Concord Landing has submitted a new rezoning inquiry for its part of the 58 hectares in Northeast False Creek.Concord Pacific/Supplied
It will be 40 years next year since Expo 86 ended and the B.C. government started to think about what to do with the swath of waterfront former industrial land on Northeast False Creek on the perimeter of downtown where the world’s fair had taken place.
It’s 37 years since Li Ka-shing bought it, 35 since the city produced an official development plan and eight years since Concord Pacific – the company that took the lands over in 1992 – presented a buzzy new concept for the last bit of the land after building 10,000 apartments on the other sections of the property.
This week, the developer submitted a revised rezoning inquiry that is intended to finally finish development on the site. It’s a big first step in the final stage of what many are hoping will bring much-needed life to this 58-hectare chunk of contaminated dirt that borders Vancouver’s downtown, Chinatown, and the Downtown Eastside.
Concord is promising to create the feel of an Italian Amalfi Coast town, but with 12 residential towers containing 5,000 apartments, along with eclectic commercial spaces and winding pedestrian pathways.
“The city has had this huge hole in the heart of it and it’s long past due for Concord to deliver on its commitments,” said Geoff Meggs who, as a Vancouver councillor, pushed hard for city’s 2015 decision to remove the two viaducts that run across the area from the downtown peninsula to the east side as a way for both the city and Concord to get more use out of the land.
Housing in that area has been viewed as a potential panacea for struggling Chinatown and the Downtown Eastside.
Concord, for its part, says it is eager to develop the land, and senior vice-president Matt Meehan said some buildings could be completed within five years.
“But the plan we have is predicated on the viaducts coming down,” he said.
That issue is among the stumbling blocks to the realization of a new vision for the area.
Concord is promising to create the feel of an Italian Amalfi Coast town but with 12 residential towers containing 5,000 apartments as well as commercial spaces.Concord Pacific/Supplied
In 2015, the cost to remove the viaducts and build a new road system for the area was estimated at $180- to $200-million. A later estimate, in 2018, was $438-million. No one thinks it hasn’t increased from there.
The road-change is one that will benefit every landowner, adding value to their property. But the bill is so high that negotiations have been stalled because no one can figure out a workable plan on how to pay for it.
The city has nothing committed in its current budgets for any change to the viaducts, says Lon LaClaire, Vancouver’s general manager of engineering.
“At this point, there is nothing in our work plans or our capital plans for removing the viaducts,” Mr. LaClaire said.
Matt Shillito, the city planner in charge of special projects, said it’s hard to figure out how to pay for the needed road changes in what is now a very different economic climate for development than when the city first approved the idea of taking the viaducts down.
Back then, special development fees, called community amenity contributions or CACs, on the city’s dozens of new condo projects paid for a lot of new city parks, heritage restoration, cultural spaces, below-market housing, community centres, and many other things while developers were making big money during the 30-year condo boom that started after the Expo sale.
Referring to the original Northeast False Creek proposal, Mr. Shillito said: “The plan was approved at the tail end of the golden years. We had thought originally that CACs would fund the viaducts. But that’s a challenging proposition at this point.”
He said the city is intensely interested in seeing the area developed as soon as possible.
“It’s a huge city-building opportunity that we are very motivated to realize. It’s a very unsatisfactory status quo.”
Another hurdle for the development is the question of how much more Concord must pay to the province according to terms of the 1988 sale.
As part of that $320-million deal, the land was sold with a so-called “participation mortgage” that required a developer to pay additional money to the B.C. government if it built more than 12 million square feet on the site.
Development on Northeast False Creek will definitely take it over that benchmark. This week’s rezoning inquiry significantly increases the density Concord is looking for on the site after the city recently loosened some of its mountain-view protections that were limiting tower heights in that area.
When the property was first sold, there were estimates the participation mortgage extras would bring in as much as $500-million. More sober calculations recently have been more in the $100- to $200-million range.
B.C. Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon said in an interview two weeks ago that the province was considering legal action against Concord to resolve some of the conflicts.
On Thursday, he issued a more conciliatory statement via e-mail to The Globe and Mail: “The Province, City of Vancouver and Concord have agreed to sit together over the coming months to resolve outstanding challenges for housing to advance on the remaining Expo lands. We look forward to working together to find ways to advance housing in Northeast False Creek.”
Mr. LaClaire said things would move along a lot faster if the province would provide some solid numbers about how much money from the participation mortgage the city could get for the road changes and for the low-cost housing that is expected to be part of the development.
“A lot of the value is going to the province. Unless they direct that back to this location, I don’t see how anything happens,” he said.
If that isn’t settled soon, the land might sit empty for more decades, he fears.
“The project has sat for 40 years. It could sit there for another 10 or 20 years, that’s the reality of this.”