Apartment, Condo, Development, Office, Retail

Pinnacle Revises Gatineau Place Proposal to Include Density Transfer

Pinnacle International is seeking City of Burnaby Council approval to allow a density transfer to facilitate the development of both their Austin-Gatineau Place property, and a nearby site also owned by Pinnacle, called Carrigan Court.

The Gatineau proposal was first unveiled in 2019, and generated some attention by proposing three towers totaling 1.9 Million SF, the tallest of which envisioned at 82-storeys, likely a new tallest for Metro Vancouver. The new proposal would now see four towers for the site with the tallest at 80-storeys.

The 6.2 acre Austin-Gatineau site is located in the Lougheed Town Centre Plan area. It was acquired by Pinnacle from Shape Properties in 2018.

Following the initial proposal, a number of issues were identified relating to both the ability to accommodate the site’s allocated density and density associated with the Rental Use Zoning policy which came into place in 2020. It was determined that the site could not accommodate the non-market rental density. Also, the British Columbia Transportation and Finance Authority (BCTFA) would not permit any encumbrances over adjacent Provincial-owned land, which had a significant impact on the siting of one of the Austin-Gatineau Site’s towers identified in the Master Plan.

In 2021, the City of Burnaby a Density Transfer Policy allowing density transfers to accommodate non-market rental housing on concurrent rezonings for nearby sites.

As Pinnacle is the owner of a nearby 3.40 acre property at 3846 Carrigan Court, an existing 141-unit rental apartment property that they are now proposing to transfer the inclusionary rental from the Austin-Gatineau site to a redeveloped Carrigan Court.

The revised proposals for both sites are as follows:

Austin-Gatineau Site

  • Four condo towers of 80, 76, 73 & 50-storeys in height, each atop commercial podiums;
  • Three phases;
  • 2,474 condo units;
  • a total floor area of of 2.3 Million SF;
  • a total density of 11.82 FAR.

Carrigan Court

  • Three residential towers of 33-storeys, 25-storeys & 23-storeys;
  • Two phases;
  • 900 total residential units;
  • 546 rental units including:
    • 141 replacement rental units;
    • 405 inclusionary units transferred from the Austin-Gatineau site;
  • a total floor area of 734,810 SF;
  • a total density of 4.95 FAR.
A previous version of the proposal that envisioned 3-towers.

The architect for the project is JYOM Architects.

April 8, 2022by david.taylor@colliers.com