Vancouver City Council approves 679 rental homes at Joyce-Collingwood SkyTrain

Vancouver City Council approves 679 new rental homes at Joyce-Collingwood SkyTrain

Artistic rendering of the rental housing towers at 3362-3384 Vanness Avenue, Vancouver. (Boniface Oleksiuk Politano Architects/Intracorp Homes)

Expect a major infusion of new secured purpose-built rental housing and a new childcare facility at SkyTrain Joyce-Collingwood Station.

On Tuesday evening during a public hearing, Vancouver City Council unanimously approved Intracorp Homes’ rezoning application to redevelop 3352-3386 Vanness Avenue and 3347 Clive Avenue into a pair of towers — 30 storeys and 33 storeys, reaching up to 344 ft.

There will be a total of 679 secured purpose-built rental homes, with 68 units (10% of the residential floor area) set aside for below-market rental units and the remainder as market rental units. The unit size mix is 372 studio units, 70 one-bedroom units, 237 two-bedroom units, and 31 three-bedroom units.

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This project replaces a 1993-built, 12-storey condominium building on the site, which is immediately south of the transit hub. Although the building is relatively young, it is in very poor condition, as it is amongst the numerous “leaky condo” buildings due to poor construction practices and building codes in the 1990s. In 2019, the City of Vancouver issued an “Unsafe Order” for the building exterior, and due to its poor state, the building cannot be insured.

The existing building’s residential and retail strata owners are selling their property for its redevelopment potential and to avoid a repair bill of $75,000 to $100,000 per unit.

3362-3384 Vanness Avenue Vancouver Rental Housing Intracorp

Site of 3362-3384 Vanness Avenue, Vancouver. (Google Maps)

Site of 3362-3384 Vanness Avenue, Vancouver, including the problematic existing 12-storey condo tower. (Google Maps)

3352-3386 Vanness Avenue 3347 Clive Avenue Vancouver rentals

Artistic rendering of the rental housing towers at 3362-3384 Vanness Avenue, Vancouver. (Boniface Oleksiuk Politano Architects/Intracorp Homes)

In addition to the rental housing uses, there will be a 4,600 sq ft childcare facility on the ground level with a large outdoor amenity space fronting Clive Avenue. Nearly 9,000 sq ft of retail/restaurant uses on the ground level will activate the building’s frontage with Vanness Street.

Both OneCity councillor Christine Boyle and Green councillor Adriane Carr praised the inclusion of a childcare facility that will provide a net capacity gain for an area that is seeing long waitlists at its existing childcare facilities.

ABC councillor Mike Klassen suggested this project follows the same evolutionary trajectory the neighbourhood has been on in recent years.

“I’ve been quite impressed with what has been happening over the last decade or so at Joyce-Collingwood Station. I feel like it’s a very unique neighbourhood, and it has grown quite successfully, and I think there’s incredible energy that you can sense at the station in terms of the population and street activity,” he said.

Artistic rendering of the rental housing towers at 3362-3384 Vanness Avenue, Vancouver. (Boniface Oleksiuk Politano Architects/Intracorp Homes)

According to Boniface Oleksiuk Politano Architects, the unconventional shape and facade of the towers are inspired by the area’s urban environment. The V-shaped, tapered gap between the towers is based on the artificial valley-like urban form of the growing number of towers that line the elevated guideway of the SkyTrain Expo Line, particularly when viewed from the front of the train.

The regular pattern of continuous horizontal white bands on the facades of the tower takes inspiration from the nearby Telus “The Boot” office building in Burnaby, which is also eyed for redevelopment.

The use of multicoloured glass for both the resident amenity spaces and continuous glass awnings along Vanness Avenue is said to be inspired by the colourful public art added to the SkyTrain station as part of the transit hub’s 2019-completed renovation — just across the street.

Artistic rendering of the rental housing towers at 3362-3384 Vanness Avenue, Vancouver. (Boniface Oleksiuk Politano Architects/Intracorp Homes)

Four underground levels will contain 214 vehicle parking stalls and nearly 1,300 bike parking spaces. The total building floor area is 436,000 sq ft, representing a floor area ratio density of a floor area that is 11.38 times larger than the size of the 38,300 sq ft lot.

In exchange for the density and uses, Intracorp Homes is providing nearly $24 million in public benefits, including $7.75 million from the in-kind value of the on-site childcare facility, $500,000 as a cash community amenity contribution (CACs), $14.9 million in development cost levies, and $864,000 in public art.

This is the second major upcoming secured purpose-built rental housing project for the immediate area around the transit hub, with Westbank currently well in the process of constructing their 36-storey tower with 360 rental units at 5055 Joyce Street immediately north of the station, replacing the YMCA facility.

Intracorp Homes is also in the midst of building three secured purpose-built rental housing towers as a redevelopment of Ashley Mar Housing Co-operative at 8495 Cambie Street, next to SkyTrain Marine Drive Station. A total of 659 rental homes will reach completion in 2025.

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