Article content continued

“Those all made it attractive to do,” said Grant.

Despite this, he feels, “it would be harder (to choose building rental) today with what’s happened in the condo market” which has seen escalating land prices and a scarcity of pre-sale units.

He added that PCI recently dropped a plan to build a rental building with 215 units in downtown Vancouver. “It was (a project) supported by senior management (at the city), but at the mid-levels, there were conflicts with policy that made it impossible to go ahead.”

Grant declined to be more specific about the project, but suggested it might be helpful if the city had a rental housing advocate “within the planning department, spanning different departments to bridge challenges and expedite rental housing.”

“In my experience, policy and lower level bureaucracy can sometimes trip up plans, and an advocate could overcome some of these problems.”

There are other examples of developers with plans to build rental units, but who have stepped away, according to HQ Commercial’s Jagger.

There should be no community amenity contributions or CACs charged by the city to developers for allowing rental buildings, said David Wesik, executive vice-president at Wesgroup Properties, which is targeting an increase in rental projects from one to two out of five in the next five years.

The CAC payments are in-kind or in cash and go toward the city’s building of community spaces such as daycare facilities and parks.