A retail property with redevelopment potential located on Kingsway in Vancouver’s Norquay Village area has sold for $8,580,000. The 13,750 SF strip plaza is leased to mostly local tenants. The 26,936 SF site is zoned C-2. On a land basis, the site sold for $127 per buildable SF.

A rezoning application for 10 single-family lots located at 4949-5109 Cambie Street goes to public hearing next week.

Washington Properties (whose project you might be familiar with on West 41st across from Oakridge) is planning the development of three six-storey concrete residential buildings containing a total of 202 units all over two levels of underground parking. The total site frontage is 626 feet, and the total site area is 76,825 SF.

Washington’s website suggests the units will all have air conditioning and “high” ceilings.

The Cambie Corridor Plan suggests this site can achieve 1.75 to 2.25 FSR, but before a road dedication and a transfer of heritage density, the proposed density is 2.39 FSR (or 2.60 FSR after the road dedication). Approximately 20% of the $5.5 Million CAC will be the transfer of heritage density.

The site was acquired between 2011 and 2012 for $34,098,000, or $186 per buildable SF.

See more information here.

I am pleased to announce the sale of 2445 Hemlock Street. Colliers worked on behalf of the Vendor to generate multiple offers. The property sold to a user group that intends on occupying a portion of the building. The purchase price was $4,000,000.

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The City of Vancouver said Thursday it is reviewing its method of demanding extra payments from developers to help pay for non-traditional services such as daycare centres, heritage conservation, parks and social housing.

The review comes after the province issued new guidelines for how local governments assess community amenity contributions (CACs) that are tied to rezoning applications. Those guidelines were sparked in large part by concerns that Vancouver is using a method of calculation that could be seen as both coercive of developers and breaching long-standing rules against the selling of zoning in return for a benefit.

The city’s practice has been to seek what it calls “voluntary contributions” from developers that amount to 75 per cent of any profit they might generate from land that becomes more valuable through rezoning. In the most expensive of cases, that amounts to as much as $50,000 per-unit, compared to a more modest $1,200 per unit in Surrey.

By seeking “voluntary” payments the city retains a discretionary right to approve rezoning applications. The payment is different from legislated “development cost levies” that all applicants must pay for services such as sidewalks, water, roads and sewer connections. Vancouver said it obtained a legal opinion that the CACs are fair as long as they are made “voluntarily” by developers, who are told they are not a precondition of zoning approval.

A 41-unit heritage apartment building at West 10th Ave and Oak Street in Vancouver has sold for $11,000,000, representing a 4.0% cap rate, or $268,000 per unit. The building, built in 1927 had been listed for sale for $13,000,000. The lot is 12,500 SF in size and is zoned RM-3.