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HOLD ON TIGHT: A family gets a unique view of train travel on a mini-train at the Burnaby Central Railway. It’s up and running again for the season at Confederation Park. PHOTO JENNIFER GAUTHIER
HOUSING
Burnaby eyes history with rental-only zoning Kelvin Gawley
kgawley@burnabynow.com
Hundreds of rental apartments have been demolished in Burnaby in recent years, while few new ones have been built. Now, the city has passed an ambitious plan to turn the tide. On Monday, city council voted unanimously to endorse an implementation strategy for rental-only zoning.The plan aims to protect thousands of existing rental apartments from demolition and could lead to thousands more being built, Mayor Mike Hurley said before the vote.
Between Jan. 1, 2011 and April 30, 2019, there were 685 purpose-built rental units demolished in Burnaby’s Metrotown neighbourhood alone, according to the city.The dramatic loss in rental stock was largely the result of developers razing low-rise apartment building to make way for new condo towers.Thousands of renters have been displaced. “It’s time to start turning that trend around,” Hurley said. Burnaby was the first B.C. municipality to take advantage of new rental-only zoning powers, adding a suite of new zoning classifications to its bylaws in De-
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cember 2018.While other cities have since used rental zoning in limited instances, Burnaby city staff have been developing an all-encompassing plan for implementation. “I think there’s other municipalities that have touched on individual points, but never as a package like this that comprises the whole gamut,” Burnaby’s assistant director of current planning, Johannes Schumann, told the NOW. ONE-TO-ONE RENTAL REPLACEMENT The plan would require developers to replace every rental apartment they de-
molish in a redevelopment on a one-to-one basis. And those replacement apartments would have to be rented out at affordable rates, defined as 20-percent below the rental market average determined by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. In 2018, CMHC found the average rents for one-bedroom apartments were $1,253 in Burnaby’s Central Park/Metrotown neighbourhood, $1,094 in southeast Burnaby and $1,329 in North Burnaby. The CMHC average takes into account all rentals in an area, meaning the rates are far lower than typ-
ical rents for new builds, Schumann said. He estimates the prescribed rates for replacement apartments will be 40-per-cent below typical market rates for new purpose-built rental units. “This is really just laying down the gauntlet,” Schumann said. “You gotta replace one to one – it’s gotta be affordable.” Displaced tenants would also be given the opportunity to move into the new apartments. The Mayor’s Task Force on Community Housing is currently finalizing its tenant relocation policy recommendations, Hurley said. He said the plan will ensure
fair treatment and compensation for displaced renters. RENTAL UNITS IN NEW BUILDS City staff are also recommending council endorse a plan that would require 20 per cent of units in all new multi-family developments to be purpose-built rentals. The city would be able to protect those units as rentals in perpetuity by applying rental-zoning to specific units, while the rest of the building would fall under different zoning for stratified units. The rentals would remain under the ownership of each building’s strata. Continued on page 11
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