A decision on the proposed Richmond Centre development, originally scheduled to be made on Monday, was postponed to the next public hearing following the municipal election.
The proposal for the new development doesn’t require rezoning, only a change to a community plan, which was set to be discussed on Monday. At the start of the meeting, Mayor Malcolm Brodie announced the decision will be pushed to Nov. 19.
“The postponement is the result of legal advice that council has received. The legal advice was given in a closed meeting. That’s all I can tell you,” Brodie told the Richmond News.
The development plan laid out by the property’s owner Cadillac Fairview and developer SHAPE includes 12 buildings with 2,000 units. Plans also include new public streets, outdoor, retail and commercial spaces.
However, independent council candidate John Roston takes issue with the fact that the development isn’t required to include rental units and that most of the units are expected to be sold as condos. Prior to Monday’s meeting, Roston pushed extensively for the discussion to be delayed until after the election and even said he sent a letter to council.
“Why you are all claiming to be so much in favour of creating more rental housing and ignoring this golden opportunity, I said, is totally beyond me,” Roston explained he wrote to council. “Further, why are you doing it on the eve of an election?”
In May, the provincial government passed legislation allowing cities to zone properties for rental-only development.
In the summer, the City of Richmond said it was too early to know how it will address rental-only zones.
“This is an interesting opportunity for municipalities across the province...it’s very new. It’s not included at this stage in our work but we are reviewing it,” Barry Konkin, manager of policy planning for the city told the News in June.
In areas where multi-family residential use permitted, cities can also require that a certain number, portion or percentage of housing units in a building be rental.
While Roston said he’d like to see the entire Richmond Centre development used for rental housing, he believes 60 per cent is realistic.
“The developer does have to pre-sell a certain number of units in order to get the financing to have the development proceed,” Roston said. “The only thing that they have agreed to do is to provide 150 low-income, low-rental units.”
In spite the Richmond Centre development decision being postponed, Roston said he still worries the proposal will go ahead as planned if council stays the same.
“I don’t see any reason why their views will have changed,” Roston said. “It’s as simple as that.”
With files from Daisy Xiong
