Vancouver opens doors to developers with new Heights District zone

Following the vote, Councilor Ty Stober congratulated the staff on finalizing the plan after years of back-and-forth with residents who worried how the proposal would change the character of their neighborhood.

“Redevelopment of this piece of property is definitely something that I’ve thought about since the 1990s when I first moved to Vancouver, so it’s pretty amazing to be able to be sitting up here on the dais to be part of making this happen,” Stober said.

He also acknowledged that the eventual plan required multiple concessions and compromises to make it over the finish line.

“It is not the plan that I would have developed if it was all up to me,” Stober said. “For me, it would have had greater density, it would have had lower parking requirements and it would have been more explicit in its designation of low income housing. But I believe the plan that is before us tonight is an acceptable compromise that’s going to make a very positive impact on the future of our city.”

According to Rebecca Kennedy, Vancouver’s long-range planning manager, the next step will be the demolition of the existing Tower Mall structure. That’s tentatively scheduled for the fall.

“I think there’s a tremendous amount of excitement about seeing that come down and thinking about the next phase,” Kennedy said.

What’s in the Heights District Plan?

The Heights District is a triangular, 205-acre region bordered by East Mill Plain Boulevard to the north, MacArthur Boulevard to the south and west, and Andresen Road to the east. It includes a handful of schools and a cemetery, as well as the former Tower Mall shopping center strategically purchased by the city in 2017 in preparation for an eventual redevelopment.

The bulk of the surrounding properties are currently occupied by residential plots — the neighborhood sprung up during World War II as housing for Kaiser Shipyard employees.

The new Heights District (or HX) zoning code is designed to boost density, encouraging multifamily housing developments and other uses such as retail and restaurants to occupy street-level floors.

In the northeast corner of the Tower Mall property, referred to in the new code document as the “Activity Center,” buildings can now be up to 85 feet tall. The same is true directly across Devine Road, on a semi-circular plot of land being referred to as the “Residential Neighborhood.” Along a southwest strip bordering MacArthur Boulevard, called the “Innovation Hub,” buildings are now capped at 50 feet; scattered around the perimeter of the district, new buildings on plots of land called the “District Gateway” are capped between 35 and 50 feet depending on their location.

Previous neighborhood and community commercial standards had capped buildings in the Heights District at 35 feet and 50 feet, respectively.

The same principle applies to density and parking. New development in the Activity Center must hit a minimum residential density of at least 75 housing units per acre and one parking space per unit, while the Innovation Hub and District Gateway must hit 30 units per acre and 1.25 parking spaces per unit.

Successful implementation of the plan, according to a council memo, would mean 1,800 new housing units and 204,000 square feet worth of new commercial real estate.

The document also details development standards for landscaping, setbacks, façade design, stormwater management and bicycle parking, along with other specifics.

According to Kennedy, it creates a blueprint “to create the type of place that we have worked with the community and with a variety of stakeholders to create the vision for.”

However, the plan that passed Monday has for years been the subject of earnest debate between nearby residents seeking to defend their quiet suburbia from major changes. Density requirements and parking limits were especially controversial — without adequate parking, residents worried, vehicles would inevitably spill over into their streets.

“What we see is an urban development in the middle of a quiet suburban neighborhood,” leaders of the Northcrest Neighborhood Association, which borders the northern edge of The Heights, wrote in a letter to the city council in February. “It is one thing to buy a home in the city; quite another to have a city built next to your home.”

In response to community concerns, Vancouver extended the timeline for public comment and made some concessions in the plan, including bumping up parking requirements around the perimeter. They also agreed to shave whole plots of land entirely, exempting a few churches from the new HX requirements should they decide to renovate their properties.

Just one person testified at Monday’s public hearing. But at another recent hearing, on July 17, multiple residents told the city council they still had doubts about the plan.

Kate Fernald, co-chair of the Heights Neighborhood Coalition, said that the group supports the plan broadly, but they’re frustrated that city leaders quietly upped the density threshold in the last few months (at a May 17 workshop, the council had considered a version of the proposal that would require just 60 units per acre in the Activity Center).

“Overall, the Heights Coalition does support the Heights Plan. Would we like to see changes? Of course we would,” Fernald said. “The significant changes at the 11th hour on any project are unacceptable.”