Vancouver highrise to segregate entrances for condo owners and social housing residents
Georgia Strait
by Carlito Pablo
15 November 2017

A view of the site showing Burnaby Street, where future condo owners will enter, and Thurlow Street, where social housing residents will have access.

The rich and poor of Vancouver are not going to mix in a new residential tower in the West End.

Condo owners and residents in the social housing section of the development will have separate entrances.

The 30-storey tower is proposed at a corner property at 1068-1080 Burnaby Street and 1318 Thurlow Street.

“The prime entrance and indoor amenity for the market portion of the building is located prominently from Burnaby Street with the social housing lobby taken from Thurlow Street,” according to the design rationale included in the rezoning application filed with the city.

Intracorp Projects Ltd. and Strand Development are the two companies behind the project.

Intracorp is the same firm that is currently constructing the Jervis, a 19-storey building also located in the West End, which has separate entrances for condo owners and residents of social housing.

In another part of the city, Intracorp has proposed a 10-storey building at a corner lot at East 11th Avenue and Victoria Drive, which will have the same entrance for its two types of residents.

In this particular East Vancouver development, condo owners and residents who are going to pay market-level rents will have the same lobby. There will be no social housing in the project.

Going back to the proposed rezoning of 1068-1080 Burnaby Street and 1318 Thurlow Street, the design rationale also states that the “development serves to fulfill an important social role” envisioned in the West End community plan “through the provision of well located, affordable, and much needed social housing, in conjunction with the family oriented market housing”.

The 39 social housing units will be located on the lower floors of the development, whose ownership will be transferred to the City of Vancouver.

There will be 82 condos above the social housing portion of the building.

“The social housing component of the building will be designed as a distinct, and independently functioning entity within the overall building and will be subdivided from the market component of the building by an air space parcel subdivision with title transferred to the City of Vancouver prior to project completion,” according to the design rationale.

The design rationale also states that for the condo portion, a “generously sized amenity room is proposed in the northeast corner with a smaller amenity space located at the northwest corner, adjacent the main entrance lobby”.

For the social housing component, there will be “a large outdoor amenity space at grade to the south”.

In addition, “Individual children’s play areas for both market and social housing residents are proposed along the eastern edge of the site with convenient connectivity to other outdoor amenity programs and indoor amenity areas.”

A community open house for the proposed development will be held on November 22, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites (1110 Howe Street).


top  contents  appendix   previous   next