96-Unit Rental Apartment Building Planned for North Van

A rezoning application has been filed for a new rental apartment development in the Central Lonsdale area of the City of North Vancouver. The proposal is for 154 East 18th Street,  an existing 31 unit lowrise rental building built in 1964 at the northeast corner of East 18th Street and St. George’s Avenue. The lot is 24,880 SF with a frontage 182 feet and a depth of 137 feet. The existing zoning is RM-1.

The plan for the site is to demolish the existing building and replace it with a new 6-storey woodframe rental building, including:

• 96 rental apartment units (a net gain of 65 units)
• 9 studios, 56 one-bedrooms, 17 two-bedrooms, 14 three-bedrooms
• a total density of 2.60 FAR (64,650 SF)
• one level of underground parking for tenants (56 spaces)

The proposed development has been designed to minimize the impact of the new building on the existing neighbourhood, particularly for properties to the east of St. George’s Avenue, which have lower land use designations in the OCP. On the St. George’s Avenue frontage, the building height is designed to appear as five storeys, with an additional storey sunken below grade, and is further reduced to two storeys at the northeast corner of the site.

Further, the proposal includes the provision of 10 units at below market rents to assist the City’s housing affordability goals. Termed “Mid-Market Rental” (MMR) units, the aim of MMR units is to retain affordability for renters, while renewing and adding to the supply of new rental housing in the City.

The architect for the project is Metric Architecture.