Controversial film studio proposal in Burnaby going to public hearing next week

A proposed film studio at a Big Bend-area property that was controversially sold by the city to developers is going to public hearing next week.

The film production centre, including production stages and offices, is slated to be built at 3990 Marine Way. The city agreed last year to sell the 17.1-acre property to Larco Investments for $136 million, more than double the minimum bid price.

According to a city staff report, the site is slated to include 16 film production stages, office space for the film studios, a millshop, and “other support space.”

The proposal is going to a public hearing next Tuesday, Aug. 30.

The sale garnered plenty of attention at the time, with Larco owner Mansoor Lalji claiming the 16 new sound stages, along with another larger studio by the Lake City Way SkyTrain station that’s currently in the works, would make Larco the largest film studio operator in BC.

But not everyone was enthusiastic about the sale.

Former Burnaby Green Party council candidate Joel Gibbs told Burnaby Beacon in May of last year that they didn’t believe the city was necessarily getting a public benefit from land sales.

“They’re not in need of any of the money coming from those land sales,” Gibbs said. “Once land is sold, it can never be reclaimed for … at least a generation.”

And there’s also some dissent from within city council.

Last month, Coun. Alison Gu said she didn’t approve of the project going to a public hearing, noting some objections to the city doing business with Larco Investments.

In particular, she noted that Larco and the Lalji family were named in the Panama Papers, a slew of leaked documents that detailed global tax evasion using offshore accounts.

In 2016, Unite Here, a union that represents hospitality workers, including at several Larco-owned properties, launched a campaign calling on the company to end its relationship with tax havens.

“I don’t believe we should be doing business with companies like that, who actively hurt the public taxpayer,” Gu said in July, also echoing concerns about the sale of public land to the private sector.

Last May, Mayor Mike Hurley defended the decision to sell the property, saying the city has a shortage of job-producing properties.

“There’s a dire need for job-producing sites. That’s one of the biggest needs within our communities right now, is commercial land, industrial land, and we’re running out of it very fast,” Hurley said.

This was after 2019, when Hurley said he hoped the sale of 6438 Byrnepark Dr. to Polygon Homes would be the city’s last sale to the private sector.

In council last month, Gu said the jobs that would be produced by a private company at that property could still have been created without selling the land, through a land lease agreement.

However, Gu was the only councillor to oppose the project last month.

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