Quote:
Originally Posted by zahav
One thing that really pisses me off is the lot on the east side of Oak one building south of 70th. This was an older Marpole-style rental building that had a rezoning/development app up for quite some time. Mid-late last year the building was demolished, and they excavated right down to the old foundation and looked like the new building was going up. But then a "For Sale" sign goes up on the property, advertising it's development potential. I was furious when I saw this. The land owner/developer should be made to pay for all of those tenants who were evicted. I have no problem with redevelopment, even though I do have issues with renovations and general loss of affordable older rentals with way pricier ones. BUT... if the developer was in a precarious financial position or whatever, and wasn't able to proceed with the development, they should not have evicted the tenants and tore the building down, that is the disgusting part. I know real estate development and financing, and I have a very hard time believing the owner only realized they couldn't continue the project AFTER they tore the building down. Because the "For Sale" sign appeared within 2 weeks or less of the demolition. So they knew they were not going to proceed with the new building, but they tore the old one down anyways. Now it's sitting vacant collecting rain water with the old foundations still visible in the pit. At least if an old building comes down but is redeveloped right away, there's some consolation. But this I find heinous, I hope the City levies a massive empty land tax on the owner (or a massive fine even better, but don't think they could since what they did is probably not breaking any rules, it's just an a$$hole move.
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It appears to be a first time investment development by a company called Maiway Investments. They would only have been given a demolition permit once they had a building permit for the replacement, which would have been a 6-storey 36 unit rental, replacing 13 in the 1950s building.
They may have been advised it was easier to sell a vacant site than a building with tenants (and without tenants it would be a liability). That doesn't make the situation any better, obviously. There isn't an empty land tax, and you're correct that they haven't broken any rules, but as they haven't tried to create a tax-avoidance park they are paying taxes as if it was still developed, without any rental income to offset it.
They had a project management company on board to carry out the development, so they either had a problem with financing, or some other unexpected problem. Commercial mortgage rates went up just like homeowner mortgages, so a lot of smaller rental projects will have similar issues, and not all developers have access to other forms of financing (or they're so expensive that they can't makes project work).
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