North Van council votes 6-1 for Maplewood affordable housing

The plan to build affordable housing on Riverside Drive has been in the works since 2020.

District of North Vancouver council has given its final approvals to a major affordable housing project in Maplewood. The district has partnered with the Metro Vancouver Housing Program to build 81 below-market rentals in a six-storey building on four treed lots owned by the municipality on Riverside Drive just north of Old Dollarton Road. The project, which is targeted for families, seniors and people with disabilities, has been “years in the making,” said Manson Leung, Metro Vancouver Housing Program manager.

District council first debated using the land for affordable housing in 2020. The following year, they rezoned the property to allow between 60 and 90 rentals in a building of up to six storeys and council applied to Metro Vancouver to host a project at the site. Council left the exact size and shape of the eventual construction to be determined at the development permit stage.

On July 13, district council voted 6-1 to grant that permit. Mayor Mike Little and Couns. Catherine Pope, Herman Mah, Jordan Back, Betty Forbes and Jim Hanson in favour.

Of the 81 new homes, 24 will have their rents geared to the incomes of their eventual tenants at affordable rates. The remaining 58 will be 10 to 20 per cent below market rates. In practice, that means a range of about $445 per month for the cheapest studio unit to up to $3,500 per month for a three-bedroom apartment.

“We know that in the District of North Vancouver, we urgently need affordable housing and we’ve known this for some time,” Pope said. “And we need to be doing everything we can to advance it, to take care of the people in our community who need it, but also to support working people in this community who can’t afford to live here. They have to commute across the Second Narrows Bridge every day, adding to the congestion.”

The building will come with 51 resident parking spaces and eight for visitors. It is about a five minute walk to shops and services in Maplewood and 300 metres from transit. Mayor Mike Little said he would have preferred the building to have been shorter and more in keeping with the character of the neighbourhood but he said he was proud to be approving a Metro Vancouver housing project in the district, which he first campaigned on in 2018.

“When you look across their organization, they can be very proud of the Metro Housing program that they carry out. It’s entirely self-funded and the quality of life there is excellent. The reputation is excellent in the spaces that Metro Vancouver continues to be a good landlord in,” he said.

“I think it’s incredibly important for us to produce these kinds of housing units in our community.” Coun. Lisa Muri was the lone vote against the project.

She voted against the rezoning in 2021 as well. Muri said the district should have chosen other locations for a Metro housing project on sites that would be less damaging to the environment and easier to build on and service. “I don’t understand, in this time of true affordability and challenges with budgets, why the district would give one of the most challenging and expensive pieces of property to mitigate to Metro Vancouver when we had two other brownfields already mitigated, already serviced and not requiring to clear cut a forest,” she said.

Coun. Jim Hanson acknowledged the environmental damage the project would necessitate but he said there were competing factors to consider.

“We are facing an urgent crisis, and this is a social crisis of affordable housing,” he said. “It’s a value judgment that each of us have to process and each of us have to engage in at this council. And in my view, in this case, the social benefits outweigh the environmental challenges.”