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The size of a proposed East Vancouver development is raising questions about the value of community plans.

The project in question is a 10-storey complex that will contain a drug-rehabilitation centre and social-housing units. The site—occupying a whole city block on East 1st Avenue between Clark Drive and McLean Drive—is in Grandview-Woodland.

In 2016, city council approved a plan to guide future growth in the neighbourhood. It was the product of four years of staff work and engagement with the neighbourhood, including the formation of a citizens assembly that provided recommendations.

According to Dana Cromie, chair of the Grandview-Woodland Area Council (GWAC), a grassroots advocacy group, the community plan laid out a different direction for the site, which is for a smaller, six-storey development.

“It’s one thing to have a community work together for years on a plan and come together and you have this plan, and then everything that seems to come up now that the plan’s approved wants something more than what’s in the plan,” Cromie told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview.

“For us as residents, it’s frustrating because it’s like, you know, we worked hard for the plan and there was a lot of compromise to arrive at the plan and then the city is going to start issuing rezoning permits for all these new buildings that are beyond the plan,” Cromie said. “It really makes us wonder why we have the plan in the first place.”

Perhaps adding to the frustration is the fact that the City of Vancouver is both one of the three partners in the development and is also the authority that will approve the project.

The city owns the land, and the 131,234-square-foot development will be undertaken by B.C. Housing. Vancouver Coastal Health will operate the drug-rehabilitation centre comprising 54,896 square feet.

Nathalie Baker is a lawyer who specializes in municipal law. According to Baker, many people do not know that community plans are simply statements that are not binding.

“They give people a sense that they’ve had input into how they like their area to develop, but at the end of the day, council can ignore the plans,” Baker told the Straight in a phone interview.

Baker explained that community plans are different than Official Development Plans (ODPs), which have the force of bylaws. She cited Section 563 of the Vancouver Charter, which prohibits council from authorizing or undertaking “any development contrary to or at variance with the official development plan”.

Had council adopted an ODP with the same provisions as the Grandview-Woodland community plan, Baker said, it could not approve a 10-storey development unless council revised the official plan.

Mary Clare Zak is the managing director of the city’s social-policy and projects division. She attended a June 4 panel discussion hosted by GWAC regarding the development. Zak said she recalls counting about 30 people at the meeting and that only two of the attendees supported the project.

“What we’re trying to do, of course, with all city lands is to try to maximize the amount of use out of the space that we have available,” Zak told the Straight by phone.

She also maintained that the project’s size does not contradict the Grandview-Woodland community plan.

Zak explained that although the plan provides for up to six-storeys along East 1st Avenue, the western edge at Clark Drive is zoned as light industrial, which permits 10 storeys in the area.

The development partners will meet with a group called Community 1st, which opposes the project, on Thursday (June 7).

On June 11, an open house will be held at Vancouver Community College (1155 East Broadway) from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. -