A Billionaire Developer Gets a Tax Break for Vancouver Gardens Tax break for waiting

Holborn Group pays less property tax on long-delayed Little Mountain project. … Article written by Sonal Gupta.
A patch of long-delayed development land in Vancouver has been temporarily turned into dog parks and a community garden. To some neighbours and critics, it looks less like a public amenity than a way to lower the tax bill on land that has sat unfinished for years.
The land is part of the Little Mountain redevelopment, a 15-acre site near Queen Elizabeth Park bought from the province in 2008 by Holborn Group, a company owned by a Malaysian billionaire family.
The approved project will eventually include about 1,400 market homes, 234 replacement social housing units, 48 additional affordable rental homes, childcare, a neighbourhood house, a public park and a community plaza.
The land was being taxed at a business rate. But in the fall of 2025, Holborn converted two portions of it to community gardens and dog parks, which are taxed at a lower rate.
And Holborn isn't the only developer getting a tax break by shifting how the land is used. A recent City of Vancouver report says this year 10 properties were reclassified, a decision that will force other taxpayers to make up a tax shortfall of $913,300. Two Holborn properties accounted for roughly $315,000 of that total.
"The fact that this property is getting such a considerable tax break — people are going to be outraged," said Michael Geller, an architect, planner, real estate consultant and adjunct professor at Simon Fraser University. "This is legal what they're doing. The question is, why are they being allowed to do it?"
Cities decide whether to allow community gardens or dog parks on development sites, the provincial Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs said in an email response to Canada's National Observer. If city rules allow a public community garden and the owner properly creates one, BC Assessment must assign the property the lower parks-and-gardens tax category. The land is still valued as redevelopment property, even when its tax category changes.
The city said it does not control property classifications and "does not approve or support the temporary conversion of vacant sites to recreation as a tax avoidance strategy." BC Assessment classifies properties based on how they are actually used at the end of October every year. Private dog parks on vacant land need a time-limited development permit, while community gardens usually do not.
For neighbours, the tax numbers add to frustration with a site where the developer made big housing promises that have remained unfulfilled for years.
Aaron Williamson, who lives beside the construction site and serves on his building's strata council, said residents were initially glad to see fenced-off land opened for public use. "We were very excited about it," Williamson said. "We would have to use dog parks that were farther away and sometimes drive over to these other sites."
But that excitement faded as the space felt lightly built and poorly maintained, with wood chips spread over a large area and parts of the site worn down by regular use. The site now includes two dog parks and one community garden, and residents were recently told another section may become a third dog park. "One would be sufficient," he said.
Little Mountain has been a lightning rod for controversy for nearly two decades. The former public housing site was transferred from the federal government to the province in 2007 and BC Housing chose Holborn to redevelop it a year later. Most residents were moved out and nearly all the homes were demolished by 2009.
But the redevelopment has moved at glacial speed.
Holborn had paid only $35 million of the $334-million purchase price by 2021 and received an interest-free payment extension to 2026 as well as an $88-million low-interest loan to complete the social housing.
The temporary garden has raised questions about what counts as a community garden. Community Garden Builders, which manages the site,...