Richmond Caring Place has big plans.
The facility, which is home to various local charitable organizations, envisions a space double in size, along with two residential towers of affordable housing units.
All this could be built at the Caring Place’s current location at Granville Avenue and Minoru Boulevard, which is owned by the city, explained Belinda Boyd, chair of the Richmond Caring Place Society.
As to who’s going to pay for all this, Boyd has an answer for that as well.
Currently, developers of large redevelopment projects already underway at Richmond Centre, Lansdowne and other locations in Richmond, are expected to build a certain percentage of affordable housing.
Boyd is suggesting that developers could transfer those units to the Caring Place and have them built there instead of at the current mall sites.
The “lift” for the developer is the housing is off their property, she added, and they can then replace them with market housing, Boyd explained.
“You’re just moving them to an ideal location and aligning with the city’s affordable housing strategy,” she added.
The total estimated cost of the project is $144 million.
However, technically, the Caring Place isn’t asking for funding, operational or otherwise, from the city, rather, they want the city to redirect affordable housing to the Caring Place site instead, said Boyd.
Richmond Caring Place Society has been working with Catalyst Community Developments Society, a non-profit consultant that builds and manages affordable housing, to work on the proposal.
One of the key components of the city’s affordable housing strategy is to use city land, she added, and the Caring Place fits that criterion.
“It ticks a lot of boxes and it really is a win-win-win,” Boyd said.
The non-profit’s board of directors would like to see the City of Richmond’s vision align with theirs to redevelop the site.
When the Caring Place board recently made a presentation to city staff about their vision, the city suggested asking federal and provincial governments for funding, but Boyd said, until the city comes on board – because they lease city-owned land – they can’t apply for federal and provincial grants.
“That’s where we’ve asked the city, help us, guide us – help us make this a reality,” Boyd said. “If we owned the land, we’d approach the developer and it would just happen.”
Boyd said she feels like the Caring Place and the city’s visions aren’t currently aligned.
“We need to sit down and we need to get on the same page because I feel like we’re speaking different languages,” Boyd said. “They say city money, we say developer money; they say precedent, we say why; they say we did (it this way) before, we say, yes, but now it’s 2021.”
The Caring Place was built in 1994 and is managed by the society. It houses 12 non-profits and its mandate is to manage the building to provide stable rental facilities for the non-profits, which they get at half the market cost.
But the Caring Place doesn’t fundraise because that would put them in direct competition with their tenants.
Furthermore, because they don’t own the property – it’s on a long-term lease from the city – they can’t leverage the property financially, Boyd explained.
These two points make it hard for them to raise the capital needed for a redevelopment project.
Boyd pointed out Richmond’s population has doubled since the Caring Place was built 27 years ago, and some of the non-profits in their building are bursting at the seams.
Doubling the capacity of the Caring Place would allow twice as many non-profits to have secure tenure.
Some non-profits operate with leases that include demolition clauses, that is, the lease can be terminated if the landlord decides to develop the property.
After the meeting last week, the city clarified there is “little we can say about it” as no formal development application has been submitted by the Richmond Caring Place Society.
Rather, city staff met with Caring Place representatives who presented a “high-level concept” to redevelop the existing site.
The Caring Place proposal includes two residential towers with a variety of housing, from shelter-rate units to three-bedroom townhouses and would provide housing for singles, seniors and families.
