Supports Item No. 7

POLICY REPORT
DEVELOPMENT AND BUILDING

TO:

Standing Committee on Planning and Environment

FROM:

Director of Development Services and Director of Current Planning

SUBJECT:

Public Notification Process for Pre-Purchasers

 

RECOMMENDATION

As an alternative to A, the following is submitted for Council's CONSIDERATION:

GENERAL MANAGER'S COMMENTS

COUNCIL POLICY

There are no legislated requirements for public notification pertaining to development applications and only a legal advertisement of the Public Hearing is required for rezonings. Nonetheless, for development applications and rezonings, the City has initiated various courtesy notification procedures that have increased public involvement in both development applications and rezonings. These include: courtesy notification letters to registered property owners surrounding a site; signs on sites; display advertisements in local newspapers of Development Permit Board meetings and Public Hearings; and, most recently, information on the City's website.

PURPOSE

On September 12, 2002 Council dealt with a report from the Director of Current Planning seeking Council approval of the form of development for a Concord Pacific project, as required pursuant to the Vancouver Charter. Various individuals, who were not registered property owners but "owners under contract" with Concord Pacific for development on adjacent sites, expressed concerns to Council regarding the lack of notification they had received regarding the development under consideration. This report responds to the following Council request:

BACKGROUND

Current Notification Process

The City provides notification to the public utilizing site signs, newspaper advertisements of meetings, notices on the City's website and courtesy letter notification to adjacent registered property owners. Despite this array of communication, the City finds it challenging to provide notification that reaches all citizens who may have an interest in a particular rezoning or development initiative.

Of the available communication strategies, the letter notifications are the most "targetted" method. The limitation with this approach is that we are only able to reach registered property owners using the City's property tax data base, which is updated every six months. Consequently, this has led us to increasingly rely on reaching interested parties, such as rental tenants and pre-purchasers through other means.
Notification Shortcomings

Increasingly, units are "pre-sold" long before the buildings are constructed. In existing buildings it continues to be most common for a new owner to enter into a contract with a future closing date. In both instances, these "owners under contract" may be interested in a particular development or rezoning initiative being advanced in their future neighbourhood. However, because sales are not yet finalized, in either case these "owners under contract" are not yet registered in the Land Title Office. Consequently, the City's property tax data base is unable to acknowledge these "owners under contract" in our notification of emerging development or rezoning initiatives. Consultation with the Real Estate Board and other agencies concluded that there is no comprehensive data base enabling staff to access these "owners under contract". Sale/purchase agreements are a private matter between the individuals themselves and the owner/developer.

To ensure that "owners under contract" are advised of development and rezoning initiatives, staff have, for major developments such as Concord Pacific, required the developer to advise its "owners under contract" of any changes it was proposing to undertake. Furthermore, Concord Pacific has included in its disclosure statements a provision whereby prospective purchasers acknowledge that Concord Pacific may make changes to what is contemplated on its adjacent lands. While this may help to protect Concord Pacific's interests, it does not ensure that "owners under contract" are advised of any changes this same owner/developer may initiate with the City.

DISCUSSION

Having contemplated Council's intent, staff sought a mechanism to accommodate "owners under contract" which would be timely, cost-effective and easy to manage. The most practical alternative would be to amend the courtesy development and rezoning notification letters by inserting the following clause:

Relying on the City's tax data base, this letter will be sent to registered property owners advising of pending development application or rezoning initiatives in their community. In addition, staff will seek written confirmation from the applicant that the owner/developer has advised any and all "owners under contract" about the development or rezoning application.
This approach may enable courtesy notification letters to reach "owners under contract" advising of pending changes in their community. However, there are several practical limitations which Council should be made aware of before making its decision.

Firstly, it is difficult to predict whether this approach will have any significant impact on the application processing time for development applications. Currently, registered property owners have a two-week period to respond to our courtesy notification letter sent in connection with a development application. With this additional proviso, and allowing sufficient time for property owners to forward the letter onwards to "owners under contract", there may be instances where interested individuals may wish to provide feedback to us beyond the two-week response period. During the 6-month trial period staff will monitor service levels and resources to ascertain whether there have been any significant impacts. While it is anticipated that the revised notification process will not lengthen the rezoning process, staff will also monitor for impacts in this area.

Secondly, the onus for passing on the courtesy notification letter remains with the registered property owner and there is no guarantee that this will happen. We may be creating an unrealistic expectation that a property owner will, first, open and read the City's courtesy notification letter and, secondly, take the time to forward it, at their expense, to the "owner under contract" within a reasonable time frame such that the "owner under contract" is able to respond to the City. There is no way to ensure that these events will occur and because of this, the City is not able to reasonably manage and control this part of its notification process. Finally, the City is currently able to manage and control its notification processes through its current mechanisms. Should Council decide to expand our notification processes to include "owners under contract", there is attendant risk to the City. The consequence, if we are to proceed, is that the City may be creating a false public expectation that "owners under contract" could in future rely on receiving courtesy notification letters.

Despite these challenges, this expanded notification initiative assumes that citizens will act in good faith and forward the notification letter onwards in a timely manner; ultimately this responsibility rests with the registered property owner to follow through on these expectations.

CONCLUSION

Should Council wish to proceed with a revised notification process to include "owners under contract", staff recommend that it be for a 6-month trial period. This period will give staff sufficient time to obtain feedback and evaluate how successful the City has been. If this approach meets with success, staff would recommend that it be continued. If this approach proves to be problematic, staff would report back to Council at the end of the 6-month trial period on their findings and recommend discontinuance.

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