Burnaby residents will have to wait a little longer to see what the city’s final plans are for the Metrotown neighbourhood.
A draft of the Metrotown Downtown Plan was expected to come before council in March, but that has been pushed back to at least June, according to Mayor Derek Corrigan.
The community plan update, meant to establish Metrotown as Burnaby’s official downtown, went through two rounds of public consultations. Feedback was gathered over the course of six months.
“Staff are going through all that consultation and looking at a broad range of suggestions,” said Corrigan. “The consultation isn’t meaningful if you don’t listen, and we have. We’ve gone out and listened to the community, talked about the issues.”
Corrigan pointed to issues such as having enough amenities.
“Is there enough park space? ... What can people expect in the future in regard to the pace of development? How many apartment buildings will be built over the course of a number of years,” he told the NOW. “One of the difficulties is that, very often, people are worried about the impact of the plan tomorrow, when we’re looking 30 years out, and I think a lot of people want to know is how will this be phased.”
The mayor said he’s also had a number of developers ask if they can be part of the higher density development, so they’re not left out.
“Again, we have to answer those questions, too.”
Another issue in Metrotown has been demovictions. Alliance Against Displacement has long argued that bulldozing low-rise rentals and replacing them with highrise condo towers will evict up to 6,000 low-income people.
The group protested the demovictions by staging a three-hour sit-in in the mayor’s office last month, and again on Tuesday at NDP candidate Anne Kang’s office.
When asked to comment on the issue of demovictions, Corrigan said, “We’ve discussed it until we’re blue in the face.”
He called the Alliance Against Displacement protesters “verbally and physically abusive bullies who think they can get their way through intimidation.”
“I think they should be embarrassed by their conduct,” said Corrigan.
In a previous interview with the NOW, the mayor suggested the buildings being rezoned have reached the end of their life and are not economically sustainable anymore.
