A five-storey mixed-use building at 3302-3036 W Broadway will offer 83 units of affordable rental housing as part of the City of Vancouver’s Rental 100 program, which aims to enable new rental housing construction in Vancouver. In addition, a new 15 storey building in Downtown South (1107 Seymour) will offer 81 units of social housing and four floors of social service space for Positive Living BC and AIDS Vancouver.

“Vancouver has a pressing need for more supportive housing and more affordable rental housing, especially for seniors, students, and young families,” said Mayor Gregor Robertson. “These projects build upon the City’s consistent work to support Vancouver renters, provide urgently needed housing for our most vulnerable residents, and make Vancouver more affordable for residents of all backgrounds.”

The 83 new rental units follow a record year in 2012 for new Vancouver rental housing, and City Council’s unanimous decision earlier yesterday to move forward with 355 new units of affordable rental and co-op housing on four City-owned sites. The project’s target rent of $1,325 for a one bedroom is considerably cheaper than average rents for similar new apartments in Vancouver ($1,517).

The project on West Broadway aligns with the recommendation of the Mayor’s Housing Affordability Task Force to enable projects with 100% rental housing in neighbourhoods well-served by transit.

50% of the units in the 15-storey Downtown South development will be targeted to those on social assistance, with the other half of units serving the low-end of the market with rents geared to income levels and based on need.

For more information on the project at 3302-3036 W Broadway, please click here:
http://former.vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/20130423/documents/p4.pdf

For more information on the project at 1107 Seymour, please click here:
http://former.vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/20130423/documents/p3.pdf

“I would also like to thank Adrian Dix for his ongoing service and contributions to British Columbia and our democratic process. Vancouver owes its gratitude to candidates of all backgrounds for advancing their ideas on how best to keep improving our great city and province.”

“On behalf of City Council, I would also like to offer the City’s congratulations to all of Vancouver’s 11 elected or re-elected Members of the Legislative Assembly on their successful campaigns, and I look forward to working with them all as they strive to provide the best possible representation for Vancouver.”

The proposed new affordable housing will include a minimum of 273 units with rents significantly below market rates, with priority for all 355 units going first to those who currently live in Vancouver. 48 units will also primarily serve persons living with mental illness.

“Vancouver has an urgent need for more affordable housing that fits with our neighbourhoods and makes our city more livable for seniors, students, and young families,” said Mayor Robertson. “With 355 new units of secure and affordable rental housing, this proposal represents a significant step toward meeting that need. It’s encouraging to see such strong and early progress after the work we’ve done to enable innovative affordable housing solutions throughout Vancouver.”

After a comprehensive, public procurement process initiated in August 2012, the winning bid for the partnership to build and operate the new affordable housing units is a consortium of non-profit partners led by the Land Trust, a non-profit charity established by the Co-op Housing Federation of BC. The investment of four City-owned sites – provided to the Land Trust for a long term lease – has leveraged $76.2 million in capital funding commitments from the non-profit partners. The City will not provide any operating subsidies or property tax exemptions.

Leasing land at a nominal fee to facilitate the creation of new affordable rental housing was a key recommendation from the Mayor’s Task Force on Housing Affordability.

The Land Trust’s average rent is planned to be $769 per month for a one-bedroom unit, 20% below the Housing Income Limit metric established by BC Housing. Part of the affordability is generated by an internal subsidy which redistributes the operating income from 82 units of market rental housing at one site to the below-market units at other sites. Construction is targeted to begin in March 2014, with residents moving in by the end of 2015.

“Confronting the challenge of housing affordability has been a top priority of my work as Mayor, and I urge all of City Council to join me in supporting this unique opportunity to make our city more affordable for those who live and work in Vancouver,” added the Mayor.

The City of Vancouver has taken a number of steps to make housing more affordable in Vancouver and to support renters and residents in need. These include:

• Approving a record 1,021 new rental housing units in 2012
• Launching a Mayor’s Task Force on Housing Affordability
• Approving the development of an arms-length Affordable Housing Authority
• Approving Vancouver’s first-ever co-housing project
• The opening of Vancouver’s first Rent Bank, to support renters in crisis with short-term loans
• The creation of the Rental 100 Program, which provides incentives for the development of new, 100% rental buildings
• The launch of the online Rental Standards Database, which will enable renters to search out buildings that have current safety issues
• Hosting the ‘re:THINK Housing’ international ideas competition to solicit ideas from around the world on how to create new affordable housing

The full staff report and recommendation can be found here, including details on the locations of the 4 sites:
http://former.vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/20130515/documents/rr1opt.pdf

“Vancouver’s street food program continues to grow, showcasing some of the best culinary talent in our city,” said Mayor Robertson. “Our street food vendors are gaining international accolades, and this year’s additions are enlivening our streets with even more diverse flavours.”

This year, vendors were also invited to apply to set up in one specific location, along with other vendors. This food truck group or ‘pod’ concept benefits both the public and vendors by offering more choices in one location. Seven of the new vendors will be located along Hamilton Street outside the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

The City’s Street Vending Program received 29 applications for 15 new stationary permits this year. This year’s applications were reviewed by a four member selection panel with expertise in small business and the food industry, as well as the City’s Engineering Department and Vancouver Coastal Health.

The 15 successful applicants will be in a number of new locations including:

• Olympic Village Skytrain Station
• Abbott Street near Rogers Arena
• Victory Square, across from Vancouver Community College

The City’s street food vendors were recently ranked 3rd best in North America by Travel and Escape Digital Magazine.

Click here to learn more about the City’s street food vendor program

“We are committed to investing in child care as a way to make Vancouver more affordable for young families, and improve early childhood education,” said Mayor Gregor Robertson. “At a time when demand for child care far outstrips supply due to a lack of funding from senior levels of government, the City is stepping up to help make Vancouver a more supportive city for families and children.”

Vancouver’s Childcare Reserve was established in 1991 to provide funding that supports the high cost of infant and toddler care, helping keep costs down for families. In 2004, City Council created the Joint Childcare Council, where the City, Park Board, and School Board coordinate planning efforts and partnerships with private and non-profit partners to enable new child care spaces. After it was cancelled in 2006, Mayor Robertson and City Council reinstated it in 2009.

From 2009-2011, the JCC exceeded its benchmark of 300 new spaces by an additional 153. The target for 2012-2014 is 500 new spaces in Vancouver.

The $5 million is the biggest one-time increase for child care in the City’s history. Demand for child care is much greater than what is available, with only 19% of children having access to space in Vancouver.

“A new, expanded art gallery at Larwill Park is a huge opportunity to bolster our creative sector, showcase local artists from Vancouver and across BC, and make a clear statement that Vancouver makes arts and culture a priority,” said Mayor Gregor Robertson.

“We’ve done a lot of work to support the arts in recent years, but this has the potential to really elevate our creative economy to the next level. I hope that all of City Council will support the recommendation.”

The recommendation for a new Vancouver Art Gallery will be considered at next week’s City Council meeting. The new purpose-built Art Gallery would feature more than double the area available for exhibition space and triple the area available for education space.

The staff recommendation also includes a creative proposal to close a portion of the adjacent block of Cambie Street between Dunsmuir and Georgia, enabling a unique opportunity for a new public space in downtown Vancouver.

The Vancouver Art Gallery is the largest public art museum in western Canada and is recognized internationally as a centre for contemporary art, with the Gallery’s permanent art collection held for the citizens of Vancouver.
This proposal for a new Vancouver Art Gallery builds on a series of significant recent steps to support arts and culture in Vancouver, including:

• Creating the City of Vancouver’s Arts Event program, an initiative that is the first of its kind in Canada and makes it easier for artists to hold events, showcase their work, and perform in Vancouver;
• Changing zoning to allow artist studios in industrial districts, increasing the permitted space from 2 million to 28 million square feet;
• Indexing arts funding and providing the highest grant funding per capita to arts groups of any city in Canada;
• Council’s recent motion to formally identify and provide stronger protection for key Vancouver arts and cultural spaces;
• The launch of the Arts Factory, a new 21,000 square foot artist space at 281 Industrial, which will provide up to 40 new studio spaces in a City-owned building;
• The creation of a citizen-led Arts and Culture Policy Council;
• Over 20,000 square feet of new artist space approved in 2012;
• 44,500 square feet of space approved at the Wall Centre at 160 West 1st Avenue, designed to accommodate a new 250-seat theatre and a rehearsal hall;
• The Park Board offering nine previously vacant field houses rent-free to artists in exchange for community-engaged arts projects and programming; and
• Approval for restoring the historic York Theatre on Commercial Drive, to be operated by the Vancouver East Cultural Centre.

To read the full staff report on the new Vancouver Art Gallery recommendation, please click here:
http://former.vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/20130423/documents/rr1.pdf

This year’s count, which took place over a 24 hour period on March 13, 2013 found 273 people sleeping outside in Vancouver, which is:

• a decrease of 11% from 2012, which saw 306 street homeless; and
• a 66% decrease since 2008, which saw 811 street homeless, and was the first year of low-barrier shelters.

“The drop in people sleeping outside in Vancouver shows that we’re on the right path when it comes to ending street homelessness by 2015,” said Mayor Gregor Robertson. “Our efforts are working, but there is no question there is more work to do. This is within our grasp.

“Affordable housing and homelessness is an issue not just for Vancouver, but for all of Metro and the Province. I urge the provincial parties to outline their plan for preventing and ending homelessness. In a province as wealthy and innovative as BC, there is no excuse for anyone to sleep outside at night.

“We need a stable and reliable Provincial commitment that full shelter funding will be made permanent, as well as the investments required to meet the urgent need for new social and supportive housing – these are responsibilities of the Provincial Government,” added the Mayor.

The City’s 2012-2021 Housing and Homelessness strategy requires the addition of 290 units of new supportive housing each year until 2021, and 500 new units of social housing.

Since 2012, almost 200 units in two supportive housing sites have opened in Vancouver, in partnership with BC Housing. Over the next year, the City will open 100 new units of interim housing at the Howard Johnson; new low-income housing at the former Ramada Inn on Kingsway; and 260 units in two supportive housing projects with BC Housing. The City of Vancouver has committed approximately $60 million in its 2012-2014 capital plan to support new affordable and supportive housing

Preliminary results show there were 1,288 shelter beds available in Vancouver on the night of the count. Results from the final shelter count are still pending and a final report on the homeless count, including demographics, will be presented to Council in July.

Located at 2610 Victoria Drive, the ISS ‘Welcome House Centre’ will provide short term and transitional housing with supports for recently arrived refugees. The project will include 98 flexible, lockable rooms which can be combined in a variety of configurations, down to 26 “self-contained units” allowing ISS to flexibly house larger or smaller families as well as singles, as need arises.

The City staff report on the project noted that “Refugee claimants are among the highest population at-risk of homelessness in our city,” and that the project will include access to crucial services such as banking assistance, government outreach, language classes, medical care and housing / settlement services.

To read the full staff report, click here:
http://former.vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/20130409/documents/a3.pdf

To read a CBC report on the project – “Vancouver refugee centre ‘first of its kind in the world” – please click here:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/04/09/bc-vcr-refugee-centre.html

Vancouver Council approved new immigrant + refugee centre: ‘first of its kind in the world’buff.ly/ZguL0E

— Gregor Robertson (@MayorGregor) April 10, 2013

Council approves grant to build ‘Welcome House’ – transitional supportive housing for refugees: ow.ly/jTYEd #vanpoli #cdnpoli

— Van Mayor’s Office (@VanMayorsOffice) April 9, 2013

The City is recommending awarding the 2013 Cultural operating and project grants to 165 Vancouver organizations supporting dance, film, music, visual arts, literary arts and more, selected from a pool of 191 applications. This year’s grants span an impressive range, from the Arts Club Theatre (celebrating its 50th year), Bard on the Beach, the Vancouver International Writers Festival, and the DOXA Film Festival, to the Raven Spirit Dance Society and Vancouver Theatre Sports.

“The City of Vancouver is committed to using every tool at our disposal to support our vibrant local arts and cultural community, understanding that Vancouver’s leading creative sector is a substantial contributor to the strength of our local economy,” said Mayor Gregor Robertson. “The grants recommended to 165 organizations demonstrate the breadth of support the city shows for our local arts and culture groups, and I hope all of Council will join me in supporting them.”

The grants are recommended by a jury of artistic peers and evaluated based on artistic merit, the strength of the organization, and community impact. Among others, organizations receiving funding from the city for the first time include the Vancouver Intercultural Orchestra, Vancouver poetry house, Reel to Real film festival, and Alley Theatre.

This year’s grants include an increase of $200,000 to index the City’s arts and culture funding to inflation for the first time, as directed by Council in the 2013 budget. Beyond these grants, another $944,000 remaisn to invest in grants in 2013, including over $400,000 for community and neighbourhood arts development.

On a per capita basis, the City of Vancouver has the highest number of artists and provides the most local grant funding for arts organizations of any major city in Canada.

These grants build on a series of significant recent steps to support arts and culture in Vancouver, including:

• Creating the City of Vancouver’s Arts Event program, an initiative that is the first of its kind in Canada and makes it easier for artists to hold events, show case their work, and perform in Vancouver;
• Changing zoning to allow artist studios in industrial districts, increasing the permitted space from 2 million to 28 million square feet;
• Indexing arts funding and providing the highest grant funding per capita to arts groups of any city in Canada;
• Council’s recent motion to formally identify and provide stronger protection for key Vancouver arts and cultural spaces;
• The launch of the Arts Factory, a new 21,000 square foot artist space at 281 Industrial, which will provide up to 40 new studio spaces in a City-owned building;
• The creation of a citizen-led Arts and Culture Policy Council;
• Over 20,000 square feet of new artist space approved in 2012;
• 44,500 square feet of space approved at the Wall Centre at 160 West 1st Avenue, designed to accommodate a new 250-seat theatre and a rehearsal hall;
• The Park Board offering nine previously vacant field houses rent-free to artists in exchange for community-engaged arts projects and programming; and
• Approval for restoring the historic York Theatre on Commercial Drive, to be operated by the Vancouver East Cultural Centre.

For the full staff report on 2013’s Cultural Operating and Project Grants, click here:

http://former.vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/20130410/documents/cfsc4.pdf