Vancouver city council has approved the first purpose-built rental housing development to be built in Vancouver’s West End in a decade.
The 22-storey, 186-unit tower at 1401 Comox Street will include six subsidized apartments for low-income seniors has been approved by city council.
“This project at 1401 Comox will be the first West End tower in a decade built entirely for rental housing,” Mayor Gregor Robertson said in a press release.
“The city is strongly committed to the creation of new rental housing in Vancouver, and that challenge is especially urgent at a time when vacancy rates are lower than 1%, our rental stock has been declining for decades and over half of our city rents.”
The project is being built by Westbank Projects and Peterson Investment Group.
Because developers make more on market housing, there has been little incentive for them to build new rental housing stock for the last couple of decades.
Under the City of Vancouver’s Short Term Incentives for Rental (STIR) program, developers are offered relaxed regulations and waivers on development cost levies (DCL) for purpose-built rental housing. The DCL waiver for the Comox Street project is worth $1.4 million.
