City of Vancouver must reconsider application to develop vacant lot at 105 Keefer St., judge rules

A screen grab from Google street view shows the vacant lot at 105. Keefer St. in Vancouver's Chinatown.

The City of Vancouver has been ordered to reconsider a controversial development application for a vacant lot in Chinatown that was rejected in 2017.

Beedie (Keefer Street) Holdings Ltd. has owned the property at 105 Keefer St. since 2013 but its plans to build on it were halted after it was denied a permit.

"It is apparently unprecedented for the Board to deny a development permit application outright as was done here," a B.C. Supreme Court court ruling handed down Friday says.

Prior to the denial, the development was met with vocal opposition from community residents and activists who showed up in droves to speak to council at public hearings about the project.

"No issue or project has yielded such a passionate, emotional response as this rezoning application, then-mayor Gregor Robertson said of the public hearings in 2017.

Beedie was asking the court to step in and order the city to approve the application, arguing that the denial was made in bad faith, that it was procedurally unfair, and that it was "substantively unreasonable."

Justice Jan Brongers ruled that there were grounds to order the reconsideration of the application because the reasons provided for rejection were "inadequate."

He did not, however, order the board to approve it outright.

"It is incumbent upon the board to reconsider whether the application warrants being approved, approved with conditions, or refused outright. If the latter, the board must provide detailed and sufficient reasons to transparently explain why such a refusal is justified," the decision says.

The city, in part, argued that changes to zoning regulations in the area mean that it would be "impossible" for the application to be approved, however the judge declined to make a finding on that issue.

"I expect that if this question is germane to the board’s reconsideration, the board will provide an intelligible justification in its reasons that is sufficient for the parties and, if necessary, a reviewing court, to understand," Brongers wrote.

The application would see a nine-storey mixed-use building constructed on the site, which would have 111 residential units, retail space at street level, a "seniors' cultural space," and three levels of underground parking, the court noted. That proposal was submitted after the rezoning application, which would have allowed a 12-storey building, was rejected. 

Brongers ordered the reconsideration to take place "as soon as is reasonably practicable."