The following Action Alert comes from Unite Here! Local 40 (hospitality workers’ union). CityHallWatch has looked at this application twice recently: “250 room floating hotel by Vancouver Convention Centre proposed” and “Hotel barge at Vancouver Convention Centre going to Public Hearing (April 14).”

Views from the Convention Centre have become one of the “crown jewels” of the Metro Vancouver region, a public good. Indeed, the convention centre itself was publicly funded to the tune of $883 million. The Referral Report doesn’t indicate whether federal and provincial governments that funded the convention centre were contacted. Now a private company seeks to privatize views for a high-end hotel. Public Hearing documents fail to visually portray actual view impacts for the public, a serious shortcoming. View impacts should be fully addressed and independently verified before Vancouver City Council makes a decision at the public hearing. In fact, a text correction in an April 7 last-minute “yellow memo” make it even worse. Excerpt: To mitigate [obstruction of public views], conditions are included in Appendix B to secure public access to viewing areas on the [DELETE: north side of the floating hotel, as well as the] west side dock to compensate for the obstruction of views.

Vancouver’s chief planner (Josh White) is actually recommending approval.

Below is from Unite Here!

City Hall is considering approval of a large 250-room floating hotel (“floatel”). As proposed, it will be 6-storeys high and the length of 2 NHL hockey rinks – and will be permanently moored in Coal Harbour’s waterfront, threatening to wall off certain public views, and dominate one of the city’s most iconic shorelines. If approved, Council could be handing over public waterfront to a foreign-owned multinational corporation, Sunborn International, with very little in return.

Council will hold a public hearing on Tuesday, April 14 (6pm). The project is listed as CD-1 (363) Text Amendment: 1055-1085 Canada Place and 1001-1045 West Waterfront Rd.

Here are 3 steps you can take to urge Council to reject this massive floatel in Coal Harbour:

Send an email to Councillors and tell them you oppose this use of our public waterfront. (Link goes to Unite Here article and letter campaign.) 

Click here (Public Hearing agenda page) to register your opposition with the City Clerk (this is important because they will tally feedback for the public hearing). Use the same link to sign up to speak.

What’s wrong with this proposal?

Kiss our landmark waterfront goodbye! The proposal runs afoul of existing city policies, which never fathomed a floatel in Vancouver Harbour. The floatel’s proposed height is more than double that permitted at the nearby marina. It will partially obstruct views of the harbour and north shore along the seawall, the panoramic views at the end of Burrard Street, the Vancouver Convention Center and Canada Place. It also raises serious questions about environmental impacts in a sensitive marine environment and sewage management.

The floatel will not be subject to the same city inspections as other hotels. No building permit. No occupancy permit. That means the City will have less oversight on building safety, fire protection, structural integrity, or evacuation procedures. Instead, the applicant is proposing to use a third party – based overseas – for critical safety inspections. That should alarm everyone.

Crummy public benefits in exchange for taking our public waterfront. Sunborn is offering measly walkway access to the floatel as their community amenity contribution – an insult compared to the scale of what’s being taken from the public. The applicant refused to provide the $3.6 million in community contributions the City requested.  

If approved, Council will be sending the message, yet again, that city rules are easily bent for developers.

This is the latest hotel proposal City Hall is trying to ram through before the election. To put it into perspective: the ABC-dominated Council has already approved approximately 3,000 hotel rooms – with 3,500 more in the pipeline. Meanwhile, too many Vancouverites still can’t afford to live here.

Is this what our Council should be prioritizing? This is a giveaway – a bad, precedent-setting deal that prioritizes private interests over public space, safety, and fairness.

Tell Council to reject this proposal. Vancouver’s iconic waterfront is not for sale.

Below: Applicant’s rendering of 250 unit hotel just north of the Vancouver Convention Centre West at 1055 Canada Place.

Below: Screengrab from the application booklet (p. 14/47).