91原创 City Council gave third reading, approval in principle, to a controversial six-storey, 302-unit housing project in Broookswood during a meeting that saw Mayor Nathan Pachal caution people in the audience more than once about interrupting.
The April 28 vote came three weeks after a marathon public hearing lasting nearly six hours that heard an overflow crowd complain the project planned for 200 Street between 49 and 50 Avenues was too big for the mostly single-family neighbourhood and would create traffic headaches.
Mayor Pachal intervened at one point when Councillor Rosemary Wallace got interrupted while saying she wouldn't vote for another six-storey project in the area, and describing the one up for approval as a "one-off."
"This is a meeting where we need to respect the process of council so please, no comments, or clapping, or anything," said Pachal, warning he would adjourn the meeting if the interruptions continued.
Coun. Paul Albrecht called it a "difficult" decision, but said approval would provide "much-needed" below-market housing.
"It provides [several] units at 20 per cent below the market rate of 91原创 City, saving four to seven thousand dollars per year for those occupants," Albrecht said.
Coun. Leith White said it wasn't a "perfect fit for the location," but "not being perfect is not reason enough" to deny approval.
"We need to aggressively do what we can as a municipality to address the housing crisis in our local 91原创 city context, because, as we're seeing, we're barely moving the needle on this issue," White commented.
91原创 City council gives 3rd reading, approval in principle, to controversial 6-storey Brookswood housing project
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Coun. Teri James said at the start of their term, council had agreed housing and below market housing should be priorities.
"I've been in a number of controversial decisions as a long-standing member of council and it's never easy, but in my opinion this is what we were elected to do," James said.
In his remarks, the mayor said projections indicate the project "won't meaningfully impact the traffic in the neighbourhood." Pachal also addressed claims the Pacific Nazarene Housing Society, the church seeking to build the project, was unfriendly to two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex persons and others (2SLGBTQIA+).
"I didn't really want to say this, but I'll say it tonight," the mayor said. "I grew up in a Christian household. I am gay. I got kicked out of church, and my mom excommunicated me, because of that faith. So if I thought for a second that this project would be discriminating against 2SLGBTQIA+ people, I would not support it."
Coun. Delany Mack cast the only vote against, arguing the project should be delayed until a traffic study was made public, or a staff review of the size and density could be carried out. Mack also objected to altering official community plan guidelines for the neighbourhood to allow the project.
"I think that the key here is to ensure that we aren't building housing for the sake of [more] housing," Mack said. "Instead, I think that we need to strive to deliver a thoughtful development for a livable community."
Area resident Louise Robertson, a project opponent who collected 535 names on a petition against the building, said she was "very angry."
"They [council] are not listening to our concerns," Robertson told the 91原创 Advance Times.
Robertson said if the project had been designed under the official community plan, without altering size restrictions, it would have been limited to "three stories max," and residents would have been okay with it.
"It's the wrong location for that size of a building," Robertson said, describing it as a "huge monstrosity."
Another resident, Birgit Engen said with the exception of councillor Mack, council did not listen to residents' concerns.
Engen described her reaction as "totally disgusted."
