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Multiple offers were made. A property swap was also suggested.

Still, the answer was a no.

A property owner refused to sell to the City of Vancouver in a land assembly for a housing project on Southwest Marine Drive.

This has left the city with no choice except to build on two locations, with the holdout sitting in the middle.

The city’s Vancouver Affordable Housing Agency (VAHA) has filed a rezoning application to develop two six-storey residential buildings on what used to be eight separate lots on the north side of Southwest Marine Drive.

Located between Manitoba and Ontario streets, the site is east of Marine Landing, a new neighbourhood anchored by the Marine Drive Station of Canada Line.

Bill Aujla, general manager of real estate and facilities management, and Luke Harrison, CEO of VAHA, talked about what happened in a three-way phone interview with the Georgia Straight Thursday (July 13).

“We buy properties all over the city for specific objectives,” Aujla said. “Similarly here, we did make an offer to all the property owners and we managed to reach a deal with all the property owners except this individual.

“We did make multiple offers, and we also attempted to exchange one of the properties at the periphery with this one in the middle, so you won’t have a house in the middle,” Aujla continued. “It would be at the end, and in fact the quality of that house was better, but the person chose to remain in their house and didn’t want to make a deal. So we did make multiple offers.”

The property owner could have made more than the individual’s neighbours.

“We made the offers, you know, comparable to the offers that we made to everybody else, and then we did increase our offer to incentivize them even further, but they chose not to accept that,” Aujla said.

The holdout is a 33-foot lot.

An artist’s rendering of the two six-storey residential buildings with a private home in between.

The proposed building on the east site at 55-79 Southwest Marine Drive will have 53 housing units.

On the west site at 87-115 Southwest Marine Drive, the other six-storey building will have 48 homes.

Out of the total of 101 housing units, 52 percent are two- and three-bedroom units, which are suited for families.

According to a submission included in the rezoning application, 38 percent of the 101 units are one-bedroom units, and 10 percent are studio types.

Harrison of VAHA said that the site was chosen because it was on a main road, and close to the Marine Drive Station of Canada Line on Cambie Street.

According to him, the project will provide not only affordable housing, but also access to public transportation for future residents.

“There’s a variety of reasons why that would make for a good affordable housing,” Harrison said about the location.

Harrison said that the city wanted a contiguous site in order to make a more efficient design.

Harrison explained that the plan would have involved two buildings just the same because of frontage requirements.

However, he said that the city could have had a different parking structure, among other things.

An open house for the project will be held on July 20 at the Langara Clubhouse (6706 Alberta Street) from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.