It’s rare for a public hearing over a single rezoning to take more than a day at city council, particularly outside the City of Vancouver. If it’s controversial, maybe two or three are required.
On Wednesday, the District of North Vancouver’s hearing will enter its fourth day.
“The location for this proposal is clearly not a good fit for the community,” said Michelle Dino, one of the dozens of speakers over the three days of public hearings for a 65-unit supportive housing project near the Second Narrows Bridge (
you can see the application here).
“It is expected that the [project] will have the same long-term problems and contribute to crime, drug use, garbage, parking, verbal abuse and other problems in our community,” said Geoff Fawkes, another member of the public opposed to the six-storey building that would house people who are either homeless or facing the threat of homelessness.
North Shore News: Residents voice concerns, support for Keith Road supportive housing Not everyone is opposed to the project — the District said 15 per cent of people who wrote in were in favour — but over the 10-plus hours of hearings so far, many complaints from residents have followed the same lines familiar to anyone who has watched a public hearing for social housing anywhere in the province: concerns over community fit, potential crime, proximity to schools and child-care facilities, and, yes, property values.
But other complaints are more particular to this project. There are no renderings of the building, which would be at the intersection of two busy arterial roads in the district.
In addition, while the project is a partnership with Vancouver Coastal Health and B.C. Housing, the proposed operator of the facility is Lu’ma Native Housing Society, which has run a supportive housing complex in a converted Travelodge in adjacent North Vancouver City.
That site has gotten the attention of local media and a nearby MLA, who
said in the legislature two months ago that she “heard countless concerns from neighbours and families horrified by the open and unsupervised drug use and rising vandalism.”
It has led to heated conversations at the public hearings, with people breaking out in applause — prompting Mayor Mike Little to admonish the audience — when one person suggested it was unfair for the District of North Vancouver to have supportive housing when West Vancouver doesn’t have any.
“Maybe it’s a good idea to put this over there,” he said.
It’s true that, according to B.C. Housing data that will be included in the 2023 Metro Vancouver Housing Data Book, West Vancouver has one unit of non-market housing designated as “Emergency Shelter and Housing for the Homeless.”
However, the two North Vancouvers (district and city) have 120 units combined. The City of Vancouver, by contrast, has 8,933, about 73 per cent of the total for all of Metro Vancouver.
The provincial government and B.C. Housing have made it a priority to diversify the placement of supportive housing across Metro Vancouver.
But the division over this particular project — and the amount of days required to get to a vote, which may not happen until 2024 — may be an example of why the gap exists in the first place.
