A new building development proposal that will bring 61 new affordable housing units to the Village of Pemberton (VOP) came one step closer to being approved by mayor and council at the VOP council meeting on Sept. 21.
If approved, the 39,349-square-foot (3,656-square-metre), three-storey apartment complex, named The Aspect, will be located at 1422-1430 Portage Road.
With housing always a hot topic in the Sea to Sky corridor, particularly affordable rental units, the councillors were all interested in moving this project along to the next step. However, as is often the case with these types of projects, parking was a major point of discussion between mayor and council.
The bylaw for affordable housing states that a 61-unit rental property would need at least 72 parking spaces to meet the requirements. However, the current plans only have space in the underground parking garage for 61 stalls. To get around this potential issue, the applicants are requesting an 11-space variance on the parking stalls so the plans can continue moving forward, which was a concern for Councillor Amica Antonelli.
“It’s good to see this proposal come forward and I think the building looks pretty good. That said, I have parking concerns,” she said.
“We’ve heard recently from the neighbours that the whole neighbourhood has parking issues and providing 61 parking stalls for 61 units means that there’s no visitor parking and their visitors will be parking elsewhere. So I really feel like I have to represent the existing residents of Pemberton and make sure those needs are met.”
One potential solution to the parking concerns, according to the VOP’s consulting planner Cameron Chalmers, who gave the presentation, was to consider the seven parking stalls that are required to be provided by a nearby building as part of a covenant from a previous project.
However, the location of those seven stalls has not been identified yet, which was the issue holding Antonelli back from fully supporting the project.
A second concern among mayor and council revolved around the wording used for the proposed housing agreement that stated the owner of the project “shall enter into a Housing Agreement, approved by bylaw, to restrict the proposed development to purpose built rental for a minimum of 10 years from initial occupancy.”
After those 10 years are up, the owner could seek council approval for a strata title, which would allow them to sell individual units.
The issue for council is they would prefer to keep the building as an affordable rental-only complex for a longer period of time, as the affordable housing crisis isn’t going away anytime soon, according to Mayor Mike Richman.
“For me, before I would approve the Housing Agreement, and therefore the next steps on the development, I would like to see, in the Housing Agreement, something more than 10 years,” he said. “Honestly, I’d like to see that it’d be rental dedicated for at least 20 to 25 years. I feel like we need the dedicated rental desperately now, and that need is only going to grow over time and we have the ability to secure it within this agreement, so I would like to see us come back with a stronger agreement that makes sure that it is a dedicated rental for many years to come.”
Without being able to lock down exactly how long they want the agreement to keep the units as rental-only, Richman decided a good solution, for the time being, would be for the agreement to emphasize that it is a “minimum” of 10 years, while making it known to the applicants that council would prefer it to be a lot longer.
After all of council’s concerns were raised and discussed, a motion was presented by Coun. Ted Craddock and seconded by Coun. Leah Noble for the project to move forward with the suggested amendments. Antonelli opposed the motion on the grounds that she has seen in the past how giving a tentative approval before fully solving issues has often created ongoing problems for projects. She believes the parking issues need to be addressed before moving forward.
