FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE from Jonathan Weisman, DRA President

DUNBAR RESIDENTS’ ASSOCIATION OPPOSES HARWOOD GROUP PROPOSAL FOR STONG’S SITE REDEVELOPMENT

After careful consideration, the Dunbar Residents’ Association (DRA) urges that the City reject the rezoning application for the Stong’s site on Dunbar Street between 29th and 30th Avenues. The rezoning application for 4508-4560 Dunbar Street and the sister application for 3581 West 30th Avenue are simply not compatible with the scale and nature of the neighbourhood. The proposed buildings contribute nothing to justify a departure from the existing community vision and zoning and their approval would undermine faith in the community planning and consultation process.

The Harwood Group’s (Harwood’s) redevelopment proposal envisions a six-storey-height building along Dunbar Street, accompanied by an eleven-unit townhome development on two lots along West 30th. The height and scale of these structures is out-of-scale with the neighbourhood and the community planning which developed the Dunbar Vision.

Harwood has suggested that a development with a supermarket would not be financially viable if kept to four-storey height. Yet Vancouver developers have managed to build four-storey structures of just that kind many times in recent years. Notable examples include Stong’s Market’s former site at 2491 Marine Drive in Dundarave, West Vancouver and 3515 West 4th Avenue, Vancouver. Harwood has been asked to publicly release financial details showing why they cannot accomplish what other developers have. They have refused to do so, yet still wish to rely on financial hardship to justify a departure from existing zoning and community planning.

The City has an obligation to disclose all information which it considers in assessing a rezoning application. As a rule, this does not mean that developers must disclose their financial information. But if their private financial concerns are used to inform the City’s decision, the information must be part of the public record. A lack of transparency would throw the planning and rezoning process into disrepute.

The DRA objects to Harwood’s request to rezone the Stong’s site from its present C-2 commercial zoning to the special CD-1 and CD-2 designations. The latter zonings are site-specific and should be reserved for structures whose civic importance requires special consideration or complex zoning for especially large, mixed-use sites. Using them to create specialized zoning for a particular business is inappropriate. Nothing guarantees that any business will endure and subsequent changes would burden the neighbourhood and City with an outdated and limited vision. Creating site-specific zoning for a supermarket is both short-sighted and unnecessary, as the building at 3515 West 4th Avenue demonstrates — it was built within the C-2 zoning which already applies to the Stong’s site.

The City has suggested that the Stong’s site should be specially considered because of the supermarket’s importance to the neighbourhood. It is worth noting that there is a difference in size and scale between community-based supermarkets and those which serve as destinations for larger areas. Community supermarkets, which many supermarket chains such as Whole Foods and IGA have developed, have fit into smaller spaces with lower ceiling heights. The stores in Dundarave and on West 4th Avenue are but two examples of this format. Clearly, neighbourhood supermarkets do not demand additional scale. Notably, the Whole Foods market on Cambie Street, a six-lane road fronted with multiple strata buildings, rises to only six storeys at its highest point along that street. Dunbar Street has only two lanes and no building exceeding four storeys.

The Dunbar Community Vision set out a maximum height of four storeys for buildings along Dunbar Street. That Vision was part of a broad and extensive community consultation and was formalized in the adoption of the C-2 zoning for Dunbar’s commerical districts. Additional height in the central Dunbar commercial district (which includes the Stong’s site) was specifically considered and rejected in that consultation. The growth targets set out in the Vision, both for Dunbar and for Vancouver as a whole, have not been met or exceeded. Nothing commends a deviation from the Vision.

The recent vision development process in neighbouring Point Grey produced a similar plan, which indicates the continuing appeal of the principles embodied in the Dunbar Vision. The Dunbar Community Vision established a preference for small, independent businesses. The commercial units in Harwood’s proposal would most likely be unaffordable for such businesses — they would be more suited to large chains and franchises. Dunbar already has a surplus of such commercial space, which has often gone unoccupied.

More importantly, the City must consider the effect of granting such an exception to the planning done by the City and neighbourhood. Deviating from the Dunbar Community Vision would destroy neighbourhoods’ faith in the vision and planning process. Neither community visions nor zoning would be reliable; and neighbours choose their homes and plan their families’ lives based on the expectations which are created by that planning. Abandoning City and neighbourhood plans means destroying family plans.

The DRA supports densification. In fact, the Dunbar Community Vision supports townhomes which are suitably scaled to the community and surrounding structures. The stacked townhomes proposed for the 30th Avenue site are not within the scope of the Vision. A proposal which so radically changes the possible forms on a residential street should not be adopted through a spot-rezoning process. It should form part of a broad consultation aimed at developing a livable, working townhome format for the RS-5 zoning which applies to the 30th Avenue site. This is particularly important given some aspects of the proposed townhome structures, such as massing at the back of the lot, which places high walls very close to single-family homes. This height and proximity raises real concerns about both shadowing and privacy. Those concerns should not be dealt with as an afterthought to a large, mixed-use development on an arterial road.

Given the success other developers have had with attractive four-storey projects, the DRA has high hopes that Harwood will be able to accommodate its vision for the site with that of the Dunbar community. We hope that all neighbours will take the time to make their position on the development known to the City and to the developer.

The DRA may be contacted via email at info@dunbar-vancouver.org or by telephone via 604-222-9824.

Dunbar Residents’ Association