One Richmond activist would like to see all the homes planned for a redesigned Lansdowne Shopping Centre designated for renters.

Lansdowne Shopping Centre will eventually be redeveloped into a mixed residential and commercial hub with about 9,000 people living there.

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John Roston is enthusiastic about plans put forward by owner Vanprop but believes if Lansdowne were rental only, it would be a vibrant community with people actually living in their homes rather than just buying them as investments properties.

“It’s a fabulous development being done by very nice people. The problem is, they’re selling it to investors who very often leave the units vacant,” Roston said about the 40-year-old mall.

His vision is to have people living there who work within a 20-minute walking distance.

The city currently requires new developments to have 10 per cent of their units designated for rental. However, in May 2018, the provincial government made changes that would allow cities to create “rental zones,” with the aim of encouraging cities to up the minimum rental requirment.

Richmond has yet to take advantage of the new rules despite having a 0.7 per cent vacancy rate.

Roston pointed out that some companies and investment funds are buying up large rental projects across North America because of the guaranteed long-term rental income.

The redevelopment of Lansdowne has been in the works for a couple years, and vice-president Jesse Galicz was expecting it to be before council in September. It was then delayed to later in the fall, but now it isn’t expected to be dealt with until March.

A development sign has popped up on Kwantlen Street, on the edge of the shopping centre.

Unlike Richmond Centre which was rezoned decades ago, in order to develop Lansdowne Centre, the owners have to get changes to the Official Community Plan (OCP) and rezone the site from its current “auto-oriented commercial” to allow residential on it.

Having pushed before for rental at Richmond Centre while that plan was before council — which eventually went from zero to 10 per cent — Roston has now set his eyes on getting rental at Lansdowne.

He believes that introducing this much rental would substantially bring down rents, tackling the housing crunch. It would also address climate change issues by having people live close to where they work.

The theme of his campaign is “walk to work and save the planet while enjoying life without commuting.”

He has been meeting with like-minded people in the community, for example, poverty activists, and plans to approach council next year on the topic.

Furthermore, he thinks now is the time to secure a school site for the Lansdowne development as was envisioned in 2018.

Documents to council include notes from stakeholder meetings regarding a school site within the current shopping centre property.

Vanprop proposed two sites for a school – in the southeast corner and smack in the middle. The city proposed a third possible site, located between these two and adjacent to a proposed park and event space.

The school district, however, said it is not pursing a school at Lansdowne “at this time,” and its long-range facilities plan doesn’t identify one in Richmond’s city centre until after 2032.