A new rental building being proposed for the site of a mobile home park on Dewdney Trunk Road in Port Moody will now include five below-market units, a move that will offset the five occupied mobile homes displaced by the project, said the developer.
The company, PC Urban, said it will help those residents still living in the mobile home park find new homes as well as financial assistance to subsidize their new living costs. The company will also pay all their moving costs and a cash equivalent to 12 months’ rent. It estimates the cost of the relocation program to be about $20,000 per tenant.
Port Moody councillor Hunter Madsen said the addition of five affordable units in the 229-unit project is “big news,” as councillors gave first and second reading at Tuesday’s city council meeting to amendments to the city’s official community plan and bylaws to allow the project to proceed to a public hearing on July 10.
Coun. Meghan Lahti said the construction of new rental housing in Port Moody fills an important need in the city. PC Urban’s project would be the second new rental building in the area around the Inlet Centre SkyTrain station. Last December, council approved the development of a 142-unit project on St. Johns Street, just west of Moray.
But she cautioned the city has to remain vigilante new market-rental units don’t come at the expense of affordable ones.
“We have other affordable housing spaces in the city in areas that are ripe for redevelopment,” she said.
PC Urban acquired the mobile home park at 3370 Dewdney Trunk Rd. last August. At the time, only seven of its 17 pads were occupied, but residents of two of the homes have since moved on. The remaining 12 pads are “abandoned and dilapidated,” said the company in its application for rezoning.
The company said the majority of the units in the six-storey building will be two bedrooms, but there will be one and three bedroom apartments available as well.
Its request for fewer parking spots than required by city bylaws will be offset by providing six-month Compass cards for residents to use on transit, memberships and credits to a car share service as well as two parking spaces dedicated to that service, and space to park 350 bikes. The property is about a five-minute walk from the Inlet Centre SkyTrain station.
