A bare parking lot on the District of North Vancouver’s Delbrook Lands may yet be home to affordable housing now that the municipality has partnered with the Hollyburn Family Services Society to develop the site.
This is excellent news. We have been especially critical of district council for their decision in late 2018 to reject a fully funded, five-storey proposal for the site. It put the new council on terrible footing to address the housing affordability crisis that they campaigned on.
But we wanted them to find their footing and find it quickly. While this may not be quick, it is absolutely a big step in the right direction.
When it comes to affordable housing, you could not ask for a better, more caring and reliable local partner than Hollyburn. The North Shore as a whole owes them tremendous respect for their work.
We must now wait to see if Hollyburn will get capital funding from BC Housing to build a four-storey, below-market rental project.
We hope and pray and dare well expect they should.
Council has wisely already rezoned the land, so it should not turn into a drawn-out fight at council. Expect another two years for construction.
If this is successful, it should be the template for council to replicate as many times as they can to address the housing crisis.
When that parking lot is home to local hairstylists, bus drivers and folks living on disability – and other similar projects are popping up on district-owned land, that will be the Delbrook redemption.
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