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The City of Vancouver wanted to revitalize the aging and under-utilized Grandview area. With the implementation of rapid transit and Vancouver rapidly growing having the close proximity to downtown made densifying the region critical to absorb the immigration.
The main focus of the plan is to maintain industrial along Clarke Road and further into Hastings St north, keeping the unique culture of the drive intact, while adding more multi-family residential to manage growth.
What happened and what went wrong
Keeping in mind the close proximity to the downtown core, there was a directive to shoot for the sky. Grandview is a collection of single-family homes on small lots so without density the incentive to redevelop is lost and the redevelopment horizon extended indefinitely. The community demographic is older citizens and families, which did not bode well. These individuals vocalized strong opposition and forced planning’s hand to scale back the density. With many mixed opinions, planners had to build the plan based on each block making the OCP difficult to follow.
Then the worst case scenario happened. With many older stock rental apartment buildings being torn down in other areas there was a group that pushed to maintain the existing rental stock. Ultimately, a rate of change policy was included that limited the number of developments including any rental units (even a basement suite) to 150 units every three years.
After all the time, energy, money, and community involvement from both the residents and city staff the final results was a useless OCP due to that one policy. The ApartmentBlocks team sees this as under-utilized potential with a longer than necessary horizon for redevelopment.
Amandeep graduated from BCIT with a diploma in Professional Real Estate from the Marketing Management program. With a strong passion for real estate, he understands that the process can be stressful and overwhelming. He dedicates his time to guiding clients every step of the way, ensuring the experience is as smooth and successful as possible. Amandeep takes pride in seeing projects come to life and making his clients happy.
Kat Rigter is a commercial real estate advisor and Senior Associate with the ApartmentBlocks Team specializing in the organization and sale of multifamily designated land. Kat has been a central member of the team since 2020, helping facilitate over $200 million in development land sales across the Metro Vancouver Region.
Kat’s persistency and relentless pursuit of ensuring her clients best interests are well represented is second-to-none, which has greatly contributed to her and her team’s success and reputation as one of Metro Vancouver’s leading land assembly teams.
Kat is an active participant in several real estate organizations including CREW (Commercial Real Estate for Women) and is passionate about building relationships within in the industry to help align the right buyers to her clients.
Personal Real Estate Corporation
Team Principal
(604) 349-1571
brandon@apartmentblocks.ca
Brandon Harding is the authority on Land Assembly, a published writer, and a community leader for changing land use in updating Official Community Plans. He is a second generation realtor that has personally transacted over $1,000,000,000+ in sales. Organizing and transacting land has been his passion since listening and learning about the positive impact that can result from successful assemblies through his father, who has been a Commercial Realtor since 1980. Brandon successfully transacted the largest high density land assembly by number of homes.
Brandon has developed the homeowner eligibility test and the PROACTIVE sales funnel, which has revolutionized land assembly and simplified the process for property owners while systematically achieving unmatched results.
Brandon is a thought leader in Commercial Real Estate. Some of his work is published on RENX, LandlordBC, and the Western Investor.
Brandon’s a community coordinator helping homeowners organize, strategize, and deliver a unified voice to Mayors, Councilors, and planning departments. This has led to thousands of property owners achieving higher designations for their properties and making them millions in increased land value. He has the experience and knowledge to empower real change that leads to life changing benefits.
Lauren previously was the Graphic Designer with the developer Peterson Group for over six years. Her experience working from the view of developers gives her an edge creating new engaging marketing material to attract developers and get them to pay premiums for the team’s land assemblies. By highlighting and featuring all the unique attributes of each land assembly in a visually appealing and deliberate way she efficiently helps bring more buyers with more offers to help drive competitive bid pressure and ensure the highest chance of a successful outcome for homeowners.
My name is Nicholai Malinousky, I am a graduate from British Columbia Insitute of Technology with a diploma in Marketing Management, specializing in real Estate. I was introduced to the real estate industry at a young age, and naturally took interest. I am now looking to make an impact to my team and projects with my fresh perspective and a strategic mindset.
