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Indigenous developers will build 25,000 new homes in Metro Vancouver
Date of publication:
July 15, 2022 • 15 hours ago • 13 minutes of reading • 29 comments Wilson Williams is an elected councilor of the Squamish First Nation, photographed on the site of the Sen̓áḵw development project. Photo of Francis Georgian / PNG
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Set amidst a couple of bright apartment buildings, a condominium tower, a park, a future grocery store and massive holes in the ground that will soon provide a daycare, a community center and hundreds of additional homes, the head of Musqueam Wayne Sparrow said, “This is the future.”
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After many years and strong legal projects, the Musqueam First Nation reached a historic agreement with the BC government in 2008, for the return of part of its traditional territory. The Musqueams are now using some of this land near the University of BC to provide much-needed housing for the general community and generate economic prosperity for their nation.
Sparrow welcomed a group of elders to visit Leləm̓, the village his nation has built in collaboration with Polygon. The property includes market rents and below market and leases in 99-year leases.
This leasing structure is crucial, Sparrow stressed. It could have been more profitable in the short term, he said, to develop the land and sell condominiums directly. But that was never really a consideration.
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“We’re never selling the land,” Sparrow said. “It took us 100 years to get it back. We won’t sell it after going to court to fight to get it back.”
The head of Musqueam, Wayne Sparrow, with Polygon Homes CEO Neil Chrystal. Photo of Francis Georgian / PNG
The Leləm̓ community is just one of the many major real estate developments being developed by First Nations in the Vancouver area, which have emerged as powerful developers in a region looking for solutions to housing shortages.
Postmedia analyzed eight major projects involving the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations, both individually and jointly under its joint venture MST Development Corporation. Its plans cover about 1.1 square miles of property in Vancouver, Burnaby and North Shore, promising more than 25,500 homes.
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This is more than the total number of homes that exist today in the city of Port Coquitlam.
These mega-projects, which include social housing, market rents, condominiums and townhouses, as well as schools, shops, cultural facilities and commercial spaces, are in various stages. Residents began moving to Leləm̓ last year. Sen̓áḵw in Vancouver is scheduled to take place in five years. Others are a decade or more from completion.
Like Leləm̓, all of these major projects include rental homes and rental strata, meaning First Nations retain ownership of the land below. The importance of this fact appears repeatedly in conversations with local indigenous leaders: nations will always be those of the land.
This is not new. For decades, the Musqueam Nation has generated income through renting and renting housing on its reservation in the far south of Vancouver. The Tsleil-Waututh nation has built and sold more than 1,000 condos for rent and townhouses on reserve land.
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But MST Nations real estate activity today is on a completely different scale than in the past, and observers say it is beyond what other Indigenous developers are doing elsewhere in Canada. Today, the joint venture’s first-order urban real estate portfolio and the number of units under construction make it one of BC’s largest developers.
MST Development CEO David Negrin recently put it into perspective as he spoke with business and Indigenous leaders across Canada at a meeting in Vancouver. Negrin, a three-decade industry veteran who was previously president of Aquilini Development, said in May that MST land properties are valued at about $ 5 billion, which will approach $ 7.5 billion after its planned acquisition of another 0.75 square kilometers. By the time these properties are developed, Negrin estimated, the value of the portfolio will approach $ 30 billion.
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“I would say this: North America’s most powerful developer right now is MST, the three nations come together,” Negrin told the panel.
That “confluence” is a key point for many inside and outside the three First Nations.
Tsleil-Waututh Nation County. Dennis Thomas. Photo of Francis Georgian / PNG
Historically, the three nations shared family lands, resources, and ties that span several generations, coexisting harmoniously, Tsleil-Waututh Nation Coun said. Dennis Thomas. “But as soon as colonization and the Law of India came, we started fighting, because it’s like dividing and winning. … So for over 100 years, we have wanted to return to this harmonious and holistic table.
Thomas and others have believed that the 2010 Vancouver Olympics brought nations together. In the years following the Olympics, the leaders of the Nations worked together to reach a protocol agreement, which was signed in 2014, creating the MST Development Corporation.
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Thomas recalled a former Tsleil-Waututh leader telling him, “You can have 33 percent of something or 100 percent of nothing.”
Now, nations are collaborating on what could become the first indigenous-led candidacy in Olympic history, looking at the 2030 Winter Games. The official concept of the Games, published last month by the Nations and the Canadian Olympic Committee, anticipates the use of MST developments (expected to be owned by Heather or Jericho Lands) for a village of athletes for athletes and team officials during the 2030 Olympics and then provide housing, including a non-market component, after the Games.
Other First Nations across Canada could learn from the history of MST, said Ginger Gosnell-Myers, a member of SFU’s Morris J. Wosk Center for Dialogue, which focuses on decolonization and indigenous urban planning.
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“In other cities, (other First Nations) have overlapping land claims, and until they come together and agree to work in partnership as a family, they will continue to compete with each other and continue to miss opportunities,” he said.
“They will only succeed if they come together, and MST is proving the success of that. Other communities have not been updated, but we will see how things will change in the coming years.”
Gosnell-Myers is pleased that MST nations have begun to have “the visibility and respect they deserve, and an opportunity to truly make their mark on their own land.”
But, he added, “these first projects, however impressive, we are still seeing some shortcomings that I think future projects will be able to address.”
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The shortcomings, Gosnell-Myers said, include the concerns felt by some MST members that there are no more affordable homes in these megaprojects designated for Nations members.
“One concern I hear from MST members on the ground is,‘ Who is this for? People are getting rich and it’s not us, ”Gosnell-Myers said.
Ginger Gosnell-Myers, with the Morris J. Wosk Center for Dialogue at SFU. Photo of Francis Georgian / PNG
MST Development Corporation is led by a board of elected directors from all three nations. But the lack of MST members in the corporation’s senior management positions is something the same non-Indigenous executives themselves want to change, said Brennan Cook, vice president of development and acquisition for MST Development.
The goal is for the CEO and other major jobs to be occupied someday by MST members, Cook said.
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“I’d like to see this day sooner rather than later,” Cook said. “I love working with the Nations, but if David (Negrin, the CEO) and I do a very good job, we will lose our jobs. And I would sleep well knowing that MSTDC is in good hands. “
For many of these megaprojects, MST Nations has partnered with some of BC’s largest developers: Polygon, Westbank, Aquilini.
A relatively small townhouse project planned in West Vancouver will be the first project MST Development manages on its own, and that is the ultimate goal of all projects, Cook said. “In the future, no development partners will be needed.”
Leaders of the nations, including Sparrow and Thomas, say another part of the vision includes having more band members working on projects.
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Thomas, who is completing his MBA at Simon Fraser University, said there is already a growing interest among young Nation members for careers derived from these …