While the City of Vancouver grapples with worsening housing affordability conditions, increasingly contentious area plans, and an excruciatingly slow planning process for even modest density increases, Burnaby is quietly going through what is likely one of the most dramatic suburban transformations in the history Metro Vancouver, if not Canada.

Most people have only really begun to take notice more recently with higher and higher towers starting to pop up in Metrotown and now Brentwood. With a strong condo market fuelling demand for new towers near transit, most of Vancouver’s large developers have been active securing sites in Burnaby in the last several years. While the rezoning applications tend not to attract as much attention as those high profile projects in Downtown Vancouver, the magnitude of activity can’t be ignored, particularly when one ponders the scale of projects like Shape Properties’ recently approved Lougheed Town Centre.

How did Burnaby become a hotbed of highrise construction at a scale that dwarfs even the City of Vancouver? You have to go back a few years to understand how the plans were put in place.

The City of Burnaby put plans in place several years ago to concentrate growth in and near major rapid transit (Skytrain) nodes, particularly in four town centre areas they identified as follows:

Furtheremore, unlike homeowners in Vancouver that have been increasingly vocal against even midrise developments, towers in Burnaby have faced less public opposition during rezoning, in part due to the fact that many highrises are being being built in former industrial areas that are being lost to residential, or in areas that are primarily occupied by older rundown apartments where tenants have, seemingly, less influence with the City than single family homeowners.

So far, about 30 highrise towers have been built in these four town centre areas (including 2 office towers), primarily in Metrotown, where projects such as Sovereign by Bosa – a 45-storey hotel and condo tower, and Metroplace by Intracorp – a condo tower near the Metrotown Skytrain station, have each taken advantage of sizeable density increases per the Metrotown Town Centre plan. The sales velocity and pricing of each new development spurs even greater interest for new projects and generates more and more rezoning applications. Land speculation is now commonplace, particularly in more mature areas such as Metrotown.

The City of Burnaby’s willingness to allow fairly substantial density on previously underutilized parcels of land previously dedicated to commercial and industrial use has vaulted Burnaby far ahead of any area in Metro Vancouver in terms of highrise construction. Shape Properties’ two mall sites: Brentwood and Lougheed, are the largest and most well known, but others such as Onni’s Gilmore Station (rumored to include BC’s new tallest tower) and Concord’s Brentwood projects are massive themselves and in terms of height and scale, tower over Vancouver’s most ambitious plans such as the recently scaled back Oakridge.

A review of current and forthcoming developments in the City of Burnaby shows over 100 highrises in various stages of development (under application or construction), almost all of them intended for residential condos, with a handful of commercial office towers usually required on the larger scale developments to preserve job space. A few stats show the scale of this wave of development in Burnaby:

106 highrises under development (compared to 68 in the City of Van)

under development (compared to 68 in the City of Van) 47 highrises of 40-storeys or more (compared 13 in the City of Van)

(compared 13 in the City of Van) Over 30,000 units under development (excluding lowrise and townhouse units)

Here is a breakdown of all of this activity, by each area of Burnaby:

Brentwood

Project Developer Height (Storeys) Units Status The Amazing Brentwood Shape Brentwood ONE 53 591 U/C Brentwood TWO 53 563 U/C Brentwood THREE 51 526 U/C Brentwood Tower 4 40 ~2,500 Proposed Brentwood Tower 5 30 Proposed Brentwood Tower 6 55 Proposed Brentwood Tower 7 35 Proposed Brentwood Tower 8 30 Proposed Brentwood Tower 9 35 Proposed Brentwood Tower 10 40 Proposed Gilmore Station Onni Gateway Tower 1 45 ~2,600 Proposed Gateway Tower 2 55 Proposed Gateway Tower 3 65 Proposed Dawson Tower 1 25 Proposed Dawson Tower 2 35 Proposed Dawson Tower 3 35 Proposed Dawson Tower 4 45 Proposed Carlton Tower 35 Proposed Commerce Tower 1 15 Proposed Commerce Tower 2 30 Proposed Concord Place - Brentwood Concord Pacific Hillside Tower 1 42 892 Proposed Hillside Tower 2 47 Proposed Hillside Tower 3 45 ~2,900 Proposed Hillside Tower 4 55 Proposed Flatlands Tower 1 30 Proposed Flatlands Tower 2 40 Proposed Parkside Tower 1 25 Proposed Parkside Tower 2 35 Proposed Parkside Tower 3 35 Proposed Parkside Tower 4 45 Proposed Solo District Appia Stratus 45 374 Complete Altus 48 284 U/C Tower 3 39 700 Proposed Tower 4 45 Proposed 1846-1904 Gilmore 46 340 Proposed 2242 Alpha Ave Monark 30 Proposed 2425 Alpha Ave Tower 1 Thind 25 ~750 Proposed 2425 Alpha Ave Tower 2 30 Proposed 2425 Alpha Ave Tower 3 35 Proposed 2630 Douglas Road Tower 1 25 n/a Proposed 2630 Douglas Road Tower 2 30 n/a Proposed 4720 Dawson Road 25 170 Proposed Aviara Ledingham McAllister 32 300 Complete Escala (1710 Gilmore Ave) Ledingham McAllister 42 520 U/C Fulton House (2338 Madison Ave) Polygon 41 300 Proposed Milano (2450 Alpha Ave) Solterra 31 176 Pre-sales

East Burnaby/Lougheed

Project Developer Height (Storeys) Units Status Lougheed Town Centre Shape Lougheed Tower 1 25-65 ~11,000 Proposed Lougheed Tower 2 25-65 Proposed Lougheed Tower 3 25-65 Proposed Lougheed Tower 4 25-65 Proposed Lougheed Tower 5 25-65 Proposed Lougheed Tower 6 25-65 Proposed Lougheed Tower 7 25-65 Proposed Lougheed Tower 8 25-65 Proposed Lougheed Tower 9 25-65 Proposed Lougheed Tower 10 25-65 Proposed Lougheed Tower 11 25-65 Proposed Lougheed Tower 12 25-65 Proposed Lougheed Tower 13 25-65 Proposed Lougheed Tower 14 25-65 Proposed Lougheed Tower 15 25-65 Proposed Lougheed Tower 16 25-65 Proposed Lougheed Tower 17 25-65 Proposed Lougheed Tower 18 25-65 Proposed Lougheed Tower 19 25-65 Proposed Lougheed Tower 20 25-65 Proposed Lougheed Tower 21 25-65 Proposed Lougheed Tower 22 25-65 Proposed Lougheed Tower 23 25-65 Proposed

South Burnaby

Project Developer Height (Storeys) Units Status Southgate Village Ledingham McAllister Gateway Tower 1 26 ~6,250 Proposed Gateway Tower 2 28 Proposed Gateway Tower 3 30 Proposed Gateway Tower 4 34 Proposed Gateway Tower 5 36 Proposed Gateway Tower 6 38 Proposed Gateway Tower 7 40 Proposed Gateway Tower 8 44 Proposed Ernie Winch Tower 30 Proposed Ernie Winch Tower 2 26 Proposed Island Tower 1 26 Proposed Island Tower 2 30 Proposed Island Tower 3 38 Proposed Crescent Tower 1 38 Proposed Crescent Tower 2 40 Proposed Crescent Tower 3 46 Proposed Courtyard Tower 1 24 Proposed Courtyard Tower 2 26 Proposed Courtyard Tower 3 32 Proposed Kings Crossing Cressey Kings Crossing Tower 1 25 803 Pre-sales Kings Crossing Tower 2 30 Pre-sales Kings Crossing Tower 3 40 Pre-sales

Metrotown

Project Developer Height (Storeys) Units Status Station Square Anthem/Beedie Station Square Tower 1 35 269 Complete Station Square Tower 2 38 434 U/C Station Square Tower 3 48 U/C Station Square Tower 4 52 334 Proposed Station Square Tower 5 41 424 Proposed Metrotown Sears Concord Pacific Sears Residential Tower 1 ~1,500 Proposed Sears Residential Tower 2 Proposed Sears Residential Tower 3 Proposed Sears Residential Tower 4 Proposed Sears Residential Tower 5 Proposed Sears Commercial Tower 1 Proposed Sears Commercial Tower 2 Proposed Gold House Tower 1 40 490 Pre-sales Gold House Tower 2 28 Pre-sales The Met Tower 1 32 295 Complete The Met Tower 2 38 312 U/C Modello Boffo 37 170 U/C Aldynne on the Park Polygon 41 242 U/C The Park Metrotown Intergulf 42 298 U/C Bluesky Metrotown (5977 Wilson) BlueSky Properties 34 365 Proposed 6380 Silver Beflord Propertise 41 479 Proposed 6420 Silver Belford Properties 26 Proposed 6695 Dunblane / 4909 Imperial Transca Development 40 280 Proposed 6750 Dunblane / 5025 Imperial Amacon 27 177 Proposed Maywood Park Intracorp 30 n/a Proposed Midori Polygon 37 253 Pre-sales Sussex Townline Homes 30 375 Proposed

The above floor & unit counts are best estimates unless otherwise confirmed in City of Burnaby planning/rezoning application documents.

It is anticipated that there will be more rezoning applications forthcoming in the near future, particularly as the Town Centre Plans are further refined; however, it can be argued that the majority of the most central and logical development sites have now been secured by developers. With a very active presales market and continued upward trajectory of condo prices, it can be anticipated that land costs will continue to increase for these Burnaby tower sites in the future, with areas such as Port Moody and Coquitlam seeking to catch some of the spillover of this growth in conjunction with the 2017 completion of the Evergreen Line.

With the height and scale of these projects in Burnaby, it will be interesting to see what, if any response the City of Vancouver has while it struggles to create even modest height and density in increasingly expensive and largely unaffordable areas.

For the record, I am not espousing the virtues of density as the primary means of increasing affordability. In fact, if Burnaby is behind in an area, it is in the creation of new rental units for which there is currently no coherent or substantive policy. This, in part, has helped the viability of several projects since rental replacement is not a requirement like it is in other municipalities. The City of Vancouver has been more proactive in the provision of affordable housing which has hopefully had at least a moderate impact in terms of affordability.