ENDOWMENT LANDS UPROAR
Residents vow to fight development
The inclusion of a block of land in a proposed new plan for an area adjacent to the University of B.C. is causing an uproar among neighbourhood residents.
A group of University Endowment Lands residents have hired a law firm and have threatened to go to the Supreme Court of B.C. to stop the Area D Neighbourhood Plan from being adopted.
If the dispute over the adoption of the neighbourhood plan ends up in court, it wouldn't be the first legal challenge to a UEL decision.
Earlier this year, the UEL manager wanted to remove 15 Norway maple trees on Wesbrook Crescent because of concerns they posed a danger to the public. Residents hired their own arborist, who said only five needed to be removed. A hearing on the Norway maple case is scheduled for Jan. 13 in B.C. Supreme Court.
Residents are “vehemently opposed” to including two lots at the northeast corner of University Boulevard and Wesbrook Mall in the Area D Neighbourhood Plan, according to lawyer's letter to the UEL.
The UEL is divided into four areas: A, B, and C are single-family residential areas, while Area D is the commercial area which includes University Village, high rises, and multi-family buildings.
The two lots known as Lots 5 and 6 are geographically in Area A, on a high-profile corner where Bernice Gerard House and the boarded up Lutheran Campus Centre are located. Immediately to the north and west are the single family homes in Area A, but across University Boulevard to the south begins the commercial and high-density residential Area D; across Wesbrook Mall to the west is UBC itself.
The residents say Lots 5 and 6 shouldn't have been included in the neighbourhood plan for Area D because they're part of the residential Area A. And they say any institutional or multi-family residential development on the two lots wouldn't fit into the single-family residential nature of Area A.
“It's a nightmare,” said Vanessa Young, one of more than 50 residents who have hired Hakemi & Ridgedale law firm to represent them. “We have no voice. We have no government.”
The UEL is an unincorporated community situated between UBC and the city of Vancouver. It is operated by a manager appointed by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.
The ministry provided Postmedia with a background statement but did not respond to specific questions about Lots 5 and 6.
Young disputes the draft neighbourhood plan's description of Lots 5 and 6 as “development approval information areas” and potentially a site for institutional or multi-family buildings.
“They're not zoned institutional in any way, shape, or form,” she said. “They're zoned single family.”
Young is one of seven members of the Community Advisory Council, an elected body meant to advise the UEL manager. She said despite living on Wesbrook Crescent since 2017, she hadn't heard about the Area D Neighbourhood Plan planning process or that a highrise was a possibility for Lots 5 and 6 — and neither did residents who live close to the lots.
Young said when she heard about what could happen on the two sites, it took her a week earlier this year to gather about 200 signatures of residents against including Lots 5 and 6 in the Area D Neighbourhood Plan.
She said while more rental accommodation is needed at UBC, it's not up to the people living in a single-family residential area to supply UBC with more land for student housing.
The lawyers' letter to the UEL said their clients, mostly residents living in Area A, didn't know Lots 5 and 6 were included in the Area D Plan until earlier this year.
“Had they known this information from the outset of the project (in or around spring/summer 2018) they would have voiced concerns much earlier,” the letter says.
The proposed plan for Area D is a 76-page document designed to guide future development in the 20-hectare area which has 2,342 residents, about 60 per cent of the population of the UEL.
Area is mostly the commercial district on University Boulevard called University Village and the dense residential area to the south.
The neighbourhood plan acknowledges the anomaly of Lots 5 and 6, which it says are “technically part of the Area A neighbourhood.”
“These two institutional lots were included in the (Area D) plan area with a recommendation of support from the Community Advisory Council,” the plan says. It adds that any development on the lots “will need to respect and complement the land use patterns and scale of both Area A and Area D neighbourhoods.”
The lawyer's letter asks for clarification about what a “development approval information area” for Lots 5 and 6 means and what land use it allows.
“It is our clients' intention to slow, and ultimately halt, the development of Lots 5 and 6 as multi-family or institutional developments,” the lawyer's letter says.
“They intend to do this by whatever means are available to them, including but not limited to initiating court proceedings and seeking an injunction from the Supreme Court of B.C.”