It’s no secret that municipal election season generally means a slowdown in the approval process for developers throughout Metro Vancouver. Rezoning applications in particular can represent an undesirable political issue that most mayors and councilors would prefer not to deal with during a re-election campaign, and planning staff usually direct rezoning applicants accordingly, regardless of whether the application would be contentious at a public hearing.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the City of Vancouver. With most rezoning applications publicized in the media, and with well-organized community groups speaking at most large-scale rezoning public hearings, staff and council have been reticent and discouraging of new applications over the past several months. Vision Vancouver has a well known track record of approving almost every rezoning application that staff brings forward, but that is a topic for another discussion…

Here’s a look at the volume of rezoning applications at the City of Vancouver during Vision’s most recent term in office:

Disclaimer: This graph represents rezoning application filings only, and only the most recent applications where projects have been revised. Only a portion of these applications have been approved to date. This is not official City of Vancouver data and I make no guarantees as to its accuracy.

Of note, rezoning applications have been scarce over the past few months after a 3-year high earlier in the year, and perhaps not coincidentally, there have been few truly contentious rezoning applications that would stir up opposition. Smartly, the City is taking time with rezonings in new plan areas such as Marpole and the West End where the communities are still coming to terms with the realities of densification, albeit only moderate densification in most areas.

Rest assured there is a queue of developers that are waiting to file applications after the election. The number that are able to do so early in the new year will be at least partially dependent upon the how Council looks after November 15th.

An development application has been made for a C2C1 zoned site located at 2889 East 1st Avenue in Vancouver. The site consists of the entire block on the west side of Renfrew between Graveley Street and 1st Avenue, except for the northernmost 31.16’ lot. The owner of this site has been approached but does not want to sell at this time. The assembled site is 120’ deep and 218’ long.

The proposal is for a 73-unit, 5-storey residential building over commercial space and two levels of underground parking. The total density is 2.85 FSR, although the proposal will require a variance to achieve 5-storeys.

The area is fairly underdeveloped at this time but there is pressure to redevelop the commercially zoned sites. The 1800 block of Renfrew has a new project on the north side of the street, a renovation adding a fifth storey to a seniors complex on the south end of the east side and a new Development Permit application for the north end of the east side.

After speculation about it’s future, the site at 1250 West Hastings in Coal Harbour that had been branded in 2013 as “The Views at Coal Harbour” has sold to Port Capital Group for $13,100,000. The 8,250 SF site had development permits in place for 14-storey building consisting of 25 residential units and 3,500 SF of office space with a total density of 5.7 FSR.

No word yet on whether Port intends to alter the existing project in any way. Demolition of the existing low-rise office building has not yet commenced.

Here’s a snapshot of where large-scale residential projects (defined as those over 100 units) are currently being built: