Tell GWAC what transportation changes should be made in Grandview Woodland – cycling safety improvements, traffic calming, new ways of using road space for people
Now that the City is “Prioritizing Commercial Drive as a Pedestrian-First High Street”, we need to decide what that should look like as a community
Wally Kunz will present his Little Italy proposal for a new way to use the surplus vehicle lanes on Commercial Drive between First Ave and Grandview Highway – a better way for local businesses and people moving on the Drive
On another note…
Join us for the GWAC Annual General Meeting Saturday, May 6th at 6PM CFEC Room at Britannia Centre 1655 William Street (2nd floor) Add to Calendar
Farewell Celebration for Santa Barbara Market! Music! A couple of short speeches! Singalong! Festivities!
Tuesday is the last day our wonderful Santa Barbara Market will be open!
Yes, it will be reopening, but the new store will reportedly have a new name and new staff. Most, if not all, of the current staff will be leaving.
It would be so sad if the store just closed quietly and if our great community wasn’t able to give them a big send-off.
So let’s meet at Santa Barbara at 1:00 on Tuesday, January 31st, and let them know how much we love and appreciate them … and thank them for their many years of hard work and wonderful fruits and veggies and deli foods!
Spread the word to everyone you know who shops there!
Former City of Vancouver Senior Urban Designer Scot Hein presented an overview of the current state of the Safeway site Rezoning Applicationon June 6th, 2022 at our monthly GWAC Public Forum (click image to see the video of the presentation)
The Public Hearing for the development proposed for 1780 East Broadway on the Safeway Site will begin on Thursday, July 7th at 6pm. The agenda for this Public Hearing is up and it’s already possible to send in comments. Speaker registration for the meeting will open early in the morning on Friday, June 24th, and will be available by 8:30am. A “Request to Speak” button will be available once the speaker sign up is available on the agenda page.
Former City of Vancouver Senior Urban Designer Scot Hein presented an overview of the current state of the Safeway site Rezoning Application on June 6th, 2022 at our monthly GWAC Public Forum. This presentation is available in its entirety in the following video.
Further details about the rezoning application at 1780 E Broadway is in a staff policy report that was referred to Public Hearing earlier this month by City Council. The No Safeway Megatowers group also has further analysis on this rezoning application.
Join us for a discussion about a generational decision for Grandview-Woodland.
Former City of Vancouver Senior Urban Designer Scot Hein will present an overview of the current state of the Safeway site Rezoning Application (1780 E Broadway).
According to City planners, this three tower proposal will be sent to a Public Hearing around the beginning of July.
Find out more about this proposal and how to have your voice heard in the public hearing process.
The agenda page of the June 7 Regular Council Meeting includes a policy report will be considered for referral to a Public Hearing. If the majority on Council choose to refer this this report, then a Public Hearing will likely begin on July 5th or July 7th. You can read what planners are proposing by downloading this policy report.
The proposed Broadway Plan sets the scale of Mt. Pleasant, Fairview, South Granville, and part of Kitsilano at station area development at 40 storeys with up to 20 storeys in low-density areas that are currently 2 – 4 storeys.
The Plan also proposes to repeal the current community plans throughout the area, plus all of Kitsilano and Mt. Pleasant.
These precedents would affect development expectations at all stations, including in Grandview at Commercial Dr., Rupert Station planning, and an extension to UBC, the rest of Kitsilano, WPG & Jericho Lands.
Broadway Plan model looking east from Vine St., by Stephen Buhus, BLA
Please email and/or speak to Council to oppose this proposal for the Broadway Plan.
The Council meeting is Wednesday, May 18 at 9:30 am!
What you can do:
1. Send an email to Council NOW and through the online form so it will be counted by staff. See contacts below. If you are OPPOSED say so upfront so it is counted as such.
2. Sign up to speak to the council at the hearing by phone: Numbers of speakers matter. It is easy to speak by phone. Each person has 5 minutes, but you do not have to speak that long. Even just to say one sentence is OK. Sign up to speak here: https://vancouver.ca/your-government/request-to-speak-at-meeting-form-2.aspx
The Plan covers 16th Ave. to 1st Ave., Mt. Pleasant, Fairview, South Granville, and part of Kitsilano to Vine St. Plus it affects Grandview to Commercial Dr. which is following similar typologies. Also the station area is currently in planning at Renfrew Station.
Base Housing Typologies:
Centers – Station Areas 30-40 stories
Centers – Shoulder Areas 20-30 stories
Villages – 4-6 stories
Residential – Existing Apartment Areas (currently 3-4 stories) up to 20 stories
Residential – Existing Low Density (Existing RT zones character house retention with multiple suites/infill) 6-18 stories
If the subway extension to UBC is approved, these kinds of typologies are likely to be extended throughout Kitsilano and West Point Grey, with Jericho Lands as a station area development typology.
Points to Consider:
Will create a concrete jungle with a canyon down Broadway. Think of downtown Georgia St.
Towers are the least affordable, sustainable and livable form of development, and not required to meet population growth.
Affordability:
Speculatively inflate land values and rents throughout the areas decades ahead of redevelopment that displaces renters and homeowners alike.
Proposed renter protections will not work because most renters will be displaced or priced out well in advance of any redevelopment applications being submitted when the rental protections would apply.
The city and province using fees from tower development as a cash cow that adds to the costs of housing.
New units to own or rent more expensive and smaller than the older units being demolished, not suitable for families.
Lack of servicing and community amenities for the increased development and population, that development fee will not cover so require more property taxes and capital funding.
Towers will shadow parks all the way to the waterfront.
Growth:
Not justified by census data – the City of Vancouver on average population increase is 1% per year
The Broadway Plan alone could amount to about 81% of the City’s population growth over the next 30 years in 7% of the City’s landmass.
Major growth corridors are an American model for large sprawling cities, not pre-war transit-oriented cities like Vancouver that were designed for the streetcar system with all areas walkable to an arterial. We just need more electric bus service throughout the arterial grid.
All of the transit investment for many generations is being put into only a few expensive development-oriented corridors instead of providing more affordable transit across the city and region.
Patrick Condon is the James Taylor chair in Landscape and Livable Environments at the University of British Columbia’s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture.
The Broadway Plan will reshape Commercial to Vine, forcing council to consider whether the results are affordable and what it feels like to be there. Visualization from city documents by Stephen Bohus.
The Broadway Plan is a political bomb about to explode on the floor of the Vancouver council. It probably couldn’t happen at a worse time for sitting councilors. The plan calls for unprecedented new density spawned by the long-imagined expansion of this metro region’s designated downtown core. This regional metropolitan center now is to include all of Broadway between Main Street and Vine.
The plan is being viewed with alarm by many Vancouver citizens for many reasons. A shortlist would include:
A more than doubling of existing density;
the destruction of the city’s largest existing inventory of affordable rentals;
the presumption that new units will be sold and rented at the current unaffordable prices demanded by the market;
the violation of the existing scale of area development in favor of tower construction;
the environmental consequences of high greenhouse gas concrete construction;
the disruption of neighborhood character which many find precious;
the absence of any indication of where new parks, schools, and other civic infrastructure may be located;
and the lack of specificity around affordable housing numbers.
Visualization of the Broadway Plan, shown at full 30-year buildout. Image and modeling are based on the published plan, though city documents do not show comprehensive images as above. 3D visualization by Stephen Bohus from descriptions and proposed regulations given in Broadway Plan documents.
The gargantuan ambitions driving this plan forward are long-standing, beginning in the 1990s with the creation of the Livable Region Strategic Plan. That plan anticipated a “rapid transit’ connection between Commercial Drive and UBC. Thirty years later we are witnessing the construction of the infrastructure intended to support that plan, the Broadway subway — a $3 billion piece of transit infrastructure designed for transit loads of 20,000 people per hour on a corridor that now only generates 2,000 transit riders at rush hour.
This expenditure, to many, makes no sense unless the land uses served by the infrastructure feed this expensive conveyance with thousands of additional trips.
The transit concept map that started the ball rolling, is from the 1996 Livable Region Strategic Plan. Image via Vancouver Metropolitan Council.
The sustainability pitfalls of this strategy could consume thousands of words. In fact, it already has by me, here, here, and here. In short, various serious drawbacks to the SkyTrain technology include that it is:
wildly expensive for the services it delivers;
assumes a future capacity need that is ten times the current level to justify its expense;
creates an incentive to build unnecessary and unaffordable high rises to support it;
requires a system-wide alteration of transit routes, funneling rides to the subway that presently are via more direct routes.
starves the rest of the transit system of budget for crucial service upgrades;
and eliminates the possibility of planning for a more distributed and sustainable city form.
A concept map from 1996 Livable Region Strategic plan shows transportation and major land uses of the plan. Note that the Vancouver ‘Metropolitan Core’ in this plan includes West Broadway between Main and Vine streets, the zone today’s Broadway Plan intends to transform. Image via Vancouver Metropolitan Council.
But it’s far too late to turn back the clock on this one. The plan is before council and council finds itself at the difficult end of a decision chain that others started long ago.
So, what might this council do to make this plan better and respond to the heartfelt concerns of Vancouver citizens? Here are a few suggested amendments that council might add at their upcoming public meeting on this topic.
1. Set more reasonable population and jobs targets.
Currently the plan calls for accommodating about 85 per cent of the city’s 30-year projected growth on just seven per cent of the city’s land area. This is unreasonable and unnecessary. Vancouver’s rate of population growth has slowed and in 2021 actually declined by 60,000. This is a trend for centre cities that includes our sister centre cities to the south, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Los Angeles, for example, lost 500,000 people in the last ten years. So it’s reasonable to reassess these targets.
Additionally, concerns about not having the ridership to justify the subway are now mitigated by the prospect of the Jericho Lands development, the UBC golf course development, and the housing developments anticipated at UBC proper. This new density was never anticipated during past decades when this plan was first imagined.
This seven per cent of the city’s land, an area which already provides the bulk of our affordable rental housing, does not need this much new density. Nor does the subway need this density to justify its expense.
Council should therefore make an amendment to cut the projected targets such that under 40 per cent of the city’s projected growth is planned for the corridor.
2. Require that at least 50 per cent of new housing will be permanently affordable non-market housing.
Given the strength of the land market on this corridor it is possible to up our target from the present one of 20 per cent affordable at 10 per cent below market rates (which is still unaffordable to most). A much better target would be 50 per cent affordable, pegged to 30 per cent of average city household income.
By insisting on this target now, the council will signal to the land markets that their value estimates will need to adjust to this demand, and the ridiculous land price inflation now raging on this corridor will be quelled. If land prices can be managed in this way, reasonable rental returns can make projects pencil out (as this CCPA study illustrates). This affordable housing can be in the form of co-ops, rental buildings owned by non-profit corporations, or equity strata on leased land as at False Creek South. This housing can be mixed in with market products to ensure that we reach the one-third low income, one third middle income, and one third high income mix that has, since the construction of False Creek South, the city’s social equity ambition.
Council should therefore make an amendment to set and meet a target of a minimum 50 percent affordable non-market housing on the corridor.
3. Make Broadway our chance to depart from tower typology.
Vancouver has become world-famous for “density done right” with the “tower on podium” form of Yaletown as its emblem. But this form is overused. It is very demanding of energy resources, has very high greenhouse gas consequences, and has obviously disruptive impacts when inserted into low density existing environments.
For all these reasons it’s time to find other forms that deliver similar density.
Paris, Amsterdam, and Barcelona have buildings that deliver tower densities in low-rise “courtyard building” form.
Similar highly successful models of high density exist in Vancouver at the Arbutus Walk project and at Olympic Village.
The council should make an amendment stipulating the use of building forms that are a maximum floor surface ratio of 3.5 (Yaletown gross density) but maintain a low profile.
4. Limit lot assembly.
If underground parking is not required high density buildings can be built on small lots and built for relatively low costs compared to towers. Parisian-style courtyard buildings are often composed of separately owned buildings that join at “party walls” providing high density and very appealing urban environments. Limiting lot assembly, therefore, does not mean low density.
The council should make an amendment to limit lot assembly to no more than four standard 33-feet wide Vancouver lots.
Boulevard Saint-Michel offers a typical Paris streetscape of high density ‘party wall’ six-storey courtyard buildings. Photo via Google Images.
5. Build in wood not concrete.
Conventionally built buildings built with dimensional lumber (called stick frame) can be up to six storeys high. Many examples are now being built in the city. Stick frame construction is also much cheaper than concrete construction. Stick frame construction is sustainable because instead of off-gassing greenhouse gases like concrete towers, wood sequesters carbon for as long as the building stands.
If the council decides taller buildings are appropriate at station areas, wood can still be used in a form called “mass timber.” A prototype of this type of construction exists now at UBC.
Bonus: British Columbia’s timber industry would benefit from the added market for value-added wood products.
The council should make an amendment to approve only higher density buildings in wood frame construction.
6. Include vacancy control and tenant protections.
Current plans provide limited protection for existing tenants. Happily, they are now promised to be returned to new units if displaced. These assurances can go much further.
Rents linked to incomes and reasonably sized replacement units suitable for families are needed. The above call for 50 percent affordable units relates to this issue. Existing tenants should get the first call on these new units and an immediate transfer to avoid the years-long wait times often required.
Finally, and importantly, none of this will hold up without vacancy control to prevent the incentive for landlords to move tenants out through renovations or to end up losing a large inventory of affordable units as people move on.
The council should make an amendment that strengthens replacement guarantees with priority access to non-market housing and vacancy control.
7. Restart the community engagement process.
Citizens were consulted in earlier phases but have not been on the built implications of this plan. Citizen engagement on the realities of this plan is a step missed and the council should not approve this plan without it.
The council should send this plan back to staff insisting that built form options are presented, including the kinds of possible variations I have discussed here.
Community engagement successfully led to the internationally admired Arbutus Walk project. We know how to do this, it’s part of the important planning tradition of this city. Do not avoid this step.
The council should return this plan with approved amendments to staff for hands-on round table consultations with community stakeholders, with the plan to be reconsidered in six months’ time.
A year ago, Theresa O’Donnell became the City of Vancouver’s Director of Planning and General Manager of Planning, Urban Design, and Sustainability.
Ms. O’Donnell holds a bachelor of landscape architecture from Texas Tech University and a master of public administration degree from the University of Texas. Her 30 years of planning experience included time in Las Vegas, Arlington – Texas, and most recently in Dallas.
Join us for a discussion about the future of Vancouver as GWAC gets acquainted with our new Director of Planning.
Grandview-Woodland Area Council 