West Point Grey: it’s a wealthy neighbourhood with big, sprawling mansions spread out over lots the size of football fields, according to one Vancouver councillor.
But a number of them sit empty and even crumbling. So Hector Bremner, a member of the Non-Partisan Association (NPA), wants a 150-acre section of it rezoned to accommodate denser housing for students and seniors.
“We have this grossly-underutilized series of lands, 400 people live there perhaps,” Bremner told Global News.
“It’s right on the edge of UBC, let’s provide housing for students to go to school.”
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The NPA councillor has proposed a diversity of housing types in the area that would include six-storey multi-family buildings, as well as social housing.
Coverage of Vancouver housing on Globalnews.ca:
The proposal also allows single-family homes.
But there’s concern about the idea from neighbourhood advocates like Larry Benge, with the Coalition of Vancouver Neighbourhoods (CVN).
He told Global News it’s not often that a councillor pitches a motion that “dictates and outlines an entire rezoning for a large portion of a certain specific neighbourhood.
West Point Grey, he said, isn’t conducive to the sort of housing that Bremner wants.
There are sloping sidewalks — not ideal for seniors — as well as expensive land and limited public transit options.
READ MORE: $14M mansion in Vancouver’s Shaughnessy neighbourhood destroyed by fire
Planning experts also say you can’t rezone your way out of a housing crisis.
“Rezoning by itself doesn’t create affordable housing,” said Andy Yan, director of SFU’s City Program.
“It doesn’t create neighbourhoods that can move around in terms of non-car dependency. It’s a tool.”
Nevertheless, Bremner’s idea is a sign that density could be coming to one of Vancouver’s richest areas — and that the 2018 civic election has unofficially begun.
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