The City of North Vancouver is considering a fairly major area-wide rezoning for a neighbourhood known as Moodyville, just East of Lower Lonsdale. The rezoning follows on the City’s new OCP, adopted in 2015, which included a specific policy direction to create new zones within Moodyville, a predominantly single family and duplex area which the City has targeted for new growth.

Moodyville is…“currently comprised of 306 legal lots and approximately 490 units with an estimated population of 1,000. With the land use changes outlined in the 2014 OCP in place which introduce new potential for apartment, townhouse and duplex development, this area has the long-term capacity for an additional 1,400 units (roughly 3,000 new residents) for a total build-out population of approximately 4,000.”

The six proposed new zones will create opportunities for ground-oriented and apartment development. The proposed zones are as follows:

An amenity fund contribution of $20 per net buildable square foot applies to the floor area above the existing zoning and up tot eh OCP maximum density. It is estimated that the whole plan area in question will generate approx. $25 Million in amenity contributions.

Existing Moodyville Land Assemblies

A couple of developers have already secured sizeable land assemblies in Moodyville over the last year. These include:

Seacliff Properties

• 50 residential lots in the Southeast part of Moodyville
• Average anticipated density of 1.25 FSR
• Townhouse, stacked townhouse and 4-storey apartments

Qualex Landmark

• 14 residential lots along East 3rd Street (700-800 block)
• Stacked townhouse and/or 4-storey apartments

The Moodyville Area will be hooked up to the Lonsdale Energy Corporation, a district energy system initiative by the City of North Vancouver.

Here is an interesting map from 1956 from the City of Vancouver Archives showing land value assessments by $/SF from 1954 assessments in Downtown Vancouver.

Granville Street was the prime area back then at over $24.00 per SF of land! Conversely, Coal Harbour and Yaletown were steals at less than $1.50 per SF. Of course, these areas were still primarily industrial areas and condos were simply an idea that wouldn’t take hold for another decade. Fast forward sixty years and land values in those ‘hoods have increased approximately 2000%.

(click on the map for a zoomed in view)

“Scope and content Item is a map showing land values in dollars per square foot for the downtown area bounded by Burrard Street, Robson Street, and Nicola Street in the west and Main Street in the east.”

A rezoning application has been filed for a 17,000 SF two-lot assembly site at 7638-7662 Cambie Street, on the east side of Cambie between West 60th and West 61st Street.

The proposal is for a 6-storey condo building that includes:

• 34 units;
• 2 studios, 4 one-bedrooms, 22 two-bedrooms and 6 three-bedrooms
• a building height of 70 ft. ;
• a total density of 2.43 FSR; and
• 71 vehicle parking spaces and 49 bicycle spaces.

The application is being considered under the Cambie Corridor Plan.

The architect, GBL, explains the design rationale: “The Cambie Street facade comprises of stacked linear interowoven layers that playfully mirror the vehicular energy and movement of the adjacent street. The long projecting balconies act as giant louvers that shield the building face from mid to late afternoon sun, while also providing some acoustic buffering depth from the busy traffic.”