North Shore Outlook – Towering concerns touch Lynn Valley.

A couple hundred people packed a District of North Vancouver council meeting Monday, as vocal resistance to high-density neighbourhoods in North Vancouver continues.

Proposed Lynn Valley Town Centre

Most were there to protest the Lynn Valley Town Centre Implementation Plan, a rigorous public consultation process on the future of new development in Lynn Valley. Attendees told council they felt the consultation plan would merely pay lip-service to residents’ concerns while high-rise development plans for Lynn Valley would go ahead regardless of the public’s wishes.

In actual fact, the implementation plan is just the next step in the district’s Official Community Plan (OCP), a long-term growth management strategy ratified in 2011 after two years of public consultations. That next step, approved unanimously by council Monday, merely directs staff “to undertake an intensive and focused community engagement initiative in early 2013 to seek further feedback to shape and refine the Lynn Valley Town Centre Implementation Plan.”

Read more: http://www.northshoreoutlook.com/news/186176101.html

The City of Vancouver is recommending changes to the I-1 Zoning as part of the City’s Metropolitan Core Jobs Plan. The changes are intended to enhance the use of sites within the I-1 zone in Mount Pleasant, which was generally limited to light industrial or mixed use at a density of 1.0 to 3.0 FSR. Included in the changes is more flexiblity for office use.

Summary of Proposed Changes:

• A variety of service uses have been proposed for increase in allowable density, while still remaining within the overall 3.0 FSR density limit.
• Several service uses that were previously not permitted are proposed to be allowed as conditional uses, like entertainment.
• A greater variety of office uses are proposed to be permitted. In the existing zoning, several categories of General Office use are not allowed. In the proposed zoning, all of the categories of General Office use will be allowed.
• This means a mixed use building could be comprised of 1.0 FSR of the identified light industrial/service space on the ground floor and 2.0 FSR of General Office space above.
• There will be an opportunity with a potential Parking Payment-in-lieu District in the area for the developer to partner with new developments in the same area in order to provide additional parking over and above specific site requirements. This will be important for smaller sites to get to 3.0 FAR.

Devonshire Properties‘ plan for Beach Towers (1600 Beach Avenue and1651 Harwood Street) goes to council next week. The plan is to rezone from RM-5A to CD-1 to add 133 units on the existing four tower property with new infill development to be added as follows:

• on the Beach Avenue site, 118 new market rental units located within a four-storey building fronting Beach Avenue and a nine-storey building at Harwood and Cardero streets, a one-storey amenity building at Beach and Cardero streets, and enclosure of the bases of the existing towers, thereby increasing the allowable floor area by 89,095 sq. ft.; and
• on the Harwood Street site, 15 new market rental units located within two- and three-storey buildings, thereby increasing the allowable floor area by 10,906 sq. ft.

New building from courtyard

From the City’s rezoning report: “This application helps achieve City housing policies, specifically through the creation of a total of 133 units of new secured market rental housing. Staff have assessed the application and support the uses and form of development….Staff recommend that the application be referred to a Public Hearing, with the recommendation of the General Manager of Planning and Development Services to approve it, subject to the Public Hearing.”

Richmond Review – Ball in Walmart’s court for Richmond development.

City hall’s planning and development department is beginning the new year with a fat file on its desk that won’t go away.

Plans for a Walmart-anchored shopping mall in West Cambie are back in planners’ hands, after city council’s planning committee late last month ordered staff to do more work on the file.

Proponents first pitched their plans 10 years ago, spawning dramatic change in a neighbourhood largely untouched by redevelopment.

Read more: http://www.richmondreview.com/news/185953841.html

BlueSky Properties‘ project at 633 Main Street has been revised slightly. The proposal is now calling for more residential units (now 188) while reducing the project’s overall density from 9.29 to 8.86 FSR. The site is zoned HA-1A and was sold to BlueSky by Colliers in 2011.

We first told you about this project in May 2012.

Revised Project Rendering

Source: City of Vancouver