A residential rental project downtown on Granville Street has angered neighbours and prompted a $10 million lawsuit against the developer and the City of Vancouver.
The imbroglio also highlights the dangers that lurk for owners of small plots of land adjacent to underused properties, such as single-level parking lots.
Mohamed Ahmed launched the legal action December 29 after he failed to stop construction of a 10-storey tower on a single-level parking lot next door to the 110-year-old building that he and his wife, Jutta Ahmed, have owned and lived in since the 1968.
They allege that developer Blue Sky Properties Inc., which is affiliated with Bosa Properties Inc., attempted to buy the Ahmeds’ three-storey property last year for just over $1 million. That’s about half the property’s assessed value and a tiny fraction of its market value, Jutta Ahmed told Business in Vancouver.
“You can buy toilet paper for that,” she said.
But Daryl Simpson, Bosa Properties’ vice-president of sales and marketing, denied that his company ever offered to buy the Ahmeds’ land.
Regardless, the Ahmeds now face the prospect of a 106-unit residential tower abutting both their six apartments and a 390-square-foot balcony, which is carved out of the middle of their old brick building at 1130 Granville Street.
The Ahmeds claim that the loss of safety, security and privacy will seriously devalue their property.
“People in the [proposed building] could jump over to our balcony and rape the people in our building,” Mohamed Ahmed said. “If they smoke and they throw out their cigarette butt, it will come in our windows. If they get drunk and throw a glass it will come in our window.”
The 72-year-old said that, were it not for construction next door, the property, which is now owned by his wife, would be worth roughly $10 million, which the Ahmeds are seeking in their lawsuit.
Both developer and city staff say standard procedures were followed when the city rezoned the parking lot and voted to add 63% more allowable density in September.
The change allows Blue Sky to develop a structure 5.72-times the site’s 75-foot-wide and 120-foot-deep footprint.
The 92-foot maximum allowable height for the proposed structure remains unchanged.
Ahmed names Mayor Gregor Robertson and eight city councillors in his lawsuit because, he alleges in his notice of civil claim, “there can be no doubt of collusion” between those representatives and Blue Sky.
Ahmed argues that Robertson and his Vision Vancouver council were so ideologically driven to encourage developers to build market rental housing that they were not concerned with how it would affect his property.
One of Robertson’s hobbyhorses during his mayoral tenure has been the city’s short-term incentives for rental housing (STIR) program, which aims to boost the city’s market rental housing stock.
Blue Sky is developing its tower under the STIR program and intends to complete construction by February 2012.
Suzanne Anton voted against rezoning the site and Andrea Reimer was away for the vote. So, those councillors were not named in the lawsuit.
“I did not agree with [Blue Sky’s] proposal to build so close to the old building,” Anton told BIV January 6.
Ahmed pointed to another example of why he believes Robertson and city council were not acting in a transparent way.
Council voted to change the zoning bylaw for Blue Sky’s site a second time, without notice, on December 14. Council first voted to rezone Blue Sky’s property in June and that change was confirmed in September when council voted to enact the bylaw.
City director of planning Brent Toderian rejected Ahmed’s accusation that the December change to the bylaw was either unusual or shady.
Toderian stressed, the December change to the bylaw was prompted when city staff made a calculation error when converting square feet to square metres.
That error found its way into the enacted bylaw.
Were the bylaw not changed, Toderian said the entire block of Granville Street between Helmcken Street and Davie Street would be granted much more permitted floor area than council had intended.