Dear UKRA members: In a bid to make home ownership more affordable for middle-income earners, Mayor Kennedy Stewart will attempt to resurrect his failed Making Home plan at Vancouver City Council’s Tuesday, Jan. 25 meeting. If approved, homeowners would be allowed to build up to six units on their properties, some of which could be “permanently affordable.” Here is the motion:https://council.vancouver.ca/20220125/documents/b3.pdfThe Mayor’s motion is bereft of details but Stewart was eager to share his ideas with supporters in a zoom meeting held Wednesday, Jan. 19. He said Making Home: “Housing for all of us” would begin as a pilot project with 2,000 lots currently zoned for single-detached homes or duplexes throughout the city. The pilot alone would create as many as 12,000 new homes, he estimated, if all property owners erect the maximum six units. City housing pilot projects normally involve a far smaller number of participants, but the mayor took an aggressive stance at his meeting: not only has Making Home already garnered support from developers, the Vancouver District Labour Council, and the Real Estate Foundation of Vancouver, it [Making Home] is the only way forward,” he said, to provide more homes for the middle class. This is Stewart’s second attempt to rally support for this plan, and it explains why he is taking a more guarded approach by beginning with a pilot. In 2020 Stewart stole the limelight from Cllr. Lisa Dominato during a meeting to build more “missing middle” housing for families, pushed his Making Home plan on Council members before they had time to consider the proposal. Council voted to sent Making Home back to staff for more work and information.In an election year, mayoral candidates are quick to take credit for plans that seek to solve the city’s most urgent issues, and in Vancouver no issue burns as hot as housing. But the idea behind Making Home is not Stewart’s alone. The plan draws on Portland, Oregon’s 2020 Residential Infill Project that allows up to four units on residential lots, and six units if three of them are affordable to low-income families. At the Jan. 19 meeting, Stewart offered some insights into how Vancouver’s version of Portland’s plan would work: New housing created could be rented out as strata units or sold outright; Cost of individual units would sell in the $800,000 to $1 million range; Some of the units could be made permanently affordable (see below); Up to six parking spaces would be provided on each lot, which Stewart said would not impact neighbors Would allow seniors to stay in their neighborhood longer with family living on the same lot. He acknowledged that adding more units to Vancouver properties, already priced among the highest in North America, would further inflate land value. But, the “beauty of Making Home,” he said, is that a portion of the funds generated by a land-value capture tax would be shared with the landowner and the City to create new affordable and permanent housing, infrastructure such as sewer systems, and public amenities including daycares, community centers, and schools. Once again, Stewart offered no data or specific details to support his idea. Attendees’ questions ranged from the potential loss of green space and how the plan would affect property taxes, to whether units could really be “permanently affordable.” Others worried that Making Home would lead to the loss of character housing. Stewart told listeners that Cllr. Adriane Carr shared similar concerns about the threat of character house demolition, and that she will be putting forth an amendment at Tuesday’s meeting to create protection for older homes. Kennedy said he supports Carr’s changes, but shared no details on what such a plan would involve. Like the last time he foisted Making Home on Council, Stewart’s plan raises more questions than answers. The council meeting begins Tuesday at 9:30 am, with Making Home the third item (B3) under Council Members’ Motions. CityHallWatch has provided an opinion on Making Home by retired architect and guest columnist, Brian Palmquist: https://cityhallwatch.wordpress.com/…/palmquist…/Share your thoughts about Making Home with Council:https://vancouver.ca/your-government/contact-council.aspxUKRA will send an update following Tuesday’s Council meeting. Regards from your UKRA directors https://upperkitsilano.ca
Month: January 2022
A Conversation with the Commercial Drive Business Society
Join the Grandview Woodland Area Council for
A Conversation with the
Commercial Drive Business Society
Monday, January 10th at 7:00PM
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86811310236?pwd=b29pS1F1Y1RqUUdEZGx6S2dScUVzUT09
Meeting ID: 868 1131 0236, Passcode: 503747
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kedXY1Ryou
From street festivals to neighbourhood safety, the CDBS uses their portion of the City’s tax budget to help shape Commercial Drive. Come hear about their plans during these challenging times and share your questions and feedback.
Continuing Concerns Regarding the Safeway Site Rezoning Application
VIA EMAIL
January 4, 2022
Attention: Mayor Stewart and Councillors,
In response to the latest revision of the 1780 East Broadway Rezoning Application, the Grandview Woodland Area Council would like to convey our continuing serious concerns related to the proposal.
Nothing has really changed in this “revision”. The public plaza is still no more than a widened sidewalk to serve as the entrance to Safeway, while the real neighborhood plaza is held behind locked gates for the exclusive use of luxury suites in their gated community – the first such gated community anywhere near Commercial Drive, it must be said. The small, narrow public “plaza” is the required compromise to facilitate a near doubling of the size of Safeway to a gigantic sprawling single-level, suburban-style grocery store footprint.
The revision still disregards the Grandview Woodland Community Plan that was carefully crafted by hundreds of community members who spent thousands of hours, working with the City, to create a vision for a dense transit-oriented community that has the potential to be both affordable and sustainable.
The intention of the Community Plan was that a larger number of mid-rise towers would meet the ground at a gracious public plaza connecting the residents to their new community. Instead, the application puts forward a gated community, where the public amenity envisioned by the Plan is locked away so that the affluent new residents need not interact with the poverty that has been created around them.
The revision continues to pose an existential threat to the treasured small businesses on the Drive and the historic residential affordability of the neighborhood, that the City claims to value.
This proposal fails the test of good city-making on so many levels and remains unacceptable to the community in its current form.
This proposal disregards the direction given by the Grandview Woodland Community Plan
Hundreds of community members spent thousands of hours, working with the City, to carefully craft a Plan for Grandview Woodland. Deep and sophisticated consideration was given to how to add significant density to the Commercial-Broadway Station Precinct in line with the need for Transit-Oriented Development.
Rather than relying on a few high-rise developments to provide density, the community planners opted to spread the density throughout the Precinct in a mid-rise form. This decision was based on the inherent lack of affordability of high-rise construction coupled with the unsustainable greenhouse gas emissions embedded in such projects. Mid-rise construction has a much higher potential for affordability and sustainability.
That said, higher built forms were contemplated for the Safeway site, with the intention of offering potential developers an incentive to create a neighborhood center for the newly densified community in the form of “a generous, centrally-located public plaza”.
The Community Plan calls for “a new large plaza as part of the redevelopment of the Safeway site”, “a generous, centrally-located public plaza”, “a central public plaza, with pedestrian paths connecting the plaza to adjacent streets, retail and transit facilities and other public spaces” and a redevelopment scheme that will “improve pedestrian path network connectivity”. The current proposal meets none of these expectations of the Community Plan.
The Community Plan calls for “new housing in buildings ranging from 12 to 24 stories”, a direction already well in excess of the twelve-story recommendation of the Citizens Assembly from which the plan was crafted. The Plan states that “perimeter heights will be generally 6 stories above the retail plinth” and that the “highest forms will be situated adjacent to the Grandview Cut”. Again, this proposal meets none of these expectations.
The Community Plan overtly praises and promotes extending the small-scale retail character of Commercial Drive, yet rather than extend that character east along Broadway, this application offers the blank lifeless wall of a suburban grocery store.
This proposal is an affront to the needs of the community with respect to a redeveloped Safeway site. Without substantial revision, this proposal must be rejected.
Grandview Woodland cannot accept a huge single-level grocery store in the redeveloped site
Despite the fact that the current Safeway is enormous when compared with anything in Grandview Woodland, this application proposes a near doubling of the size of the store and loading area. The application promotes a sprawling suburban grocery store while justifying the proposal as urban transit-oriented development.
The compromises required by such a sprawling single-level, suburban-style retail footprint are too harmful. The sprawling footprint destroys the public realm allowing no pedestrian connectivity through the site. On the contrary, the vehicle ramps servicing the parkade from Broadway compromise pedestrian and cycling safety and comfort in that area to a stunning and unacceptable degree.
The justification that this design is required because Safeway is unwilling to consider an urban grocery store footprint is manipulative nonsense given that the owner of this site is also the owner of Safeway.
The footprint narrows the proposed public plaza to little more than a widened sidewalk to service the grocery store, allowing no real greenspace or area for public gathering. Grandview Woodland gains nothing by this proposal with respect to an improved public realm while the community is asked to accept dramatic exceptions to the direction within the Community Plan.
In order to comply with the Grandview Woodland Community Plan, the applicants must resubmit their design for the large format grocery store to conform to an appropriately urban, multi-level character that enhances pedestrian connectivity throughout the site and an elegant public realm, rather than destroying it. Until this is done, the application must be rejected.
This proposal is a serious threat to affordability within the neighborhood
The project will lead to the destruction of historically affordable housing and treasured small businesses in the surrounding neighborhood and the displacement of our community members. While mid-rise development has the potential to be affordable and have a positive influence on housing availability in the area, the imposition of such a massive density bomb of luxury suites will put unsustainable land inflation and other pressures on the current affordable housing and commercial space in the adjacent blocks and that pressure will undermine affordability across a very broad area of the neighborhood for decades to come. This application must be resubmitted with a focus on mid-rise housing which will enhance affordability, not eliminate it.
___________________________________________________________________________________
GWAC c/o Britannia Community Centre, 1661 Napier Street, Vancouver, BC, V5L 4X4 E: info@gwac.ca W: http://www.gwac.ca
In summary, this proposal shows the inept and clumsy suburban character one would expect to see in Metrotown rather than the elegant public realm design that we are willing to welcome to Grandview Woodland. The proposal disrupts pedestrian and cycling connectivity, destroys nearby affordability, and offers no significant public amenities while diverging unacceptably from the Community Plan.
The proposal in its current form is not acceptable to the community and must be rejected. Regards,
Craig Ollenberger
President, Grandview Woodland Area Council
cc. Paul Mochrie, City Manager
Theresa O’Donnell, Director of Planning & General Manager of Planning, Urban Design & Sustainability Kent MacDougall, Rezoning Planner
Grandview-Woodland Area Council 