Competing visions
Vancouver is finalizing a standard formula for calculating the community amenity contributions (CACs) charged when developers rezone development sites. The contributions, based on the projected change in a property’s improved value following rezoning, are a lucrative source of revenue for municipalities.
But word has reached Business in Vancouver that the province, following two years of study, began circulating draft guidelines in late February recommending that municipalities around the province determine CACs on a case-by-case basis – a practice that proved especially contentious in the Cambie Corridor.
Without a sense of what CACs will be, developers can’t factor them into the purchase price of properties, potentially making any space built on the site – often housing – less affordable.
“When you get into a situation where you have to negotiate community amenity charges, you never know where you’re going to be,” said Ward McAllister, president and CEO of Ledingham McAllister Properties Ltd. “There have been a lot of complaints to senior levels of government that municipalities shouldn’t be allowed to do this.”
To create stability, Vancouver staff have been developing a system of fixed-rate CACs for five key neighbourhoods – Arbutus, the Cambie Corridor, Little Mountain, Norquay Village and Southeast False Creek – that have seen significant development pressure in recent years.
The new formula Vancouver is developing would parallel the fixed rate charged since 1999 on “standard rezonings” elsewhere in the city; that rate is $3 a square foot. A common figure mentioned for the five special neighbourhoods is approximately $50 a square foot.
Nancy Eng, communications co-ordinator for the city, would not provide a staff member to speak to the new formula or to comment on the province’s recommendations. “The two items are still under development and staff will be reviewing the provincial paper,” she said.
Anne McMullin, president and CEO of the Urban Development Institute in Vancouver, was coy regarding the province’s study, which covers development cost charges of all sorts.
“They have talked to us about it, but I don’t know officially where they’re at,” she said.
McMullin hopes the province’s final report will provide clarity on the structure of CACs, but she doesn’t expect Victoria to regulate them.
McAllister, for his part, said the Vancouver Charter renders the city independent of the province’s recommendations, but there’s a general move to find models that create certainty.
“Vancouver is looking to go to a more standard model to get away from this whole subjective negotiation,” he said. “Hopefully, [provincial guidelines] will provide some rules for municipalities that are not governed by the Vancouver Charter.”
Contrarian line
Transportation lines guide developments throughout Metro Vancouver as surely as the rails they employ guide trains from point A to point B.
But for Anson Chan, principal of Hong Kong-based developer Bonds Group, which is building the 333-unit Tate project at 1265 Howe Street on the south side of the downtown peninsula, transit lines are an easy play.
Chan’s sense of cities has been honed by time not only in North America – his first project was in San Francisco – but also in his native Hong Kong, where the company has five properties. Stacked up against such cities, Vancouver is a desirable but relatively small market.
Opportunities for the city lie in newcomers, whether they are retirees escaping volatile winter weather east of the Rockies or workers making their fortunes in northern B.C.’s resource sector.
But to build along transit lines? Chan sees more value in the dense urban community that defined the vision for downtown through the 1990s and the first half of the last decade, when condo construction increased Vancouver’s downtown population faster than then-director of current planning Larry Beasley and his staff anticipated.
“Sustainable downtown living” is Chan’s goal – but as important as transit is to sustainable cities, Metro Vancouver lacks the density of population and development that makes the transit systems of Hong Kong and other cities viable.
“Vancouver’s density isn’t such that you can have an elaborate transport system,” he said during a recent lunch with local media. “That really imposes an economic limit on extending those transportation systems.”
His own quest is for properties in areas that face long-term development constraints, such as the West End and south side of False Creek. Chan is currently negotiating on sites in both neighbourhoods, but it’s worth noting that the Tate site was assembled in at least six separate transactions between 2003 and 2008. Chan knows what he wants, but he also takes a patient approach to bringing his plans to fruition. •
