Here’s the latest on a few projects at various stages of rezoning in the City of Burnaby:

• 2450 Alpha Avenue

An application was submitted last year for this 41,603 SF site in the Brentwood Town Centre area owned by Solterra. It is now moving toward public hearing next month. The plan calls for a 29-storey, 169 unit condo tower with ground oriented townhouses and below and above ground parking. It is currently zoned M-2, but is designated for high-density residential based on RM-4s. The total density is 3.6 FAR.

• 6050 Sussex Avenue

A preliminary rezoning application has been filed by Townline Homes for a triangular 30,237 SF site in Metrotown. The proposed rezoning is for a new residential highrise as well as a replacement of the existing Burnaby West United Church on site.

The maximum permitted density on the site would be 4.83 FAR.

• 6837-6875 Royal Oak Avenue

A preliminary application has been submitted for a site on the west side of Royal Oak Avenue south of Imperial Street. The site comprises two City-owned properties as well as a privately owned single family home. Under Sub-Area 7 of the Royal Oak Community Plan, the site can be rezoned under C9 Urban Village guidelines, which allows 2.2 FAR.

• Gold House (6280 Cassie Avenue)

This proposal by Rize Alliance for a 41-storey tower and 26-storey tower in Metrotown was give second reading and public hearing last summer, and has now met the prerequisite conditions imposed by the City of Burnaby. It will now move forward for final approval and should begin construction later this year. A registration site for the project is up already and says “Coming early 2015”

Porte Development has submitted a rezoning application for a 46,239 SF site at the corner of Dawson Street and Madison Avenue in the Brentwood Area of Burnaby. Unlike the rest of Brentwood, this proposal is not for a tower but for a 6-storey woodframe building with retail at grade and 92 residential units above. The plan includes:

• a total density of 2.2 FAR
• 100,828 SF of buildable SF
• 7,890 SF of CRU space
• 21 one-beds, 60 two-beds and 11 three-beds
• 178 underground parking spaces

Woodframe product is relatively scarce and will be a welcome project amid Brentwood’s thousands of highrise units in various stages of development.

The second half of the site was assembled earlier this year after the other half was bought in 2006 for a blended cost of approximately $47 per buildable SF.

Aggressive urban planning around SkyTrain stations in Burnaby is turning the municipality into Metro Vancouver’s hotbed for condo development, according to an Urban Development Institute report.

Heavy pre-sales in projects such as Station Square at Metrotown and the redevelopment of Brentwood Town Centre added up to almost 30 per cent of all new-construction sales across Metro Vancouver, outpacing Vancouver’s downtown and west side neighbourhoods.

Throw in the city’s east side and Vancouver still sold more condominiums, but Burnaby’s high-density push is bringing development levels between the two cities closer together.

To the end of the third quarter, Burnaby saw 1,613 presales of condos under development compared with 1,394 for downtown and west-side Vancouver combined, UDI reported.

In total, developers have projects that add up to 14,548 units in the planning stage in Burnaby, within striking distance of the 14,766 in the City of Vancouver’s planning process.