A long-awaited social housing building backed by the City of Vancouver at the corner of Seymour and Davie, across from Emery Barnes Park, is moving forward.
New Commons Development and VAHA (Vancouver Affordable Housing Agency), and the Community Land Trust have applied to the city to develop a nine-storey building with 112 social housing units and ground floor retail space. VAHA is also involved in the development of a new HQ for Qmunity, the LGBTQ2S+ resource centre in Vancouver’s West End. The centre will soon move to a new building at Davie and Burrard, with social housing units atop the new facility.
The façade of the Davie and Seymour project is a contemporary design, with metal panels in a sand colour, accented by engineered wood boards and composite slate panels. The building will feature triple-glazed, Passive House certified windows. There will be on-site stormwater retention and a green roof planted with native species.
Architects are ZGF.
Renderings: Davie & Seymour social housing
The development site is currently occupied by two, single-storey retail buildings, one of which is home to popular Mexican restaurant Chancho.
The project’s aim is to: “locate 112 secured affordable rental housing units at the heart of this urban oasis that will support unmet needs in the downtown housing stock and provide access to the surrounding amenities for the underserved.”
Twenty per cent of the homes will be suitable for families (two and three-bedroom units), and five per cent of the homes will be fully wheelchair accessible.
There will be common rooftop decks on the seventh and eighth floors, adjacent to indoor amenity space and a communal laundry facility.
