ABC councillors approve new hotel development policy with changes to rezoning payments

Good morning, 

Nate with you today. As a small community-oriented publication, we tend to stick to stories on local issues, policy, and personal profiles, and do fewer exposes or punchy investigations. 

But as journalists, we go where the story takes us, which sometimes (or often) means shedding light on decisions made by people in power – whether in government, business or elsewhere. While we always try to create positive relationships with everyone we interact with and strive to build connections with sources and readers, what we’re doing isn’t always appreciated by the people and institutions we’re covering. 

Lately, we’ve received a few less-than-friendly messages questioning our access or threatening legal action on our coverage. These accusations have no merit, but they remind us that there are things that those in positions of power want to keep hidden or sheltered from public view. 

While we don’t see our role as an outlet that focuses exclusively on hard-hitting investigations, we’re committed to continuing to report on matters of public interest, particularly on hyper-local topics that impact Vancouver residents and that may get missed by bigger publications.

Today, we’re going back to our bread and butter with a breakdown of city council’s latest move to encourage more hotels to get built in the city. 

Let’s get to it!

— Nate Lewis, Vancity Lookout

PS - If you find this newsletter valuable, please consider forwarding it to your friends. New to the Lookout? Sign-up for free. 

If you have a tip, lead, or story idea, reach out to Nate at [email protected]

WEATHER

Wednesday: 12 🌡️ 5 | ☀️

Thursday: 14 🌡️ 8 | ☀️

Friday: 15 🌡️ 7 | 🌤️

VANCOUVER NUMBERS

💰 $11 million: The estimated cost to complete the temporary FIFA World Cup training site at Killarney Park. City council will vote today on whether to approve the contract, which would be funded through the city’s World Cup budget. That would bring the project’s total cost to about $27 million. [COV]

⚽ $160: The cheapest ticket for Vancouver Whitecaps' upcoming tournament semifinal against Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami at BC Place. This game has bigger stakes than the one Messi no-showed for last season, but it remains to be seen if the Argentinian superstar will show up in Vancouver this time around. [Ticketmaster]  

CITY HALL

ABC councillors approve new hotel development policy with changes to rezoning payments

What happened: City council approved a new policy for hotel development in Vancouver, with the goal of making it easier for the private sector to build more hotels and increase room supply in the city. 

• Part of the report passed unanimously, while significant amendments were also passed by the ABC majority with opposition from other councillors  

The problem: There’s an urgent need for more hotel rooms in Vancouver, as current occupancy and rental rates are very high, according to a report from city staff.

• The city currently has about 13,000 hotel rooms across 78 hotels. Only seven of those existing hotels are outside the downtown core. 

Room rates here are much higher than the Canadian average. For example, in August 2024, the average daily rate for a hotel room in downtown Vancouver was $422, which was double the national average. The same data set showed a room in downtown Toronto cost $345 per night, for comparison. 

• A small part of that cost is a temporary tax of 2.5 per cent on hotel and other short-term accommodation bookings, which is helping to fund the city’s FIFA World Cup budget.

To meet projected hotel room demand, the city needs approximately 10,000 new hotel rooms over the next 25 years, according to a study by tourism promoter Destination Vancouver that city staff reviewed and generally agreed with.

• ABC Coun. Sarah Kirby-Yung highlighted that the city has had about the same number of hotel rooms since 2002, according to comments from Destination Vancouver’s CEO at the hearing.  

Increasing hotel capacity has been a big focus for the ABC majority council this term, led by Kirby-Yung. That focus included the creation of a hotel development task force in 2023, which – made up of industry representatives – advised staff in creating the approved report. 

The details: The city’s main mechanism to encourage new hotels is by allowing additional density during the rezoning of specific projects. That includes changing the zoning policy in the central business district to provide a temporary three-year exemption around minimum site size requirements. 

They also moved forward with hotel-specific changes to the Broadway Plan, which allows for hotel proposals to be considered for smaller sites in employment and industrial parts of the plan area, such as West 2nd Avenue in Mount Pleasant.  

• Staff will also continue working on council’s motion from last year to allow for smaller “pod” hotels. 

The new policy will be rolled out with a city communications strategy to advertise prospects for hotel development, additional density, and office conversion to development and business groups. 

• Dive deeper: A group of hotel union members rallied at city hall on Monday in opposition to the staff recommendations. One union campaigner said the city shouldn’t be worried about hotel rooms when residents can’t afford to live in Vancouver, according to CityNews.

Last-minute amendments: Kirby-Yung brought forward a sweeping amendment to the report. Her amendment sought to change many aspects of the recommendations, with the most consequential being a proposed change to allow private space in hotels – like recreational facilities or back-of-house spaces – to qualify as part of the building’s community amenity contribution (CAC). 

• CACs are levied by the city as part of rezoning and usually takes the form of cash payments or a community space like a daycare, library, school, or arts space included in the new building, which is then given to the city for public use. 

Kirby-Yung said this policy idea is “coming directly from industry” and it’s needed to get development moving – pointing to a different city policy to exempt CACs for smaller market rental buildings. Kirby-Yung said her amendment would still require new hotels to pay CACs, but it would reduce their payments by letting some of the hotel’s private spaces qualify toward their CAC requirements. 

• Staff said that approach hadn’t been raised prior to this week, and the city had never been asked in any previous applications for private space to be considered as a community amenity. Staff agreed with Independent Coun. Rebecca Bligh that adopting this policy approach could create a “slippery slope,” opening space for a diminishment of the city’s community amenity contribution policy. 

“Generally speaking, I think these amendments are out of line.. in terms of negotiated public benefits. This doesn’t benefit the public in the spirit of a community amenity contribution. I cannot defend a decision to support this, when staff have said ‘yes there’s risk associated with this,” Bligh said. 

• Bligh pointed out that the city is already facing an approximate $500 million deficit in their capital plan – with developer’s cash contributions being used to pay for the renewal and building of new amenities. 

“After all of the work staff have done… for this to come in as a political amendment, I feel is inappropriate, “Bligh said.  

• As a result, new OneCity Coun. Lucy Maloney tried to refer the whole report to a future meeting – so new councillors could have time to review Kirby-Yung’s amendments – but that attempt failed along party lines, with ABC councillors voting in opposition and while Green Coun. Pete Fry and COPE’s Sean Orr voted in favour with Bligh and Maloney. 

Ultimately, Kirby-Yung’s amendment passed along the same 5-4 lines. 

Coun. Lenny Zhou also brought forward an amendment, which was approved unanimously, to allow limited exceptions to build hotels along the Granville Strip. The city is currently drafting their most recent plan to revitalize the beleaguered entertainment distric.  

Governance patterns: Fry took issue with Kirby-Yung’s amendments, saying their late introduction was contrary to the province’s open meeting principle.  

• Councillors Bligh, Fry, Orr, and Maloney hadn’t seen the proposed amendment until the day of the meeting. 

This is another example of an ongoing issue that Fry and others have with the ABC majority’s practice of introducing substantial amendments to staff reports, without making them public or circulating them to all councillors beforehand. 

“I don’t like how this comes out so well-formulated,” Fry said to Bligh during a short recess, gesturing to ABC’s declared practice of caucusing in private. The open meeting principle applies to gatherings where elected officials could be moving toward making decisions, which could be the case if and when a majority party meets in private to draft policy. 

• Coun. Lisa Dominato pushed back against Fry’s comment, saying the meeting did provide the opportunity for open discussion about the amendment. 

It’s a debate that’s come up before, with Vision Vancouver councillors also being accused of improper caucusing when they had a majority at city hall in the mid-aughts, according to the Vancouver Sun. 

What it means: The approved and amended report is an example of how – despite the changes to the makeup of city council – ABC still has full control to move their priorities forward as long as ABC councillors vote together. 

Councillors Orr and Maloney weren’t clear on some council procedures – understandably so, given it’s their first week on the job – and it will likely take more time and training for them to become comfortable in their new roles. Maloney took quite a bit of initiative in attempting to defer the whole report based on Kirby-Yung amendments, while Orr had a more tentative approach on the day’s first report. 

• Bligh, Maloney, and Orr could be seen huddled together in chambers during a short recess, right after Kirby-Yung introduced her amendments. For the outside observer, it appears the four non-ABC councillors are already developing relationships and alliances. 

However, if they wish to successfully oppose ABC’s agenda or their way of conducting civic business – like the party’s practice of introducing significant day-of amendments to staff reports – they’ll need to peel off at least one ABC councillor to vote with them, which will likely only be possible on certain contested issues.

DREAM HOME

This two-bed two-bath corner unit in a West End strata looks like it gets lots of sunlight, and features an ample patio and a lovely little archway between the kitchen and living room. 

It isn’t cheap by any means but the price point isn’t out of sight either… 

THE AGENDA

👀 ABC commissioner Jas Virdi said he’s being discriminated against after Independent park board commissioners Laura Christensen, Brennan Bastyovanszky, Scott Jensen, and Green Tom Digby voted to not hear public feedback on Virdi’s motion to explore installing a pool at Sunset Community Centre. “This is why I wish the park board would be abolished,” Virdi said, refusing to introduce or take questions on his motion, taking a phone call at the board table, and eventually walking out of the meeting during comments. The motion ended up failing, with ABC Vancouver criticizing the board’s decision. [Park board, ABC]

🅿️ At the same meeting, park board commissioners decided they wanted further study on a staff proposal to start charging for parking at eight high-usage facilities around the city, in an effort to increase revenues (staff projected ~3M in revenue from the pilot). Commissioners asked staff to report back on various concerns about the pilot – including equity and consistency, and ensuring the money goes to the park board, not the city. The report emphasized that the costs of ‘free’ parking are paid by every taxpayer and service user, with drivers’ parking costs being subsidized by non-drivers. [Park board]

🏕️ A group that spent over a month on-site in Stanley Park protesting the recent logging work there has packed up their camp after receiving a compliance notice from the park board and being criticized by Musqueam Chief Wayne Sparrow. Group leader Brenda Silvey says she is a matriarch of the land and descendant of Joe Silvey’s family, a Portuguese-Coast Salish family that settled near Brockton Point in the 1850s. Sparrow took issue with some of Silvey’s claims, while Silvey says First Nation’s governments don’t speak for the hereditary people. [Global, Vancity Lookout, West End Journal]  

⚠️ A former student at St. George’s School for boys in Dunbar is bringing a civil claim against the school and a former teacher, alleging they were groomed and sexually abused by the teacher as a grade 7 student in the late 1980s. The teacher, Raymond Calvin, now lives in Northern Ireland. In 1994, Calvin was convicted of sexual and indecent assault against students when he worked at Vancouver College, according to the claim. [CBC] 

🚸 Observant readers may have noticed a slight change to the traffic pattern at some Vancouver intersections, with the pedestrian signal going off a few seconds before the parallel red light turns green. That’s because the city is working to install around 30 of these Leading Pedestrian Intervals or LPI’s per year, after two ABC councillors successfully moved a motion to increase them last May. [CBC, COV]

😍 The dream start continues for the Vancouver Whitecaps. They beat Austin FC 5-1 over the weekend, with striker Brian White scoring four times, while he had another goal called back on an offside. All-in-all, Vancouver played a near-perfect game that could have seen them score seven or eight goals. The Whitecaps are 6-1-1 with a goal differential of +11 to begin their season. [MLS]

ARTS GUIDE

Performance

Dance Nation is taking over the Drive’s York Theatre for an extended run as part of the Cultch’s inaugural Warrior Festival, which begins today April 16. Find tickets to the Pulitzer Prize-nominated drama, explore other shows, or get a pass for the whole festival, here.

It’s the final few days to catch DEAD DRONE; a darkly comedic new work of speculative fiction in a distant reality of a world dominated by advanced technology, substance abuse, and environmental collapse. Ok, it doesn’t actually seem so speculative… but how about those bee-human hybrids bred to save the earth! On until April 19 and the Russian Hall in Strathcona. Tickets $20+

Art

Umbrage is a vulnerable, intimate, and satirical exhibit that uses the concept of shade/shadow and storytelling to reoccupy multiply-colonized times and spaces. The newly-opened three-artist exhibition is showing at Centre A on Keefer until June 7. 

Artist and filmmaker Lindsay McIntyre is presenting Tuktuit, a film installation exploring the interconnectedness of lichen growth, caribou populations and land use in the North. Showing now until September at the Contemporary Art Gallery on Nelson. 

Movies 

Today is National Canadian Film Day, with VIFF offering free screenings of a couple of decades-old films from their Canadian Film Week spotlight. More info and tickets here. 

The Rio is screening their own trio of free films today, highlighting Canadian films. They’ll be showing Incendies, Universal Language, and It Feeds, all for free (reservations suggested). 

COMMUNITY CORNER

What Lookout readers thought about TransLink’s funding

Thanks to many of you who shared your thoughts and opinions in our first official Community Corner about our coverage of TransLink funding. Here are some of those comments:

PHOTO OF THE DAY

This sunset out in UBC has me fantasizing about beach days (and nights) this summer.

VANCOUVER GUESSER

You all did an excellent job deducing that it was Cambie Street featured in last week’s Guesser. For this week, can you tell me which expansive park this is? 

COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHTS

• The Prime Minister got glowing reviews for his recent Nardwaur appearance [Georgia Straight]

• Unexpected apologies are popping up around town [Reddit]

• Someone ran 55 km to 21 McDonald’s around Vancouver without ever stepping foot on the Seawall [Reddit]

• Be on the lookout for a northern lights display the next few nights! [VIA]