When you write columns about disputes and problems, you often hope they can be resolved even by the time someone reads what you’ve published.
Such is the case with last week’s disappointing announcement concerning the much-needed development of supportive housing for those battling mental illness. As our city discusses how to best produce targeted housing for those most in need, the joint venture of developer Boffo Properties and the Kettle Society seemed a natural opportunity to serve mutual interests.
Not so, it appears. The plug was pulled – or as I say, at least it appears – last week on the Kettle Boffo plan for a 12-storey multi-purpose facility for the corner of Commercial Drive and Venables Street. Boffo owns land on either side of Kettle and the city owns a parking lot to its north.
It would have included 30 units of supportive housing, expanded space for Kettle Society services and $2 million for its transitional costs, 200 units of market-based housing and 18,000 square feet of retail space.
The proponents’ reason to cancel: the project lost its viability when it became clear through meetings that the city wanted between $6 million and $16 million in cash as additional community amenity contributions (CACs) to agree to rezone the site to permit construction. The city has a different take and suggests Kettle Boffo was hasty and didn’t even participate in the process to seek rezoning.
Before we get into the weeds on the project, it needs to be stated that the affordability crisis in housing has a darker element of substandard and insufficient dwellings for the disadvantaged. This reality is, to be fair, the substance of much talk but of comparably spartan action by municipal, provincial and federal authorities.
Which is to say that most anything credible needs to be given a reasonable benefit of the doubt. Credibilty oozes here: the Kettle Society has been a four-decade marvel in ministering to the mentally ill, while Boffo Properties has a respectable history of local development. (Full disclosure: I live in one of its new buildings, and its reputation was a draw, but I do not personally know the builder.)
An important issue in this matter is the role CACs play in financing improvements in our cities.
Their legislative authority is questionable and vague, and in many instances they are a matter of case-by-case negotiation that gives rise to subjectivity and inconsistency.
Like them or not, we are dependent on CACs for things that taxpayers not long ago directly financed – playgrounds, green space, public art, day care and more affordable housing, among them. We should not live under any illusion that they do not detract from housing affordability. Even with the additional units on the land to amortize expense, the cost passes along to the homebuyer somehow. And when their duration is limited, they eventually propel tax increases to maintain and improve what was originally created.
If we are to believe city officials that CACs are applied equitably, then we would be helped if there were improved transparency about how they are reached, what they finance and why – and for how long. The behind-closed-doors stuff breeds suspicion and uncertainty.
The Kettle Boffo case is an excellent example of the confused state of affairs. Kettle Boffo presumed, as had other developers at times, that supportive housing was a large element of the community amenities, but the city doesn’t. The city says $12 million in grants were offered to defray much of the CACs, but Kettle Boffo says that was not accurate: “The partnership was not offered $12 million in municipal grants.”
Are we so far into CACs that we cannot extricate ourselves? Seems so. But we can do more to furnish the community with an understanding of their impact on development and expense. Otherwise we run the risk of more Kettle Boffo-style failures and finger pointing as the needy go untended.
Believe who you may, a project that would have at least scratched the surface on those needs deserves to be salvaged. If by the time you’ve read this you haven’t already settled this, folks, get back to the table to resuscitate it. •
Kirk LaPointe is editor-in-chief of Business in Vancouver Media Group and vice-president of Glacier Media.
