Views of the Strand Development construction site at 320-360 W. 2nd Ave. in Vancouver's Mount Pleasant neighbourhood.Kerry Gold/The Globe and Mail
A 40-foot-deep excavation in Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant neighbourhood was the focus of numerous city council meetings over the past couple of weeks. They culminated with the approval in principle for a 25-storey, mostly residential, tower on industrial land.
The unfinished site has been a vivid reminder of recent market challenges, particularly in the office sector. Strand Development had originally intended the site for an office building, but that market dried up post-pandemic. Council unanimously approved Strand’s application to build the 25-story residential tower – with some conditions – by invoking a rarely used “flexibility” clause in the Metro 2050 planning document to rezone an industrial-only site for general urban use. The proposal for the property at 320-360 W. 2nd Ave. is for a tower that would include 200 market-rate rental units with three levels of industrial use in the podium, a building twice the size of what is currently allowed. The case has raised eyebrows, not just over the rezoning, but because city planners had voiced concern over the sidestepping of a long-established policy to shield industrial lands from encroachment.
Metro Vancouver allows municipalities to use the flexibility clause in exceptional cases, such as providing modular shelter housing on industrial sites. The clause allows the city to redesignate a portion of land locally, without having to go through the standard Metro Vancouver process for rezoning industrial lands.
City council also voted that the flexibility clause is not to be used again until city staff had completed their planning work on the Mount Pleasant industrial area. Mount Pleasant is one of five large industrial areas designated as “exceptional sites,” that are under review for possible housing use.
Industrial land represents only 6 per cent of Vancouver’s total land area.
Josh White, the city’s general manager of planning, urban design and sustainability, noted at the council meeting that the city doesn’t have established criteria for use of the flexibility clause, which could open the door to land speculation.
“At minimum, if council wants to shift toward using the clause for private sites, we should establish clear criterion for its use to guide decision making,” said Mr. White. “I can’t underscore enough how ad hoc use on private sites in the absence of that criterion and a clear strategy will cloud our exceptional sites planning process and act as an accelerant for speculation, increasing land value, imperilling industrial use viability.”
The proposal for the property is for a tower that would include 200 market-rate rental units.Kerry Gold/The Globe and Mail
In a December memo to the mayor and council, Mr. White had said “staff had seen an increase in developer inquiries regarding housing on sites where 100 per cent job space had been anticipated.”
The suggestion that designated industrial land was imperilled worries Louise Schwarz, who co-owns a recycling and waste management business in adjacent False Creek Flats that employs dozens of people. She said she knows other business owners who are fighting to protect the industrial areas, but wonders if residents are as concerned.
“The residents may not understand how important some of the services and goods and movement of goods are to the city to make it manageable, affordable and sustainable,” she said.
“It just sets a very dangerous precedent that can be a slippery slope in how we’re going to manage and protect industrial land,” said Ms. Schwarz.
She said light industrial units at the base of larger buildings are often small, and end up getting converted to retail space instead. Larger sites are needed.
“So much of the light industrial industry has been hollowed out of the centre of these areas, like the Flats and Mount Pleasant. They move to the suburbs or to other municipalities, and that’s not great because it means those services, those jobs, that supply, is no longer available.”
Strand has owned the site at 320-360 W. 2nd Ave. for at least a decade, was approved for a seven-storey office-industrial building and began excavation in 2023. As part of its new proposal, it has offered the city $5.5-million in community amenity contributions, and argued that the tower offers jobs and significant housing in an area that has three rapid transit stations nearby.
“I’d remind people that an empty site with a 40-foot hole in the ground doesn’t bring any public benefits to the city or to the public,” Strand vice-president, development, Cameron Thorn, told council, adding that the current zoning isn’t viable in today’s market.
He emphasized that there is currently zero industrial space at the site, and that the addition of housing and industrial jobs near transit – instead of a hole in the ground – is the exceptional circumstance that makes it appropriate for the municipal flexibility clause.
“Referring this proposal back for another multiyear planning process means risking this site delivering anything, and being a 40-foot hole indefinitely.”
Industrial land broker Chris MacCauley, executive vice-president with CBRE, was pleased with the council’s decision last week, and said it offers the development community flexibility to build “modern industrial” as opposed to the old heavy-duty industrial of bygone years.
“This flexibility gives developers a pathway to a financially feasible development and also something functional for the tenants and occupiers that they’re looking to attract,” said Mr. MacCauley.
As part of its new proposal, Strand has offered the city $5.5-million in community amenity contributions.Kerry Gold/The Globe and Mail
“It’s going to take this flexibility from the city to allow developers and the market occupiers to say, ‘This is what we need to build, and if you want development, if you want us to locate in Vancouver, this is what you’re going to need us to build.’ So yeah, I think it’s great.
“If the city wants to have development happen and collect fees ... they’re going to have to work with developers so that they can give them a path forward to start these projects.”
Christina DeMarco, former city of Vancouver planner and lead planner on the 2011 Metro Vancouver Regional Growth Strategy, was one of 23 signatories who wrote to the city and said the “spot rezoning flies in the face of decades of industrial land protection,” and called it a “speculative land grab.”
Ms. DeMarco said the five exceptional sites represent about 224 acres out of 1,600 acres of industrial land in the city. She argues that there are 78,300 housing units in the pipeline, according to a staff report from November, 2025. As well, moves by cities to convert some industrial land to residential use “consistently resulted in industrial displacement,” she wrote in a letter, “typically within five to 20 years.” Mount Pleasant offers 13,000 jobs to workers who need access to transit, many of them immigrants who need jobs close to housing. If Vancouver allows the loss of industrial land, other municipalities could follow suit, she said.