Striking hotel workers and tenants unite against Larco. Protest at City Hall ahead of 5455 Balsam St (Kerrisdale) infill tower at Public Hearing July 9, 2024
Tenants and workers marched in solidarity against Larco at a demonstration at Vancouver City Hall on July 4, 2024. Council will be considering a rezoning application at a Public Hearing set for the evening of Tuesday, July 9th that will greatly impa…
Tenants and workers marched in solidarity against Larco at a demonstration at Vancouver City Hall on July 4, 2024. Council will be considering a rezoning application at a Public Hearing set for the evening of Tuesday, July 9th that will greatly impact existing tenants Fontainbleau Apartment building at 5455 Balsam Street in Kerrisdale.
Tenants have a long list of grievances against the owner and developer Larco, who seeks to infill a second tower onto the property. The Public Hearing is a rare opportunity to see if there are any Councillors who support workers and tenants. Or will Mayor and Councillors all side with Larco instead?
Unite Here Local 40 members were on hand to support the tenants of 5455 Balsam Street. The Sheraton YVR Hotel is also owned by Larco. Hotel workers have been on strike for 13 months because Larco doesn't want to pay a living wage and because Larco has disregarded labour laws multiple times. Members of the Vancouver Tenants Union also stood in solidarity with the Fontainbleau Apartment residents. The Rhythm Rebellion band played and kept people's spirits and energy up. It was a sombre event, in the middle of a long strike for the hotel workers and in the week prior to the Public Hearing for Larco's Balsam Street property. Will City Council put people over profits? Stay tuned.
The rezoning application requests a second tower with a height of 134 ft. (40.8m), with 145 rental units. There are already 88 units in the existing tower. 142 parking spaces are proposed for the entire site. The current tenants would lose their garden space and parking spaces (during construction). The designers for this proposal are RH Architects while the developer is Larco Investments Ltd.
We've details about the "mystery firm" Larco in our previous posts about their rezoning in Kerrisdale at 5455 Balsam Street and their Hotel Vancouver (900 W Georgia St) infill rezoning. It might be worth mentioning that the contact person for Larco for the 900 W Georgia St rezoning happens to be Wendy LeBreton, a former development planner with the City of Vancouver. A person like this will have connections deep within City Hall and will know where to "apply the grease" to move rezoning processes along from the other side of the revolving door. While still a public employee she was responsible for major projects for the developer Larco (e.g., tower on 1668 Davie Street near Cardero in the West End, and the Arbutus Centre mall redevelopment in Arbutus Ridge), and was hired away by the developer shortly after the latter project was approved by the City. In a peculiar move, Council approved the appointment of Wendy LeBreton to the Vancouver City Planning Commission (VCPC). The VCPC is an advisory panel that can help guide City Council on development and planning issues.
(We also must take this opportunity to sound the alarm that checks and balances -- opportunities to address our elected officials -- are being seriously eroded in BC, because under BC NDP legislation adopted in November and this April with the full support of the ABC Council majority and driven by intensive industry lobbying, Public Hearings like this one are slated to be prohibited by law. See "Procedure By-law Update in Response to New Provincial Legislation: Bill 18" going before Council on July 10. The next provincial election is October 19, 2024, so we encourage concerned citizens to look into this and call on incumbent MLAs and hopefuls to revoke the undemocratic aspects of the legislation.)
Workers and tenants unite in solidarity against Larco. Demonstration at Vancouver City Hall #vanpoli Larco owns Sheraton YVR Hotel where workers have been on strike for over a year, also own 5455 Balsam St tower rezoning infill going to Public Hearing on Tuesday next week pic.twitter.com/S7WTukZJ9M
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