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Michael Cook has had a lot of sleepless nights since he found out his rental apartment of more than ten years could soon be replaced by a hotel.
“It creates a lot of stress for me as a father,” he told CBC News from the living room of his Mount Pleasant unit. “I wake up, my jaw has been clenched all night. I wake up thinking, how am I going to talk to my kids about this.”
Cook lives in the unit with his wife and two young children. He’s one of about 40 renters of the low-rise building that’s the site of a proposed 190-unit extended-stay hotel marketed for tech employees. The rezoning application was made under Vancouver’s Broadway Plan and is being reviewed by city staff.
A coalition of tenants are calling on the owner and Vancouver city council not to move forward with the project, citing concerns that the hotel will deplete the pool of affordable units in the area and force tenants out of the neighbourhood and into a challenging rental market.
Cook says he pays just over $1,000 for his one-bedroom unit, while some residents who have lived there for decades, including seniors, pay less.
Michael Cook and his family, left, and his neighbours, right, are pictured outside their apartment building in Mount Pleasant. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
Under the current Broadway Plan, renters whose homes are replaced by new projects must be offered right of first refusal to live in the new building at their current rent, but the provision would not apply in this case because the development is considered a hotel.
“We don’t have any rights to first refusal to any accommodations,” said Cook. “So people are looking at, are they going to have to move to Alberta, are they going to have to move to the suburbs, are they going to have to move to a basement suite.”
According to building owner Nicola Real Estate, it has “engaged an experienced team to work with current residents to ensure they are provided with relocation assistance” in line with city policies when the time comes.
In a statement, the City of Vancouver said tenants would qualify for compensation based on length of tenancy and payment for moving costs, but there’s no guarantees they would get to stay in Mount Pleasant.
The proposed redevelopment would replace a decades-old rental building with a 21-storey hotel. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
“While efforts will be made to help tenants remain in the same neighbourhood where possible, available housing that meets rent limits and individual needs will be the priority,” it said.
Andy Yan, director of Simon Fraser University’s city program, says the conflict is a consequence of the sweeping rezoning in the area as part of the development-oriented Broadway Plan.
“This really highlights some of the ongoing challenges for those who are living in the area for which I think this rezoning didn’t necessarily think about,” said Yan. “They are going to struggle to find adequate and much less similar replacement housing.”
An artist’s rendering of the proposed hotel at at 75 East 8th Ave., in Mount Pleasant. (Mussen Cattell Mackey Partnership/City of Vancouver)Proposed project
The proposed 21-storey hotel would sit at 75 East 8th Ave., in Vancouver, just one block away from Main Street, and is being marketed as an extended-stay hotel with apartment-style living that the developer says will “support the relocation of the talent required for the booming high-tech and biotech firms” in the area.
Its base will include two storeys of industrial space.
The project sits within 200 metres of the future Mount Pleasant subway station, which makes it a transit-oriented development area — a provincially legislated designation that encourages more dense housing around transit hubs.
But since the property sits in the Mount Pleasant Industrial Area, the city says new residential buildings aren’t allowed due to Metro Vancouver’s directive to protect industrial land.
Still, the city says it is considering hotels in that industrial area under the Broadway Plan. Destination Vancouver has reported the city has a hotel room shortage.
Yan says there has been an erosion of hotel rooms in the city, but notes this project wouldn’t necessarily serve the tourism economy in Vancouver.
“These specific units are not so much hotel rooms, but more around the intermediate rental term,” said Yan. “It’s a type of housing for a high-end labour pool.”
Many of the building’s renters are calling on city councillors to vote against the rezoning application. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
He says it will be up to council to try to weigh the areas needs for affordable rentals when considering the project.
“The city can actually refuse the rezoning,” said Yan. “It gives council and staff a certain amount of leverage in terms of ensuring this doesn’t become a homeless creation device in the area.”
City staff didn’t confirm when the project would go before city council, but said they’re streamlining applications in hopes of getting them reviewed before council breaks for the summer.
Cook and the majority of building tenants are calling on the councillors to keep the units intact.
“There’s a building full of toddlers and elders who have been calling this place home for decades,” said Cook.