Rubber meets the road in latest Broadway Plan rezoning

What happened: City councillors seemed to have a real ‘ah-ha’ moment on Tuesday during the most recent Broadway Plan tower rezoning decision, as approved city policy collided with its practical implications. 

After two public hearing sessions in April, councillors needed to vote on a proposed 18-storey, 165-unit rental apartment tower in Mount Pleasant. Councillors ultimately voted to send the rezoning application back to staff, for them and the developer to work on reducing the shadows on a nearby park. 

The site: A mere three blocks from City Hall, the three-lot parcel backs onto as many as 11 heritage-designated properties along West 10th. Most importantly for councillors was the site’s proximity to Major Matthews Park, a small single-lot park on Manitoba Street near 11th Avenue that sits right beside the proposed rezoning site. 

• Councillors heard the proposed building would fully shade the park 365 days a year, starting at 2 p.m. 

“At what cost”: That’s what ABC councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung said, summing up her concerns with the year-round shadowing. 

“It’s a trade-off I’m struggling with but I think it's one that’s probably too great,” Kirby-Yung said of the proposal to fully block sunlight on an adjacent park every afternoon, while emphasizing her general enthusiasm and support for approving new housing projects. 

• Council decision to send the application back for further staff review will add a minimum of six months to the process, city manager Paul Mochrie estimated.

The rub: However, the proposal, including full shading of the small park, aligns with the Broadway Plan policy that most of these councillors, and the previous council, approved. 

The Broadway Plan explicitly makes an exception for Major Matthews Park, among other small parks, to not be included in the plan’s solar access policies that limit new shadows on parks, public school yards, and commercial high streets and plazas.  

• Maintaining solar access to Choklit, Willow, Laurel Landbridge, Major Matthews, Carolina, McAuley, and Arbutus Greenway Parks, is is particularly challenging due to size and location, according to the policy. 

The city’s rezoning planner for the project was clear in their assessment: a tower is permitted at this location under the Broadway Plan. If council supports a tower, and the resulting housing units it allows for, this proposal is what you might expect to get out of that. 

• Staff said it would be very difficult to improve solar access without a significant change to the height and density of the building. 

OneCity councillor Lucy Maloney, was the only one to vote against the directive to reduce park shadowing, arguing that, in her experience, parents like herself are often trying to find shady spots for their kids to play. Kirby-Yung countered, saying there are already shady areas of the park but she wanted to preserve the limited sun access the park currently gets. 

Expiration date: If the rezoning is ultimately approved after a staff review, another public hearing, and a council vote in favour, the owner, HAVN Developments Ltd., will have 18 months to meet the conditions of the rezoning bylaw, including the payment of community amenity contributions. Otherwise, council will be able to reconsider the new zoning approval for the site. 

• Regulatory lesson: The Vancouver Charter doesn’t make any mention of zoning changes or zoning changes in principle (which is what council approves at public hearings), having an expiration date, typically. 

That additional amendment, by Kirby-Yung, was added after Green councillor Pete Fry and others raised concerns that HAVN – a new development company founded in 2022 – had yet to build any projects but already had two other rezonings in the Broadway Plan area approved by council in late 2024 and early 2025. 

• On their website, HAVN says the Broadway Plan is central to their development strategy. 

The implication is that these are speculative moves, with HAVN trying to acquire new zoning rights and then sell the site at a profit. HAVN co-founder Adrian Lai said they will do “everything in their power to build these projects,” but that a lot of it is market-dependent.

Staff said they don’t have a way to screen for speculative applications and have to process what they receive without assuming the intentions the applicant. 

The company incorporated as BLKBX Developments Ltd. in late 2022 before changing their name to HAVN about 9 months later, according to provincial records. 

General frustrations: More broadly, councillors expressed their annoyance with HAVN, which did not make a presentation of their project plan at the public hearing. 

“Council is very frustrated with this developer because they didn’t participate in the process, which is unfortunate and very frustrating,” Kirby-Yung said.

• ABC councillor Lenny Zhou said he thinks can do a better job “articulating the project” and on public engagement.

HAVN also submitted what a public speaker and Fry said were inaccurate renderings of the areas surrounding the development, which city staff explained were a nice-to-have not a need-to-have at the public hearing stage.

“I feel like this application was not well presented… accurate renderings matter and I don’t believe that has happened with this application in particular… I don’t want to give this a pass to just come back without more rigour” of a public hearing Fry said. 

Vancity Lookout reached out to HAVN Development co-founder Adrian Lai for comment but did not hear back prior to publication. 

What it means

A common complaint of council’s role in the rezoning process is they merely rubber-stamp these projects. While it’s true that a tiny number of rezonings are ultimately not approved by the city (only three since about 2011, according to city records and staff), this is an example of council stepping in and asking for further review, including the possibility of significant reductions in building height, and public input before proceeding with a rezoning. 

They’ve also installed a meaningful safeguard against the developer selling the zoning down the road with the stipulation that the rezoning, if approved after another public hearing, will only be active for 18 months and will be reconsidered by council if the project doesn’t move forward in that time. 

At the same time, it’s conceivable the developer is also well-intentioned and understandably frustrated with the process, as the Broadway Plan policy states that Major Matthews Park (named after Vancouver’s first archivist) would be considered for an exception to the solar access guidelines. 

That’s not to say either the policy or council’s decision in this instance are wrong, but it’s clearly a case where policy and practical application are in tension. As staff rightly pointed out in this case, if the city wants to allow towers in compact neighbourhoods, there are going to be undesired trade-offs in some cases. 

While staff work on putting a round peg in a square hole, councillors will have at least six months to consider their priorities. With over 100 projects in the Broadway Plan’s rezoning pipeline, this won’t be the only development where the rubber meets the road.