Onni Group’s offer of a $4.75 million “community amenity contribution” in exchange for rezoning the Steveston boardwalk from maritime use to commercial retail space was rejected by Richmond city council.
All councillors, except Alexa Loo and Ken Johnston, voted against Onni’s offer at a public hearing Monday night and deferred a decision to the next public hearing Dec. 18.
The debate focused on the land value increase Onni will receive after the rezoning. City staff were directed by council to come up with an “appropriate” number by the next hearing and to possibly hire a new consultant.
“(Maritime use zoning) would have been an amazing, amazing opportunity,” said Coun. Carol Day.
“What we’ve lost here is a marina, a community with a vibe, viable businesses that could contribute to the village of Steveston…we lost probably the most special harbour site improvement on the West Coast of Canada.
“What we’ve got now is MMU (mixed maritime use zoning), that’s it, and that’s going to change…we have to be realistic here and get the best we can for people in Richmond.”
Onni offered a $2.375 million community contribution for the rezoning and increased it to $4.75 million before the public hearing — this is the midpoint of the value increase evaluated by Onni’s ($4.1M) and the city’s consultant ($5.5M).
But the evaluations were questioned by some councillors, such as Coun. Harold Steves, and residents such as John Roston.
Roston said $4.75 million equals a rental rate of around six dollars per sq. ft., when in fact the market price for renting on this site after rezoning will range from $22 per sq. ft. to $38 per sq. ft. Based on that, he estimates $8 million to $12 million of extra value will be received by Onni.
The community contribution, however, doesn’t count the proposed 32-unit hotel, because Onni claimed that the company will not gain an increased value from the hotel after the change of the land use.
But Steves doesn’t agree with the exemption,“Why should we reward Onni for changing the land use of the property?”
Moreover, Steves argued “I believe the hotel rental rate is much more expensive than the $15 per sq. ft. Onni claims,” said Steves.
Residents also questioned Onni’s argument that they won’t sell the ownership rights to separate owners. Having only one buyer means the property value decreases by nearly half. (The city evaluated a land value increase of more than $9 million, if sold to multiple owners.)
“We don’t know why we are talking about single ownership. Why would the city want to do that to artificially lower the value of the property?” said Sean Lawson, member of the Steveston Merchant Association.
Despite this, most city councillors support the idea of building a hotel, but some question whether Onni will actually do it.
“They exempted the hotel,” said Steves, “exempted the day care, cut the value by half, and now they want us to trust them that they are going to build a hotel. How can I trust them? I don’t.”
Onni’s representative, Chris Evans, responded by saying that it is going to build a hotel, which will offer 400 sq. ft. studio type rooms with very small kitchenettes for a maximum of 90 days, “to serve the neighbourhood residents, their family and friends and additional tourists.”
But Evans didn’t respond to questions about the much larger potential value of the land brought up by residents and councillors.
Meanwhile, one of the speakers, as well as Loo and Johnston, supported moving forward with the rezoning.
“It is time. We need to have tourism here. When people look at the dead space there, they scratch their heads and think we are about to go broke,” said Loren Slye, a Steveston resident.
Loo said, “We did our evaluation and homework and our consultant came with this number ($5.5M). Do we want to pay the same consultant again to get the same number again?”
Roston said he will recommend a different consultant to the city staff to revisit the assessment.
