The CityPlan process survived a major hurdle Thursday as a Vancouver council committee adopted a report setting out how Dunbar residents want to see their neighbourhood develop.

The so-called Dunbar Community Vision was endorsed unanimously by councillors after they had heard critical presentations from Dunbar residents who said the report would bring too much density to the affluent single-family neighbourhood.

Mayor Philip Owen told the angry delegations that the report offers only guidelines — not rezoning proposals.

“This is not chiselling something in stone,” said Owen. “It allows us to start a process.”

The report found that a majority of Dunbar residents want their neighbourhood to remain a single-family area.

However, the report also said exceptions could occur when the community supports new housing choices.

The report, for example, found that a slim majority supports creating new housing through in-fill on larger lots, but only as an incentive to retain character buildings.

The report also said that a slim majority favour more housing variety through rowhouses, four-and-sixplexes and duplexes — but only along arterial streets.

One Dunbar delegate, John Geddes, said the report would make it difficult for Dunbar residents to stop higher-density projects such as row housing. Geddes said that the Dunbar visioning process had upset he and his wife, Glenna, “more than anything else in our lives.”

But Councillor Jennifer Clarke said that the CityPlan will be “an incremental process of evolution” and that “there is going to be no radical change.”

Senior planner Rhonda Howard said afterwards that rejection of the report would have seriously undermined the CityPlan’s future. “It would have made it less credible to people in future visioning areas,” said Howard. “People want to believe that the message they send will be approved by council.”

CityPlan — the city’s blueprint that will guide the city’s development over the next 50 years — began moving into action last year when the first two neighbourhoods, Dunbar and Kensington/Cedar Cottage, were chosen to begin their planning process.

Each of the city’s 22 neighbourhoods will eventually do the same, with residents being urged to help decide their area’s future.

Councillors had already adopted the Kensington/Cedar Cottage report in July. Council had put off considering the Dunbar report so they could hear from delegations at the Thursday committee meeting.

The Dunbar residents, including officials from Dunbar Residents Association, charged the process was skewed to reflect city hall’s desire to bring increased density to Dunbar.