about this item, please call toll free
[02:58:22] ▶(833)
[02:58:23] ▶353-8610
[02:58:24] ▶followed by participant code 1061445
[02:58:28] ▶for the close of the speakers list. The phone number will be posted on x and displayed during the recess. So we're now gonna take a two minute recess for any additional speakers to call in or come forward to the podium.
[03:01:39] ▶Okay.
[03:01:40] ▶Clerk, do we have any speakers in the chamber on the line?
[03:01:44] ▶Speaker 1: Sure. There are two unidentified speakers.
[03:01:47] ▶First with phone number ending in the digits 9163.
[03:01:52] ▶Speaker 0: Okay. Let's go to that speaker.
[03:01:55] ▶Hello.
[03:01:56] ▶Is this the speaker phone number 1 or sorry, 9163?
[03:02:00] ▶Yeah. That's me. Can you hear me? Yes. I'll need you to, state your your name, whether you support or oppose the application, and if you're a resident of Vancouver.
[03:02:09] ▶Speaker 30: Awesome. Thank you. Thank you, acting mayor. Good afternoon, councilors. My name is Rolfen Wang. I'm a Vancouver resident, and I'm calling in because I support this proposal,
[03:02:18] ▶and I'd like to refocus this public hearing on the merits of the proposal itself.
[03:02:23] ▶I am deeply sympathetic with the previous speakers that we need affordable housing and that we need to stop pricing people out of the city.
[03:02:32] ▶But I just don't see the through line between what they are arguing and what this public hearing is actually about, a single building at the corner of Cambie And Smythe across the street from existing hotels.
[03:02:44] ▶This isn't replacing any housing.
[03:02:46] ▶Nobody else proposed to build housing here. We are actually getting a big influx of housing as a result of this project.
[03:02:53] ▶As far as I can tell, this block is currently occupied by a seafood shop, a fake eyelashes snore,
[03:02:58] ▶a private university campus, and a self storage facility.
[03:03:02] ▶Think about that. We have a self storage facility in the middle of Yaletown at the beating heart of Metro Vancouver's Central Business District.
[03:03:10] ▶What a ridiculous land use when we're trying so hard to revitalize downtown and push back against the rising tide of retail vacancy rates. Bringing a new hotel and new apartments to the site brings more people downtown.
[03:03:23] ▶Rejecting them does not.
[03:03:26] ▶Some previous speakers described this application as extraordinary or a giveaway contrary to policy or otherwise is a breach of
[03:03:33] ▶process. That's not true at all. The Vancouver ODP that this council is required by law to consider when making rezoning decisions
[03:03:41] ▶defines this precinct as the business district where hotels are to be encouraged.
[03:03:45] ▶The former downtown ODP from 1975 that VanPlan replaced also envisioned similar land uses here. That's why there's, like, five other hotels next door. This is not a deviation from policy. It is the very outcome that city policy has encouraged on Smythe Street since 1975.
[03:04:03] ▶To turn down this rezoning because we don't like this use despite being fully consistent with the ODP is to cast doubts on decades of zoning that this council has long recognized as vital to the regional economy and to the success of the downtown core.
[03:04:17] ▶Doing it with no planning, no analysis, and no consideration of the future of the metro core is not just unwise, it's reckless, and it's not the responsible process that the Vancouver charter envisions.
[03:04:28] ▶Yes. We need housing, but fighting every hotel lot by lot regardless of the merits of the proposal itself won't get us housing.
[03:04:36] ▶Allowing homes of all types and tenures, including that the the social housing that this council regrettably rejected earlier this year will.
[03:04:44] ▶As you know, Flight Street is the off ramp of the Kennedy Street Bridge, carrying heavy arterial traffic into the downtown core. It is the epitome of the grand bargain, condemning renters the noise and exhaust in the core to preserve pristine single family home neighborhoods on the periphery.
[03:05:01] ▶It's frankly not an ideal place for housing. Although that being said, I do still support the rental component of this project as allowing homes in Arterios is the bare minimum to that we should do if we want to tackle the housing crisis.
[03:05:14] ▶If we really wanted to talk about affordable housing, though, let's end dimension only zoning in Point Grey, in Dunbar, in Arbutus Ridge, and in Shaughnessy instead. Let's legalize social housing and coop by right everywhere.
[03:05:27] ▶But the same factors that make it a subpar location for housing make it a great place for a hotel. It's on major transportation arterials. It's next to Rogers and to BC Place, and it's in the very core of our city's downtown.
[03:05:41] ▶I just wanna reiterate
[03:05:42] ▶to be very, very clear. We urgently need affordable housing in the city, and we need to stop pricing people out and to allow more types of housing to be built and not just a few towers here in the Broadway plan area and a few towns that houses here on Canby.
[03:05:57] ▶But rejecting this project will not create that housing.
[03:06:00] ▶Keeping a self storage business in Yaletown will not manifest new homes into existence.
[03:06:06] ▶Permitting those homes, yes, even if it includes a new hotel, will. Thank you very much.
[03:06:13] ▶Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you.
[03:06:15] ▶I don't believe this site includes the self storage,
[03:06:18] ▶building, just to confirm.
[03:06:20] ▶We'll now go to the other speaker,
[03:06:22] ▶on the line, with the phone number ending in 4078.
[03:06:28] ▶Speaker 34: Hi. My name is Russell Wong. I live in Vancouver. I don't work in real estate or development. I'm calling in support of this rezoning.
[03:06:35] ▶Many of the speakers have talked about getting pushed out of the city or having to commute for hours to get to work because of high prices and rents, which I totally understand.
[03:06:44] ▶A young friend worked at a restaurant on Main Street in Vancouver. They had a coworker who was taking transit in from Surrey at least one and a half hours each way.
[03:06:53] ▶What's driving people out is the overall shortage of housing. Because we don't have enough housing, prices and rents have to rise to unbearable levels to push people out.
[03:07:03] ▶When the city of Vancouver is reluctant to build market housing,
[03:07:07] ▶the people who would have lived in that market housing don't vanish into thin air. They'll end up finding somewhere else to live, setting up prices and rents for existing housing,
[03:07:16] ▶and we get more trickle down evictions, which is exactly what's happening right now.
[03:07:21] ▶When there's an overall shortage of housing, the people who suffer the most are those with lower incomes, like the workers we've heard from today.
[03:07:29] ▶The basic situation is that the city of Vancouver is the geographic center of the region with easy access to lots of jobs, so demand is highest here.
[03:07:38] ▶But at the same time, political resistance is also highest here.
[03:07:43] ▶Vancouver is struggling to approve a building that's less than 30 stories tall right downtown.
[03:07:48] ▶Meanwhile, Burnaby is approving 80 story towers out at Lougheed.
[03:07:53] ▶It's like pushing down on a balloon.
[03:07:55] ▶Lack of housing in Vancouver results in higher prices, rents, and land values in Burnaby and Surrey. There's even high rises out in Langley.
[03:08:04] ▶In the last two or three years, a combination of more supply and weaker demand has resulted in higher vacancy rates
[03:08:10] ▶and declining asking rents.
[03:08:12] ▶Affordability is improving
[03:08:15] ▶a little bit.
[03:08:17] ▶I understand people looking at this project and saying, this doesn't provide any affordable housing, but what's there now also doesn't provide any affordable housing.
[03:08:26] ▶Someone mentioned that there isn't much of a community amenity contribution, only 1 and a half million or so. Part of what city staff do when negotiating community amenity contributions is look at how much money the city can take.
[03:08:38] ▶Her job is to maximize the revenue the city gets.
[03:08:41] ▶Market rents are coming down, which is a good thing, but that does also mean that there's less money for the city to take.
[03:08:49] ▶The scale of the housing shortage in the city of Vancouver is immense. The city's own estimate is that we're short about a 100,000 homes.
[03:08:56] ▶Of course, building social housing, co ops, and other forms of non market housing will help directly,
[03:09:02] ▶and I strongly support policies that make it easier to build them.
[03:09:06] ▶But I would argue that in order to address the scale of the housing shortage, we also need market housing. Trying to block market housing projects is counterproductive.
[03:09:15] ▶You end up with even more intense competition for existing housing as people end up fighting over an unnecessarily
[03:09:21] ▶small housing stock and its workers who lose out.
[03:09:24] ▶Speaker 10: Thank you.
[03:09:27] ▶Speaker 0: Hey. Thank you.
[03:09:28] ▶The next speaker is speaker 71,
[03:09:31] ▶love love greet core.
[03:09:45] ▶Speaker 33: Hello?
[03:09:46] ▶Speaker 0: Hi. Is that Lovepreet?
[03:09:48] ▶Speaker 33: Yes.
[03:09:49] ▶K. Good evening there and counselors.
[03:09:52] ▶My name is Lovepreet, and I work in the hospitality
[03:09:55] ▶industry, and I'm here to oppose this proposal.
[03:09:58] ▶Right now, I live in Surrey and each day to get to work, and I have to transfer almost two hours one way, including three buses.
[03:10:06] ▶I would like to live in Vancouver if I could be closer to my world, but with rent prices so high, it's impossible for me right now. Like most of people in Vancouver, I have to watch
[03:10:18] ▶where every dollar dollar goes, groceries, transit, utilities, rent. It is a constant balancing act, and there is very little room for anything to go wrong. I have made sacrifices to stay here, and I know I'm not alone in that. The people I work with, my neighbors, my friends, so many of us are in the same position,
[03:10:38] ▶juggling the same impossible math every single month, wondering how much longer we can make it work. That is a reality of Vancouver right now, and it is a reality that this council should be responding to. Instead,
[03:10:51] ▶what I see is city hall making it easier for developers to build
[03:10:56] ▶what they wanna build. If you approve this project tonight,
[03:11:00] ▶it will be proof that you are willing to bend the rules to support developers and hotel owners
[03:11:05] ▶while ignoring the needs of regular people and workers like me. What I need with thousand of peoples in this is city need right now is for council
[03:11:15] ▶to make it easier for working people to actually live here.
[03:11:18] ▶We'd have an affordability crisis in the city. This is not a talking point. It is a daily experience for the majority of people who live and work here. And I want to be very clear about something. We don't want a hotel crisis.
[03:11:32] ▶We are not short on places for tourists to to sleep.
[03:11:36] ▶What we are short on is housing that workers with modest income can afford. That is the gap. That is what needs to be filled, and this proposal does not fill it. I wanna talk about the workers in the industry,
[03:11:50] ▶especially because I think it exposed something important.
[03:11:54] ▶This council has approved thousands of hotel room in the city. Thousands. And I've warned us, generally, what has been done for the hospitality workers
[03:12:04] ▶who are already here, the people making beds, washing dishes,
[03:12:08] ▶checking guests, and keeping those hotels running. Where do they live? Are hotel rooms really more important than the workers who make them function?
[03:12:18] ▶Because those workers work commuting from the Langley, from Port Coquitlam, or Surrey like me,
[03:12:25] ▶from whenever they could find something they could afford, which is no longer anywhere near Downtown Vancouver.
[03:12:31] ▶They are spending two hours on transit every day because this city housing policy has made it impossible
[03:12:37] ▶for them to live closer to the where they work.
[03:12:41] ▶That is a failure. And approving another luxury hotel without a single affordable unit
[03:12:47] ▶does nothing.
[03:12:48] ▶Nothing to fix it. And let us look the numbers in this proposal honestly. The project includes 165
[03:12:56] ▶rental units. That sounds like something, but not of
[03:13:01] ▶those unit is below market rate, not one. The average rent for one bedroom apartment downtown right now is, like,
[03:13:09] ▶2,500
[03:13:10] ▶a month. To afford that, you would need to earn over
[03:13:15] ▶6 figures a year. I do not earn that. Most of the people I know do not earn that. So what are those units actually for?
[03:13:23] ▶Who is this development serving? I will ask it directly. Who are you building for? Are you building for the wealthy?
[03:13:30] ▶Are you building for the rest of us? Because right now,
[03:13:34] ▶the this proposal gives is very clear. I would
[03:13:38] ▶I also want to acknowledge why this public hearing is happening today. This project will affect heritage buildings, older buildings that are the part of the history and character of the city that matters. Preserving what makes Vancouver's neighborhood distinct
[03:13:52] ▶and human is worth fighting for. But I wanna say our history is important and so are the people who are alive right now.
[03:14:00] ▶Trying to make a life here, both things deserve protection. We should be fighting to preserve our heritage,
[03:14:07] ▶and we should be fighting just as hard to make sure that the average working people can afford to live in Downtown Vancouver.
[03:14:14] ▶And in every neighborhood across the city, one should not come without the other. This project does not deliver what we need. It delivers what the developer needs. It deliver rooms for tourists
[03:14:26] ▶and units for people who are already comfortable.
[03:14:30] ▶It does not deliver a single home for the worker who is
[03:14:33] ▶one rent increase away from having to leave the city entirely.
[03:14:38] ▶I'm asking you to vote no, not because development is strong, but because this deal is strong. The ask is too big, and the return of the to the community
[03:14:48] ▶is too small. If this developer wants a rezoning of this skill, they should have to earn it with real Sorry, Jennifer, for the interruption.
[03:14:57] ▶Speaker 0: You are a time, but, thank you for calling, the council
[03:15:01] ▶or the public hearing. Appreciate it. Thank you.
[03:15:04] ▶We'll now go to speaker
[03:15:06] ▶25,
[03:15:09] ▶Alfina Lambertus.
[03:15:14] ▶Speaker 27: Hello? Yes.
[03:15:16] ▶Speaker 0: Can you hear me? Yes. We can. Please go ahead.
[03:15:19] ▶Speaker 27: Yes.
[03:15:20] ▶Good evening, council. My name is Alfina.
[03:15:23] ▶I live in Vancouver,
[03:15:24] ▶very expensive
[03:15:26] ▶city to live.
[03:15:27] ▶I strongly oppose
[03:15:30] ▶the proposal,
[03:15:32] ▶Speaker 16: hotel project.
[03:15:34] ▶Speaker 27: We need more affordable housing
[03:15:37] ▶more than hotel.
[03:15:39] ▶Thank
[03:15:41] ▶Speaker 0: you. Okay. Thank you for your comments.
[03:15:44] ▶Okay. We're now gonna go to speaker
[03:15:47] ▶46.
[03:15:49] ▶Who's on the line?
[03:15:51] ▶Edna Natino.
[03:15:56] ▶Is that Edna?
[03:15:59] ▶Hello? Hi, Edna.
[03:16:02] ▶Speaker 18: Oh, yeah. My name is Edna Nachino. I'm working as a housekeeping in a holiday
[03:16:09] ▶in Broad Holiday in Broadway.
[03:16:11] ▶And I just kind of,
[03:16:13] ▶serious about those,
[03:16:15] ▶what do you call that that you guys are building it for
[03:16:18] ▶more, hotel instead,
[03:16:21] ▶into the,
[03:16:23] ▶portable housing because, you know,
[03:16:26] ▶on on this time,
[03:16:27] ▶like, a lot of people that there's
[03:16:30] ▶they're, suffering because everything is too expensive for for renting a place and everything
[03:16:38] ▶over over here in Vancouver.
[03:16:40] ▶And that's what,
[03:16:41] ▶we're we're trying to, you know, to
[03:16:45] ▶to get get the,
[03:16:47] ▶portable
[03:16:49] ▶house if they can, you know, help us all those,
[03:16:53] ▶what you call that or the the city of Vancouver.
[03:16:58] ▶This is it's it's also hard for for everybody. Like, you mean, like, people that single mother
[03:17:05] ▶or or people that they don't make enough money?
[03:17:08] ▶And and this is, like, too hard for for all those people that they have a low income.
[03:17:15] ▶And then, you know, that that's what we're we're trying to to, you know, to,
[03:17:22] ▶get some some help from the from the city hall.
[03:17:26] ▶They can help us for for
[03:17:29] ▶building a a portable house housing.
[03:17:33] ▶It's
[03:17:34] ▶that we're we're, you know,
[03:17:36] ▶we're trying to we're we're trying to,
[03:17:39] ▶to,
[03:17:40] ▶get some some help for the city of Vancouver,
[03:17:44] ▶but, I think,
[03:17:47] ▶hope hopefully, that you, the city of Vancouver, they're going to to,
[03:17:53] ▶how do you go that,
[03:17:56] ▶helping us or or you know?
[03:17:59] ▶Because it it is it is so difficult for for people that are working in, in the low income.
[03:18:07] ▶And then, you know, everything is kind of,
[03:18:11] ▶you cannot afford
[03:18:13] ▶it even though when you when you're when you're renting a place,
[03:18:16] ▶like, downtown in one bedroom,
[03:18:19] ▶and it's cost, like, almost,
[03:18:23] ▶thousand dollars,
[03:18:24] ▶2,000.
[03:18:27] ▶Even the basement, if you're renting a place
[03:18:30] ▶in Vancouver,
[03:18:31] ▶it's still
[03:18:33] ▶it's still it's too expensive.
[03:18:35] ▶So that, that's why we cannot we cannot if if you can,
[03:18:40] ▶helping us,
[03:18:42] ▶like, build build,
[03:18:43] ▶more,
[03:18:44] ▶portable housing.
[03:18:48] ▶This is what we we we want
[03:18:52] ▶to argue for for the city hall
[03:18:55] ▶of Vancouver.
[03:18:58] ▶Speaker 8: That's,
[03:18:59] ▶Speaker 18: anyway,
[03:19:00] ▶anyway, that's what, we we we're trying to to, what do you call that? Hell,
[03:19:06] ▶we're trying to
[03:19:08] ▶accommodate for the
[03:19:11] ▶Vancouver,
[03:19:13] ▶city hall.
[03:19:14] ▶If, I think we've been doing this for for a couple of months already
[03:19:20] ▶that we're we're
[03:19:22] ▶we're we're begging,
[03:19:23] ▶city hall
[03:19:25] ▶in Vancouver
[03:19:26] ▶to helping us
[03:19:28] ▶for all those,
[03:19:30] ▶you know,
[03:19:32] ▶building,
[03:19:34] ▶portable how
[03:19:35] ▶portable house for for people.
[03:19:39] ▶Instead instead,
[03:19:41] ▶instead,
[03:19:41] ▶you building more more hotel,
[03:19:44] ▶and everything here too is too expensive, like transit,
[03:19:48] ▶you know, like, to buy to buy to buy the the
[03:19:53] ▶bus pass or whatever you're going around here. It's it's hardly you can afford it because and also our our wages is not even that that much.
[03:20:05] ▶And then we get we get, like, a lift behind
[03:20:08] ▶because everything that we we we,
[03:20:11] ▶we're trying to, you know, to,
[03:20:16] ▶also working,
[03:20:17] ▶get another part time job
[03:20:20] ▶even though you work six day, six days or seven days a week. And then because, you know, it's still
[03:20:27] ▶not enough to to buy buy buy the grocery and and and renting a place for
[03:20:35] ▶for, you know, for
[03:20:38] ▶sleep.
[03:20:39] ▶That that's what, you know, that's what we're struggling
[03:20:43] ▶around here in in Vancouver.
[03:20:48] ▶So
[03:20:49] ▶so this is what what I'm I'm I'm I'm,
[03:20:54] ▶trying to explain
[03:20:56] ▶to the city of Vancouver,
[03:20:58] ▶but if they can helping us all those,
[03:21:01] ▶you know, to those,
[03:21:04] ▶they they have to build the
[03:21:07] ▶Speaker 0: portable house. Interrupt you, but you are you are over, a time. But thank you for calling.
[03:21:13] ▶Speaker 18: Okay. Thank okay then. Thank you for calling. Bye. Bye bye. You're welcome. Bye.
[03:21:22] ▶Speaker 0: That's, I believe,
[03:21:25] ▶seeing no further speakers.
[03:21:27] ▶If I'm correct, Clerk?
[03:21:28] ▶Speaker 1: No further,
[03:21:30] ▶Speaker 0: speakers are on the line. Okay. So the speaker's list is now closed. Clark, has there been a large volume of public comments received on this item since 2PM?
[03:21:38] ▶Speaker 1: There has not been.
[03:21:39] ▶Speaker 0: Okay. So seeing as there are few or no public comments received after 2PM, I'm now gonna close the receipt of public comments.
[03:21:47] ▶And we as we had,
[03:21:49] ▶decided earlier,
[03:21:51] ▶we are going to break, for dinner,
[03:21:54] ▶for half an hour,
[03:21:55] ▶and then we will come back and, hear from the applicant with their closing comments and the rest of the proceedings for this public hearing. So we'll be back at, 06:52PM.
[03:22:07] ▶Thanks.
[03:52:21] ▶Very much. Okay. Welcome back, everybody.
[03:52:25] ▶It does so, we're continuing,
[03:52:27] ▶with public hearing, and we're at the stage where the applicant we're gonna ask the applicant if they have any closing comments.
[03:52:33] ▶So,
[03:52:35] ▶We were just I realized yeah. Yeah.
[03:52:38] ▶So I'll just repeat that just as,
[03:52:40] ▶we had a a break there, but we're wondering if the applicant has any closing comments. He's on his way. Oh, one moment. Fantastic. Okay.
[03:52:57] ▶Speaker 5: Thank you.
[03:53:02] ▶Well, it's been an interesting
[03:53:04] ▶evening and afternoon.
[03:53:06] ▶I wanna I wanna, I was remiss to not, complimenting city staff, on the advancement of our application.
[03:53:12] ▶You've done a great job and work collaboratively
[03:53:15] ▶with us to move things forward.
[03:53:17] ▶Our proposal was never intended to address affordable housing. This public hearing was about land use,
[03:53:23] ▶and I believe that our proposal addresses
[03:53:27] ▶and meets many, many pea pieces of it. Particularly,
[03:53:30] ▶we're compliant with policy
[03:53:32] ▶regarding housing and hotel rooms.
[03:53:34] ▶We're increasing the housing rental stock
[03:53:37] ▶significantly,
[03:53:38] ▶and we're not displacing or replacing any existing housing.
[03:53:43] ▶We're taking a dead zone, to be frank,
[03:53:46] ▶with antiquated office buildings and empty office buildings and mini storage
[03:53:51] ▶that had has social issues and indeed crime
[03:53:55] ▶and replacing it with a new
[03:53:57] ▶building that is mixed use
[03:54:00] ▶with hotels
[03:54:01] ▶and residential rental.
[03:54:04] ▶We're positively impacting the city of Vancouver's tax base
[03:54:07] ▶as well as revenue from the hotel that's taxable.
[03:54:10] ▶Positively impact impacting employment.
[03:54:13] ▶A 167
[03:54:14] ▶people or 164 people that will be employed on-site doesn't take into consideration the amount of people that are being employed as part of the advancement of the the development and the actual construction
[03:54:26] ▶when people are on-site. That could be one or 200 people, and the economic impact from that is significant as well.
[03:54:32] ▶And we have an international organization that we worked for two years
[03:54:37] ▶to sign around that have endorsed our site,
[03:54:40] ▶ourselves as a company,
[03:54:41] ▶to to advance their their, their business
[03:54:44] ▶with access to 271,000,000
[03:54:47] ▶members as guests. We want those people to visit Vancouver and spend money here,
[03:54:52] ▶and have fun and enjoy it. Hence hence FIFA is a good is an example, and I wish we were built today for that.
[03:55:00] ▶So we've engaged and bring it by contract.
[03:55:03] ▶And the other the other pieces of this, and I'm sorry if I'm going quickly, but,
[03:55:09] ▶that I I wanna express the unique nature of this opportunity.
[03:55:13] ▶The site is large, prominent, well positioned, and beautifully designed
[03:55:17] ▶to meet the autograph brand standards of Marriott.
[03:55:21] ▶It's a significant validation from an international organization.
[03:55:24] ▶This isn't about just zoning a property and have it sit fallow. This is about building the the the the development out and running it. And MPG has the experience
[03:55:36] ▶and the,
[03:55:39] ▶the desire
[03:55:40] ▶and volition
[03:55:42] ▶to design, construct,
[03:55:44] ▶own, and manage this asset for a long time because we wanna be proud of what we what we build and what we do. Thank you.
[03:55:51] ▶Speaker 0: Thank you for your comments.
[03:55:53] ▶Does these pardon me. Do staff have any closing comments?
[03:55:57] ▶Speaker 4: Yeah. Yes. We do.
[03:55:59] ▶We first wanted to acknowledge that we heard the speakers and we're hearing a lot of concerns about affordability. So we just wanted to take a brief moment in order to provide an update on the, number of below market rental units
[03:56:11] ▶that, have been approved by council.
[03:56:14] ▶So to date, just over 2,900
[03:56:16] ▶below market rental units
[03:56:18] ▶have been approved,
[03:56:20] ▶toward the ten year target set in '20,
[03:56:23] ▶'24. So that's 53%
[03:56:25] ▶of the target. So we are well underway for that ten year target.
[03:56:29] ▶We also heard from speakers,
[03:56:31] ▶many questions about
[03:56:32] ▶including a hotel use in this area, and staff wanted to,
[03:56:37] ▶remind
[03:56:38] ▶or or touch on the, rezoning policy for the area. So the downtown rezoning policy does enable,
[03:56:45] ▶residential,
[03:56:46] ▶both strata and rental, but there is no below market
[03:56:50] ▶requirement.
[03:56:51] ▶Further,
[03:56:52] ▶both the downtown rezoning policy and the Vancouver,
[03:56:55] ▶ODP prioritize job space in this area and require a minimum
[03:57:00] ▶amount of job space.
[03:57:02] ▶So it in conclusion on our our our final statements here, the this proposal is in line with the policy expectations of the ODP as well as the downtown rezoning policy for both the job and residential components of the proposal.
[03:57:15] ▶Speaker 0: Thanks. Thank you for those details.
[03:57:17] ▶Does council have any final questions for staff, noting no additional questions to the applicant are permitted at this time?
[03:57:28] ▶Councilor Maloney.
[03:57:30] ▶Speaker 15: Thanks. And I'll just ask some questions that were raised by public speakers.
[03:57:37] ▶Can you just explain why there aren't more three bedroom units in this building building? What's generally the demand in our in our city,
[03:57:46] ▶for,
[03:57:49] ▶Speaker 4: one and two bedroom homes relative to three bedroom homes? Yeah. I can, go on a high level, and then we do have housing staff online who can address, more details. I think I think a high level is probably Okay. Alright. We'll see. You let me know.
[03:58:03] ▶So we do require 35%,
[03:58:05] ▶family units. However, that 35% does not specify three bedroom units.
[03:58:11] ▶So this proposal has
[03:58:14] ▶62 bedroom units, so that's a 36%
[03:58:17] ▶family,
[03:58:18] ▶unit mix.
[03:58:20] ▶There is a three bedroom unit requirement that does apply to Strata, but since this is a rental proposal, that, three bedroom unit, requirement is not there. And are you generally finding within the city that there's a higher demand for,
[03:58:33] ▶smaller homes rather than three bedroom, or is that not the case? Yeah. For that detail, I think I will refer to my my housing colleague online. Thank you.
[03:58:45] ▶Speaker 35: Thank you, Lauren. It's Annie Mobiles, assistant director of housing policy and regulation.
[03:58:50] ▶We do,
[03:58:51] ▶do know that there is a demand for both two and three bedroom units across
[03:58:57] ▶both strata and rental.
[03:58:59] ▶And in some parts of the city and plan areas, we do have requirements that delineate
[03:59:04] ▶percentage of three bedroom units. Broadway plan, for example,
[03:59:08] ▶currently is 10%.
[03:59:10] ▶I think generally,
[03:59:12] ▶I could kind of do a deeper dive into the data, but generally we're finding that in the strata floor area across the city, we're seeing a lot more of the three bedroom units
[03:59:22] ▶that are better for families with more children, for example.
[03:59:27] ▶So we do see that across strata as compared to rental.
[03:59:30] ▶But as Lauren said, for this proposal,
[03:59:33] ▶the requirement is 35%,
[03:59:36] ▶family unit mix, and it doesn't delineate the three bedroom requirement.
[03:59:40] ▶So it does meet the requirement here.
[03:59:43] ▶Speaker 15: Okay.
[03:59:44] ▶And just a a very general question.
[03:59:49] ▶I know that,
[03:59:50] ▶there's there there was some feedback from the chair to speakers during,
[03:59:55] ▶the,
[03:59:57] ▶the public hearing that,
[04:00:00] ▶that this this is not
[04:00:04] ▶the the appropriate,
[04:00:05] ▶forum. I'm I'm probably misphrasing
[04:00:09] ▶it. But but if we're if we're telling people that this is not the appropriate forum to be,
[04:00:16] ▶Speaker 26: advocating for,
[04:00:18] ▶Speaker 15: social housing and public housing.
[04:00:21] ▶What what
[04:00:23] ▶options do they have generally open to them to influence
[04:00:28] ▶the provision of more affordable housing in the city? And I know that's a very general
[04:00:33] ▶question for a specific public hearing, but I think that there's a genuine need amongst the speakers to,
[04:00:40] ▶to direct their efforts to something that's really gonna pay dividends for them in achieving affordable housing.
[04:00:47] ▶Speaker 36: Sure. Thanks, councilor Maloney. Team Fan, senior planner.
[04:00:51] ▶I think okay.
[04:00:53] ▶Just
[04:00:53] ▶my understanding of your question is whether
[04:00:56] ▶is a number of speakers who'd come out and speak about sort of the broader policy pieces,
[04:01:02] ▶recognizing that the this is a public hearing. And I know that the chair at every public hearing does say that the the merits of the project or the focus of tonight's
[04:01:11] ▶public hearing. In terms of influencing broader
[04:01:14] ▶policy, we always encourage people through public engagement and notification to participate in broader city initiatives. For instance,
[04:01:23] ▶when,
[04:01:24] ▶council approved
[04:01:26] ▶this,
[04:01:27] ▶this new policy to update
[04:01:30] ▶the downtown area with the new rezoning policy, we did engage a lot with the community in consultation
[04:01:37] ▶to inform how we,
[04:01:40] ▶carve out and shape policy. So I think that's the best way for members of the public to come and be actively engaged and and tell city staff and city council
[04:01:51] ▶exactly, you know, their their their perspective on the direction for which policy may head.
[04:01:57] ▶Speaker 15: Yeah. And so there are things like, ODP Sure. Amendments that are coming up, and and that's and that's a good,
[04:02:06] ▶forum for people to,
[04:02:08] ▶advocate for more affordable housing to be included in the requirements? I would say so. Yeah. Because our, you know, the the,
[04:02:17] ▶Speaker 36: items brought forward to council for
[04:02:20] ▶re referral and rezoning are primarily
[04:02:23] ▶based on
[04:02:24] ▶staff analysis against policy.
[04:02:27] ▶So if that policy
[04:02:28] ▶is theoretically changing or ODPs are changing, that's the best form for which members of the public can Sorry. We are at time, but someone else could pick up on that. Thank you. Councilor Frey. Sorry, Tina. If you wanted to finish that thought, eat a little bit above my time. Thanks, councilor Frey. Oh, you wanted me me to finish? If you wanted to. Yeah. Sure. Yep. Okay. I can do that.
[04:02:48] ▶Gosh. Where did I end up?
[04:02:51] ▶Yep.
[04:02:52] ▶So if if yes, I would say exactly that is when we have new policy or amended ODPs or opportunities to update policy,
[04:03:00] ▶we undertake engagement processes, and I would say that's the opportunity
[04:03:04] ▶for bigger influence,
[04:03:06] ▶on a broader
[04:03:08] ▶policy shift.
[04:03:11] ▶Thank you.
[04:03:12] ▶Speaker 6: My question is maybe more of an urban design, maybe it's Latin and, urban design kinda context. I'm I'm I'm interested in the architectural expression and and the the heritage component, but more specifically,
[04:03:25] ▶that alley expression. So in another life, I used to spend a lot of time there at Wildman Webber's. Maybe the architects would remember it as WMW, Reefer Graphics.
[04:03:35] ▶And it's very interesting and unique kinda alley construct that I expect we'll be seeing some changes with the former
[04:03:41] ▶Catholic church mission to the
[04:03:43] ▶north. It kinda bounds that alley. And is is how does this fit into that larger alley expression and and and that kinda heritage aspect?
[04:03:52] ▶And
[04:03:54] ▶Speaker 4: Hand it over to James.
[04:03:57] ▶Speaker 37: Hello. James Spolt, the Heritage Group.
[04:04:00] ▶The alley here is indeed very unique. It's wide. There used to be two, spurs going through their rail
[04:04:07] ▶spurs. And, we weren't gonna we to do this project, you couldn't conserve that whole back of that building on that location, but the applicant
[04:04:15] ▶is with the heritage consultant have proposed,
[04:04:18] ▶a sort of a quasi replication of it, also activating
[04:04:21] ▶the loading bays, which if you go down there, you can see them running down beside this lane, which is a historic reference.
[04:04:29] ▶Speaker 6: So is there is is is this guide guiding or kinda contemplating a larger policy for this particular lane and kind of
[04:04:37] ▶Speaker 37: No. There hasn't been any wide. This is really other than the 150 Robson at the north end, there hasn't been any development on this block, and it's right now, it would be just covered at the ODP.
[04:04:47] ▶It's outside of the Yaletown area, so it would just be the downtown south.
[04:04:51] ▶Speaker 6: Okay. So but but, I mean, obviously, this I I think the treatment as I see it is sort of consistent with that look with the the sort of cantilevered overhang
[04:05:00] ▶and the loading bay effect. I I I do appreciate that, and I think that that's
[04:05:06] ▶adjacent to this project. I would like to see some kind of consideration around, like, placemaking in that, Alex. I think it's a really worthwhile asset, and it's obviously a well filmed asset. And it's a I think actually has a potential for a public space and some placemaking that kind of reflects the urban form. Realizes
[04:05:21] ▶adjacent to this development, but I think this development actually plays a nice kind of bookend to it. So,
[04:05:26] ▶okay. Appreciate that additional context. Thank you. Hey. That was super nerdy of me to bring that up. I I know the alley well.
[04:05:34] ▶Speaker 0: So there is a new development on the Beatty Street side.
[04:05:37] ▶I think it's 728 or 828 Beatty Street, I believe. It's a
[04:05:42] ▶just to,
[04:05:44] ▶comment on some of the information from staff. Okay. So not seeing anyone else on the queue.
[04:05:49] ▶Council
[04:05:51] ▶apologies. One moment here.
[04:05:53] ▶Where are we? Top
[04:05:55] ▶of page 10. Top of page 10. It's been a long day. Clerk, do we receive any additional public comments since the close of public comments? We have not. Thank you. I will remind council that we need to move the recommendation for item one together with the yellow memo from April, twenty second twenty twenty six, entitled CD one rezoning 888
[04:06:12] ▶To 896 Camby Street and 111
[04:06:15] ▶To 191 Smythe Street Amendment to draft the CD one bylaw. Council will now make its decision on the application. Do we have a mover for the recommendations and the yellow memo?
[04:06:24] ▶So moved. K. Second. Moved by councilor Frey, seconded by councilor Joe.
[04:06:29] ▶Council members, any discussion? Councilor Frey.
[04:06:33] ▶Speaker 6: Yeah.
[04:06:34] ▶I've been sitting in my office for this, and just decided to come out for the final decision, but I've just been right over here and listening to all the comments. And appreciate,
[04:06:43] ▶the broader sort of frustration expressed by folks around
[04:06:46] ▶housing affordability and and and, you know, the inherent nature of trying to deliver housing affordability through capitalism.
[04:06:55] ▶And, as I'm often fond of saying,
[04:06:58] ▶you know,
[04:06:59] ▶don't hate the player, hate the game. Like, unfortunately, this is the construct that we find ourselves in with the delivery of affordable housing in a in a commodified system.
[04:07:09] ▶That being said, on the merits of this project, I think that
[04:07:13] ▶the architectural expression is is is solid, and I think that the, delivery of the heritage retention is a is a considerable asset as well as the the community many contributions. And I think it does meet the objectives
[04:07:26] ▶for some of our broader housing goals and, obviously, hotel goals,
[04:07:29] ▶and it's appropriate to the context in the site. And a 100, I would love to see outside of this particular project, I wanna see more deeply affordable housing. I wanna see us
[04:07:40] ▶deliver housing that is,
[04:07:42] ▶relatable to the median incomes in our city, which this is not. But on the merits of the project, it is completely defensible, and I will be voting in favor of this project. So
[04:07:52] ▶Speaker 0: Thanks, councilor. Councilor Klassen.
[04:07:56] ▶Speaker 38: Thanks very much,
[04:07:57] ▶chair.
[04:07:58] ▶So I'll stay up right up front that I'll be supporting this project, and I think this is exactly the kind of investment we should be encouraging in our downtown core.
[04:08:06] ▶It brings new hotel capacity, new rental housing,
[04:08:10] ▶active commercial spaces, street level, and, as Councilor Pride described, the heritage retention is is something to be,
[04:08:19] ▶grateful for. I actually do think it's really nice.
[04:08:22] ▶We know that Vancouver faces a serious shortage of hotel rooms, particularly as we continue to grow our tourism economy and and and prepare for major international events.
[04:08:32] ▶This proposal adds two forty six,
[04:08:35] ▶hotel rooms and a 165
[04:08:37] ▶rental homes in a highly appropriate downtown location near BC Place and our entertainment district.
[04:08:43] ▶I also think that it's important to recognize the broader economic impact. I can imagine companies like the neighboring SAP,
[04:08:50] ▶and Amazon Canada and many others relying who rely on a healthy downtown hospitality sector to host employees,
[04:08:57] ▶conferences,
[04:08:59] ▶clients, and events.
[04:09:01] ▶Strong hotel capacity supports jobs across tourism tech,
[04:09:05] ▶restaurants, retail, and the broader service economy.
[04:09:08] ▶The proposal also helps to revive,
[04:09:11] ▶and strengthen this part of the city with more activity at street level
[04:09:15] ▶and more people supporting nearby businesses throughout the day and evening. And importantly,
[04:09:20] ▶this project incorporates
[04:09:21] ▶that heritage facade as we talked about retention of the Stanley Block Building, helping to connect new investments, with a character and history
[04:09:29] ▶of the Yaletown
[04:09:31] ▶District.
[04:09:32] ▶Housing affordability is absolutely a chronic issue and not only one for the city of Vancouver. We know that all neighboring municipalities
[04:09:40] ▶struggle with a high cost of housing in their midst.
[04:09:43] ▶As all members of council know and staff have been doing their level best to, to try and clarify,
[04:09:49] ▶There are countless projects with affordable housing,
[04:09:51] ▶units embedded within them that are currently in stream or approved,
[04:09:56] ▶and senior levels of government really are the ones that have the fiscal tools to make more of them a reality.
[04:10:03] ▶So I thank, staff and the applicant for their answers for to our questions tonight as well as to all the speakers we heard from today. Overall, I think this is a balanced project that supports economic growth, tourism, housing, and downtown revitalization.
[04:10:16] ▶So I, again, will be putting in support. Thanks very much. Hey. Thanks, councilor Claassen.
[04:10:21] ▶Speaker 0: I'm gonna relinquish the chair to deputy mayor, Kirby Young, just to make, some brief comments.
[04:10:27] ▶Speaker 35: Yeah. Go ahead, Jared. Thank you.
[04:10:30] ▶Speaker 0: I'm very supportive of this project.
[04:10:32] ▶I know the site well. I used to go to the Smice Salad produce shop for many years to buy my produce and,
[04:10:38] ▶sincerely miss, the owner who I understand, passed away.
[04:10:42] ▶But it was a fantastic,
[04:10:44] ▶small business in our community.
[04:10:46] ▶And, I'm really,
[04:10:49] ▶I'm a big fan of the design of this project. I think it's very elevated. I think that,
[04:10:54] ▶there's a lot of pluses to this project. There's there's no displacement of any existing residents.
[04:11:00] ▶There is no existing housing on this site.
[04:11:03] ▶There's going to be preservation of the the heritage facade of, the building, on the Camby Street side. And I feel like I remember hearing that the architect of that building actually designed the Marine Building,
[04:11:15] ▶which was a huge surprise to me.
[04:11:17] ▶They are quite different,
[04:11:19] ▶and one of my first jobs in Vancouver was working in the Marine Building, so I have fond memories of it.
[04:11:25] ▶So I think this is going to add a lot of benefit to the neighborhood.
[04:11:29] ▶A 165
[04:11:30] ▶rental units that don't exist right now, 246
[04:11:33] ▶hotel rooms, cash CACs, DCLs, public art, 164
[04:11:38] ▶new new, hotel jobs that don't exist right now on the site
[04:11:42] ▶and the economic impact.
[04:11:45] ▶And I also appreciate staff,
[04:11:47] ▶providing some details on the,
[04:11:49] ▶I believe it was around 2,900 BMR units that have been approved,
[04:11:53] ▶through council. So,
[04:11:55] ▶you know, I I do hear the concerns around
[04:11:58] ▶the more general global comments around affordability in the city and, you know, many people I know are struggling. Many friends of mine are struggling to to live here. It's a very expensive,
[04:12:08] ▶place.
[04:12:09] ▶And and council's working hard to create more below market housing, in our city. And I think we're we're seeing success with that. It's gonna take more time.
[04:12:17] ▶But in on this specific project, I think this is a large,
[04:12:23] ▶benefit,
[04:12:23] ▶to the city and to downtown, and
[04:12:26] ▶I am really excited to see it happen. So I'm enthusiastically in support, and I'll take the chair back.
[04:12:33] ▶I'm not seeing anyone else on the queue.
[04:12:37] ▶So we will
[04:12:39] ▶now go to the vote. So a reminder to any council member participating virtually whose video is disabled,
[04:12:44] ▶you you'll be marked absent for the vote.
[04:12:47] ▶Pursuant to section 14.13
[04:12:48] ▶of the procedure by law, so I'm now gonna call the vote clerk. If you could please take us to the voting screen. And counsel, if you could please register your vote on the voting panel.
[04:12:57] ▶Speaker 18: Sarah. Sarah, I'll take
[04:12:59] ▶Speaker 35: I'll
[04:13:00] ▶take a vote assistant favor, please. Councilor Domino? Councilor Domino. Yes.
[04:13:04] ▶Thank you. You're welcome. Hey. Yeah.
[04:13:09] ▶Speaker 0: Councilor Kirby Young, do you need a vote assist?
[04:13:13] ▶Speaker 35: Yes. I was asking for a vote assistant, David, please. Okay. Great.
[04:13:17] ▶Speaker 0: That passes unanimously,
[04:13:18] ▶and that completes
[04:13:19] ▶item one. So we need a motion to adjourn.
[04:13:23] ▶Anybody?
[04:13:25] ▶So moved. Councilor Fry, seconded by council class. And all in favor say, yay.
[04:13:29] ▶Any opposed, say, nay. Nay. K. That's carried. The meeting is adjourned. Have a great night. Thank you, chair. Thank you, staff.
[04:13:37] ▶Speaker 11: Thank you.