'we are opening the floodgates': vancouver councillors raise alarms about loss of sro units
dan fumano: for granville street's clifton hotel, city staff recommended a $1.1 million cash payment for the conversion — about 95 per cent less than what council could impose.
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vancouver council has given a local company the green light to convert a longtime former social housing building downtown into a commercial hotel.
but the approval at tuesday’s council meeting did not come without controversy, including some councillors decrying “predatory” real estate practices and debate around how much the city should charge the developer for removing single-room occupancy units from the city’s stock of deeply affordable housing.
built in 1910, the clifton hotel at 1125 granville st. operated for decades as a single-room occupancy, or sro, building, providing 74 homes for low-income people. in 2015, city hall ordered the heritage-listed building closed, citing unsafe conditions. it has been vacant ever since.
the current owner purchased the property in 2016, and recently applied to convert it into a 67-room commercial hotel.
because sros serve such a crucial role in keeping poor people housed, the city adopted a bylaw in 2003 to regulate their conversion and demolition. the bylaw also gives council the authority to seek cash contributions from developers, paid into a city fund to repair and replace other sro buildings, imposed as a permit condition of up to $300,000 per sro-designated room.
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for the 74-unit clifton hotel, that means the city could potentially seek a maximum $22.2 million cash contribution to permanently remove these rooms from vancouver’s sro stock.
however, city staff recommended only a $1.1 million cash payment for the clifton’s conversion — about 95 per cent less than the amount council could impose.
the clifton hotel at 1125 granville as vancouver is taking steps to address the growing hotel room shortage in vancouver.
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at council tuesday, green coun. pete fry asked city staff why the amount was so low, citing concerns about “creating a precedent where large developers are buying sros and waiting it out, and then — presumably, if this passes — getting a deal on the sro conversion.”
celine mauboules, vancouver’s managing director of housing and homelessness services, responded that city staff assess every sro conversion application on an individual basis. staff in the city’s real estate department analyzed the property, mauboules said, “and the recommendation we’re bringing forward today is to ensure that the project is viable and aligns with the proposed direction of the granville street plan,” which prioritizes adding commercial hotel and cultural spaces and eventually phasing out residential properties in the downtown entertainment district.
fry replied: “yeah, i guess my concern here, though, is that we’re enabling a workaround on the sro conversion bylaw. … we’ve seen a pattern developing where we’re losing sro units and we’re not seeing the full payout.”
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fry’s concerns were echoed by independent coun. rebecca bligh, cope coun. sean orr, and onecity coun. lucy maloney.
maloney proposed increasing the cash contribution to $8 million, which she said she hoped would discourage landlords from failing to maintain properties that then “tips more people into homelessness.”
city staff replied that, in their analysis, such a high cash contribution would render the hotel redevelopment project non-viable. while $1.1 million — roughly $16,000 a unit — is “nowhere close to $300,000,” staff said, they believed this amount was “what the project could support.” much more than that would mean the hotel could remain vacant indefinitely, council heard.
maloney’s amendment was defeated when abc councillors opposed it, saying it would kill the hotel project.
an $8 million permit condition “might make a point,” said abc coun. sarah kirby-yung. “but it’s going to actually harm the revitalization of granville street,” she said, and block the delivery of 67 badly needed new hotel rooms and $1.1 million for social housing.
fry proposed referring the report back to staff to negotiate a new, higher contribution from the developer, without specifying a number. fry’s amendment was supported by bligh, maloney, and orr, but defeated by abc councillors, who said they trusted the expertise of city staff and saw it as a waste of time to start the negotiation again.
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in the end, council approved the application, with the $1.1 million contribution recommended by staff. it was opposed by fry, orr, and bligh. maloney voted in favour, saying that while she was “deeply disappointed with the very low negotiated settlement,” she could see the value of having the project proceed.
fry said: “frankly, if we’re going to $16,000 a door, we’re opening the floodgates for every speculative property developer to come in and start buying sros, and think: ‘hey, if they did it for these guys, they’ll do it for me.’ and i think that’s a mistake.”
a few times during tuesday’s council meeting, the spectre of 500 dunsmuir st. — another former sro building — was raised.
the dunsmuir operated as an sro for decades before it was purchased by the developer holborn in 2006. i had been vacant since 2013 until last year, when the city said it had deteriorated to the point it became a “danger to public safety” and should be demolished. it was demolished in december.
demolition of the derelict former sro at 500 dunsmuir street began saturday morning, january 18, 2025.
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with 167 sro-designated rooms at 500 dunsmuir, that means that if holborn were seeking a demolition permit under the bylaw, council could impose up to $50 million to replace those sro units.
but the demolition order issued by the city in december did not require holborn to pay any such amount.
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it remains a live issue for the 500 dunsmuir property, however. if holborn seeks a permit under the bylaw in the future, council could require some amount — which could be up to $50 million or potentially far less — as a condition.
holborn, for its part, said in an emailed statement wednesday that the company acquired the dunsmuir property in 2006 with the understanding there was no sro-replacement obligation, because the salvation army — the site’s previous owner — had built another larger social housing project to replace those units.
holborn said the company’s priority for the now-vacant site is “working with the city on a redevelopment plan that would deliver housing, activate the street and contribute to the economic revitalization of the downtown core.”
if and when that plan eventually comes forward, it remains to be seen how much — if anything — the loss of those 167 sro rooms might cost holborn.
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