The redevelopment, replacing a below-market housing building severely damaged by fire in 2017, will be dedicated to offering new affordable rental homes for Indigenous families and seniors. The site is just east of Commercial Drive.
Indigenous residents in Grandview-Woodland account for about 18% of Vancouver’s off-reserve urban Indigenous population. More broadly, there is a disproportionately high Indigenous homeless population in the city, with the 2020 homeless count suggesting 33% (711 people) of the local homeless population are Indigenous, despite accounting for 2% of the entire region’s general population.
The city’s grant will cover roughly 10% of the total $55.1 million project cost, including $44.6 million for construction and $10.5 million for land equity.
Article content
As is often the case in housing debates, the proposal before Vancouver city council this week is being described in starkly different terms depending on who you ask. For some, a series of bylaw amendments intended to aid social-housing construction is a “baby step.” Others say it goes way too far.
Vancouver council is considering a staff proposal intended to make it faster, easier and less expensive to build social housing in certain mid-rise apartment zones. The amendments would allow non-profits to build social-housing developments of up to six storeys in these areas without requiring them to go through the expensive, time-consuming and public process of rezoning.
Article content
A little more than three years after a fire destroyed the homes of 27 Indigenous families in East Vancouver, a new vision for the property will soon rise from the ashes. But not without opposition.
A four-storey apartment building near Commercial Drive operated by the Vancouver Native Housing Society has been empty ever since a fire days before Christmas 2017 left the building uninhabitable. But with city council’s recent approval of a redevelopment plan, the society will more than double the number of affordable homes on the site.
We apologize, but this video has failed to load.
Try refreshing your browser, or
M’akola Development, a local non-profit housing developer, will redevelop the mid-block property just east of Commercial Drive into a new 88-ft-tall, nine-storey building with 84 social housing units for Indigenous people.
The existing below-market housing building at the site, owned by Vancouver Native Housing Society, was severely damaged by fire in December 2017. Residents of the existing building will be provided with the first right to refusal in the new building’s homes.
Site of 1766 Frances Street, Vancouver. (GBL Architects / M’akola Development)
Site of 1766 Frances Street, Vancouver. (GBL Architects / M’akola Development)
The unit mix is 40 studios, nine one-bedroom units, five one-bedroom accessible units, 14 two-bedroom units, six three-bedroom units, and 10 four-bedroom units. At least a third of the units will be rented to households with incomes that fall under BC Housing Income Limits levels.