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This building is one of the 60 sites affected by the city's new rental tenure zoning bylaw.
Screen grab from Google Maps
Council votes on rental housing zoning
By Hannah Scott, Local Journalism Initiative reporter
Published 2:26 PST, Fri February 25, 2022
Last Updated: 2:38 PST, Fri February 25, 2022
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Richmond has amended its rental tenure zoning to ensure that 60 sites with existing rental housing are limited to that purpose in the future.
The issue was discussed in early January and the zoning bylaw was adopted for the 60 sites earlier this week. They include about 4,125 units comprising non-market housing (1,425 units), co-op housing (989 units), and market rental without strata (1,711 units). Under the amended zoning bylaw, the units must stay 100 per cent rental if redeveloped.
Legislation permitting local governments to specify housing tenure is relatively new, according to a staff report. “Rental tenure zoning is considered the strongest tool that council and staff have at their disposal to require housing units to be occupied as rental units.”
New Westminster is the only other municipality to add a similar bylaw, for 18 sites so far.
Richmond’s general manager of planning and development Joe Erceg told councillors the bylaw amendment would be a clearer direction for staff, and would save time when working with projects or developers that don’t comply with current policy.
“If it’s just a policy, which it is right now, someone will tie up a site because they’ll want to have a conversation with us about bending the policy, not complying with the policy,” said Erceg. “They’ll want to pitch something that’s outside the policy, maybe it’s only partially compliant. If it’s policy, it’s often viewed as negotiable. If it’s rental tenure zoning, it’s black and white. That’s why, from my point of view, it’s a better way to go—the rules are clear and people conduct themselves based on those rules.”
Councillors were in favour of the amendment at both the committee and council meetings. They also agreed to send a letter to Richmond MPs and MLAs to advise of the city’s decisions.
The bylaw change was carried unanimously at a public hearing on Feb. 22. At that hearing, some members of the public expressed concern that they would be displaced from their homes.
“What we’re considering is to make sure that anything that is 100 per cent rental and is designated here, by location, is going to stay rental,” said Mayor Malcolm Brodie. “It doesn’t mean you’re going to be displaced, it doesn’t mean anything is going to happen, it probably means you won’t see any change at all. The fact is that if the owners of the building go to redevelop it, it will stay as a rental building.”
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