Crystal Huba is one of roughly 40 residents at 75 East 8th Avenue anxiously awaiting word on whether her home of over two decades will be approved for redevelopment.
“We’re in this zone of uncertainty, just kind of in limbo,” said Huba. “All of us want to stay, we’ve [chosen to live] here for a reason.”
Corporate building owners, Lotus Capital Corps and Nicola Wealth Real Estate, submitted a rezoning application in October 2025. If approved, it would clear the way for the construction of a 191-unit extended stay hotel designed specifically for “high-tech and biotech workers relocating to the city.”
Huba is a member of the newly formed “Myron Manor Collective,” a diverse group of tenants at the 1960’s low-rise apartment building who are fighting the rezoning application in the hopes that they will be allowed to remain in their homes.
While the city has stated it plans to fast-track several rezoning applications before it breaks for the summer, there is no telling whether this proposal will be among them.
If the 75 East 8th tenants are evicted to make way for the proposed tech-hotel, residents do have certain rights. However, while the Broadway Plan tenant protections would normally cover tenants in this instance, Myron Manor is an unusual case.
Broadway Plan tenants are offered the right of first refusal and may return to the new building at their current rent. However, given the unusual accommodations of the proposed tech-hotel, Huba and her neighbours would instead be offered a lump-sum payment calculated based on years of tenancy at their existing rental rate (not the market rate), and forced to move elsewhere.
But for tenants like Huba, remaining in her neighbourhood is more than just a matter of preference.
She lives alone, paying just over $1,000 per month for her one-bedroom unit. This is a rate she said she can afford working part-time as an administrator, while juggling an energy-limiting health condition and caretaking for elderly relatives in BC’s interior.
She has also chosen to remain in Mount Pleasant for the last two decades in large part because of the proximity to her community and the health-care services that she requires.
The City of Vancouver told Vancity Lookout that “while efforts will be made to help tenants remain in the same neighbourhood where possible, available housing that meets rent limits and individual needs will be the priority.”
The redevelopment of the property would significantly deplete some of the remaining affordable rental stock in the area, Huba added. While market rental rates have cooled slightly in the last year, the average one-bedroom unit in Vancouver still costs over $2,000, double what Huba and many of her neighbours currently pay.
According to recent reports, Metro Vancouver is home to the five most expensive cities to rent in the country. The most affordable rents for one-bedrooms in Metro Vancouver are in Surrey, averaging $1,704, followed by Langley at $1,886 for one-bedrooms or $2,313 for two-bedroom apartments.
Despite the promise of compensation and suitable relocation, Huba and her neighbours have their concerns. “We have heard of other situations where some people don't even receive their length of tenancy compensation, or they get housed right at the last minute… to something that’s not comparable to the situation they were already living in,” she said.
“The stress of relocating [is a lot]. My situation is just one situation, but we have a very diverse group in this building of seniors and young families… just no one needs this.”
A process riddled with confusion
In a statement sent to CityNews, Nicola Wealth said they have been “working with tenants to be sure they have clear project updates and timelines.”
However, since tenants received notice of the submission of the rezoning application in November 2025, Huba said communication with the city and the building owners has been “very murky.”
“We’ve gotten a lot of vague responses,” she said. Earlier this month, the collective was approached for a meeting with the relocation specialist and the city. “We tried to get answers, and were met with a lot of confusion, vagueness and defensiveness.”
Image of proposed new tech-hotel at 75 East 8th Avenue./ From rezoning application submitted to City of Vancouver
She added that there were concerns from the collective after the comment section for the rezoning application on Shape Your City, a site where the public can submit their opinions on certain city projects, was closed after just a few months. “It makes it completely inaccessible for the public if you want to have a say on a rezoning application,” she said.
Tenants were also sent a 25-question “tenant needs survey,” in April to complete in the event they needed to be relocated. The survey was distributed by Nestwell, a private company that specializes in “relocation services,” but that Huba said is ultimately hired by the developer.
“There were some reservations about why we’re filling this out, especially if the rezoning application hadn’t been approved yet,” Huba added. The collective largely declined to participate in the survey for the time being, citing concerns that this information would be used to evict tenants.
“The process is so vague,” she added. “I wish they could be more transparent about the fact that there really isn’t enough below-market housing to even relocate people to.”
Hotels “desperately needed"?
The rezoning application states that the new development would provide “desperately needed extended-stay hotel rooms” to support the “booming high-tech and bio-tech firms” in the area and significantly contribute to “City Council’s objective to solve the hotel room supply crisis.”
In a written statement to Vancity Lookout, the City noted that Metro Vancouver “has seen a decline in hotel supply.”
According to Destination Vancouver, an organization that tracks regional hotel inventory and economic impacts, without an additional 20,000 hotel rooms, 10,000 of which it said should be in Vancouver, the regional economy could “forgo up to $30.6 billion in economic output by 2050.”
However, the Vancouver Tenants Union has called the hotel room supply crisis “fabricated,” noting that the conversion of Myron Manor will only “aggravate the affordability crisis.”
For now, the City told Vancity Lookout that they are doing their “best to move in-stream applications forward as quickly as possible with the aim of having items considered before Council breaks for the summer.” However, they aren’t “able to guarantee timing at this point.”
It added that while 75 East 8th Avenue, if approved, would “contribute to growth and increase the City’s hotel supply and diversity,” the city "recognizes the concerns with tenant displacement and staff is working with the applicant on this.”
If she is forced to leave her home, Huba said she will likely move away from Vancouver entirely rather than attempt to keep up with the cost of market-rate rentals. “If the city has not invested in us [low and middle-income renters], why would I invest to stay in the city? I’m not going to put myself in a position where I’m working just to live… you have no quality of life.”
For now, Huba and her neighbours are still organizing to fight the rezoning application. “We have a really great building of neighbours, one person can’t do it alone. We’re able to support each other and have each other's backs.”
Huba said she hopes readers will go to defendmountpleasant.ca to send a letter of support for Myron Manor and urge the City to deny the rezoning application.
