Geeze, you Vancouverites are never happy. Now the city of Vancouver is being accused of taking too much profit on Cambie for development rezonings.
The city uses the money — an average of 75 per cent of the profits resulting from rezonings — for community amenities like parks and seniors’ centres.
“We need to strike a balance. Everybody needs to get a piece of this or we aren’t going to get on with development,” Sullivan said. “Right now I’d call it paralyzed.”
But city planner Brent Toderian said realtors and homeowners are setting unrealistically high prices for their properties, making it hard for development proposals to work financially.
He said the city’s long-standing practice of taking on average 75 per cent of the profit or “land lift” from rezonings to pay for parks and other public services shouldn’t be sacrificed because homeowners set unreasonable prices that developers then pay.
“[Community amenities are] a cost that a reasonable seller and a reasonable buyer have to include in the purchase. But what I’m hearing is going on in the Cambie corridor is that there are some exorbitant prices being asked for the land,” he said. “Developers are trying to explain they have to pay development cost levies and community amenity contributions as a part of rezoning, and many homeowners and realtors are saying they don’t care.”
