Council urged to reject strata conversion
Frances Bula
Sun
Vancouver city staff have made an unusual move to preserve what they say is desperately needed rental housing, by saying that council should refuse to allow the owner of a relatively new condo building to convert his rental building to strata units.
That’s even though two-thirds of the 36 tenants at the Maguire building on West Broadway in Kitsilano have said they’re okay with the conversion, the current rents in the building range from $1,300 to $2,900 a month, and the owner has offered to pay the city almost half a million dollars towards its affordable housing fund.
Housing director Cameron Gray says the last time the city refused a similar conversion request was “when Carole Taylor was on council, sometime between 1986 and ’88.” Vancouver was going through a similar housing crunch then.
“The vacancy rate in Kits, which is where this is, is now zero. These renters are going to have to find homes somewhere else if this happens,” Gray said.
The building, which was only occupied in 2004, is not in any of the areas that Vancouver has tried in the past to preserve from demolitions or conversions and it’s not even in one of the broad swathe of apartment zones that council will be deciding in May should also be protected from demolition or conversion.
But councils do have the right to stop any landowner from converting to strata because the provincial Strata Property Act allows them to regulate conversions and to take into account “the priority of rental accommodation over privately owned housing” in an area. The city did allow a similar conversion by the same owner of a building on West 12th two years ago.
Gray noted that Vancouver isn’t likely to see a rash of this kind of conversion attempt or political debate, because there aren’t many buildings in this situation. Most developers stratify their buildings when they’re being built, even if they plan to rent them out for a while, so that they don’t have to come to council later for permission to convert. But a few developers have decided they would rather have them classified as rental buildings, which helps them save some money on insurance costs with the Homeowner Protection Office.
“This is an unusual recommendation, but it’s unusual to have large applications like this,” Gray said.
It is a sign, however, of how concerned city staff and politicians are about the increasingly difficult housing market.
NPA Coun. Suzanne Anton, whose party generally prefers to see a minimum of government interference and a maximum of market solutions to housing problems, said this will be a “tough decision to make” given the shortage of rental housing in the city. “It is an expression of our general anxiety over the loss of rental housing.”
Coun. Raymond Louie, with Vision Vancouver, said he will support the staff recommendation. “We cannot have a continuous loss of rental stock.”
Building owner Les Sallay’s representative, Chuck Brook, said Sallay has offered to pay $15,000 per unit, the amount that Downtown Eastside hotel conversions are charged, which would put $440,000 in the affordable housing fund. As well, the building hardly represents affordable housing in Vancouver, with rents up to $2,900, Brook said.
However, Gray notes the low-end rents of $1,300 are what is considered affordable — 30 per cent of gross income — for someone making $52,000 a year.
Voting on the recommendation has been put off until May 17.
© The Vancouver Sun 2007