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NEWS photo Cindy Goodman

NVC RES{DENT Rod Cameron (left) is disputing a 125% rent increase on a city-owned home at 168
East ist in which he has invested $35,000 worth of renovations and maintenance. Ald. Bill Bell
(right) raised the issue of large rent hikes at last Monday's council meeting.

City-owned housing issue

raised at council meeting |

NVC to investigate huge rent hike

NORTH VANCOUVER City Ald. Bill Bell fulfilled his
promise to raise the issue of city-owned houses at Mon-
day’s council meeting, but the public may not hear what
the city plans to do about the situation.

After the poor condition of
some city-owned rental homes
recently drew media attention,
Bell said he would raise the prob-
lem at council’s next meeting.

But a motion passed by council
called for a staff report on the
“policy, maintenance program
and rental’’ of the properties to be
filed during the in-camera portion
of council’s Sept. 23 meeting.

Recent news stories dealt with
Bell’s shock at finding three city-
owned homes in the 200- and
300-block of East Ist Street in
disrepair; the stories focused on
tenants such as David Whitmore
who pays $330 a month for what
a Province newspaper reporter
called ‘‘his dilapidated home.”’

But in a Sept. 9 letter to coun-
cil, Whitmore said he is livid over
the Province’s coverage.

By Pamela Lang
and Elizabeth Collings

“I do not describe my house as
‘dilapidated’ as mentioned in the
article — any house that has stood
since 1907 would show some ag-
ing. In fact it is most comfortable,
functional, and enjoys a wonder-
ful surrounding,’’ he wrote.

Neighbor Rod Cameron was
reported to be disputing a 125%
rent increase for a city-owned
house in which he has invested
$35,000 worth of renovations and
maintenance.

Cameron’s monthly rent is
scheduled to go from from $466
to $1,050.

The report requested by council
will explain ‘‘the special arrange-

ments that have been made with
Mr. Cameron,” according to city
administrator Gerry Brewer’s
Sept. 9 report to council.

But Bell said Tuesday in an in-
terview with the News that
Cameron’s situation was an ex-
ample of ‘‘shoddy bureaucracy’’
on the part of the city.

The city has no record of how
much Cameron has spent on the
1904 heritage home and has
nothing written down to explain
that Cameron had previously paid
a low rent because of the repairs
he did, Bell said.

In addition, Bell said he feared
the city would evict the tenants in
the three rundown houses and
then tear them down.

“! think that’s one of the major
reasons they haven’t complained
before, because they’ve had _ this
threat of being thrown out hang-
ing over their heads,’’ he said.
“We've treated them as garbage
as far as landlords go.”’

Sunday. September 15, 1991 - North Shore News - 3

-|Lions Gate
_, Hospital

~ expansion
options

cussed

$130M project to upgrade facility

ABOUT 60 people turned out Tuesday night to North
Vancouver City Hall to hear a presentation of the four
options currently being considered for the expansion of

Lions Gate Hospital.

According to hospital officials,
the $130-miilion expansion project
is needed if LGH is to continue
providing ‘‘exemplary care’’ to a
growing and aging population.

But the LGH site is boxed in
between North Vancouver’s com-
mercial core and residential
neighborhoods that have an in-
creasing multi-family component.

And getting “boxed in’ was
what some of those attending
Tuesday night’s public hearing
feared the hospital might be doing
to itself.

Former North Vancouver
District mayor Marilyn Baker, the
Socred candidate in the North
Vancouver-Lonsdale riding, asked
about the timing of the project's
three phases; she was concerned
that the renovated hospital facility
might be inadequate by the time it
was finally completed in the year
2000.

“Then we
evaluate and
Baker.

LGH vice-president of human
resources Uli Haag said the North
Shore would have to look at
another hospital site, which would
probably have to be located fur-
ther west.

‘“*‘We don’t want a factory hos-
pital ... We have to think about
how big a building can get before
it becomes unmanageable,’’ said
Haag.

Haag’s vision of a ‘‘workable
and humane’’ facility was shared
by North Shore resident Gary
Dickson, who urged decision-
makers to steer away from the
Option D expansion plan, which
crams everything into a smaller
area and adds storeys to the ex-
isting hospital building.

“That seems horrible from a
human perspective,’’ said
Dickson.

But the cther three options
would use the land acquired by
the hospital east of St. Andrews
between 13th and 15th streets:

* Option A provides a 1[5-metre
landscaping buffer between the
hospital and residences to the east.
* Option B is the same as Option
A except that the municipality
would rezone lots to the im-
mediate cast of the hospital where
higher density residential devel-
opment, such as senior citizens’
townhouses, could be built to
provide a further buffer between
singie-family neighborhoods and
LGH.

® Option C is virtually the same as
options A and B, but is preferred
by LGH because it closes off St.
Andrews between 13th and 15th
and continues the closure of [4th
for another block.

“Under Option C green space
would be greater throughout the

have to
said

might
look again,”’

By Maureen Curtis

Contributing Writer

development,"’ said Haag, noting
the importance of greenspace to
the neighborhood and to the new
care units (psychiatric, geriatric,
etc.) thac would be built in the
project's first phase.

Option C also provides a 28-
metre buffer between the hospital
and properties to the east.

While Haag said LGH could
“live with’? any of the A-C op-
tions, he emphasized that Option
D was ‘totally unsuitable.’”

Richard White, of the city’s de-
velopment services department,
listed positive and negative aspects
of all four proposals.

He noted that the upzoning of
residential property to the east of
the hospital suggested in Option B
orcaivs a buffer between LGH and
single-family neighborhoods, but
also results in a net gain in hous-
ing despite loss of land to the fa-
cility.

But Option B, he said, requires
a more significant change in the
city’s Official Community Plan
than Option A.

Option C, White explained,
would allow for a better pedestri-
an flow on the new hospital
“‘campus’’ and possibly a better
traffic flow around the facility,
but would result in a net floss in
both on-street parking and hous-
ing while making tree retention
more difficult.

Option C, like A and B, would
require a change in OCP, while
Option D would not.

While the more compact D
layout would be more efficient
from a land-use perspective, it
restricts the potential for further
growth and necessitates a higher
density development.

North Vancouver City Council
will hear submissions on the LGH
expansion at its Sept. 23 meeting.

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