Vancouver city staff recommends rezoning over 200 Cambie Corridor lots for townhomes

Vancouver city staff is recommending that council allow 220 parcels in the Cambie Corridor area, which are currently designated for single-family homes and duplexes, to be rezoned for potentially building some 1,600 townhome and row house units.

“I think it’s wise. They would be avoiding the need to do lot-by-lot rezoning and wasting council’s time when they are going to rezone anyway,” said Tom Davidoff, a real estate economist from the University of B.C.’s Sauder School of Business.

The move follows public engagement on the idea of speeding up the process of adding to ground-level, so-called “missing middle” housing to this area. It would involve council approving amendments to already existing bylaws.

It comes as the province recently said it will take zoning powers from municipalities that don’t start to launch plans for allowing more secondary suites, townhouses, stratified duplexes, triplexes and quadplexes on parcels that are currently zoned for single-family, detached homes.