The proposal to build a new fire hall and emergency services complex topped with 130-units of affordable housing as part of a four-tower development will go to public hearing.
The $33.7-million project calls for eight storeys of affordable housing over a four-storey podium that will contain emergency services, including a fire hall, B.C. Ambulance Service and office space.
The project at 1025-1031 Johnson St. and 1050 Yates St. is to be built by Dalmatian Developments, a joint venture of Jawl Residential and Nadar Holdings Ltd.
The fire hall and residential tower is considered the initial phase of what is envisioned as a four-tower development on the site. Buildings of 14, 15 and 17 storeys are to be built in the future on half a city block.
If approved, the developer would have a conceptual OK for the entire site, but would have to apply for development permits covering form, character, exterior design and landscaping for each subsequent phase.
The fire hall building would be a 12-storey building with two levels of underground parking, a three-storey fire hall, a fourth-storey office floor and 130 units of affordable housing with recessed floors.
With some councillors expressing concerns about the density approval for the entire site that would be “bundled” with the fire hall site, Mayor Lisa Helps urged councillors to support sending the project to public hearing.
“Essentially [there’s been no] purpose-built affordable housing in the downtown since the 1990s. I think it’s high time to see that happen and it’s high quality affordable housing,” Helps said, adding that it’s projected that 25 to 35 per cent of the entire two-acre site will be affordable housing.
“Also, the developer could have proposed to the city that they build condos now and build the affordable housing later, but that’s not what’s happening,” she said.
Coun Ben Isitt said he would have had no issue sending the project to public hearing if it was just the fire hall and social housing tower.
“The challenge is it’s being bundled with extremely high densities beyond the current entitlement,” Isitt said, adding that he finds it hard to understand city staff’s position that there is no land-value lift benefit to the city. (Staff say an economic analysis determined there is no increase in land value from rezoning “due to a significant drop in supported land value with the inclusion of affordable housing.”
Isitt said he would be more comfortable with a proposal that includes development permit information now, detailing what the proposed buildings are to look like.
Last year, the city signed an agreement with Dalmatian to build the fire hall complex. The Downtown Residents Association has raised concerns that implicit in that agreement is the right to densities for the rest of the site that otherwise wouldn’t be approved.
It’s a charge that Helps said is not true and that the contract signed with the developer in no way pre-approves additional density.
