Behind the scenes of the city’s new permitting pilot

Last month, the city launched a new pilot program aimed at reducing vacant storefronts in the Downtown Eastside and surrounding neighbourhoods. The Temporary Occupancy Permit Pilot offers businesses, including artist studios, a simplified permitting and inspection process that exempts them from potentially onerous building upgrades for up to two years. 

The pilot is the result of a grassroots effort by David Duprey, founder of the Narrow Group, Michael Wiebe, a former city councillor who’s launching Small Business Vancouver, and Landon Hoyt, Executive Director of the Hastings Crossing Business Improvement Association (BIA), among others, to reduce permitting barriers for new businesses. 

“Vancouver is a really special monster when it comes to how much bureaucracy and how much red tape we have. So anything I can do to get involved with lessening that I'm stoked on,” Duprey told Vancity Lookout.

Duprey described a common scenario: someone takes on a lease to open a business where the space’s intended use is different from the previous occupant. That change of use triggers a development permit process, including inspections, which can potentially lead to a “massive amount of upgrades, especially in older buildings,” Duprey said.

The simultaneous cost of those upgrades, lease payments, and the lost revenue from not being able to open turns an exciting opportunity into a nightmare, Duprey explained.  

In 2021, painter Shannon Pawliw took action to realize her dream of opening an art gallery and personal studio. After looking at more than a dozen spaces, Pawliw finally found a spot in Chinatown, a former office on Main Street between Hastings and Pender. 

But because Pawliw wanted to change the use of the space from an office to an art gallery and studio, she was faced with a three-month delay for fire upgrades to the walls. 

“Luckily, my landlord was very, very generous and wanted me as a tenant, and agreed to do all of the fire stopping … I don't know how much that cost them, but if I had had to pay for that, I would have had to just bow out and not do it,” Pawliw told Vancity Lookout.

But according to Duprey, whose company operates 10 artist studio buildings, three bars, and three restaurants, it’s uncommon for a landlord to pay those upgrade costs because there’s little return on the investment.  

“All of these people [who] have these super cool little ideas [who] just want to go and do it in a space and make Vancouver better get crushed,” Duprey said, pointing out that other cities like San Francisco, Portland, and Berlin don’t require these sorts of building upgrades for basic changes of use.

“My biggest impediment to doing business in Vancouver is the City of Vancouver,” Duprey said bluntly. 

The pilot is a way to help small businesses get up and running more quickly, Hoyt told Vancity Lookout. “For some of these business owners that are so overwhelmed with permitting and become jaded or discouraged or feel hopeless, especially if they've gone through it and been denied, this is a way to address some of that,” Hoyt explained. 

Last year, Hoyt worked with Duprey and folks from Small Business Vancouver to craft a proposal for city council. A motion was put forward by ABC Coun. Mike Klassen in July and was unanimously approved. Hoyt and the other BIAs then consulted with city staff on the pilot program that was launched in January. 

The pilot is set to run for two years, ending in March 2028, with the potential to make some elements permanent. Given that the pilot just started last month, the city told Vancity Lookout they don’t have sufficient data to share how much interest there has been. City staff will monitor the program's impact, focusing on business activity, community engagement, and space occupancy. 

Hastings Crossing, which covers parts of the Downtown Eastside, Gastown, and Victory Square, as well as Chinatown and Strathcona, have the highest percentage of vacant storefronts of all BIAs in the city, with Hastings Crossing having the highest rate by far at 27 per cent in 2025, according to a city report. But there are signs that’s getting better, with Hastings Crossing’s vacancy rate improving by nearly 5 per cent compared to 2024, while the city-wide average got slightly worse. 

Hoyt and Duprey said that other BIAs like South Granville, Mount Pleasant, and Point Grey have reached out to them, expressing interest in having the pilot program expand to their neighbourhoods. Hoyt said he was even contacted by other cities interested in learning more about the program, including Pentiction. 

While city staff initially planned to report back on the program’s impact this fall, including the possibility of expanding it city-wide, the city’s Business Growth Task Force recommended that the pilot be expanded city-wide prior to the FIFA World Cup this summer “to activate vacant spaces and bolster neighbourhood business vibrancy.” City council approved that recommendation in December and staff are reviewing their direction, according to the city. 

“I asked the city staff ‘is that happening?’ and they kind of shrug their shoulders [to say] ‘I don’t think so,’” Hoyt shared.

Whether the program gets expanded, becomes permanent, or meets its objectives all remains to be seen, but for Duprey “this is just the hugest thing that has happened in so long,” because people can start their operations right away. 

“The bottom line is that the city just needs to get out of people’s way a bit more,” Pawliw said.

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