industrial land located closer to residential," Moore says.
"It's mixed all together, and it's working. So you are going to see
more of that."
In Vancouver late last decade, City sta‚ published a report
that opposed any rezoning of the land around the Marine Drive
Canada Line station to residential. In 2009, the South Vancou-
ver Industrial Area was the city's biggest and most
affordable such zone, representing almost a
quarter of its industrial jobs.
The sta‚ report, by then–director of
planning Brent Toderian and assistant
director of planning Kent Munro, cited
several reasons for rejecting residen-
tial. Among them: incompatibility of
heavy industry and housing, higher
property values and the likelihood that
other industrial-land owners would
expect similar development rights.
But in 2009, when the Canada
Line came along, Vancouver-based
PCI
Developments Corp. won approval to
rezone the site next to Marine Drive station
for a ˜ve-acre, mixed-use development with 415
condos. It was the antithesis of a 14-year-old city policy
to preserve industrial land that had already shrunk by
30 per cent. It also contradicted the Regional Growth
StrateŸy policy to protect industrial property that council
had supported months earlier. Toderian pointed out that
only a paltry 10 per cent of the city's land is for jobs.
But rather than follow strongly worded sta‚ recommenda-
tions against residential, city council voted to rezone the site. "I
still think it was the wrong decision, but it was my job to imple-
ment it in a way that had the best outcome," Toderian says. "So
we made sure it didn't spread, and that it didn't send a message
to the industry that 'This is the new normal.' We put
a fence around it."
Municipalities have good reason to favour
residential projects. Even though indus-
trial users pay heftier taxes than home-
owners, residential has a bigger payo‚.
When developers build condos, it's like
Christmas: they give municipalities
amenity goodies such as community
centres and parks.
Craig Hennigar, director of market
intelligence, Canada, with Colliers, says
outcry over the rezoning of industrial
waterfront is understandable, but so too
is municipalities' desire for more tax dollars
and better infrastructure. "From a value per-
spective, you could put a large industrial property
on 30 acres, but you could also put 200 or 300 houses or 600
or 700 townhouses. So in aggregate, those would have much
greater value for tax purposes than industrial land," he notes.
"There is also demand for retail, for services—critical mass that
builds community."
Municipalities
have good reason to
favour residential projects.
Even though
industrial users pay heftier
taxes than homeowners,
residential has a
bigger payo
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