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West Vancouver council narrowly passes housing density bylaw
District of West Vancouver councillors have reluctantly passed a bylaw rezoning single-family lots to allow the building of multiple housing units by a narrow 4-3 margin. The vote Monday, Aug. 12, came after B.C.’s Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon gave the municipality an ultimatum last month requiring that it comply with provincial requirements to rezone outstanding properties to allow multiple units within 30 days. The vote also came after a public war of words between Kahlon and West Vancouver Mayor Mark Sager about the province’s demand to allow more density on single-family properties to help with the provincial housing crisis. Municipalities were supposed to approve new housing regulations by June 30. The housing dust-up with the province began in May when council voted to reject passing bylaw amendments that would have had the municipality fall in line with provincial housing density rules. Then in July, council sought an extension to the end of September to deal with the issue. But Kahlon made it clear he wasn’t going to consider that. Council ‘strongly opposed’ to provincial demand On Monday, Sager said he wasn’t happy about being forced to rezone by the provincial government. “I don’t think this is a particularly democratic way to run a province,” he said, adding, “We all appreciate there is a need to address housing, but we don’t think that the solutions necessarily get drawn on a desk in Victoria.” In casting the deciding vote on the issue, Sager noted that “most of us are very strongly opposed” to the provincial directive. “It makes me ill” to vote in favour of the rezoning, Sager said, but added he was concerned about what a rejection could mean for the community if the province stepped in and imposed its own zoning bylaw. Three councillors refused to go along with the rezoning, lambasting the province for its top-down approach and refusal to push back against unprecedented levels of immigration to B.C. as driving the housing crisis, as well as criticizing senior levels of government for a laundry list of problems. ‘We’ve developed Stockholm Syndrome’ says Watt “It’s almost like we’ve developed Stockholm Syndrome,” said Coun. Linda Watt, who pointed to a huge wave of immigration to B.C. while private sector housing starts are down. Watt said passing the rezoning bylaw was “not a solution” to the housing crisis. “We have an authoritarian government that is ignoring basic planning principles in a reckless effort to please a prime minister who’s hell bent on beating the Canadian economy further into the ground,” she said. Both Watt and Coun. Christine Cassidy suggested the province had chosen to make an example of West Vancouver ahead of the fall provincial election. Coun. Sharon Thompson said she also didn’t believe rezoning single-family properties would do much to create more housing. Just over 300 properties impacted According to West Vancouver staff, the rezoning bylaw means 313 properties will see an increase in density. Most of the properties impacted by the changes are former land use contract sites in the Ambleside and Dundarave neighbourhoods which in the past have specifically disallowed coach houses. Most single-family lots in the rest of West Vancouver already allow both secondary suites and coach houses, so wouldn’t have been impacted by the change. The new rules provide for between three and six units to be built on single-family lots – depending on the size of the lot and its distance from transit routes. Coun. Nora Gambioli was the lone councillor who spoke in favour of the provincial zoning bylaw Monday saying West Van is “way way off” its housing targets. “We’ve actually only approved 50 units that are getting hopefully built in the next couple of years,” she said. “I don’t think we’ve been doing enough for the whole time I’ve been on this council.” Gambioli added the change will impact less than three per cent of the lots in West Vancouver. Coun. Peter Lambur and Coun. Scott Snider – who called in to the meeting by satellite phone from a remote location – both said they weren’t happy with the provincial ultimatum but added passing the bylaw was a better option than leaving it up to the province to make changes. “My duty to the district is more important than my political views on the matter,” said Snider. “The province can tell us what to do,” said Lambur. “That’s exactly what they’re doing.”
Letter: Changes on Mount Seymour Parkway important for community safety
A number of safety upgrades to the North Shore highway are vital to its improvement, despite recent backlash Re: Letter: Mt Seymour Parkway upgrades pushed through without public consent Re: Mount Seymour Parkway bike lane draws mixed reviews Dear Editor, This letter is in response to a recent Letter to the Editor, titled, ” Mt Seymour Parkway upgrades pushed through without public consent”. The letter uses a lot of language without backing any of it up with factual information, so I will attempt to provide some here. Firstly, the Parkway was the only street in the District of North Vancouver with a speed limit of 60 kilometres per hour. Everywhere else, people contend with a 50 km/h speed limit. According to statistics from the City of Edmonton, a pedestrian’s chances of survival are only 45 per cent if hit by a vehicle going 50 kilometres per hour. The probability of the pedestrian being killed increases to 85 per cent if the vehicle is travelling at 60 km/h. As the district notes, observed speeds were regularly up to 77 km/h. The author also claims the changes to the Parkway are purely political. Despite having a Bicycle Master Plan since 2012, little has been done District-wide. Other than changes to Lynn Valley Road and some of 29th, council has done almost nothing to make cycling safer in years prior. Cycling infrastructure in the district is starkly absent compared to the City of North Vancouver or the City of Vancouver. As for “inefficiency”, as the author notes, let’s do some simple math. From Riverside Dr. to Parkgate Village, the distance is 3.5 km. A drop in the speed limit from 60km/h to 50km/h results in an addition of 42 seconds to one’s trip to Seymour. I will leave it to readers to determine if, as the author states, this constitutes “an assault” on the “working class” and “the entire community,” including seniors. The lanes have only been narrowed minimally. According to the sistrict, the Parkway vehicle lanes are now the same as Lynn Valley Road and Marine Drive. If you are at risk of swerving into a concrete curb or barrier, then you were by definition at risk of hitting, injuring, or killing someone in the bike lane prior to the implementation of concrete separation. If the author is having trouble empathizing with the kind of discomfort many cyclists feel riding in an unprotected bike lane, I would ask them to try this: ride, run, walk, stand, or sit — whatever they are capable of — in an unprotected bike lane while a car or truck speeds past them within inches, regularly, at speeds of up to 80 km/h. And stay there for longer than 42 seconds. The recent changes are important because they provide real safety measures for people riding bikes (roughly 400 per day). But they are also important because they have a tangible effect on the comfort that riders feel as they make their way back and forth from the Seymour area. If we as a community feel it is important to reduce vehicle trips and traffic, and foster a healthy active community, then changes like what we see on the Parkway are an important step in the right direction and long overdue. Jordan Manley, North Vancouver What are your thoughts? Send us a letter via email by clicking here or post a comment below
Sale of Real Property by Non-Residents
Sale of Taxable Canadian Real Property Under the ITA the Canadian government has the right to tax a non-resident’s sale of Canadian real property. The tax is calculated on either: As it is more difficult for the Canadian government to collect tax from a non-resident, the ITA also makes the buyer liable for a payment of tax on the sale…
Volunteers plant trees in area they say was damaged by pipeline construction
Posted August 9, 2024 9:27 pm. Last Updated August 9, 2024 9:31 pm. The Mountain Protectors — an Indigenous-led group dedicated to monitoring the construction of the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion in Burnaby — says it is trying to regenerate the land that has been damaged during that process. Jim Leyden and Sam Munn, along with a handful of volunteers, have planted more than 100 trees in the stretch of land between Gaglardi Way and Lougheed Highway in Burnaby. “Every tree we plant, we take power back from the oil industry that would rather just come through here and gut everything and leave,” said Leyden “We want to remediate the sites so they get back to where they were. Be good neighbours.” They are hoping to revitalize the area and return it to a forest — measures they say should be taken by Trans Mountain. “I would like them to come and do the things they say they would do and take care of the things they say they would take care of,” Leyden said. “A spiritual contract goes from the beginning to the end, and not the beginning until someone gets out what they want. And that is the history of the resource industry.” In a statement, Trans Mountain says, in part, “Work crews are finishing final cleanup and reclamation activities along the pipeline corridor in Burnaby, which will continue through 2024. All remediation work is performed under a Canada Energy Regulator-approved Reclamation Management Plan…” Part of the company’s reclamation commitment, in a section for parks and sensitive areas, reads, “Our goal is to protect rare plant species and reestablish native plant communities,” but the Mountain Protectors say this hasn’t been fulfilled by Trans Mountain. “Even that kind of bare-minimum commitment they made to the people here,” Munn said. Munn is hoping the trees they planted will survive the summer, and the group is looking for volunteers to help them water the saplings to help replenish the land.
Vancouver to get new dedicated bus lanes on these key routes
HOME BUYERS – To get the best exclusive listings visit www.vreg.ca and go to “EXCLUSIVE DEALS” Vancouver will move forward with plans to implement dedicated bus lanes on key corridors in the city. Vancouver City Council unanimously passed a motion on Wednesday, July 24 to add dedicated bus lanes on eight priority corridors over the next…