BCBusiness

A s a child in his native Taiwan, Will Lin would often listen to his physician father discuss real estate investments at the dinner table. In 1979, at the age of 13, Lin left Taiwan with his parents, twin brother and four older siblings. He arrived in Brandon, Man., via Costa Rica and South Dakota, three years later. (His father had purchased a sausage factory in the prairie town, where Lin helped out after school.) After completing a com- merce degree at the University of Manitoba, Lin followed his older brother to Vancouver, where he started doing sales for a small importer/distributor of hardware products. He launched his ¢rst real estate venture a few years later, at the age of 28: 11 live- work lofts in Yaletown on land purchased for $700,000 (half ¢nanced through a loan from his father). Lin has since completed 10 more projects across the South Coast worth just over $1 billion— everything from residential to heritage conversions, mixed-use to commercial developments— and learned a few lessons about the challenges of developing communities along the way. Your latest project, the Indepen- dent, was plagued with contro- versy—over density, building heights and affordability. What was that experience like—man- aging a project that nobody seemed to want? We thought we were doing the right thing, complying with Will Lin T h e C o n v e r s a t i o n the president of rize Alliance properties on meeting opposition in Mount pleasant, getting lost and finding affordability by Felicity Stone the city's recommendation to increase density for Mount Pleasant. If you had asked me at the time, I would have said, Oh my god, but now we're through, I think we really enjoyed it. I think as a team we grew from it. We learned how to deal with adversity, how to deal with building up better connections with the local groups, local com- munity, consultants, the city, the planning department and the politicians. We have to under- stand their wants and needs and mandates. Without adversity, we would never grow. We'd just lie on the couch and watch TV all day—which I'm not against either once in a while. Most of your other proj- ects have featured more harmonious relations with the community, as well as a sensitivity about protecting local heritage. When we bought the Canadian Linen building in Yaletown in 1995, where our Metropolis project is, I didn't know too much about heritage or what could be done. We talked to the city, and they said, "Hey, by the way, it's a heritage building—if you save it, we could help you with it, to subsidize the cost of saving the heritage building." More recently, with the Rolston project, we preserved the Yale Pub, and I think archi- tecturally it plays o¦ the new modern architecture quite well. The other part with the Rolston that we're quite happy about is the renovation of the single- room accommodation on top of the pub. The deal we made with the city was we renovate it and give it back to the city to run. In general, what do you look for when deciding what and where to build? It might sound funny, but we like to look at stu¦ that other people pass up because deveLOpInG OppOsItIOn CENTREVIEW WHERE: North Vancouver WHO: Onni Group PROBLEM: Height, density and traf‹c BEACH TOWERS WHERE: Vancouver WHO: Devonshire Properties PROBLEM: Building design and rent increases OAKRIDGE CENTRE WHERE: Vancouver WHO: Ivanhoe Cambridge and Westbank Development PROBLEM: Height, density and traf‹c JUNE 2015 BCBusiness 19 pAUL JOsEpH FACTOID Vancouver has one condo for every 900 residents, more per capita than any city in North America

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