69 responses so far ↓

• 1 Brenton // Jan 21, 2010 at 11:12 am

  I’ve received the flyers from the group opposed to the proposed development, and I’m not sure how to interpret it. Some of their concerns I dismiss out of hand (a tall building will wreck the neighbourhood?), but some are valid and need to be addressed. It does smell of NIMBYism, though. We need social housing, we need rehab services, we need halfway houses, etc, and we can’t stick them all downtown.

• 2 Dan Cooper // Jan 21, 2010 at 11:16 am

  “..a tendency among the explainers (city planners, architects, housing groups) to take on a tone of ‘but you just don’t realize the facts and I’m now going to explain them to you.’ Very annoying,”

  Not as annoying as what seems to be the default response now from politicians (personally I call it The Kerry Jang approach, but it’s used by others too), which is to simply simply say, “Anyone who opposes this is an idiot.”

• 3 Urbanismo // Jan 21, 2010 at 11:51 am

  High rises work in certain circumstances:

  I do not know how Mount Pleasant shakes out! But . . .

  Four good design characteristics:

  1. Small foot-print.

  2. Height: as floors rise, I believe over 12 +/-stories, and within reason, allow incremental cost per unit to diminish.

  3. Contained volume to exterior exposed surface is more than equitalble, see:

  http://www.theyorkshirelad.ca/New.Nanaimo.Center/pudpn/Comparisons.pdf

  Heat rises and feed upper floors.

  4. Views: at least until the neighbours crowd in.

  If due care is given to siting, articulating the foot-print to define public space at ground level, high rises may be livable. Street level amenity is so important.

  The recent, and current, condo frenzy in Vancouver, obsesses over view, crowds amenity at street level and almost always details interiors for luxury living.

  I would suggest for instance, no Moen faucets at least, and allow for street level amenity.

  Does that make for good sense?

• 4 Urbanismo // Jan 21, 2010 at 11:54 am

  PS Not an after thought . . .

  And pay attention to the neighbours . . .

• 5 Bill Lee // Jan 21, 2010 at 11:54 am

  11 storeys in the Courier headline, 10 in your account. which?

  Ooh, the shadows that is going to create. In the new solar age is there a right to direct sunlight 8 hours a day?

  The address isn’t given, but I’m assuming north side of Broadway in the same site. So that site can’t be used for the next 2 years while they build.

  Why not the Glenayre Building that Vanoc is now leaving? They claim several hundred worked in there, so cubicles would fit several hundred of the homeless? (and what are the condo developments going to be with the former police station and the ex-remand centre across the street?)

  Can’t the city buy more land for a larger 3 storey building? If we allow suites-within-suites and other 12 metre squared rooms we can fit a lot into the places.
  What shelters now are 11 storeys high? Streetviewing DTES doesn’t find any except ex-hotels. New buildings aren’t that high.

• 6 MD // Jan 21, 2010 at 1:20 pm

  Bill Lee wrote:
  Why not the Glenayre Building that Vanoc is now leaving?

  According to the Georgia Straight the VPD are moving out of the DTES and placing their offices in almost-Burnaby.
  http://www.straight.com/article-281170/vancouver/vancouver-police-close-main-street-headquarters-take-over-vanoc-building
  It will not be housing.

• 7 Stephanie // Jan 21, 2010 at 5:28 pm

  Indeed – it appears that the Olympics “housing legacy” will accrue only to the VPD. I could vomit, really.

• 8 Stephanie // Jan 21, 2010 at 5:31 pm

  But back on topic – Frances, thanks for this piece. It’s so frustrating that we don’t have reasonable community dialogues about these things. A good deal of the problem is that important questions about what works and what doesn’t work in social housing have been co-opted by sleazy NIMBY-types (like the niaby.com people) as cover for an anti-social-housing agenda. People who support the building of social housing end up in a defensive stance. Nobody wins.

• 9 gasp // Jan 21, 2010 at 8:52 pm

  Frances, I’m so glad this is happening in your neighbourhood because you are experiencing first hand the condescending approach used by the City when it’s dealing with the public concerning redevelopment issues.

  What you have apparently not yet discerned is that the “explainers” have already determined exactly what kind of development is going to be foisted on your neighbourhood – including how many storeys and how much density. They just haven’t told the public yet.

  Furthermore, they are backed up by a City Council that tells them exactly what to do, and then feigns ignorance when the matter comes before Council, so that the Councillors can then pretend they are impartial.

  The public is not being “consulted” but instead is being manipulated to come up with exactly the kind of development that the planners, Councillors and developers have already agreed upon.

  In effect, you and your neighbours are only there for “window dressing”, so that the City can say they’ve had a “public consultation”. Don’t be surprised if residents in your neighbourhood are ALL attacked as NIMBY’s (or worse) because they raise issues that neither the planners nor City Council wants to address. It is the usual defence of cowards like them to attack the messenger so they don’t have to listen to the public or deal with the real problems that they are causing to this City because of their foolhardy belief that they and they alone know what’s best for each and every part of this City.

  I hope that when you complete this exercise in futility you will have a much better understanding of why there has been so much opposition to redevelopment proposals in all the neighbourhoods throughout this City.

• 10 dazzle me // Jan 21, 2010 at 9:41 pm

  think about it, it’s on broadway at the corner of fraser street. it’s barely in any neighborhood at all. aside from putting it in the dtes, off of clark or north of hasting, where could this be less obtrusively built?

  as for the height, broadway has to get denser and that stretch is almost comically low. only an intersection of vacant lots could be lower. let’s have something useful go up in there.

• 11 mary // Jan 21, 2010 at 9:45 pm

  Lots of valid points made, but one more deserves mentioning: every year the City consults/polls on priorities for the budget. For the past at least 5 or 6 years, the top priority, by far, has been doing something about homelessness. You can’t “do something about homelessness” without housing people in neighbourhoods. Doing that efficiently – meaning at the least possible cost – means doing it in higher density situations.

• 12 Chris Keam // Jan 21, 2010 at 10:04 pm

  “think about it, it’s on broadway at the corner of fraser street. it’s barely in any neighborhood at all.”

  It’s actually a great neighbourhood, aptly-named as Mt. Pleasant, with excellent transit connections, lots of small locally-owned businesses, and friendly residents. We recently got our very own #99 bus stop! (at Fraser and Broadway). By bicycle, downtown is about 20 minutes away, Jericho Beach – about an hour. We don’t have to deal with fireworks crowds, hockey crowds, PNE crowds, and not having any Olympic venues in the hood is probably going to be a blessing.

  I hope this social housing project is a big success, both for those who will be living there, and because I’d hate to see the neighbourhood divided over it.

• 13 Chris Keam // Jan 21, 2010 at 10:06 pm

  Actually Jericho is about a half-hour to 45 min. I just realized I didn’t include the fact the one hour trip is with a trail-a-bike and child in tow.

• 14 Richard // Jan 21, 2010 at 11:18 pm

  Sure, I expect some of the people involved in the project could do a better job of explaining it but that is a poor reason to oppose a badly needed facility.

  There is a lot we need to do in this city and the world. Every time people put up a big fight, that uses a lot of their energy and makes the city devote more resources to the project. That means either something else does not get done or higher taxes. Before deciding to oppose something, people really need to take a bit of a step back and really put it into context. Sure, who knows, there is some chance that the project might not work out so well, but I expect that chance is pretty small.

• 15 Joseph Jones // Jan 21, 2010 at 11:43 pm

  Way to go, gasp. You said it all. Attacking the messenger is also called ad hominem.

• 16 dave // Jan 22, 2010 at 12:48 am

  As another resident of the v5t ‘hood, my only concern is that Mount Pleasant doesn’t end up with a disproportionate share of the social housing and services.

  But, I like this individual proposal. As mary says, we taxpayers will get the most bang for our social housing buck by building up, and that location screams out for much higher density.

• 17 IanS // Jan 22, 2010 at 8:31 am

  I don’t live in the area and can’t comment on the specific facility, but my own experiences with the so called “public consultation” are similar to those described by “gasp” and alluded to in Frances’ article. In the couple of times I’ve been involved, the presenters were very condescending and it was apparent that the decisions were made long before.

• 18 John A // Jan 22, 2010 at 9:52 am

  Well having lived around Mount Pleasant for over 20 years I’m not sure this project would be good for the neighbourhood. Maybe something on a smaller scale would be a better fit.

  Broadway and Fraser has always seemed like a marginalized area to me. In the early nineties there were teenage prostitutes working the streets and only ten years ago the corner was plagued by drug dealing from the corner stores that were open 24 hrs a day. In the last few years its seems like the corner is finally coming around.

  There’s also a sizeable social housing project going in at Main Street and East First. So how much can the neighbourhood absorb without problems arising? From what it sounds like the City already has it’s mind made up.

• 19 Frances Bula // Jan 22, 2010 at 9:53 am

  Some of the comments here are discouraging. Several people here take the approach that anyone who expresses unhappiness with any aspect of the project as presented by architects/planners/housing group is “opposed” and “against doing something about homelessness.”

  Can we not evolve to something beyond the seven-year-old level? Just because some people say “we’d like the shape of the building to change” or “does it really have to be 100 people with serious problems in one building, couldn’t it be two?,” that doesn’t mean they’re opposed. What is the point of a dialogue if no one is allowed to express any kind of wish for something different?

  This is the kind of thing that drove people crazy about the “consultations” over the Gateway project. There appeared to be no real consultation, except maybe over the colour of the lane stripes. Everything else had been decided.

  Similarly here, I can see why people in the neighbourhood feel frustrated and shut out — it appears, when you go to the presentation, that all the decisions were made long ago among a small group of people and the consultation simply consists of explaining to the neighbourhood why every last detail has to stay just as it is. How is that a conversation?

• 20 Winston // Jan 22, 2010 at 9:59 am

  The urgency of the homeless situation requires us all to be flexible and accommodating. If there are disproportionate numbers of shelters in our community, we should be proud that we are less guilty of the NIMBYism that prevails in the west side. To argue “they should have more shelters on the west side” is not to say we shouldn’t also have more in Mount Pleasant.

  Also, I understand part of the opposition to be to the added density: approximately 375 residents. Perhaps people should have made more fuss about the 12,000 new people expected to populate SE False Creek. A few hundred people is a negligible increase.

• 21 Neil Monckton // Jan 22, 2010 at 11:01 am

  Thanks for writing your last comment, Frances.

  This problem is widespread in the land of public consultation or what Think City likes to call citizen engagement.

  As your fellow urban scribe Allen Garr wrote in his Jan. 1 column “public consultation became roadkill” in 2009 under the Vision council. Except, this is not just about the current leadership at 12th and Cambie.

  The disregard for legitimate public involvement comes from a much deeper place that is rooted in a culture of control and entitlement. Those in power (bureaucrats, politicians of all party stripes, developers, etc.) are used to minimizing public involvement as part of a father-knows-best approach, failing to realize and harness the great potential that exists in citizens for embracing and contributing to bold new policies that will help transform Vancouver into a more liveable, prosperous and equitable city.

  Until local government stops treating citizens as obstacles to change, the same old experience will be played out again and again. That`s why Think City is pushing for greater public involvement in all aspects of city life.

  You can read about how Mayor Robertson could take a page from Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay`s three-term mandate and revolutionize citizen involvement here http://www.thinkcity.ca/node/161.

  Plus, you may want to read our just-published review of the Vision council`s 2009 record on public involvement here http://www.thinkcity.ca/node/211.

  At Think City, we are still hoping for the best from this council, but time is running out.

• 22 Gassy Jack's Ghost // Jan 22, 2010 at 11:39 am

  “but you just don’t realize the facts and I’m now going to explain them to you.”

  For those also involved in the MP Outdoor Pool “consultations”, this will sure sound familiar. Rather than the bureaucrats trying to find creative solutions that met the community’s expressed needs, they only seemed to search for reasons why it Could Not be done. Not exactly the brightest tack to take by a cash-strapped government facing a community willing to fundraise. The city could have a got a great public facility (and a more Liveable City) for a fraction of the true cost! Duh.

  And, like in this case, in the case of the MPCC, the original consultations a decade back agreed on the new MPCC on Kingsway being a small satellite of the old centre, which was to stay open and still be the main centre. The community agreed to one proposal, but quite another thing emerged over time, the result being that the new centre eclipsed a close-knit local centre and the public pool is now closed, too. The city moved the goalposts, not a little, but a lot. And their explanation for this was truly condescending.

  It seems the City planners have learned much from their dealings with their brethren in the development community: In Vancouver, the real negotiating over amenities occurs AFTER an agreement is reached.

  As Frances notes, I’m not debating the merits of this particular project (and generally applaud the effort to add new housing), but rather the handling of these community consultations by the city, so Stephanie, there’s no need to hurl! But perhaps all community groups should be ON GUARD. That consensus you reached after putting in all that volunteer time and energy doesn’t hold much water with bureaucrats who have their own agenda.

• 23 landlord // Jan 22, 2010 at 12:02 pm

  The bureaucrats take direction from Council. Members of Council have been chosen by the electorate to represent their views and make decisions using their best judgement after considering all possible courses of action. If, once they are elected, members of Council simply follow the wishes of those who financed their campaigns and ignore the wishes of the electorate, they risk being turfed out in the next election.
  People who set their hair on fire over development and developers are not seeing the whole picture. Developers built the houses you live in. Your elected representatives set the zoning requirements for the neighbourhoods you moved into. Your car means roads and parking take priority over transit and pretty much everything else.
  We live in a democracy and that means majority rule. In this town minority views get plenty of attention but, in the end it comes down to the greatest good for the greatest number.

• 24 Ian Mass // Jan 22, 2010 at 12:45 pm

  I am the Executive Director of the agency (Pacific Community Resources) that operates the existing (11 years) Broadway Youth Resources Centre at the Fraser and Broadway site. The community consulation process has been going on for sometime and although I am not familar with all the City meetings I have been at 2 where residents with questions and concerns have been present. As a veteran of many public processes on both the pro and con side one thing has always been true, if someone disagrees with you, tell them that they are not listening. Francis, I was clear with the people at the public meeting, I heard them, responded to their issues and at the end if I disagreed I said it.

  I wrote the following letter to the editor responding to the Vancouver Courier article.

  The Fraser and East Broadway youth centre and social housing development is facing some tough questions about size, safety and an overconcentration of people with social problems.

  Mount Pleasant has sheltered the homeless and poor for decades, under cardboard and awnings or in run down but affordable basement suites and rooms. Most of these residents were glad to be in a welcoming neighbourhood, and not in the more dangerous Downtown Eastside.

  During the last decade, the neighbourhood has seen an influx of families bringing with them positive changes; diversifying the neighbourhood, populating the schools and revitalizing the older but sturdy housing. There have also been challenges, since nothing is every 100%; rising housing prices and expensive renovations made previously affordable suites and rooms now unaffordable. Some poor long term residents began to be pushed out and some Mount Pleasant youth who grew up in poverty became homeless and are now couch surfing or giving sex away for a place to sleep.

  This development will provide a place for them. Homeless people are looking for the same thing as everyone else – a safe place to call home and community to feel proud of. This project has been years in development and much thought, research and work has gone into it. Our job is to work with all residents to create community, increase well being, and promote safety. We can make 11 stories work. We have an eleven year history at Broadway and Fraser and a 25 year track record of helping communities develop and flourish.

  A diversified densification of use and a set of amenities (transit, recreation, schools..) is needed all along Broadway and throughout Vancouver. It will make the infrastructure investments economical. That kind of densification will attract the businesses and enterprises to truly renew Mount Pleasant.

• 25 Bill Lee // Jan 22, 2010 at 2:41 pm

  @Chris Keam. Thanks for the clarification. I was thinking that you only had 40 pounds (psi) of air in your tyres to go to Jericho that slowly.
  And it’s mainly downhill so you don’t need to pedal all the time, all the way.
  –
  As the Fraser and Broadway corner:
  Bird’s Eye view in Microsoft’s Bing Map view
  The Bird’s eye Slanted view from south, with recent pictures. A bit better than the Aerial View.

  http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?q=675+east+broadway%2c+vancouver%2cbc.&mkt=en-CA&FORM=BYFD

  You can see the heights and location of most buildings in the view above.
  If you click on “Explore user-contributed places” you get various annotated local locations.

  http://www.google.ca/maps?
  f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=675+east+broadway,+vancouver,bc&sll=49.891235,-
  97.15369&sspn=28.297189,56.337891&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=675+E+Broadway,+Vancouver,+Greater+Vancouver+Regional+District,+British+Columbia&z=16&layer=c&cbll=49.262484,-
  123.089866&panoid=c0TnC5-Fv5mH1lQTJFQsGQ&cbp=12,18.63,,0,5

  Shorter http://preview.tinyurl.com/ycklb4p

  is the Google StreetView. Surprisingly they didn’t do the lanes in this area but you can wander around the side streets and see the lack of 11 storey buildings.

• 26 Bill Lee // Jan 22, 2010 at 2:44 pm

  Shorter http://preview.tinyurl.com/ycklb4p

  is the google streetview. Surprisingly they didn’t do the lanes in this area but you can wander around the side streets and see the lack of 11 storey buildings.

  Or compare to the streetview of

  Shorter http://preview.tinyurl.com/y9m3kfo

  Professor Bula will be your guide.

  The City’s site about this
  http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/housing/reservedsites/owned/675-691EBroadway.htm

• 27 Bill Lee // Jan 22, 2010 at 2:50 pm

  The current shelter
  http://www.raincityhousing.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/raincity-housing-
  letter-re-east-broadway-shelter.pdf ( 2 pages)

  Someone wanted V5T postal Forward Sortation Area (see the tabs of Layer 1 and Identity
  icon selection. Population 20859, 12075 private dwellings.

  shorter http://preview.tinyurl.com/ycgqc3o for the FSA shape

  For social data of the region (maybe you want 4 tracts to cover the corner).
  Shorter view http://preview.tinyurl.com/ya87d5z

  These two are north of Broadway, more apartments than south of Broadway
  9330050.08 is the Census tract west of Fraser 4536 individuals in 2999 dwellings
  9330050.04 is the census tract east of Fraser 3443 in 2051 dwellings

  The Tab “Additional Data” gives you social data. It is rough, grouped, and ending in Zero and Five which should tell you something. Other columns are comparison to the Vancouver CMA (Census Metropolitain Area) compares to
  GVRD not to the City of Vancouver, and the Province.
  Save as a CSV or Tab file, add more columns as you need to compare or consolidate other Census tract areas. You can’t directly compare (try a new browser Window) Census Tracts, but put them in a spreadsheet (watch out for the long set of footnotes) and you can make your own comparison.
  As displayed on the browser in a table with long columns, there are graph icons for bar graphs of the range of data.
  Census Tract is the only on-line source of recent social detail. Other geographical areas only give head and dwelling counts. What you want is the narrower, smaller
  Dissemination Areas, and Census Section of StatCan will provide them, ‘anonymized’,
  for a fee. The City has done social data for the larger community boundaries they use.

• 28 IanS // Jan 22, 2010 at 2:55 pm

  Re this:

  “Similarly here, I can see why people in the neighbourhood feel frustrated and shut out — it appears, when you go to the presentation, that all the decisions were made long ago among a small group of people and the consultation simply consists of explaining to the neighbourhood why every last detail has to stay just as it is. How is that a conversation?”

  After the project is completed, it might be an interesting follow up article to see if any changes were made as a result of any input given during the “public consultation”.

• 29 owl // Jan 22, 2010 at 3:42 pm

  Good necessary article with some thoughtful comments but a lot of needless bilious defensive assumptions in the feedback. Like jumping to the conclusion that anybody who wants to modify this project height or density is against the BYRC, or that all who don’t like it are associated with NAIBY which is false, or that it is NIMBYism which is also false, or against housing the homeless which would be stupid. The only solution to all this debate, is for everyone concerned to attend the next Community Planning Liason Group meeting to help to finalize the Draft Community Plan for Mount Pleasant completing two and a half years of consultation, meetings, facilitations, neighbourhood walks, shopping, housing, park, transportation, social input workshops. If you haven’t been to any of these meetings, then fly on over & be part of the solution, If enough people look at that plan as it is so far this is what should guide the debate if there is one. This location has been a major part of the plan, but nobody I ever remember that has contributed advocated this tower or this type of solution although there was nobody against a project for hard to house people. Let us look at the draft plan which supposed to be what guides these decisions. A meeting is tentative for Jan. 28 and they are usually held at the Native Education Center go to the mount pleasant website & get the finalized date & place & be there or go back under your rock. hoot toot

• 30 OB1 // Jan 22, 2010 at 11:23 pm

  Frances, great article. I too was at the open house and was disgusted at the lack of open dialogue. The proponents were well rehearsed at deflecting questions and using stock responses.

  ‘Again, the explainers kindly informed me that this is a form that’s much preferred in Vancouver so that people’s views can be preserved (really? you’re kidding me) and that as Broadway develops, everything will rise to that kind of height.’

  Yes, I chuckled when the architects suggested that if they went ‘short and fat’ with the building they would block more views than a tall and skinny building. My response… who’s views? The south side of Broadway is currently home to two/three story buildings. None of which have views due to the two/three story buildings currently residing on the north side of Broadway. Perhaps they’re protecting future views for developers? The architects said that it was inevitable that condo towers will be built along that stretch of Broadway. Interesting since the community planning sessions have consistently heard from the neighbourhood stating that they wanted density to increase with 4-6 story buildings.

  As for the tenants of the building… when I asked to see the research that shows housing high numbers of core need adults is safe (for all the tenants and the neighbourhood) I was told there was plenty of research… but it was not brought to the open house. Once again, we are asked to just take the word of the proponents. Why would they host an open house and not bring the research to support their claims that this is safe for everyone involved?

  @Sian. I have yet to hear of one person who is opposed to the the Broadway Youth Centre. My worry is that the core need adults (who may or may not be in drug treatment programs) will be housed alongside youth at risk. Is in not fair to be concerned that dealers will follow their customers and find new ones next door who are that much more impressionable. Frankly, I believe it would be safer to have these kids in social housing where they are surrounded by families. Families that can welcome them and give them hope for something better than what they currently have.

  @Bill Lee. No, we’re not entitled to sunlight 8 hours a day, but are we not entitled to some? The building right behind it will get none and the building on the north side of 8th Avenue will not see any sunlight in the winter months with the proposed 11 story building (when needed most). The park at 8th & Fraser will also lose most of its sunlight… if you’re not concerned with sunlight on private property… can you at least see the communities concern with losing it in the park as well?

  @Dazzel Me. Clearly you have not spent time in East Mount Pleasant. As someone who has lived a block away from this corner for 5 years I can assure you that this is in fact a neighbourhood. Unfortunately this city owned land has been left to rot for the past few years. The lot in question had businesses for years until the city refused to re-sign leases for the tenants (not even month to month rentals). I can only suspect that this dead zone was very much the city’s plan to make you believe that this wasn’t a neighbourhood.

  It’s unfortunate when community members voice legitimate concerns they are automatically dismissed with NIMBY’ism accusations. I spent an evening at the open house to get answers and left with only more questions. I will give kudos to one of the proponents who I did meet. Dave Eddy, Executive Director of the Vancouver Native Housing Society was the only person who did not speak to my concerns in a patronizing way. He listened and gave me his point of view. While we disagreed on a few issues we were at least able to have dialogue with each other. It was far more informative than the bullet points thrown at me by city staff, the architects, and BC Housing.

  I support Social and Supportive Housing. I support the Broadway Youth Resource Centre and I will support a scaled back version of the proposed project.

• 31 Chris // Jan 23, 2010 at 9:49 am

  I live in the area (only a few blocks away in fact) and fully support the project. More supportive housing outside of the DTES is great idea.

  And I’m sorry, but the majority of opposition is just nimbyism. If this was a condo project, there wouldn’t be any griping about the size of the building or its location. Did I get a say in the District or Social condos being built nearby? Nope.

  The problem with community consultation is that it is designed to assuage the biggest whiners. Since I support the project, why would I attend? I’ve gone to a few of these meetings in the past – it was boring, there were a lot crackpot comments and whiny complaints, and I was the only person under 30.

• 32 Westender // Jan 23, 2010 at 10:22 am

  I think “gasp” summarized well the city’s “consultation” process. Something is broken, and there doesn’t seem to be much will to change it soon. I’m interested to see that the residents of Mount Pleasant have at the very least a community plan process underway – this is not a courtesy that has been offered in the West End. Instead, the current thinking from City Hall appears to be to rely on the development industry to plan future change – a recipe highly unlikely to result in a quality future. It is my hope that the proponents and the affected citizens of the Broadway and Fraser social housing project can find some “middle ground” that works – but based on recent experience, I wouldn’t count on the city to play the needed role in facilitating discussions.

• 33 Ed Henderson // Jan 23, 2010 at 1:06 pm

  I’d like to quote a most forward thinking ex-mayor from a recently published book (which should be required reading at City Hall):

  “We know what happens when we put poor people in a tower. It just increases ghettoization and violence. It increases all the bad things in society” (p262)

  “As soon as you ghettoize poor people, then there is no social interaction, no drive to move up in life” (p254)

  Two Larry Campbell quotes from A THOUSAND DREAMS, Larry Campbell, Neil Boyd and Lori Culbert
  Published 2009 by Greystone Books

  Many people commenting here think that those who express any opposition to the plans at Fraser Broadway are opposed to social housing – at least in my and my neighbours case that is a false statement. We would simply like the city to learn from it’s successes (all around Granville Island) and learn from the studies the city, and many other cities, have commissioned.

  If we were to learn from these things we would understand that in the long term it is wise to have the most vulnerable in our society living well blended into our communities and not crammed into a tower.

  Our City planner Rob Whitlock admitted to me, at the meeting on Jan 20, 2010, that he would prefer social housing in small pods spread out. He knows such an approach creates success for the residents and the neighbourhood and we know it too. History proves this point again and again.

  The choice to build to a gargantuan scale is politically motivated and not in the best interests of all.

  We must be humane – we have been failing to be humane by letting our fellow citizens live on the streets. Supportive housing has to be created in a way that encourages and supports. A 12 story tower of our poorest and most vulnerable citizens in a neighbourhood of 2 and 3 story buildings is simply blinkered idiocy. It is the worst kind of opportunism: solve this problem here’s the money, do it now, ignore the past and don’t listen to the people – just get it done!

  Another thing – we have a suite in our basement and we once had a tenant who was receiving ministry of health support. He was a great fellow who had special needs and we loved having him here and would happily have him again. We are not NIMBY’s.

  We want humane interaction with our neighbours and fellow citizens and we don’t want to create any more ghettos.

  My humble thoughts – Ed

• 34 Jimbo // Jan 23, 2010 at 1:16 pm

  “This is the first of the social housing projects coming to ground outside the Downtown Eastside, so it will be interesting to see how this conversation evolves.”

  What about 1321 Richards St that is already completed and functioning? This Yaletown/Downtown South address is certainly outside of the Downtown Eastside. Therefore, I don’t see how your quote makes sense.

• 35 False Creep // Jan 23, 2010 at 2:14 pm

  I live in V5T and would support the project if it came with a plan to add similar buildings along Broadway with market rate housing. As planned, the shelter would become the defining element of that stretch of B-way. I think it should be absorbed into a influx of new people. Businesses don’t do well along there, and I don’t see many people on the sidewalks after 7PM. Mix them in and it will be a better place to live.

• 36 Lewis N. Villegas // Jan 24, 2010 at 10:51 am

  I’ve been in the neighbourhood since 1988.

  Nothing, nothing in my experience suggests 10 or 12 stories is the right building form. Tower is not right type for this stretch of Broadway. And, Tower is not right type for this kind of housing.

  Housing that is community shaping, housing that will be neighborhood-building not neighbourhood-destroying, is high-density, human-scale, and 3.5 stories high on average.

  Let’s have consensus on one point:

  We don’t need to build high-buildings in order to achieve high-density.

  We can achieve high-density with low-buildings. When we do, the advantages result in:

  (a) unit design and layout quality, and
  (b) neighbourhood urban quality.

  It is a matter of valuing the little things. Like the possibility of having units that face in two directions (dual aspect), so that you can live in the rooms on the side opposite Broadway during rush hour when traffic noise and everything else makes fronting windows, balconies, or yards uninhabitable. Like doors-on-the-street that precipitate unpredictable comings and goings, that just as unexpectedly contribute in an almost invisible way to self-policing of the street, and create the sense of security in the public space because there is a feeling that “eyes” are upon you—even if no one is in view. Like front door yards, rear yards, and roof terraces, where some may take up gardening, receiving all the personal benefits that brings to some. Like the ability to paint the exterior of your house, or the front door, a different color. Or meeting your neighbours while you are out in your front door yard trying to get some gardening done, but can’t because everyone and their dog is seeming to stop by to offer a greeting, or unwanted advice.

  To Executive Director Ian Mass,

  Continue doing the fine work you are doing. However, draw plans to operate facilities that are no more than 3.5 stories in height. There are a plethora of reasons in architecture and urban design that shape this limit, and I would be happy to meet with you and your organization to help you understand these issues in detail.

  To Ed Henderson,

  Thank you for a very, very important quote:

  “We know what happens when we put poor people in a tower. It just increases ghettoization and violence. It increases all the bad things in society”

  A THOUSAND DREAMS, Larry Campbell, Neil Boyd and Lori Culbert, Published 2009 by Greystone Books (p262).

  The Mayor has it right. There is a hard-wired connection between building type and the quality of life that is supported. Furthermore, there is a hard-wired connection between building type and the kind of neighbourhood or street-life that results.

  To the “Explainers”

  “…as Broadway develops, everything will rise to that kind of height”…

  Planning without urban design is now building problems everywhere I look in our city. Planning the re-design of fronting buildings without planning the re-design of the street being fronted is an example of the kind of mistakes planners are making today.

  To Frances,

  You are approaching fertile territory for understanding this project when you make reference to the Gateway fiasco.

  The “tower solution” I believe is being mandated by Minister of Housing and Social Development Rich Coleman. I was astonished to hear Mr. Coleman interviewed on CKNW—on a Sunday, I believe, some time ago and before being named Housing Minister—quoting chapter and verse on the harm-reduction, community-based approach to dealing with homelessness and the often associated problems of mental illness and addiction.

  Then, sometime later, and to my great disappointment, I heard him speaking about building towers to house the homeless.

  If I have it right, the real story here is that city staff have been given no choice in the matter of what “TYPE” of building to erect. I am assuming they were told to put up a tower.

  (Please keep in mind that I am not the reporter, here, and this assumption is based on my recollections of statements by Mr. Coleman).

  To everyone else,

  The problem for our community is that we would have to educate ourselves, the Minister of Housing, the service provider organization, and City Hall, about a very difficult issue.

  Namely, that the choice of “building type”, as Mayor Larry Campbell correctly ascertains, is fundamental for the success of the social purpose guiding the project in the first instance.

  Furthermore, that the choice of “building type” is fundamental to what kind of neighbourhood we’re going to get.

  On both counts, the tower type represents the wrong choice.

• 37 mary // Jan 24, 2010 at 12:59 pm

  I think a it more perspective is needed: Gateway was/is a fiasco. this is nowhere near the scale of project, never mind that it’s also a completely different purpose. I am sure that the design could be improved, and yes, smaller projects scattered about the City would be better for all. But it isn’t the policticians alone who are driving us to these dense projects (mid-rise tower form or 4 storey massing). People of all political persuasion just seem unwilling to consider an alternative that costs more. We have the government we deserve/vote in. Public consultaton processes could also be vastly improved and I have criticized them here on Frances’ blog.

• 38 Stephanie // Jan 24, 2010 at 6:20 pm

  I think part of the problem here is that people aren’t distinguishing between social/subsidised housing generally and supportive housing as a type of social housing. From what I have read, subsidised housing generally has a neutral or positive impact on surrounding neighbourhoods and towers can, in fact, work. A large building with subsidised housing doesn’t automatically “create a ghetto”. People tend to believe this because of failures in American housing – but those failures had very much to do with the government starving those developments of funds for maintenance and repairs and allowing conditions to deteriorate terribly. (It always irritates me when people who advocate variations on the whole broken windows theory don’t understand that this means you also have to fix the broken windows in public housing.)

  The idea that a building housing a large number of poor people cannot work is, in my understanding, a fallacy. I do agree with Lewis that it is not the best form, but I’m not entirely convinced that it is a form that is doomed to fail.

  I mean, my co-op has two buildings that are each about 100 units. Of those units, eighty percent are subsidized, and 60 percent are deeply subsidized. This has not created a ghetto. It does not create violence. And the idea that this is the case because the 20 percent of our residents who pay market somehow exert a “civilizing” effect on the remaining 80 percent of our members is absurdly paternalistic.

  But supportive housing, as I understand it, is a little different. Larger supportive housing developments tend to be a problem because they attract people who victimize the residents. Everything that I have read about supportive housing indicates that smaller-form developments – about 40 units or fewer – can work well, but that larger developments do not.

  The city nonetheless continues to focus on large-scale developments. As I see it, we are engaged in a process of community-based re-institutionalization. It’s unfortunate.

  @Chris – one last comment about NIMBYism: if I lived a couple of blocks away from Broadway and Fraser and someone wanted to put an 11-storey condo tower up on that spot, I would be screaming blue bloody murder. The idea that the only appropriate way to densify is through tower development is part of what’s killing this city, IMHO.

• 39 Stuart // Jan 24, 2010 at 7:38 pm

  The one piece of information that is missing in this discussion is that the agreement between the provincial government and the city was made in 2007 (in the Sam Sullivan myoralty era) and was to build on this site owned by the city. There is no evidence that there is more money or political will for purchasing scattered sites and the higher construction and long term operating costs that abandoning this project would require. The city staff are doing what they must do but, in the long run, the provincial and city politicians will decide to proceed or not.

  And, yes, I live in Mt. Pleasant and I want to see the homelessness people in our neighbourhood get long term supported housing.

• 40 Stephanie // Jan 25, 2010 at 12:28 am

  And that’s the thing. There’s no political will to do it right, so people will settle for this because it’s an all-or-nothing gambit.

  Watching all of this go down is so frustrating. First, the federal and provincial governments create a homeless, street-entrenched population by cutting welfare and social housing development and failing to provide adequate addiction and community-based mental health services. Then, the same government geniuses act as though homelessness somehow just happened accidentally, and they propose “solutions” that still don’t work – poorly thought-out housing and, in the DTES, brute-force gentrification and income polarization.

  I feel sorry for everyone involved in this mess, except for the jackasses in government who started the whole thing. This ain’t rocket science, but apparently there’s plenty of political capital in acting as though it is.

• 41 Urbanismo // Jan 25, 2010 at 3:30 am

  Stephanie,

  “A large building with subsidised housing doesn’t automatically “create a ghetto”.

  Well there’s a bit of sun light: of course not!

  Building form or uh “urban design” has nothing to do with the international class war currently beating up on us all!

  Nor the fact that we have a coucil that dispenses all its responsibilities by cycling to the hall: yes its that shallow.

  11 storeys for heaven’s sake isn’t a high rise. I have lived in a 17 storey building for 10 years. I wont stoop to list the income groups or ethnic backgrounds: that would be condescending.

  If you want erstwhile successful social mix look to False Creek south with its 10 stories around Leg-in-Boot. But that was long ago in a brief enlightened time.

  Vancouver is in thrall to a MSM that is owned and operated by one big, out of town, corporation: and that has a hell of a lot more to do with our housing situation than number of floors or colours of the front door.

  Stopping the MIC (yes we have one in Canada) in its tracks would make for more liveable cities than listening to some hacks drone on about their last tourist venture to Rome: good God our economic, social, environmental situations are light years different from ancient Rome.

  Vancouver is just another exacerbated version of one percent walking away with the store, a pack of hangers-on trivialising the plight of most of us and governments at all levels lying thru their teeth when they get their hands on the levers of power.

  Mountain views! Ba! humbug!

• 42 Megan Lilley // Jan 25, 2010 at 10:17 am

  I am a member of the group “the other side” is referring to – mountpleasantneighbours.org – and the assertions that “the other side” is making about us not supporting the BYRC couldn’t be further from the trueth. A bit of history…over the past 7 years or so, members of the mountpleasantneighbours.org group have worked with the BYRC to build a strong relationship between the BYRC and the community. We were the ones that pounded the payment looking for a business that would donate a wall for the neighbourhoods first mural. We were the ones that spent countless of hours of our own time applying for funding grants for painting supplies and to find an organization that would work with us and the BYRC to help paint the mural. We were the ones that helped the BYRC interview artists and develop the theme of the mural and its symbolism to show our “community pride” in the diversity of our neighbourhood (the “ball” in the mural with the black, red, yellow and white colours and the depictions of different places in the world symbolizes our pride and inclusivity of all races and religions). We painted the mural along side the youth, we have picked up garbage in the alleys alongside the youth and I have personally spoken with Robert Wilmot at the BYRC about the development at this site and he knows the community is “not against” the BYRC. He knows that we view the BYRC as an asset to our community. Here’s something else to consider, I have personally attended numerous “community vision planning” workshops help by the City to gather community input on how we would like to see this site developed. I have attended numerous 5 hour workshops held on Sundays and afterwork hours. When it came to asking for input on how we would like to see this site developed, our group put forward the “vision” that this corner of Fraser and Broadway should become a “youth hub” – that the building could be developed with facilities for the BYRC youth which could also be extended to the youth of our community (e.g. art gallery, music and recording rooms etc.) And yes, we asked for the development to remain under 6 storeys and yes, we asked that the building maintain a heritage aesthetic, but considering that Native Housing is one of the proponents, we were also eager to see if a building could be designed that would reflect a first nations asthetic. We also asked for 1, 2 and 3 bedroom units to be included in the development, so that low income youth, families and couples could also be supported. Never, at any of the vision planning meetings, was there any community objection to building supportive housing at this site. Never, was there any objection to expanding the facility for the BYRC. Now did any of our “vision” for this site get taken into consideration…no. Has the City listened to anything we have said so far…no. The City has so far paid lip service to a community consultation process and this was re-inforced during the “public consultation” open house that was held on Jan 20th. The City was not there to listen to our visions or concerns. They were there to tell us that this development in it’s current form is going ahead. In fact, I was told by Rob Whitlock, City Planner, during the open house that this project is a “done deal” and that the community has little hope of making any changes to the proposed development in it’s current form.
  So much for a community vision.

• 43 Lewis N. Villegas // Jan 25, 2010 at 10:34 am

  Everyone breathe a sigh of relief, Urbanismo and I are not on the same page on this one, but we still appreciate one another.

  Leg In Boot square is a good example to learn from. In South East False Creek—a development that has human scale, and that was intentionally shaped to promote “community clusters” (I get lost every time I go there)—I submit the buildings can be classed according to building height alone.

  Those that are 3.5 stories work. The open spaces around them are well used, and one can see the exchange between indoor and outdoor space happening.

  The trouble begins as you move closer to the west side of Cambie Bridge and the buildings rise to 10 and 12 stories. Some of the outdoor spaces here, lavishly landscaped with plants, water and fountains, feel barren and overlooked. Nobody uses them, unless they have a doggie-poop bag in their hand or pocket. There is no social interaction supported—nada! (for the spanish practitioners).

  Leg-in-Boot is the “classic” example of how we have failed to get the urbanismo right in our city. Meant, funded, and lavishly built to work like a town square it has been an utter and total failure since the day it opened (I was there soon after).

  It did not go where Granville Island did, and by banning the automobile, it robbed itself of the energy of the comings and goings of people and their business. Hotson and Bakker read it right: if Granville Island did not open itself up the the same traffic as frequents the shopping centers, the place would not work. They chose to look reality in the face, then use “urban design” to tame the automobile. Their accomplishment is world renown, and with no follow-on application anywhere in our region.

  The second failure of Leg-in-Boot is that building that Urbanismo likes, along with the others that front it. He and I agree on this: the fronting buildings shape the open space. However, Urbanismo probably has to get out his Vitruvius once more and blow some dust from its pages (this, the only work on architecture & urbanism known to us).

  That source very clearly stipulates that squares must be shaped according to the classical ratios: 1-2-3… And I have yet to count among any of my friends at City Hall anyone that understands this point.

  It is not that we want to be “classical”, rather it is that Vitruvius gives a distillation of the proportions that work for human sense perception… ah-hump, the qualities that are necessary to have “good” urban design. Qualities that will not change until such time as we ourselves evolve as a species, say with another eye, night vision, or longer legs. Until something bizarre like that happens, we perceive our surroundings every bit in the same manner as the Greeks did when building their Acropolis. That is the “timeless” element, our sense perception apparatus, not the garbs of classical architecture.

  So, the deck behind “Bridges” is a delight to sit on because the height of the wall against the deck is in the right proportion to the width of the deck (1-to-1 I would guess). Furthermore, the sloping roof allows the sun to come in. Deliciously, this causes a heat-gain problem in the summer for which the bright & gay yellow umbrellas are pressed into service. It just so happens that if we drape a canopy over a table it creates a sense of intimacy that further contributes to our enjoyment of being there (think back to the forts made in childhood of blankets and dining room chairs).

  On Leg-in-Boot Square, and it stretches credulity to call it a square, the building on the south side is some 10 stories high, or 90-feet (30 m—I’m going from memory here). Siting a squaqre on the waterfront is exactly what Vitruvius and any number of old and charming places recomment.

  That much was got right. However, in order to “work” as square, the ratio of wall height to square length should be 1-to-3 towards the water, and 1-to-2 in the cross-wise direction. And here the developers and their architects proved to be completely ham-fisted.

  Leg-in-Boot would have to measure 300 feet one way, and 200 feet the other in order to “scale” its surrounding built form into anything we might apprehend as being pleasing to our senses… Them are good dimensions if you want a soccer pitch, but about 4x too big for a neighborhood square.

  Besides, it turns out that as human beings we don’t feel comfortable sitting next to a wall anything much taller than about 30 feet (10 m) which is why Venezia is so popular with everybody, and Leg-in-Boot will always feel like a dark hole.

  I agree with Stephanie that there is not a single magic-bullet solution. I also agree that you could probably manage facilities 10 stories high. Keep in mind that tall buildings require big firms to build and manage them, and that 3.5 storey buildings can be financed and constructed using local institutions and labour. Also, that are beginning to see the birth of ever larger service provider organizations. Scale is not an issue just in urban design.

  However, I am presenting the problem in the light of France’s original point about NIMBY. I feel that what is at the bottom of that perception is a misunderstanding of the fact that two issues are intersecting here.

  On the one hand we are all behind the idea of providing housing and harm-reduction as—well—neighbourhood infrastructure. On the other, the concern about what goes into building a “good” neighborhood is beginning to take hold in a way it has not been seen in the past 50 years.

  It is a mistake to call the second development NIMBYism.

  The failures of modern planning, the failure to deliver places that we can call home built with both good buildings and as walkable neighbourhoods (bikes welcome), has nothing to do with NIMBY. It has to do with understanding the basics of urbanism, and applying them through urban design.

  The sooner the “explainers” latch on to this concept, the better their communication with the people will be. I know this from first hand experience as well. I have led or participated in many a public meeting where people have come up to me afterwards and said, “Lewis, I never saw my neighborhood like that before.”

  Why? Because I told a story that highlighted the urban design—the things about the physical structure of their place that really worked, and the worst transgressions (along with some useful suggestions on how to fix them).

  Two points in closing:

  (1) We ain’t gonna fix Broadway by putting up another 10 or 12 storey building on the old “hooker corner” of Fraser and East Broadway.

  (2) Getting land is not an issue, Stuart. Last I was on the social housing beat we had non-profits in Vancouver ready to give land free to social housing projects.

  No, I think we need to come together to educate each other. Echoing some of the foregoing, the Folks in the Hall need to form even more partnerships within the community, because that’s probably the only way we are going to get Minister Rich Coleman to listen.

• 44 owl // Jan 25, 2010 at 11:10 am

  The “folks in the Hall” have already formed a partnership with the community. It’s called the Draft Community Plan which neighbourhood people have been working on for over two and a half years with many sessions put on by the planning department. The trouble is that we have made a lot of charts and drawings and street maps that delineate a progressive, inclusive, desirable neighbourhood including the 600 block East Broadway. Every person who spoke up consistently used the word mix, units for families, for singles, for youth, some supportive housing, but not all supportive, and not all market either. Every person said no high towers. This homeless warehouse tower idea comes from outside the the community of Mount Pleasant, and you are correct it is not NIMBYism but Rather it is just insultingly poor urban planning that had already been turned down in community planning sesssions before they drew it up.

• 45 Lewis N. Villegas // Jan 25, 2010 at 11:55 am

  Charrette based planning (sorry to inject a foreign word) as was used in Fraser Lands has yet to be taken up by the City of Vancouver for planning the ongoing intensification of exiting neighborhoods. It is hard to believe that we will ever get to do “urban design” in our communities unless we adopt a new planning paradigm.

  The marked advantage of the “charrette process” is that the people of the place get to have at the designers for a whole week while the designers are set up in their midst, well, “urban designing”.

  If we/they don’t draw what you/we said we wanted, there is an opportunity to point to a drawing on the wall, ask a simple question, and get a straight answer.

  At the other end of the process, the city really has no way out. Once the urban design plan is drawn and approved, deviations are easy to spot. The urban design plan comes complete with the selection and illustration of “building types”, for example. The difference between 3.5 storeys and 12 is not as simple as curbing one number out and putting another one in. The pictures all gotta change too.

  Thus, if the consensus was “house row at 3.5 storeys” and the proposal is “12-storey tower”, well, the difference is obvious.

  In charrettes we also have meetings with engineering & transit staff. “On Broadway” one would suppose that the topic might come up of reshaping the cross section of the street. For example, could the bus lanes be up-graded to BRT (Bus Rapid Transit)?

  What would be the local implications for that (the charrette team would have its own transporation engineers, so urban designers would already have some prep on the answers).

  If the kind of urban design that we are discussing here were indeed on the table, the further question would arise about how to introduce one or two continuous plantings of street trees in street medians, or along the BRT station platforms.

  If you’ve ever had a sandwich sitting on the sidewalk deck at Seb’s you probably have already formed some idea about how much street tree planting contributes to the taming of the experience of E. Broadway as a neighborhood place.

  Furthermore, charrette based planning gives an opportunity for real dialogue, and that can mean a market advantage for local developers.

  In one instance, I actually visited a developer’s drafting office and design staff, accompanied by none other than the Director of Planning from the city in question. I actually sat down and drew with the staff new building-type options. They got to nod up-and-down, or in the other direction, as they saw fit, and a new possibility was born in the market place.

  A charrette driven urban design plan in Mount Pleasant, one would hope, might even attract a visit from Minister Rich Coleman and his staff. It can be that kind of media-getting event for which key figures will show up.

  I’m sorry, Owl, but neighborhood planning as currently practiced in our city just does not produce the same results.

• 46 Lindsay Page // Jan 25, 2010 at 2:23 pm

  I’ve been looking over niaby.com,in particular: http://www.niaby.com/moreViolentCrime.cfm?ArticleID=24

  I’m not surprised that the kind of conservative fear-mongering used in their site (directed mainly at poor, addicted, mentally and physically disabled people) corresponds directly to their civil city ideology. Although this piece mainly illustrates the organization’s dislike for social housing in general, not just in their own back yard, I think their fear and intolerance is of specific marginalized people and not the size, shape or style of any social housing. This isn’t just nimbyism, it’s ableism, racism and classism in its most direct form.

  In their article titled “Do the severely mentally ill commit more violent crime than the general population?”, the site constantly put ‘severely’ in bold; I guess this might be to not piss off us ‘regular’ mentally disabled people. The general tone illustrates an unfounded fear of disabled people, who are seen as better dead or invisible, than taking the nimby’s tax money. These attitudes are inextricable from this organization’s housing policies and the general Nimbyism and harmful conservativism that marks Vancouver’s richer areas.

  By the way, Mad Pride Month is this July. Get ready for the parade!

• 47 owl // Jan 25, 2010 at 3:05 pm

  @Megan–Yes, you said it. I was at those workshops too all along since they started. What an insult to community-minded people that our input was ignored. And it was not amateur input but from architects, urban planning students, etc. Also I don’t like this done deal arrogance you heard from Rob Witlock either. I was there on the 20th & got the same programmed we-know-it-all responses from two guys with BCHousing nametags. I hope some lawyer from around here gets as teed off as me.

  @Lewis…I’m no architect- your advanced vocabulary of ideas obviously do not come from the turnip truck on the way to the school of hard knocks like me. I take you at your word. Charrettes all the way for this smacked down part of the hood. Thanks for the sympathy. Planning in this part of town is not really planning at all but an expensive time consuming public relations exercise to make it appear the city gives a hoot what taxpayers want their community to be. A lot of facilitations by city hall planning “experts” with residents working toward a guiding document which, when it come right down to it, is a pipe dream plan which means nothing much. I’m an old owl who has been trying to wise up around what you call the taming of the East Broadway experience since these many years. Put on my carpenter belt in l994 volunteering to renovate for the first MP storefront community police office across the street from this proposed project back in 1994 then on the CPO board, around since loud resident meetings to stop Kimme from using the Seoul Club as a hooker dive for offshore businessment, the city went against residents, gave him the permit, then had to close him down after all a year later, now I’m still hooting around this planning mirage. It’s apparent to me certain city powers seem to want it not tamed but kind of punched out and sleazy so they have a place to drop in their social experiments no creme de la creme neighbourhood will tolerate. Do you think you’ll get Coleman here for anything but the shovels and ribbons. Do you think he or anyone responsible would come back to sit at Sebs & watch the results.

• 48 Stephanie // Jan 25, 2010 at 4:00 pm

  I just have to say that it’s fascinating to learn about urban planning from the comments here. A lot to think about.

  @Megan Lilley: thanks for your comments. Unfortunately, many people will form their impressions of your organization by looking at the content on your website. If you don’t want to be seen as NIMBYs, you would do well to remove the link to niaby.com and to stop drawing content from them. You’ve allied yourselves with precisely the sort of people you claim not to be. People will reasonably draw conclusions from that, I one of them.

• 49 Lewis N. Villegas // Jan 25, 2010 at 4:13 pm

  I sense that in Minister Coleman we may have a different quality of individual. There is a lot of positive input here.

  I hope your comments, Megan’s, and the others will get to the Minister’s desk. I hope City Hall planners are also reading.

  Maybe we can hire Sebs for a couple of hours before opening time and hold a neighborhood coffee clutch. Maybe it could be orchestrated so that speakers address the key concerns, and we hear from the ones driving the decision making process. Close Carolina Street for a half block and turn it into a bit of a village square for a morning or so.

  Change is coming. The question is, will it come to our neighborhood right now?

  The story of Portland may be worth telling. Portland, the leading edge of building public transportation in North America, got started by taking money the state had been given to build a freeway to Mount Hood (if I remember correctly) and building an LRT instead. Ooops!

  So, there is always room for acting with… balls (and I don’t mean that as a gender-specific comment).

• 50 MB // Jan 25, 2010 at 4:37 pm

  I’d like to thank Lewis for his insights once again.

  His comments at first glance may seem a little divorced from the narrow focus of implementing social housing on a particular site in Mount Pleasant, but he notes in so many words that urban design is ultimately inclusionary, is performed at a more intimate neighbourhood scale not usually seen in planning, and has a more wholistic perspective that includes the grey area beyond the property lines of the site in question.

  I have some limited experience in charrettes and have seen their positive results. Not everyone gets everything they want (or don’t want), but as a form of public consultation getting people to actually draw / write / describe / record what they envision to be the right thing for their neighbourhood is superior to almost any other consultative endeavour. It reflects a genuinely accurate view of an area by the people who live there, and goes a step or two further than City Plan and the Neighbourhood Visioning.

  On the down side, Charrettes cost more in terms of time than open houses or other forms of public meetings where a talking head faces a crowd. It also disarms techniques of protest meant only to be as disruptive as possible, but more importantly allows all points of view — including those opposed to certain developments — to express their vision better than other methods, including protest.

• 51 Lewis N. Villegas // Jan 25, 2010 at 7:35 pm

  The cost of the charrette is always a tricky one to answer, and it is a point that is always raised.

  However, if we agree that the results are different—that the charrette-driven process delivers urban design whereas the planning process does not—then we also agree that we are not comparing apples to apples.

  The question then becomes, “What value do we get for the additional money?”

  If there are rendering artists on the team, for example, then there will be fees paid that are not included in planning process as practiced today.

  Those diagrams, as mentioned earlier, are more than window dressing. They play a didactic role. They “show” what the plan will build. And, they serve as exhibits whenever projects are coming on stream that stake holders may feel don’t meet the agreed upon vision.

  In the last five years I have seen Councils in White Rock and Nanaimo turn Community Plans up side down by changing just one word in just one night. Yes, by changing the maximum height limit—just that one word—and leaving everything else in the plan intact.

  That would not fly with an urban design plan. And, that may well be the reason to avoid it.

  But there is one more thing. In the planning process for the London Drugs and the Home Depot that would locate on West Broadway, near Arbutus, I watched our planning staff essentially have to do the planning process all over again.

  What was the cost the “do over”, compared to using the charrette/urban design process right from the start?

  We may never know. I am over simplifying, and I am not claiming to be an impartial observer, but in my humble the problem then and now is the lack of urban design in the planning.

• 52 MB // Jan 26, 2010 at 9:09 am

  Point taken Lewis. But the issue about process may be more about time and scale, not money.

  A charrette usually takes place over two or three meetings to conceptualize, explore options and define the preferred option. This process may be more appropriate to a neighbourhood or local streetscape (e.g. 6 blocks on Broadway near Fraser), and would involve several disciplines (hopefully!) working in concert with a neighourhood group and the city.

  But to apply this process to an individual site and proposed use, like determining the public acceptance of a 10-storey 100 unit addictions treatment centre vs. a 4-storey 40 unit centre seems unwieldy and out of sync. The parameters of the centre should have been determined as part of a previous exercise.

  In this case, the urban design charrette should have followed the neighbouhood vision, and would have concentrated on that particular quadrant of Mount Pleasant. It should have included references to uses / zoning, height limits, architectural and streetscape treatments and such.

  In other words, urban design charrettes may best be described as an intermediate step between the overall broad planning exercise and site specific detailed design.

  Here we obviously have an anomaly being plunked down at a scale no one previously anticipated. It’s the scale that’s upsetting the neighbourhood, not necesssarily the philosophy of treating addictions and addressing homelessness and mental health locally.

  And we also have to admit that we can’t control everything. Senior governments can and do act against local government (hence local people) and sometimes it doesn’t matter how deep neighbourhood visioning is and how many design charrettes and detailed urban design plans are created.

  How many votes will the BC Liberals lose if they place a 10-storey addictions treatment centre in an NDP riding? Politics has the unfortunate tendency to intrude.

• 53 MB // Jan 26, 2010 at 9:31 am

  I just remembered an article I read a couple of years ago where an architect placed a 30-unit social housing and addictions treatment centre a stone’s throw from London’s Trafalgar Square.

  His idea was that small can be beautiful and income and zoning diversity in even horribly expensive neighbourhoods helps create a stronger society. He advocated dotting small and medium-scale social housing developments throughout cities, and was very keen on neighbourhood “fit”.

  Obviously a 30-unit facilty in central London wouldn’t be cheap, but it’s subsidized anyway and at that scale it would fit in and funtion well.

  There was no attempt on behalf of the authorities to lessen the construction cost per unit by building (or converting) a larger building in an attempt to recoup through efficiencies of scale. In the public sector often the most expensive costs are in long term operations, not in capital expenses.

• 54 owl // Jan 26, 2010 at 11:39 am

  This is a first rate dialogue with I think very astute, honest, & informed contributions. To me it comes down to exactly what MB zeros in on when he says
  “Here we obviously have an anomaly being plunked down at a scale no one previously anticipated. It’s the scale that’s upsetting the neighbourhood, not necesssarily the philosophy of treating addictions and addressing homelessness and mental health locally.”
  Over and over people have said that, we are not against the supportive housing aspect or the BYAC or Native Housing. Forget the NIABY website, forget the NIMBY accusations. Look up the list on the city’s housing website. It is there in black and white. Mount Pleasant gets way more than our share of the towers & numbers of units. Dunbar gets 4 stories, 51 units, Fairview gets 9 stories, 62 units in among four to five story buildings. All the downtown ones are either hotels already there or are towers where there are already high buildings. This is the aberration, a tower at the highest point in the landscape among two story buildings. This proposed structure is the same height as the Stella condos above the car dealer at 12th & Kingsway which is advertised for its view as the tallest. I won’t bore you with all the details of units heights densitys adjacent structures. Just believe me this is out of place, out of sync, and the excuse given by BC housing that the neighbourhood is going to grow up to that height along Broadway is a crock. Our historic neighbourhood deserves better urban planning.

• 55 owl // Jan 26, 2010 at 2:58 pm

  -A Sense of Place
  -A Contextual Response
  -A High Quality Public Realm
  -Neighbourly Development
  -Recognizing our History
  -Architectural Distinction—–
  these are the principles guiding city hall according to their Urban Design and Development Planning Center which refers to the Urban Design Panel. Do these principles apply in the 671-695 East Broadway project? This panel met in August to review 2321 Scotia, The Elyce, next door to new OneKingsway community center. It was suggested they reconsider a green roof, an architectural expression more appropriate to Mount Pleasant, a stronger three story base. Of course the panel is advisory. But we still have to ask when is it a “done deal” really if it can be reviewed. But I’m done these big eyes are tired from all the daylight.

• 56 Lewis N. Villegas // Jan 26, 2010 at 7:37 pm

  MB we’re back to your earlier point, about how a discussion about a 10-storey building on Broadway & Fraser became a discussion about urban design, and charrettes.

  Should the horse be pulling or pushing the wagon?

  Charrettes are tools for creating urban design plans. Urban design plans are not employed in the City of Vancouver (the Fraser Lands is one exception). Urban design plans break down urbanism into its primary elements and address each one in the turn, including: human scale, neighbourhood footprint, block pattern, street type, building type, systems (like transportation), and finance. Owl does a fine job of distilling the essence of what this means in his bulleted list.

  To the those who wrote in this string about not been heard, or feeling that the vision had not been respected, my suggestion was that many of the problems originate in the need to allow urban design to shape neighbourhoood planning, and that increasingly the old approach fails to address the critical issues.

  Thus:

  (a) If City staff had been talking in terms of urban design facts, the sense of “not being heard” may not have even materialized in the audience.

  (b) If the vision was coded as an urban design plan, we would not be having this discussion. It would be obvious to anyone that 10-storey buildings either were, or were not, in keeping with the urban design plan.

  c) Commitment to urban planning at the local level might take away much of the power of the Senior levels of government to “act against local government (hence local people)”. This is more likely when we consider that urban design methodology and urban design plans are going to need support from, and coordination with, the senior levels of government.

  (d) Ultimately, we called on urban design to make the point that opposing the “type” of building being proposed/mandated is not NIMBYism. Rather, standing to oppose “bad urbanism” is good community involvement pure and simple.

  The omission of urban design in community planning is a problem that our increasingly urban lives are bringing into sharp focus. We can resist a change in the planning paradigm all we want, but we cannot escape it.

  As regards what kind of facility is best for social housing, what I have seen reported from Boston’s Cabrini Green, and what I have seen first hand in Coquitlam, suggests that for recovery programs small groups are better than large, and sharing a house among a handful of individuals can in fact support treatment.

  Reports that I have seen about what type of assisted housing works best for families also suggest that housing “that just blends in with everybody else” is most desirable.

  Seamlessly melding into the neighbourhood seems to be a common theme. Of course that’s exactly what we feel the tower will not do.

• 57 MB // Jan 27, 2010 at 1:59 pm

  @ Lewis, I think we are actually agreeing in so many words.

  My point is that, based on 18 years in the public sector, management may be a little loath to devote weeks or even months to urban design charrettes in each neighbuorhood on top of the planning processes already in place, and exercised by staff who are overburdened by the sheer volume of project-related work already in the pipe.

  This isn’t to say that urban design planning shouldn’t occur with neighbourhood charrettes. Just the opposite. But they need to find practical ways to introduce this layer during a time of staff layoffs and Olympic challenges following one of the most heated and busy development periods in our history.

  @ Owl, the ADP functions in a purely advisory role and they can have positive influence and issue insightful comments. However, I’ve also heard some very off-the-wall comments from certain individuals on the ADP when I was in the private sector, which really made me question their role, especially on mid-level projects.

  However, some cities don’t even have an ADP, which means that planners make comments on developments that are often biased or ill informed. It can be a mixed bag.

  I have a sincere respect for planners who have a design background — better yet, who have actually built something noteworthy.

• 58 MB // Jan 27, 2010 at 2:04 pm

  “… management may be a little loath to devote weeks or even months to urban design charrettes in each neighbuorhood on top of the planning processes already in place …”

  Perhaps, Lewis, you’d say we need to consider replacing the existing planning processes? I would agree.

• 59 Lewis N. Villegas // Jan 27, 2010 at 6:40 pm

  Yes, MB I see it as a paradigm change. Not one imposed from within planning per se, but just The Times They Are A-Comin’, or A-Running Out, you pick.

  I do not see how we can continue to intensify into urban neighbourhoods with the same methods and methodology that delivered the suburbs… which like it or not were a raging success, and are not going away any time soon.

  That doesn’t mean that we are not going to see a barrage of one-site-at-a-time planning approval in the coming weeks, months and years. But, against the grain of history, my sense is that we will look back at these projects and shake our heads.

• 60 just sayin' // Jan 28, 2010 at 11:30 am

  The height of the proposed building is completely ridiculous and totally out of reasonable scale for the area. Beyond that I don’t take issue with the proposed uses or function of the building site. Fraser Street needs more services for the underclass – they were there first. I just find it hard to believe the proposed use will get full follow-through. Call me cynical, but considering the direction most of these projects have taken in recent years (# of promised social housing units dwindling the closer the project gets to it’s budget limit), combined with the spectacular views from all but the first two floors of the proposed building, I think it unlikely that in the long run this project will lead to anything other than more high-rise condos, with increasingly expensive views, and less affordable housing along the Bway corridor. Grumpy home-owners take heart! The value of your property will likely increase as ramshackle 3-story stucco monstrosities are leveled to make room for gated townhomes.

• 61 Megan // Jan 28, 2010 at 11:32 am

  MB and Lewis….I sure hope you plan to send in your comments to the City and/or speak at the public hearing. I was speaking with the Urban Design Panel rep. from the City at the Jan 20th open house. She was the only one who I thought was remotely interested in hearing concerns about the project in its current form. Her role as it was explained to me is : “The Development Planner is an Architect who is responsible for analyzing and responding to the proposed form and design of the building. The Planner will provide direction regarding form and design to be included in the report to City Council”.
  Anyway, she said that she will “consider” the comments that come in from the public when making her report to Council. (Hence my urging of you to send in something to the City). Give me urban design all the way from Main St to Fraser – what a wasteland that area is and has been for 20 years. Heck while we’re at it give me urban design from Clarke to Fraser too. Anyway, I digress…. When I asked the Urban Design rep. if she would be looking at the information the City already has from the 2.5 years of work we have already done in the “vision planning” process, she said she would look at this info but, as this information hasn’t been presented to, or ratified by Council yet, she doesn’t have a “framework” to go on at this point. I said so essentially the City can build anything they want….she repeated “at this point I don’t have a framework to go on”. What the…..!! Ok…..so, I sent in a request to Peter Burch at the City who has been heading the visioning process, to provide me with a time line for when this will be wrapped up and presented to Council…..not surprisingly, I haven’t heard back from him. Why are these two processes (i.e. vision planning and re-zoning of Fraser/Broadway) not being done simultaneously? It’s not a hard stretch to believe that the City is counting on this dis-connect between the 2 processes….it looks like Gasp is right…..the decision about this project was made long ago and the visioning process is just window dressing…. And one last comment ….”senior governments can and do act against local government (hence local people)”….. I asked the BC Housing rep at the open house whether BC Housing would still build the project, if the height and density were altered to be more in line with the visioning process. He said “yes”…they will build whatever comes forth from Council…..so, it looks to me that it’s not Senior government acting against the local government…more evidence to suggest that the City has decided long ago what they plan to build on the most neglected corner in the middle of the most neglected stretch of our neighbourhood…. Lewis and MB, please send in your well considered comments to the City….Lewis…you extended an invite to meet and discuss urban design issues to someone else on this blog. would you consider meeting with me?

• 62 Bill Lee // Jan 28, 2010 at 11:54 am

  Another example (bad) of the planning consultation.

  The northeast side just got an (English only!!) postcard, dated 22 Jan, received 26 Jan, about Development Application No. DE413600

  This is the “temporary” (ha!) stadium with a ‘time-limited permit’ as it says in the postcard, on the old Empire Stadium (another ‘Games’!) site.

  And however here it says that consultation means nothing at the 2 hour Feb 4 meeting at the Hastings Community Centre, for “Council endorsed the proposal to use this site… by resolution on January 21, 2010.

  So it’s F.U. East Van, you get 40,000 cars for fireworks and drunken sports every week. It’s already been decided.
  I would have thought that Susan Anton would have pushed to have Memorial Park West made the side to bring added business to the poor of Dunbar. It is twice area as you can see with the http://Acme.com planimeter
  Empire Stadium site 4.341 hectares
  Memorial Park West 31st and Dunbar 8.095 hectares

  Go for it, Susan! Bring soccer to the West side masses.

• 63 owl // Jan 29, 2010 at 11:00 am

  Come on, Empire Stadium? West Side soccer? We have a major potential disaster at Broadway/Fraser. Let’s keep on topic on the off chance the words may be useful for our case. If this is about trying to get a less-high building, say five or six stories, and fewer high risk people brought to the corner, say 50 or so, and insisting on 24 marketable units of housing in the project, then as I see it we perhaps should make a sensible, economical suggestion for an alternative way of housing 50 or so at- risk- of -homelessness people that would have been in the tower in some other housing form, say adaptive re-use of nearby lowrise, or something city owned not nearby, or any other workable solution. A revolution of our urban design as applied to neighbourhoods is a great need. The dialogue on how to go about it is crucial in the long term & the commentaries by specialists on here & on other articles city wide is most necessary. But We do have to zero in. Right now we need to get the words & images of protest & alternative solutions in front of the faces of the people who have it within their mandate to make some changes to this one plan at 761-795 East Broadway. I know it is part of something bigger. I know there is something kind of unsettling about the two fires right down the street at Kingsway & at Main, I know the community plan is for all of Mt Pleasant, but right now we got to just dig in as a local group to save this corner. We have to hammer away at the folly of it. We have to not deviate. We shall not fail nor falter (Sorry, Eh?) We are gaining strength. We should be able to find a straightforward solution for mitigating the tower travesty. Remember it was people against rezoning that saved Strathcona from a water front freeway, it was the same to save Stanley Park entrance from becoming behemoth towers between Georgia St and the waterfront, @Megan, Bev Chew is calling CLG members. they are trying to get us back to CLG meetings starting early Feb. They are saying timeline next fall for having draft comm. plan before council. They are saying there are many other aspect to the plan beside the B’way/Fraser corridor. You kow what is going on, when you don’t hear from Peter Burch. Are you still intersted in attending the CLG.?@all, an idea would be to get CLG members to spread the word to everybody (any group or individual including the people who don’t use their names but organize by capital letters ) to sort of en mass delegate to the next CLG meeting at the Native Friendship center and make it another article for Frances Bula. Lots of young people please who have to live with these city decisions.

• 64 owl // Jan 29, 2010 at 11:27 am

  Confirmed. Thursday, Feb 4, CLG meeting Native Friendship Centre, 5th and Scotia, 7-930 pm. Also meetings coming up, Feb. 10, Mar. 4, Mar. 9. It would be interesting to see democracy in action & to have some inspiration from specialists like Lewis, MB.

• 65 Megan // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:13 pm

  Owl – I will spread the word about the meeting on the 4th. Thank you for the dates as interestingly, I have not been informed of these.

• 66 owl // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:49 pm

  Megan-This was in an e-mail from Bev Chew for Peter Burch supposedly to all CLG members. I also got a phone call a day or two earlier. I can say the feeling I get is they will not want to deal with this tower even though all their “community involvement” showed nobody wants it. They have gone ahead & illustrated it as a tower
  http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/cpp/mountpleasant/shopping/pdf/businesschangescenarios.pdf

• 67 mushroom.treatment // May 31, 2010 at 3:30 pm

  I agree totally with gasp // Jan 21, 2010 and Joseph Jones // Jan 21, 2010. That’s also been my experience dealing with City Hall and developers in my neighbourhood. There is no meaningful consultation with the citizens of Vancouver at all. This is wrong.

• 68 Loo // Jun 19, 2010 at 7:56 pm

  Just joined this group. I am totally in support of the BRYC and believe that expanding their space and services is long overdue. I also feel that social housing units in the GVRD need to be increased. Where I have questions is a) The height of the building b) The lack of mixed units. I am unsure of the value of concentrating people in social housing units. Let us remember that the the projects of Chicago were built with the intent to improve the neighborhood and provid social housing yet ended creating considerable problems. These projects have now been raised and replaced with mixed neighborhood housing. The Chicago projects were massive in comparison and the socio-economic reality very different but it does raise the question, is bigger better? Where are the mixed housing projects that were one of the cornerstones of the municipalities platform on social housing in Vancouver? As a Mount Pleasant resident and a supporter of the BYRC I hope that we can support youth and the communities challenges. At the same time I would like to question the scale of this project and I would like to ask the members of this group why they believe such a large scale project is necessary?

• 69 New resident of the area // Jun 24, 2010 at 4:28 pm

  I am a new resident to Mount Pleasant and am curious to know what has been decided about this development. I agree that the scale of the development needs to be reconsidered. With the proposed development at Main and second, the numerous housing already in place in Mount Pleasant and this new one at Broadway and Fraser, there seems to be a disproportionate amount of supported housing in one area of the city. I too wonder what neighborhood changes will occur considering the concentration of individuals who are all struggling with mental illness and addiction issues. it seems that with all the research available regarding successful urban planning, that the city would listen. Instead it appears they just want to get more bang for their buck at the expense of the success of the project. sadly, in the long run, the expenses will likely be more when this social experiment fails.

Leave a Comment