The city, trying to minimize the likelihood of any lawsuits from future residents who say that government had a duty to protect them from excessive noise, was looking at just having new condo owners sign agreements that spelled out they were moving into a noisy area. Apparently the law department was concerned that wasn’t going to be enough.

So now there are additional measures. The city is going to ask developers in the area to come up with different construction techniques to minimize noise. At this point, a “guideline,” not a requirement, but developers going to the development-permit board will have to explain what they’ve been able to do. As well, there is going to be an effort to work with event organizers to see what can be done about minimizing sound. Good luck there.

And what no one can do much about is the fact that BC Place will now have an openable roof that, yes, will be open for many events. Which means noise will travel even further.

Although Telus’s head office has been in Vancouver for many years, the perception has always been that its main centre of operations was the giant boot out on the border of Burnaby and Vancouver — a visible symbol for many of the way big companies had fled Vancouver for the suburbs.

If this Telus tower goes ahead, that perception will be turned around symbolically.

Between Telus, Oxford developing two properties in the CBD, a proposal from Austeville Properties to develop a 19-storey office building on the old Budget site on Georgia, the Aquilini office tower resurrected, and Bentall’s new tower on Thurlow, Vancouver is starting to feel like a healthy downtown.

(Now all the city needs is a project on the Bay parkade site, a decision on Larwill Park, and a decision on the Canada Post building and Georgia will really be cooking.)

Both the Vancouver Board of Trade and city planners, of course, see this as the good result of a policy to shut down any condo development in a wide area around the central business district.

I’d like to hear from my usual suspects on the economics of this. Is it really the condo ban? Or is it the shortage of office space, which according to Bob Levine from Avison Young is driving rents for Triple A space up to $40 a square foot and making office development financially viable?

As I note in my story, although the development is mostly condo, it also has 200,000 square feet of office space because the developers (Pattison, who owns part of the block, and Jon Stovell at Reliance, who owns another part) believe there’s a market for that these days.

That’s something commercial brokers have been noticing, too, with the result that there are many plans afoot for new office buildings in downtown Vancouver. A relief for those who fear that downtown Vancouver is turning into the bedroom community for people working in Burnaby, Richmond, Surrey office parks.

But for those following these issues closely

1. A revised Marine Gateway plan did get unanimous approval from the urban design panel. Still a long way to go though — public hearings, info meetings in September and development permit board still to come. And even though the panel approved it, some people made the kind of observations that make me glad I don’t have to sit in a room having my work reviewed. (Some comments: office tower still reminiscent of Fairview Slopes 1970s, main residential tower still tentative, not bold enough, cantilevered tower still feels oppressive, etc.)

The basics, though: the Busby firm did make some changes to the large residential tower to make it seem less bulky — it’s been narrowed in both its width and length and the number of steps increased from five to seven in this slant-stacked tower (think Lego blocks arranged to form a diagonal). That meant removing 90 of the 120 rental units that were going to be part of the STIR program.

That means, PCI head Andrew Grant told me when I asked, that the project will have to provide other community benefits since the density of the 450 market units was there to help pay the subsidy needed to build the rental units. There may be some dickering there yet, with staff trying to up the number of rental units and reduce the number of market units — or maybe not. There hasn’t been a warm reception from neighbourhoods to density for rental, so staff may opt to get a different kind of community benefit out of the project.

The pathway through the project has also been given a wide opening on Marine to make it more obvious that people should enter there. That means about 15,000 less square feet of retail space.

Otherwise, the project has the same unusual look and shape as the first version — definitely something new and different for Vancouver.

2. Next up were the plans for the casino/entertainment complex plus two hotels that will be built around BCPlace (with proceeds from the sale of the land to help pay for the roof). As several panel members noted, this is definitely going to bring a different look to Vancouver.

No tower and podium, no 1970s Fairview slopes. One hotel — meant to be the one for the younger, hipper people who only come to lose a single paycheque, as opposed to their house — is currently shown as looking kind of Daliesque — bent and curved and clad in recycled copper that frames each window in what looks like artfully rusted metal. (Excuse my non-architect descriptions.) The other hotel is more Marriott-like, glass, though with a V-dip in the top.

At the base between the hotels, where the casino is, the lower section has be angled roof planes and, if the model is to be believed, canopies of copper-coloured metal strings and other futuristic Las Vegas-like elements.

Architect James Cheng led off the panel discussion by saying, approvingly I think, that it will change Vancouver urbanism and Jane Durante described it as “eccentric” and something that’s “going to loosen some ideas of what’s acceptable.” Apparently it got about 6-4 support. (After three hours, I bailed.)

Finally, the 60 West Cordova project — Ian Gillespie’s no parking, no frills, no speculators building planned for the empty lot just east of Woodward’s — got a hearty okay, with some commenting that other downtown projects should also be approved without parking.

Now — waiting for any of these projects to actually get built. The city has had about one development permit board meeting in the last seven months because so few projects seem to make it to that stage.

April 19,2010

Martin Bruckner

IBI/HB Architects

700 – 1285 West Pender Street

Vancouver, BC    V6E 4B1

Dear Mr. Bruckner:

RE:  

         1600 Beach Avenue (Beach Towers)

       Thank you for your rezoning inquiry for the above property which we received February 23, 2010.  You inquired about rezoning the Beach Towers property from RM-5A to CD-1 under the Short Term Incentives for Rental (STIR) Program to permit construction of a fourth residential tower at the corner of Cardero and Harwood streets, and townhouses at grade along Beach Avenue with a café at the corner of Beach and Bidwell Street. 

This site was originally developed in the 1960s with three residential towers at 19 and 20 storeys, or 176 to 180 feet.  The existing density is 3.39 FSR which is legally non-conforming to the RM-5A maximum of 2.20 FSR.  You propose to retain the 447 rental units in the three existing towers and indicate that the tenants would not be displaced by the proposed construction.  The proposed fourth tower would add 165 rental units, plus another 25 rental units in the proposed townhouses.  Three options for the tower were shown in the inquiry ranging from 15 storeys to 22-storeys (199 feet).  Density would increase from 3.39 to 4.88 FSR in all three options.

STIR Program

Under the STIR Program, rezonings to higher density and/or height can be considered where new rental units are built and secured through a long-term housing agreement, provided existing tenants are not displaced by the development.  In considering such proposals, Planning staff review the policies, guidelines and regulations that apply to the site and its context.  In the approval of the STIR Program in June 2009, it was specifically noted that the program does not suggest that the City’s interest in achieving rental construction overrides prevailing policy or guidelines, or reasonable urban design considerations.

RM-5A Tower Separation Guideline

After reviewing the RM-5A Guidelines with regard to your submission, we note that your proposed tower does not meet the specifics or the general intent of the guideline for tower separation [4.3(a) on page 8].  This guideline calls for 400 feet (121.9 m) of spacing between towers that are within the same block-face and over 110 feet (33.6 m) in height. 

The intent of the separation guidelines is to maintain a diversity of building heights across the West End residential districts. High towers are to be located to create a skyline with an evident pattern and sited where they maintain or create view opportunities between existing buildings. The intention is to avoid filling gaps, creating a continuous wall of towers blocking views and resulting in a wall like appearance.  Due to the length of blocks in the West End, the 400-foot separation requirement effectively means that most block-faces can only have one tower over 110 feet in height. 
The guidelines do allow for consideration of less separation distance if heritage objectives are met or if a high tower form better serves urban design considerations and neighbourliness compared to an envelope building or lower tower allowable under the zoning.  In three of the five towers approved in the West End RM districts since the guidelines were adopted, decreases in the separation distance were allowed for such reasons (from 400 feet to 105, 160 and 185 feet).

Beach Tower Proposal

Your submission indicates 78 feet between the new tower and the existing tower to the west along the Harwood block-face.  The two existing Beach Towers in the Harwood block-face also do not meet the tower separation guideline, but of course they were built prior to the guidelines being adopted in 1989.  Nonetheless, given that the block-face already has two towers, and given the proximity of the third existing tower to the proposed fourth tower, the resulting ensemble does not meet the intent of the separation guidelines as stated above.  The view analysis you included with your inquiry focuses on the micro view impacts from immediate neighbours.  We feel that the view opportunities mentioned in the guidelines relate more to the macro experience of views toward English Bay from existing upland towers that are less immediate to the site.  We conclude It is difficult to argue that a wall like appearance would not result from the addition of a fourth tower. 

Also, in considering whether your fourth tower merits a decrease in the tower separation, we looked at what the STIR Program indicates.  The STIR Program does allow consideration of infill buildings on properties with existing rental housing, but the program’s report from June 2009 specifically states that STIR (and the City’s interest in rental housing) do not, by themselves, lend weight to requests for relaxation of building separation.  Such requests for relaxation continue to be guided by the zoning guidelines.  The report does suggest that building separation may be subject of longer-term comprehensive planning updates.  Council has since asked staff to report on the timing of a planning program for the West End, but it will be some time before it is known whether a review of the tower separation guidelines will be part of that work.

With respect to the infilling of the Beach Avenue frontage, as well as the Harwood Street frontage, with townhouses or other 2- to 3-storey form, we see considerable merit in pursuing this idea.  

In conclusion, we cannot support a fourth tower at 1600 Beach, as the 400-foot tower separation intent cannot be achieved on this site.  If you wish to consider a notably lower building form at the Harwood/Cardero corner that relates to the scale of neighbouring buildings at the intersection, then we would be pleased to review that in another inquiry submission. 

Yours truly,

 
Brent Toderian, MCIP

Director of Planning

tel:  604.873.7446
fax:  604.873.7045
brent.toderian@vancouver.ca

And that’s how city staff seem to feel too, as you’ll see if you carefully read this report where they decline to provide a would-be developer with six additional floors of density in order to preserve a “heritage” tulip tree in the West End.

But note that they would have been willing to give the six extra floors in exchange for the tree except for one glitch — the owner of the neighbouring property, where half the tree’s root bulb exists, declined to provide a guarantee to protect the tree. So staff, feeling that there were no guarantees that the tree would stay and the community could end up with a taller tower in exchange for nothing, declined to go for this deal.

An eye-opener for me. I had no idea the city traded density for trees. This ought to get people in the West End, currently in an uproar about trading density for permanent market rental apartments, into even more of a tizzy.

Or maybe not. Maybe they’ll see that as a good deal, in a way that density-for-rentals isn’t, and totally wrong. After all, blogs are made by fools like me.

Please excuse the paucity of posts on other issues. I’ve been off this week for personal reasons. Feel free to take the threads where you want in order to keep up with current events.

Given all that, thought I’d share two letters I’ve received about what’s going on down there. One from former head city planner Larry Beasley, specifically advocating for the new park design, and one from nearby resident Fern Jeffries.

Here’s Fern

Your Worship and Council:

But it’s going to get more public attention in the future, I guarantee. This is an area as big as Coal Harbour, a future home to possibly 7,000 people, and right in the middle of the city. What happens here — or doesn’t — will have impacts beyond the immediate neighbourhood.

Here’s my first crack at it in the Globe — 700 words is nowhere near enough to cover all the issues (more like stuffing an octopus into a thimble, I like to say), but it hits the highlights. As I’ve said in previous posts, you can read the full reports on the city’s website (they have a whole section dedicated to NEFC).

It’s been an article of faith among people committed to building sustainable cities that density should especially be built in around SkyTrain stations. (Watch out Cambie people, it’s coming to your neighbourhood someday.)

PCI is offering the city a challenging choice — should it allow this project, which is exactly the kind of density that should go in around these stations, or should it turn the project down because it is partly residential density that PCI wants to put on industrial land.

My friend Jeff Lee over at the Sun wrote about this as well on his blog, emphasizing the drive to save industrial land. But, I have to say, the sense I get from city hall is that there’s a lot of interest in encouraging dense developments next to all the stations along the Canada Line.

We await the next chapter