TRANSCRIPT OF THE RESCHEDULED PUBLIC HEARING HELD IN THE COUNCIL CHAMBER, CITY HALL, 141 WEST 14th STREET, NORTH , B.C., ON MONDAY, MAY 16, 2005 AT 7:00 P.M.

PRESENT:

COUNCIL MEMBERS STAFF MEMBERS Mayor B.A. Sharp A.K. Tollstam, City Manager Councillor R.C. Clark S.E. Dowey, City Clerk Councillor R.J. Fearnley J.M. Rowe, Assistant City Clerk Councillor R.N. Heywood G. Penway, Assistant City Planner Councillor B.W. Perrault F.A. Smith, Director, Community Development K. Russell, Development Planner

ABSENT Councillor C.R. Keating Councillor D.R. Mussatto

Re: Bylaw No. 7687 – 901 West 3rd Street – File: 3345-02 3W 901

The Rescheduled Public Hearing was called to order at 7:00 p.m.

Mayor B.A. Sharp Ms. Dowey!

Ms. S.E. Dowey, City Clerk Thank you Your Worship. Bylaw No. 7687 is to amend the text of CD-252 (Comprehensive Development 252 Zone) legally described as Lot 1, Resub 6, Block X, D.L. 265, Plan 11806, located at 901 West 3rd Street, by adding “retail building supply establishment” to the list of permitted uses in this zone. The applicant is Griffin Holding Corp./Michael Rosen & Associates and Council will consider this under item 6, Your Worship.

Mayor Sharp Mr. Penway!

Mr. G. Penway, Development Planner Thank you Your Worship. We are talking about a site which is the corner of 3rd Street and Hanes, so in this aerial photograph, you will see its on the corner of the property here. It would be the Southeast corner of the intersection at Hanes and 3rd Street. To give you a sense of context, kitty corner with the Capilano Mall and Marine Drive is here. First Street the other major arterial would be down here. Hanes coming through here. It is a site which has been zoned Industrial for many years. Our Official Community Plan is above me here to the left and it shows the site as being purple which is an Industrial designation. We are dealing with a piece of property which has an Industrial Official Community Plan designation. It has Industrial zoning historically for many decades. It would have had an Industrial M-3 zone. In 1993 it was rezoned to a site specific zone to provide for a specific use of the land and a variation on the M-3 Industrial use zoning and that is a CD-252 zone was adopted in 1993 with certain changes to the uses and development standards. It has been developed and been used that way since 1993. The users of the land have now relocated to the Harbourside Business Park and so the land has been acquired and the intention is to use it for a use category which was permitted in the M-3 zone and is currently still allowed for the M-3 zone but is no longer listed in the site specific zone put under this property back in 1993. The board which is up to my right here shows the context as well and this gives you a sense of the remnants of M-3 zoning in the area which would be from McKay to the west and over east of Fell to the east. Here you see First Street through here and you see Marine Drive here and Third Street here. So this is the site. So at one time virtually all of these lands would have had an M-3 zone. Over a number of years they have been individual site specific rezoning which have gone on and one of them occurred for this CD-252 zone.

The M-3 zone still allows for what’s called a retail building supply establishment which is a use which provides for, effectively, umber yards and building supply establishments. The application before us tonight is to bring back the potential for that retail building supply use within the CD-252 zone. It would keep the same building and standards for building but amongst the list of uses would be returned to that property, a retail building supply establishment. The applicants are here to speak to the application, Your Worship.

Mayor Sharp Thank you.

Mr. Michael Rosen, Michael Rosen & Associates Thank you, Madame Mayor, and members of Council. My name is Michael Rosen. I’m a planning consultant. I introduce you David Laniado who is the President and CEO of The Finishing Touch. David is going to talk a little about his operations; why he has come to the City to establish operation; a little bit about what process we followed over the last couple of months; and the David will turn it back to me and I’ll speak to a couple of issues with respect to planning items that have come up.

City of Page 2 of 21 Rescheduled Public Hearing Bylaw No. 7687 May 16, 2005 re 901 West 3rd Street Griffin Holding Corp./ Michael Rosen & Assoc. Mr. David Laniado, President, The Finishing Touch We have been looking for a location on the North Shore for about fifteen years. It is very tough to find a location. Late last year we found this building. It wasn’t the ideal building in that it had a tremendous amount of office. It was occupied by Sinclair Dental. After a lot of deliberation and discussion with the City and the understanding that it was at one time zoned for building materials and that staff would support that we decided we would move our head offices from to this location. We are very excited to have a store on the North Shore. We understand some of our neighbours have raised some concerns. Basically they focus around increased competition. We don’t really see ourselves as competitive to the businesses in the area. We are a specialty ………….. shop. In fact, when I renovated my house one the North Shore last year I spent quite a lot of money at Dick’s Lumber. When Dick Alexander built his house he spent quite a lot of money at our store. Not as much, I might add.

Basically, the concerns that were raised were traffic. You have before you my letter. I really am quite amazed and taken aback and quite frankly, flattered, that such substantial companies, who we have a great amount of respect for, are concerned that The Finishing Touch, which is essentially a very small family owned business, increasing traffic. Michael is going to address the parking which is really something that falls into the Bylaw. We have to have parking as per whatever the requirements are, but in terms of increased traffic and driveway lanes, we have to honour the rules of the City and we fully intend to so and we’re very excited to bring a store to the North Shore. We have a lot of North Shore customers who have to travel to Burnaby who are very pleased that we will be on the North Shore. We are very excited to have our head office here. We will be bringing quite a few of our staff and several of them are already looking for homes on the North Shore. We are keen to open our store. Thank you.

Mayor Sharp Thank you.

Mr. Rosen I was going to add a few comments, if that’s OK? A couple of things; first of all David failed to mentioned that we have been aware of the concerns that have been raised by Dick’s for a few weeks now. This is a Rescheduled Public Hearing that when the first one was about to transpire we were made aware by Dick’s, they called us directly, of their concerns. We are hoping to talk to them and see what their concerns were in a little bit more detail. See if there is some ways we can manage the concerns. Unfortunately we never had that kind of dialogue any further. With respect to Rona, the issues that have been raised by Rona, we were made of today when I got the letter from the City Clerk’s office of Rona’s concerns. We hadn’t been approached by Rona to dialogue with them about the issues.

City of North Vancouver Page 3 of 21 Rescheduled Public Hearing Bylaw No. 7687 May 16, 2005 re 901 West 3rd Street Griffin Holding Corp./ Michael Rosen & Assoc. You know, as a Planner I know that it is in the interest of ourselves and our Council to have this Public Hearing as soon as possible and have issues not surfacing. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a dialogue to try to resolve the issues so we want to make the point that we have talked to both Rona and Dick’s.

Parking, we do understand, is an issue that has been raised by, particularly, Dick’s. The concern, that I understand, is that they believe that their parking lot will be used by customers of The Finish Touch and clog up their parking, take up their parking. I can understand that. It can happen because, you know, when people go shopping, when there are stores right next to each other, you park in one, you walk to the other. So, I understand that issue. What we did, at least to demonstrate to Council, that we have enough parking on our site. Not only do we have enough parking, we have more than enough parking. We have excess parking. Based upon the size of our building, the parking requirements in your Zoning Bylaw, we calculate that we would need 38 parking spaces. Well, we have 53 parking spaces. It’s important to know that we have that excess based upon the Bylaw. Will there still be parking problems at peak times? There could be! But, I wanted to demonstrate to Council and to, in fact, our neighbours, that we do have sufficient parking on our site to meet our needs.

Lastly, you know, there is all kinds of examples around the Lower Mainland where there are like businesses that locate together, businesses that are, in fact, competitors. But because they become such a draw, the businesses like being close to each other because the area becomes a kind of a magnet. It becomes identified as an area to go shop. In this case for home improvement goods. We think it’s actually beneficial, for not only ourselves, but our fellow colleagues down the street, that if we were in this location, it’s just drawing more people to the area. More people who are looking to spend money on home improvement things. So we don’t see this as a competitive thing. As David said, I think their businesses overlap 5 or 10 percent. This is a complimentary business and from a planning point of view, given where the site is, given the context of the surrounding uses, and Gary has spoken to this already, we think it’s an appropriate land use for this site. So, Madame Mayor, we will stop there. If you will, after the other people have spoken we may want to get up and address some of the issues that have been raised. Thank you very much.

Mr. Laniado I want to clarify one point. We did speak with representatives of Dick’s. I just got this letter from Rona today. I left a message for Bruce Allan but he had left for the day so we have not actually spoken to the Rona people.

Mayor Sharp I am going to ask for members of the Public. The first one I have is Andy Hiscox! Please state your name and address for the record.

City of North Vancouver Page 4 of 21 Rescheduled Public Hearing Bylaw No. 7687 May 16, 2005 re 901 West 3rd Street Griffin Holding Corp./ Michael Rosen & Assoc. Mr. Andy Hiscox, City Spaces Consulting, 910 – 688 West Hastings, Vancouver My name is Andy Hiscox. Do you want my work address? My address is Suite 910 – 688 West Hastings. I’m with City Spaces Consulting and we are land planning consulting firm representing Dick’s Lumber. I wanted to ask your indulgence. The next three speakers after me are all from Dick’s Lumber and we weren’t quite sure whether we could make one full presentation or whether we had to go individually but we would prefer to do one full presentation to you. I have David Alexander who is one of the owners of Dick’s Lumber, Brian Chung who is the Corporate Controller, and Ian Hansen who is the Store Manager. Is that possible and take questions at the end?

Mayor Sharp I’m not sure what you’re asking here. You are up here now as a person on the Speaker’s List at a Public Hearing to speak about this proposal so please proceed.

Mr. Hiscox Can we maybe do a full presentation of all the next speakers who are representing Dick’s Lumber?

Mayor Sharp I don’t know what you mean by full presentation.

Mr. Hiscox We would like to speak one after the other.

Mayor Sharp Well, you are on the list.

Mr. Hiscox I am going to ask David Alexander to speak first.

Mr. David Alexander, 1575 Edgewater Lane, North Vancouver Good evening Your Worship. My name is David Alexander. I am one of the owners of Dick’s Lumber and Building Supplies. We are a family owned and operated company on the North Shore with two locations in Burnaby and in Surrey. About ten years ago we came to the North Shore looking for a site to open a new Dick’s Lumber location and we found it very, very difficult to find the right location with the right size, the right access for large trucks, for going in and out of. The right zoning. But, three years ago Hollyburn Lumber, which was going bankrupt at that time, we had an opportunity to buy the land there. We went to the City to find out whether or not the zoning was correct and to get their approval to put a new Dick’s Lumber store on the same property. We got the approval. With that done we went and looked at the competition in the area and all the property in the immediate area that was zoned M-3. We then knew where we could expand our business should the need arise or where a possible competitor could go in.

City of North Vancouver Page 5 of 21 Rescheduled Public Hearing Bylaw No. 7687 May 16, 2005 re 901 West 3rd Street Griffin Holding Corp./ Michael Rosen & Assoc. Our knowledge at that time was that the CD zones around was specifically did not permit retail sales of building supplies helped us with making our decision to purchase this property. You’ll have to excuse me a little bit, I’m a little bit nervous here, in this situation. After analyzing all of that we went out and we did buy it. We spent $4million dollars to buy the land which we though was extremely expensive. That was the only piece we could find. We spent another $1½ million dollars for upgrades and landscaping and renovations. We were strategic in our upgrades that made the site more operational efficient, such as upgrading the parking off of Hanes for our customers, staff parking at the lane and all deliveries are made on site and are not parked on the public streets or lanes. The physical upgrades also meant that we esthetically fit in with the evolving light-industrial office Park image of the area and I think we’ve done a great job of this. We now employ 52 people in this location; 34 of which live on the North Shore. We contribute and support local schools, sports teams, charities, local Police Departments, Fire Halls, and anybody else who basically phones us. We believe we have been operating as a very good corporate citizen it the City of North Vancouver. We believe that approving this rezoning adjacent to us intervenes in a fair, competitive market by giving a free benefit to a competitor who can take advantage of what we have created and earned in this area. We play by the rules of the City set up and we expect our competition to do so as well. There are other zoned areas in the City that already exist for this use where anyone could locate without rezoning a site that prohibits the use. We believe that we have developed a good business strategy. We do not believe we should be penalized for all the hard work and the millions of dollars investment we have made to make this location a success and this rezoning penalizes us, we think, for that. So with that, we ask you, not to approve Bylaw 7687. Thank you very much.

Mayor Sharp Thank you.

Mr. Alexander I’d like to introduce Brian Shum, our Corporate Controller.

Mayor Sharp Thank you.

Mr. Brian Shum, 2580 Gilmore Avenue, Burnaby My role with Dick’s Lumber obviously is to look at business risk and I just want to go back at the time in May 2002 when the property was first made available to us. I had some concerns I’d like to share that with you if you wouldn’t mind. My concerns at the time when the property was available was going into a site that was previously a failed lumber yard business. There was definitely some concerns wondering how well we would do there if at all.

City of North Vancouver Page 6 of 21 Rescheduled Public Hearing Bylaw No. 7687 May 16, 2005 re 901 West 3rd Street Griffin Holding Corp./ Michael Rosen & Assoc. As well, in our two lumber yards in Burnaby and Surrey, we shared a similar business model which we thought was successful and we think it is and moving into the North Shore it would present ourselves with an entirely different business model. The market here is more retail oriented versus a contractor experiences that we have in Burnaby and Surrey. We also look at the competition. At the time Rona was there which was a long term, long time tenant and also Home Depot so there were some concerns about how we would fight or work with the competition. As Mr. Alexander alluded too, we also made a substantial capital investment, $4million in a two acre parcel which is on the pricey side. We also had a $1.5million renovation to completely gut the building and to refurbish it the way that we wanted to have a Dick’s Lumber look and feel to it. As far as we sit today, looking back in the acquisition, we’ve learned a number of things coming over to the North Shore. We found we must continually work hard to be competitive. We must continually train our existing and our new staff. Unfortunately there isn’t a hardware and lumber University we can draw from. We must continually invest in our business and expand employment to meet servicing needs. In the past two years we have created 52 jobs with 8 to 10 jobs servicing the demand from our Finishing Department. This department stocks and sells moldings and flooring which The Finishing Touch specializes in. Although I feel we are heading in the right direction with the Hanes Avenue store has only been in operation for two years. For all intent and purposes the store is still in its infancy. We must continue to work hard and continually fine-tune our business strategy. Approving the rezoning application will create more uncertainty for our business and from my perspective a great deal of unfairness as it provides our competitor an unearned business advantage in an arena we have worked so hard to create. In light of my commentary I urge you not to approve Bylaw 7687. Thank you.

Mayor Sharp Thank you.

Mr. Ian Hassam, 2225 East 35th Avenue, Vancouver Your Worship, good evening, members of the Council. My name is Ian Hassam. I am the store manager of Dick’s Lumber, the North Shore Division. From the store perspective the comments I have will be very brief. I’ve got just some visual presentation. Safety of my customers and staff is paramount in our area of operations. In the last two years, Your Worship, as we tailor our store to the North Shore demand we’ve added to our product mix doors, moldings, floorings, to complement our lumber sales and this finishing component relates to a substantial percentage of our business and our substantial investment for the store as a whole and to contribute to its success in the future. In the last two years we have been competent in that field of finishing. We wanted our North Shore customer to have an entity where Dick’s Lumber could provide framing lumber to your finishing needs. I’m glad to say our response has been wonderful from our customers. We serve them well in that particular specialized area. In the operations side of it, Your Worship, the parking and the traffic issues have always been at the forefront of our decisions.

City of North Vancouver Page 7 of 21 Rescheduled Public Hearing Bylaw No. 7687 May 16, 2005 re 901 West 3rd Street Griffin Holding Corp./ Michael Rosen & Assoc. We have our goods delivered from the First Street entrance to our yard and the trailers and the trucks are unloaded within the confines of our yard so that we do not infringe on the actual traffic and the present position that we have with the congestion in that area. Once the trucks are unloaded within the confines of our yard, as I said, they would exit from our Hanes Avenue exit marshaled by some of our yard staff to ensure safety at all times. Minimizing and managing the already heavy congested traffic and the parking demands of the street we have not used the lane access for any unloading or loading purposes because Your Worship, it’s simply impossible. I just want to show you some visual photographs of the lane taken this last week on a daily occurrence from 6:30 a.m. till closing. I will just go quickly through the pictures here. Here is a picture where it’s facing Third Street. We have a few trucks there. Here’s our fence, our parking lot for our staff. We got van traffic and lane traffic there. Here are two semi trailers right in front of our West side of the store and I think we have another picture there. And here is another one straightforward facing Third Street again. So, presently the lane is always congested with semi trucks delivering to the Fish Plants, the Dental Centre, forcing our customer to forgo using the supplied parking in the lane and making them have to seek parking on Hanes or on a side street if our main lot is full. As well, due to the number of delivery trucks using lane access so it is extremely difficult for our staff to reach their assigned parking spaces in the rear of our store. Furthermore, Your Worship, any emergency response team such as fire, ambulance or police will not be able to access that lane in its present condition and the essence is the time to save any lives. Pedestrian traffic is a great concern right now and will remain so for a while. In closing, approximately, one third of the block is owned by Dick’s Lumber. We work to minimize our usage of the lane, Your Worship, and concerns are even greater if Brand X or additional retail space is been permitted in the area will add further burden to already highly congested traffic vying for limited available spaces.

In closing, Your Worship and Council members, we ask you to consider our request and not to approve zoning amendment Bylaw 7687. Thank you Your Worship. Thank you Council members. I pass the floor back to Mr. Hiscox, if I may.

Mr. Hiscox Thank you Your Worship and Council. I just want to on behalf of Dick’s Lumber just to go over some of the planning issues that we have with regards to the rezoning of the adjacent site. Before I do go further, we want to thank you of the postponement of the Public Hearing on April 18th. We had only found out a few days before that there was some misdirection or some issue with the mailing out to my client and I’m very pleased the Planning Department and City Clerk’s office discovered that and were gracious in postponing that particular Public Hearing. Just to further to Michael Rosen’s comments, we did speak with Michael Rosen and we talked a couple of times both Brian Shum and myself and really it became one of a fundamental issue is that my client opposes the rezoning and so there was no other resolution that need to take place and my client has stated very clearly what their comments are and the reasons for the opposition from their perspective and, certainly from a business perspective, for the rezoning to take

City of North Vancouver Page 8 of 21 Rescheduled Public Hearing Bylaw No. 7687 May 16, 2005 re 901 West 3rd Street Griffin Holding Corp./ Michael Rosen & Assoc. place. It didn’t seem to make sense to spend a lot of time trying to resolve something that wasn’t going to be resolved unless, as I said to Mr. Rosen, they could withdraw the application. He wasn’t quite willing to do that and my client wasn’t willing to withdraw their opposition. Just on that, if I may also go to your Official Community Plan and a good Official Community Plan it is. I like because it was easily understandable. Even though I’m a professional I could read it. You have one really good section called the Economy and Economic Development. I think it talks a great deal about a healthy community and what a healthy community depends on is a healthy economy. In addition to the social and environmental health as well as a community. Under your Economic Objective 12.6.4, you quite clearly stand out and say we want to retain existing business that may contribute significantly to the local economy. I think that’s what Dick’s Lumber is doing. It came in and took over a location where a former lumber yard had failed and so instead of job loss you had job gain and bringing back more jobs than what the former Hollyburn Lumber had there. So, we have 52 and counting in employment, as well, as a lot of capital dollars that have been invested to upgrade that site, so a significant contribution to the local economy.

Also, under your Official Community Plan, if I look into the Land Use Section, 5.9. iii, the McKay to Bewicke area, Third Avenue to B.C. Rail, which is extensively all this area here, it says that this is the smaller light industrial area in the City further removed from residential development this area is suited for a wider range of light industrial and automotive services. This area will be maintained for light industrial activities. Now, I did look and I couldn’t find and maybe it’s because I’m not quite as familiar with the Official Community Plan as others are, but, I was looking for that definition of light industrial. I really couldn’t find it and so I had to look elsewhere to find out what did the City mean by light industrial. What was your vision when you wrote that Official Community Plan. Well, what I did is said, well let’s look to the recent past instead of the further past. Let’s just see what’s been happening over the last ten to fifteen years. I think, as it was pointed out, is that we see this proliferation (inaudible – walked away from microphone) of CD-zones that specifically prohibit retail sales, and specific retail sales, retail sales of building supplies, audio visual supplies, household appliances and furniture. I think what we look at those and they are saying that’s big-box or is that substantial kind of retail trade. We didn’t want that in here anymore. We thought that was the wrong use even though it was M-3. So every time we got a chance we decided to try to change that and every time what we were trying to change it too is more this office/commercial/industrial/research/light manufacturing. We want to be relatively prestigious here because it was so close to a lot of active commercial area, I’m assuming. We wanted this whole area to evolve in that fashion. That is exactly what has been happening. So, when I take a look at that, that becomes my new definition, or what I think the vision is, of this area for light industrial.

I think that when Mr. Alexander and his father came to look at a location here on the North Shore they saw the same thing and that is, oh, we’re in luck, this is where they are going but, we know, we could use this particular site.

City of North Vancouver Page 9 of 21 Rescheduled Public Hearing Bylaw No. 7687 May 16, 2005 re 901 West 3rd Street Griffin Holding Corp./ Michael Rosen & Assoc. It’s our exact zoning, M-3. We can do it and we’ll locate our business here. We’ll be strategically located. If I take a look at CD-418 up here, if we look at 252 which is the subject site, if we take a look at 431, if we take a look at 252 and 281, they specifically have that clause, that specifically prohibit retail sales of building supplies, etc. etc. If I take a look at 282 and 171 they are limited uses that do not include retail sales so we have rental equipment place there and we have a storage and we have wholesale distributing but there is no retail being allowed there. So, this is the trend that is happening here and I think, in good faith, we have made many decisions based on the direction that was going. This text amendment is called a minor text amendment but really it is not a minor text amendment. But, really, it is not a minor text amendment. It’s minor in the sense that it’s only a few words but it has a major impact on my client’s business which we are trying to through the Official Community Plan to retain existing businesses here in the City. The text amendment then it seems to me from a planning perspective a step backwards. It sends a message to businesses of uncertainty. It’s a mixed message and an uncertain message for businesses and for business to be able to make long term decisions you don’t make $5.5 million decision based on a two year return. You make it based on what you think is going to be some long term opportunities that are there. There are other areas within the City that building supplies could be located. You have zoning that provides for that. If we just take a look north of Third Street we have, indeed, we have Marine Drive, although I’m sure that there are other uses that would be wanting to go in there as well. But, Third Street, was the border of your Marine Drive study. It is saying also to me, that that means that this is a different area. That something different is what your vision is for this then major 25,000 square foot retail customers. Again, my client is very fortunate that he was able to get on the zoning and benefit from it.

I just want to pull up this aerial here to talk a little bit about the site specific issues. Ian talked about, from a store manager’s perspective, something he sees from a day to day perspective what happens around his area. When I first was called by Dick’s and went over there, I got there about 3 o’clock in the afternoon. This was obviously was taken on a Sunday, but when I was there every parking stall was taken on both sides of the street and along here, as well, and up here, the entire area. If I looked over into the accompanying areas they too were full. This area is a very busy area and it gets very congested. And also in this area there is a lot of trucks going back and forth. There are a lot of people going along First Avenue at very fast speeds. Thank goodness up at Third there is a stop sign up in this location here. So, it is a congested area and the access for this particular use I find very surprising is that we now change the use from where we have staff parking that is coming early in the morning and leaving at the end of the day. That means that this parking lot back in here basically turns once a day. The chance for a lot of conflict occurs only twice a day. The proposal to have a retail store here is suggesting that off the lane in this location, where the end of the pen is, will be the main entrance to it. So all the customers to the store will be going into that location. That means they will be going in and out of that parking lot.

City of North Vancouver Page 10 of 21 Rescheduled Public Hearing Bylaw No. 7687 May 16, 2005 re 901 West 3rd Street Griffin Holding Corp./ Michael Rosen & Assoc. Well, we estimate for a store that size is probably 125 or 200 movements a day and that’s quite a big change from what used to be there. That means 200 opportunities to have an accident or have some other issues that could occur. We think it’s the wrong location for a main entrance and for a retail store to be servicing its customers and I only look to again, to what the planning department has been approving in the area and looking for, for good development. So if I look over here we find that we have all our parking is all separated and its all at the front of the buildings, not in conflict with what they’ve created the lane and the internal loading and unloading and storage that takes place at the rear here. So, this area has been moving towards creating parking at the front and separating it from the laneway traffic and wisely so because there’s a lot of opportunity for accidents and other kinds of situations that occur. We have actually seen no attempt to talk about the traffic or the parking in this application and we think that definitely a serious issue. I think its only logic of course that will show that its not a very good idea to do that.

I guess in summary this simple text amendment really does have significant implications for the operation of Dick’s Lumber. We also think that it’s quite contrary to the intent of the Official Community Plan and the signals and signs that have been coming from the City of North Vancouver for businesses that are locating in this area and with that we would ask you not to approve Bylaw 7687. Thank you.

Mayor Sharp Thank you. The next speaker is Bruce Allen.

Mr. Bruce Allen, 915 West First Street, North Vancouver Good evening Your Worship and Council. My name is Bruce Allen and I’m the owner of what is today the Rona at 915 West First Street, North Vancouver. Just as a point of interest aside as we start here, the postponement is appreciated for this Hearing. I’m not sure whether or not I was intended to receive notice as a business in the community but I never did receive any notice. I’m not sure where the perimeter of that notice is.

Mayor Sharp Mr. Penway!

Mr. Penway Your Worship, I think that is more of a City Clerk’s answer in terms of the notification distance. I believe its 40 metres around the area.

Mr. Allen As a point of interest, it seems like a very narrow perimeter for notice and I think I fall outside of that by probably five metres, or one metre, or something like that I’m sure. In any event I will be short and to the point.

City of North Vancouver Page 11 of 21 Rescheduled Public Hearing Bylaw No. 7687 May 16, 2005 re 901 West 3rd Street Griffin Holding Corp./ Michael Rosen & Assoc. I’ve written a letter and I simply would just like to reiterate the points that I’ve raised in my letter to Mayor and Council and as I say, we wish to express our vehement opposition to the requested rezoning application for 901 West Third. Fortunately I’ve been around for a while and I’ve been at this location for about eighteen years and I have a relatively good recollection of what was there and what was going on. The captioned property is a commercial building that was renovated from a clothing factory use, I believe Tyroll Manufacturing, to a space for a dental laboratory and a wholesale dental supplies seventeen years ago. I think 1993 that Gary had mentioned and I think that seems like the appropriate point of when it did happen. They did a beautiful job of renovating the facility and the grounds around it and certainly made substantial improvements to the area which looked very good to us and I’m sure to everybody else in the community.

For our end, the change of use at the time was consistent for the property in our opinion as both uses were primarily light industrial in nature and were specifically non-retail. We’ve been at 915 West First Street now for almost eighteen years and have been responsible community citizens and are proud to be part of this community and have contributed over $2million in tax revenue to the City over that period. We have operated our business with an understanding and expectation we could count on the City to keep a level playing field for businesses in the Community based on the Official Community Plan and the existing zoning regulations. We would expect that the City would require a retail building supply use to comply with M-3 zoning and with the recent appearance of Dick’s Lumber in the former Hollyburn site we accepted their insurgence on the property which was appropriately zoned for that use. It’s totally legitimate and understandable. The proposed rezoning in our opinion unnecessary and undesirable. It is a deviation from the planned and historical use of this site and changes the intent of the original zoning from industrial use to a retail use which is a direct conflict with our business and unnecessary for further escalation of traffic and congestion in the area. I think the folks from Dick’s have done an imminently a great job of explaining that all too well prior to myself and I’m simply reinforcing the same points. There is a lot of sites that are zoned M-3 and I would urge them to locate in what is legitimately zoned as M-3. Thank you very much.

Mayor Sharp Thank you. Are there any other members of the public? Please come down to the microphone and state your name and address for the record.

Mr. Ron Polly, 842 Cumberland Crescent, North Vancouver Ron Polly, 842 Cumberland Crescent. I’ve been watching this property. First of all I’d like to say down in that area that is the nicest building and the landscaping there is beautiful. So whatever happens to this, whatever the City allows, I would really like to see the landscaping stay because it’s the nicest one down there. For the matter of the M-3 on the Dick site. Wasn’t that the old Hydro site before it was Hollyburn? I don’t know what the zoning was for that at the time.

City of North Vancouver Page 12 of 21 Rescheduled Public Hearing Bylaw No. 7687 May 16, 2005 re 901 West 3rd Street Griffin Holding Corp./ Michael Rosen & Assoc.

Mayor Sharp Mr. Penway, do you know?

Mr. Penway Are you talking about the Dick site now? The industrial zone, the M-3 zone, provides for a full range of uses and I believe that M-3 zone would have been there since at least 1967.

Mr. Polly Okay. That would have been the Hydro site. That’s one thing. The other thing is that I think if you do rezone this I think it would be highly unfair to allow the same sort of sales in some ways because Dick’s, which I use quite often, and they allow my dog in, is a great store. I also use Rona. I would hate to see a store move there and end up by selling bulk concrete, bulk wood and the same thing as they do. Finishing, I don’t know. That’s for you guys to figure out. The other thing is that it would be really refreshing for somebody who actually buys property in this area and does something with it and actually continues with it doesn’t come back for another new zoning. So, I would like to make sure too, if you are going to rezone this that it’s going to stay basically how it is. Its not going to be coming back later on asking for something else. And that’s about it but I really would like, whatever happens there, I’d like that landscaping to stay as much as possible.

Mayor Sharp Thank you. Any other members of the public have any comments on this proposal or questions. Council members might have some questions that may only allow clarification of your items here. Do you have some clarification that you wanted to add before I go to Council?

Mr. Laniado I deeply regret that my father isn’t able to be with us tonight because if he wouldn’t have been able to imagine that 22 years ago when he started this company that a company the size of Dick’s Lumber, which is something like 15 times our revenue which they would know because Brian was our former Controller would be opposing our going next to them and that Canada’s largest building materials store, Rona, would be afraid of the business we would take from them. I just would like to emphasis that we are a different store. Dick’s talks about having moldings. They have maybe thirty, forty, fifty profiles in their store. We warehouse 660 profiles. Our store is completely devoted to interior finishing products, stair parts, moldings. They have a very, very, minor section of their stores devoted to finishing products. With regards to the parking, Michael has a analysis of the parking. They pointed out that they have a 2 acre property. This property is roughly an acre, 50,000 square feet, slightly more than an acre. They have I believe 35 parking stalls. We have in fact 53 parking stalls on our site.

City of North Vancouver Page 13 of 21 Rescheduled Public Hearing Bylaw No. 7687 May 16, 2005 re 901 West 3rd Street Griffin Holding Corp./ Michael Rosen & Assoc. This is really an instance to Goliath and a David. I frankly am amazed that the concern they have for the future of their business. To hear them talk you would think that a Finishing Touch would not only endanger the business of two major companies but also endanger lives, with traffic and such. I’m quite amazed. If you have any questions I’m happy to answer them.

Mayor Sharp Council has some questions so thank you very much. I don’t know if it’s of you so you can sit down. Thank you. Councillor Fearnley!

Councillor R.J. Fearnley First question I have now is for the folks that are just leaving the stand; for The Finishing Touch people. Now I’m trying to handle on what sort of business you are into and I’m trying to get a handle as to what makes lumber yards M-3 material. You’re strictly enclosed within the store? There are no outside storage racks, nothing of that nature?

Mr. Lanaido No.

Councillor Fearnley You are more of a retail operation.

Mr. Lanaido No. The majority of our business is actually contractor business. We sell to flooring installers, we sell to home builders, we sell to renovators, we sell the gambit. We have three stores. One in Langley, one in Richmond and one in Burnaby. Basically in all the areas we are in we are in Industrial zonings. We fit into industrial zonings typically. We are industrial use. We manufacture products. We do manufacturing on site. We will have our own mill work shop. Very, very little of the space is actually devoted to what would be classified as typical show room space. Its mainly, obviously you haven’t been in our store, but its lots and lots of molding, finishing grade lumber, plywood, stair parts and that kind of thing. But the bulk of our business is industrial, contractor business.

Councillor Fearnley Another area that concerns me and it is something; I mean I know this area. I think everybody that has a house goes down there and has to buy parts like that. That is a pretty busy lane and your parking and your main entrance is off the lane. Have you looked at that and can you assure us that, no, that’s not going to be a problem.

Mr. Lanaido Absolutely! If you look at our store in Burnaby which is our biggest store, we have 40 parking stalls on site, and that is our head office so it’s a relevant comparison. You can go there at any time and you will not see congestion of the kind that is being described here. The site has 53 on site parking stalls. It’s a concern for us.

City of North Vancouver Page 14 of 21 Rescheduled Public Hearing Bylaw No. 7687 May 16, 2005 re 901 West 3rd Street Griffin Holding Corp./ Michael Rosen & Assoc. As I say, we have considerably more parking than our neighbours do and as a customer oriented business we have to have customer parking so it would be to our disadvantage to have a congested parking lot. We need spaces open for customers.

Councillor Fearnley You said earlier you’re talking about moving your head office to this site. That’s going to be what? Upstairs?

Mr. Lanaido Yes. The building is a 33,000 foot building. More than half of it is office space. Sinclair Dental have 55 lab technicians, service people working there right now. We’ll have about twenty-five or so. So, yes. As the gentleman pointed out the landscaping, that area of the building is a very attractive area, and yes, it is our intention of retaining the landscaping and have that as the corporate entrance.

Councillor Fearnley Where are you going to put this office use? Where is that going?

Mr. Lanaido The existing offices are there.

Councillor Fearnley You’re going to totally use that for office space?

Mr. Lanaido Out of the 33,000 square feet, do we have the breakdowns of the areas, there is roughly 10,000 square feet of office, I think. Between the offices and retail area there will be 10,000 square feet of office retail and of the warehouse storage there will be 18,000 feet. We will actually be removing a portion of the mezzanine of the building to create clear height for the store so there will be a portion of the building that will actually be …….

Councillor Fearnley The warehouse space that’s where you’re selling the product?

Mr. Lanaido The warehouse space where we sell the products, yes, and the shop will be in that space as well.

Councillor Fearnley Thank you.

Mayor Sharp Councillor Perrault!

City of North Vancouver Page 15 of 21 Rescheduled Public Hearing Bylaw No. 7687 May 16, 2005 re 901 West 3rd Street Griffin Holding Corp./ Michael Rosen & Assoc.

Councillor B.W. Perrault Yes, I have a question for staff. Mr. Penway I have heard sort of conflicting stories here tonight and I’ve listened carefully to what you had to say and also reading your report but I want to go through this again for clarification. We did get a letter from Rona and the last paragraph of the letter it states, the proposed rezoning is unnecessary and undesirable. It is a deviation from the planned and historical use of the site. What I’m asking you, sir, is historically, and looking at the report, is my understanding correct. It originally was an M-3. Is that correct?

Mr. Penway That is correct, Your Worship.

Councillor Perrault And then it was changed to CD, Comprehensive Development, and now the request is to change it back to the historical zoning that it was before. Is that correct?

Mr. Penway In terms of now allowing again a retail building supply establishment, yes. The intention is not to revert completely back to M-3 but to keep the CD-252 zone and add to that the retail building supply establishment which is permitted in the M-3 zone and therefore use to be permitted on this property.

Councillor Perrault So then it’s not accurate to say that historically it’s always been CD. It has been M-3. So now it’s reverting back to that.

Mr. Penway Your Worship, sometime in the early 1980’s Council made a decision to allow retail building supply establishments within the M-3 zone generally. That’s when we got the beginning of lumber yards and retail building supply establishments and so since the early 1980’s then we’ve had the ability for these to exist in any M-3 zoned property and a number have arrived. In this instance the property has never been used for retail building supply establishments in the past but it could have been any time since then and the application is to, once again, allow that as a permitted use on the land.

Councillor Perrault Is there any way, and I know the way these things work, under M-3 zoning that we could restrict the type of activities that would be there. For example, using as an example, if they decided that they wanted to go into selling building supplies on a larger scale can we restrict that.

City of North Vancouver Page 16 of 21 Rescheduled Public Hearing Bylaw No. 7687 May 16, 2005 re 901 West 3rd Street Griffin Holding Corp./ Michael Rosen & Assoc. Mr. Penway Yes, the wording before you now is to allow for a retail building supply establishment which would be as open as any retail building supply establishment. And as we see with Rona and others there are quite a large range of activities that happen within there so the Bylaw that you have before you would add retail building supply use to the CD- 252 zone. If you chose to you could narrow that definition by defining a range of activities for particular 252 zone so if your question is, could you be more specific about exactly what this application is for and allow this particular use, yes it would be possible.

Councillor Perrault Okay thank you very much, Your Worship.

Mayor Sharp Councillor Clark!

Councillor R.C. Clark Yes, Your Worship. The other M-3 areas that were alluded to by the proponents, that would be the top left hand corner of the screen and the bottom left hand corner. What is there now Mr. Penway?

Mr. Penway Your Worship, the screen does show to my right here on the large screen a variety of properties. In fact, there are a variety of industrial/commercial type uses throughout those zones. Some auto repair in a variety of zones, some manufacturing that happens. It’s quite an assortment of activity that happens within those zones. They tend to be older buildings with the M-3 zoning. The M-3 zone applies across the lane to the immediate east of Dick’s Lumber. It applies then from Third Street to First Street, in that area. I won’t try to list the variety of uses. A retail building supply establishment would be an outright use in any of those areas outlined in blue which are M-3.

Councillor Clark Thank you Your Worship!

Mayor Sharp Councillor Heywood!

Councillor R.N. Heywood Thank you Your Worship! I have a question, through you, to Mr. Shum, who I believe is the financial man for Dick’s Lumber. I would just like to know, Mr. Shum, you are aware of the type of product and so on that The Finishing Touch makes. To what percentage is that of your total business, roughly speaking?

Mr. Shum 15/20%.

City of North Vancouver Page 17 of 21 Rescheduled Public Hearing Bylaw No. 7687 May 16, 2005 re 901 West 3rd Street Griffin Holding Corp./ Michael Rosen & Assoc.

Councillor Heywood So fifteen to twenty percent of your business deals with moldings?

Mr. Shum It’s growing year by year, 15% to 20% and growing.

Councillor Heywood Thank you. I guess a question to the applicant here, if I may. I’d like to hear just a little more specifically to what extent you can differentiate your business if Dick’s Lumber says 15% of their business deals with the kind of product that you produce. Can you differentiate yourself to any extent from that number. Are you competing only in 15% or do you have a different view of that.

Mr. Lanaido That would be a correct assumption if they are actually in fact doing 15% of their business.

Councillor Heywood So that would be an area where you would be in competition?

Mr. Lanaido Correct.

Councillor Heywood Thank you.

Mr. Lanaido If I may, within our business, maybe this will be helpful; there are what is called commodity moldings. These are the moldings that go into the spec houses that the large multi-unit projects use. That isn’t very much of our business so if Dick’s is doing 15% the bulk of their business would be on what we consider the commodity molding side which we don’t actually manufacture. We manufacture more of the specialty indigenous species, softwood, the hardwood.

Councillor Heywood Which they do not manufacture?

Mr. Lanaido To the best of my knowledge they don’t manufacture. We have a manufacturing facility in Port . Our full primary focus is on the products that we, in fact, manufacture.

City of North Vancouver Page 18 of 21 Rescheduled Public Hearing Bylaw No. 7687 May 16, 2005 re 901 West 3rd Street Griffin Holding Corp./ Michael Rosen & Assoc. Councillor Heywood So in fact then, the area which you compete directly would be significantly less than …………….

Mr. Lanaido Correct. Correct. Correct.

Councillor Heywood One more question. You heard the question by the last speaker in terms of zoning. Would it be any impediment to you if the wording of the Zoning Bylaw would limit you to the molding business?

Mr. Lanaido That’s a fair question. From a business point of view, not particularly. Our focus is clearly interior finishing. We have no interest in selling 2x4’s. I wouldn’t know a 2x4 from a hole in the wall. We don’t sell concrete. As I stated earlier, I bought my construction materials from Dick’s. But from a real estate, owner’s point of view, from a landlord’s point of view, when we did buy the building contrary to some of the comments that we got a free ride, we spent $3.2million and are looking at quite a large sum to finish the building off, that would be onerous to be that restrictive. You can clearly see in our stores that our focus is interior finish. We have no desire whatsoever to go up against Dick’s or Rona. Those are very substantial building supply companies and we have no desire to compete with them.

Councillor Heywood If it was something in the nature of moldings and finishing wood products some definition along that line.

Mr. Lanaido The problem is where do you draw the line and that’s my only concern would be in trying to create interior finishing, you know, what if the molding is used outside, if its decorative columns, I mean I could clearly state that we have no desire to, I mean this is not a lumber yard building. There is no outside storage capacity. Anybody who has been in our stores clearly understands that we are not in the construction interior business.

Councillor Heywood Just one more question. Do you do much business on the North Shore now.

Mr. Lanaido Yes. Not as much as we hope to do. Yes, we do.

City of North Vancouver Page 19 of 21 Rescheduled Public Hearing Bylaw No. 7687 May 16, 2005 re 901 West 3rd Street Griffin Holding Corp./ Michael Rosen & Assoc. Councillor Heywood Now, one more question. Do you have competitors that are in your particular niche of the market.

Mr. Lanaido That’s an excellent question. In Burnaby we are right across the street from Windsor Plywood. On Bridgeport Road there are over 34 flooring companies who’ve come up since we have been there. Home Depot is across the street, a great competitor. It’s good for business to be around like businesses and I’m really surprised at the reaction.

Councillor Heywood Thank you.

Mayor Sharp Thank you very much. I will ask for a motion to recess the Public Hearing. Councillor Clark!

Councillor Clark So moved!

Mayor Sharp Councillor Perrault!

Councillor Perrault Second!

Mayor Sharp All those in favour! Contrary! Carried unanimously!

City of North Vancouver Page 20 of 21 Rescheduled Public Hearing Bylaw No. 7687 May 16, 2005 re 901 West 3rd Street Griffin Holding Corp./ Michael Rosen & Assoc. Moved by Councillor Clark, seconded by Councillor Perrault

THAT the Rescheduled Public Hearing conclude.

CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY

The Rescheduled Public Hearing concluded at 8:02 p.m.

Certified a true and accurate transcript of the Rescheduled Public Hearing

Sandra E. Dowey, City Clerk

Date

City of North Vancouver Page 21 of 21 Rescheduled Public Hearing Bylaw No. 7687 May 16, 2005 re 901 West 3rd Street Griffin Holding Corp./ Michael Rosen & Assoc.