Olympic Village Station + False Creek South Planning
 

I'm not sure if this is the right area to post this in but I was just wondering if anyone knows if the City of Vancouver has any plans to develop/redevelop the surface parking lot adjacent to the Olympic Village Skytrain station?

It is known as Easypark "Lot 15" (see http://www.easypark.ca/easypark-lots...ng-Lot-15.aspx ) but the lot is rarely full, despite being the only Canada Line "park and ride" within city limits.

I do suspect that the Olympic Village station is going to see greater utilization in the near future as there are several residential developments underway nearby (SEFC developments are obvious; the less obvious ones are the infill developments on the west side of Cambie south of 6th Ave., such as False Creek Landing, Cambie +7, and The Werks). But the new ridership coming from these buildings will be walking to the station, not driving and parking there.

On a related note: the leaseholds in False Creek South start expiring in 2022 (http://www.replanfcs.ca/ ). I wonder if the City is waiting on the formal community planning process to kick off next year and simply include the surface lot as part of those discussions?

As I recall, that site glows in the dark. Mitigation = $$$$$$$$$,

The property is currently owned by City of Vancouver's Real Estate Division and will be sold for mixed residential and commercial development in the future. Currently however, soil remediation work is required for the site (the parking lot helps "seal" up the toxins) before it can be sold for development and this work is expected to be completed sometime in the near future.

I think there's a couple different sites being discussed here...

The area North of West 1st between Hinge Park (on the East) and Cambie Bridge (to the West) is City owned land currently used by VPD, Nissan, Telus, and rented on Sunday's by the Food Cart Fest. It will be sold at some point... but in terms of the city maximizing their dollar(s) both for the land and for the 99 homes still available at The Village it doesn't make sense to sell just yet. And yes... there is a small pond that is literally fluorescent green!

I wouldn't expect the paved lot AT Olympic Village station to change anytime soon.

Ding ding ding. This site was once touted for residential rental back in the VLC days, until someone finally realized that it's just a wee bit tainted.

That lot can't be any more polluted than the lots directly North of it - i.e., the beginning of the False Creek South development. The city developed that land several decades back, they surely dealt with the remediation back then. Is there any reason why it can't be dealt with on the parking lot site? Market forces would suggest that a developer could make a good profit from a mid- or high-rise adjacent to a transit node, so I would expect somebody would bite the bullet and develop the lot - remediation costs and all - sooner rather than later. But I may be wrong...?

Remediation to a residential standard is way higher than for commercial/other. Recall how much the province spent to have Ph.D's with teaspoons sifting through the north shore of False Creek? Not being snide there. There was a pretty good news story back in the day about that exact situation.

Contaminated soil rememdiation didn't get going until the clean-up of the Expo 86 site. The standards at the time were based on the CCME (Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment) criteria from I think 1983(?).
I doubt that any lands developed prior to that time were significantly remediated (certainly not to today's standards).

^ Yes, I was refering to the post-Expo remediation.

Is it possible that the CoV will choose not to renew the leases on the False Creek leasehold sites? If the first lease expiry is coming in 2022, could the city opt to demolish the leasehold condo structures when the leases expire and sell the land to developers?

I was actually responding to djh's post.

I had thought that the leases had already been extended. It would be politically inexpedient to not renew or extend them, especially since most of the leaseholds are co-ops and non-market, IIRC.

About 1/3 of the leaseholds are market strata properties. It is already somewhat difficult to get leasehold financing (more down payment needed, fewer lenders) but I think it's getting harder for some buyers to get financing due to the uncertainty.

If the leaseholds on these buildings is not renewed, can the city order demolition ... Even of it only owns the land and not the buildings?

If the leases expire, building ownership reverts to the land owner. That's why buying leasehold interests are a fool's game, as they are a depreciating asset and people seem to overpay, overlooking that aspect, until it's too late. The only exception are leasehold interests with options to renew.