Housing and social development minister Rich Coleman insisted today that the redevelopment of Vancouver's Little Mountain Housing will be finished within five years, contrary to claims from the NDP.
“The deal's not dead,” said Coleman in an interview. “We have a deal with the proponent and nothing's changed.”
The redevelopment plan for Little Mountain includes replacing 224 units of public housing with some 2,000 condos built by a private partner and to use the sales to fund another 1,200 housing units. The residents of all but 19 units have been moved into other housing, Coleman said.
The NDP MLA for Vancouver-Mount Pleasant, Jenny Kwan, said Wednesday she believes the project is either “dead or severely delayed.”
B.C. Housing is doing remediation on the site now and has scheduled demolition to start in January, Coleman said. It will then go through a rezoning process before construction begins.
”It's a pretty big development,” said Coleman. “I would suspect it would take a year and a half or so to get through the rezoning and development stuff, get the land prepped and all that, and then it's probably a two to three year build out.”
It will be finished within a maximum of five years, he said.
“Coleman is in fantasy land,” said Vancouver-Kensington NDP MLA David Chudnovsky. “We have heard from sources in the development industry and city hall there is no financing for the project at this time and there is no prospect of financing.”
Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee’s Legislative Bureau Chief in Victoria. Reach him here.
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