CITY OF VANCOUVER
COMMUNITY SERVICES
Planning Department
City Plans

M E M O R A N D U M March 11, 2002
TO:	Mayor and Council
COPY:	Judy Rogers, City Manager Syd Baxter, City Clerk Ann McAfee, Director of City Plans Larry Beasley, Director of Current Planning Brent MacGregor, Deputy City Manager Celeste Curran, Solicitor, Legal Services Mr. Chuck Brook, Brook Development Planning Inc. (Owners' Representative) Ms. Ann Roberts, KCC CityPlan Committee
FROM:	Trish French, Senior Planner
SUBJECT:	REZONING:  1402 and 1420 Kingsway and 4050 Knight Street

Background

On February 19 Council held a Public Hearing on an application by the Director of City Plans to rezone the above site from C-2 to CD-1. The rezoning would permit most of the uses in the C-2 District Schedule and establish the form of development and density to match the building that is currently on the site. At the end of the Hearing, Council unanimously passed the following motion:

"THAT Council refer its decision on the rezoning application for 1402-1420 Kingsway and 4050 Knight Street to a future meeting of Council on March 5, 7, or 12, 2002 and that staff provide further information on a restrictive covenant as an alternative to the recommended CD-1 rezoning."

This memo provides the additional information.

3 Courses of Action Available to Council

The Director of City Plans' objective with this site is to prevent development in a form incompatible with the Kensington Cedar Cottage Community Vision. There are three courses of action available to Council with respect to this rezoning application.

1. Not approve the rezoning

If Council decides not to approve the rezoning, the C-2 zoning will remain in place.

This is the owner's preference, as stated in the Public Hearing. The owner has stated that there are currently no proposed development applications, and that it is willing to work with the City and the public towards a future rezoning that is acceptable to all.

However, this option does not meet the Director of City Plans' objective. If the rezoning is not approved and a development application is filed under the present C-2 zoning, the application must be processed. Withholding the application would not be an option.

(The owner has suggested the option of Council not approving the rezoning, and a No Development Covenant being registered against the site subsequently. However, since the City cannot compel the owner to agree to the covenant, this option leaves the site at risk. Section 3 below presents a viable approach to using a covenant.)

2. Approve the rezoning application, and subsequently enact the CD-1 zoning.

This option would meet the Director of City Plans' objective in a manner which most closely follows the established City process. A rezoning would clearly define what the site can be used for, would ensure that the site would not be redeveloped until a further rezoning was enacted, and has the added benefit of permitting the public to understand the restrictions on the site imposed by virtue of the zoning. This option is the Director of City Plans' recommendation in the referral report.

If this occurs, Council has instructed staff, by approving a recommendation contained in the zoning referral report, to consider future applications to amend the CD-1 Bylaw for appropriate redevelopment of the site in accordance with the KCC Community Vision.

The owner objects to this option for three principle reasons: first it is a downzoning; second, it is cumbersome and causes delay, because it would require a second rezoning to permit redevelopment of the site; and third, the owner is concerned that CAC's may be higher if the site is downzoned and then upzoned at a later date.

3. Approve the rezoning application, but not enact it, if a No Development Covenant, acceptable to the DIRECTOR OF LEGAL SERVICES, is registered against the Site

The owner has asked City Council to consider the registration of No Development Covenant against title to the site rather than enactment of the CD-1 rezoning. The proposed Covenant would state that the owner shall not construct or install any new buildings on the lands and the owner would not apply for any development permits or building permits in respect of the lands that change the current use or expand the area of the current building on the site. The Covenant would further provide that if the lands have not been rezoned, or if a rezoning is not, in the opinion of the City's Director of Planning, being actively and diligently pursued within two years, the Director of Planning may, at his/her option, initiate a rezoning of the lands. The Covenant would prevent redevelopment of the site until the owner rezoned the lands or the City chose to do so.

The Covenant approach meets the Director of City Plans' objective by preventing redevelopment of the site in a form incompatible with the KCC Community Vision. However, generally speaking it is not favoured by the City because it is not as public a process as a rezoning. This concern may not be an issue here, however, as a public hearing was held on the issue. This No Development Covenant approach has been used by the City in circumstances where a rezoning must be enacted prior to an election, but the prior-to conditions to the rezoning cannot be fulfilled prior to the election. The City has registered a number of these No Development Covenants, without the time limit, against sites such as Plaza of Nations and the Finning lands in order to permit the rezoning to proceed prior to an election.

At the Public Hearing, Council had some other questions regarding using a Covenant rather than enacting the proposed CD-1 zoning.

1. Which would affect land values more?

There is no information available to answer this.

2. Which would be more restrictive?

The Covenant would be more restrictive of any action on the site, since changes in use of the existing building would not be possible.

3. Which would have more advantage to the party eventually rezoning the site, in terms of lower community amenity contributions (whether in cash or in kind)?

The CAC value is normally related to how much of an increase in density a rezoning achieves. If the currently proposed CD-1 rezoning to about .23 FSR occurs, the owner is worried that the CACs would be calculated from that level, rather than from the C-2 level. Staff note that this is the first time since the citywide CAC policy was adopted that the City has initiated a rezoning like this. The staff experts in the CAC policy advise that this type of situation was not anticipated in writing the policy. Therefore, if the CD-1 is approved, it is staff's intention to seek Council guidance as to whether to use the downzoned density or the C-2 density as the base for calculations. Thus, the rezoning approach retains this uncertainty for the owner.

With the Covenant approach, the site remains C-2, and that becomes the base level for CAC calculations.

(Development Cost Levies payable by an eventual development are not affected whichever approach is chosen.)

Conclusion

As noted in the referral report, the Director of City Plans recommends the rezoning. However, the covenant approach would also achieve the objective of preventing the problematic C-2 uses on the site. In either case, a future rezoning would need to occur to permit an ultimate major redevelopment on the site. (Refer to separate memo on future rezoning processes.)

If Council wishes to pursue the Covenant approach, they should approve the rezoning application, and instruct staff to finalize and register the Covenant. Once it is registered, Council would not enact the zoning. However, if the owner decides not to agree to the Covenant, and it is not registered by May 15, staff would bring the zoning back to Council for enactment.

I trust this memo provides the additional information Council requested.

___________________________
Trish French
Senior Planner

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