I guess my previous post was a soggy lament for something ineffable which has been lost, though as I said earlier, its loss was all but all but inevitable. I have never had an emotional attachment to Steveston, but there are too many places in this and other countries that I once knew and loved and have lived to see destroyed or mutated beyond all recognition. Example: As a kid, I spent a number of blissful early/mid-60s summers on acreage owned by relatives in Okanagan Mission, then a rural district outside Kelowna, when Kelowna’s population was about 20,000 and the Mission was all orchards, pastures, woodlands, and clean, flowing streams; a paradise for a young city boy. My cousin and I used to spend whole afternoons exploring that countryside. Imagine how I feel about the place now that it’s become middle-class subdivided suburbia.

Anyway, thanks for your conciliatory words. I’m relieved to hear that you have your own set of concerns about the potential nightmare that is poorly-planned development. I would like to think that it may still be possible to save some of what made Steveston special for so long; but given that it is at the mercy of the same planning department that gave us #3 Road, I’m not hopeful .
gmgw

Hi! Long time since I last commented on your blog. I haven’t read the 22 comments before (will do another time when I have more available time to spare), but I want to make a commentary as my doctoral dissertation examined urban/industrial restructuring and the dynamics of shifting industrial land-use to residential and that’s the topic of this post of yours.

There is a place for industrial and a place for residential land uses. Regardless of NIMBYs and other phenomena, any city that intends to have a diversified industrial, commercial and urban base needs to have BOTH types of land uses (industrial AND residential).

Moreover, city planners (and stakeholders alike) need to realize that despite the talks about Vancouver becoming a knowledge economy (a la creative cities), there is a NEED for industry (and by industry I mean both heavy and light industry).

Feel free to contact me some time and we can chat about this over coffee. I plan to write about it on my research blog sometime (soon as I can get a reprieve from other stuff!)

Best,
Raul

Furthermore, there would not likely have been such extensive new public access to the waterfront and the very interesting new heritage buildings that have recently been completed. If others have not been down there, it is worth a visit.

As for the proliferation of Mcdonalds and the like…I abhor this as much as many of you. But I did do something about it at UniverCity where the retail policies restricted the number of national and international tenants. The result was not perfect…many businesses struggled at the beginning…but the place does have a more unique character as a result of the policy.

So I want to continue to argue for a MIX of uses…light industrial, commercial, residential…rather than the continuation of a policies that say this is commercial only, this is residential only…and this is industrial only.

I know that there are some industrial uses that have to be separated from where people live….but not all of them.

Steveston, which for decades was essentially a small, somewhat insular, one-industry community, always dwelt in a sort of isolation from the rest of Richmond. More to the point, Steveston never enjoyed a golden age, architecturally speaking. The look of the place has always been purely utilitarian. There are a couple of nice, well-preserved, old (likely 1910s or 20s) two-storey commercial buildings remaining along Moncton, which is about the closest thing Steveston Village has to a main drag. Most of the commercial area of Steveston is a planner’s nightmare; a hodgepodge of buildings from various eras, some modernized, some not; some attractive, many not.

There was absolutely nothing about its design to justify the retention of the one-storey building I spoke of in my previous post. I think it’s more a question of scale and streetscape than anything else that made me sad to see it replaced by something that is glitzy, new and much more expensive in which to rent a storefront. The old buildings, with their low-rent, long-term commercial tenants, seem(ed) much more… human, somehow. As they usually do, in any older neighbourhood in any city.
gmgw

Though these forms and the cheap space they provide for interesting businesses (this is a big Jane Jacobs point, of course) are crucially important to having a gritty, interesting city in which it’s easy for new businesses to start up or for younger folks to get a foothold – not to mention being beautiful witnesses to history and architectural history – they really don’t offer enough density to make for much street life or to make decent transit cost effective.

That said, tearing them down and replacing them with the West 4th aesthetic (whether in Kits of Steveston), while upping the numbers, does result in the loss of a certain something, doesn’t it…

If only eastern-type triplexes and Gastown-style commercial buildings had been fashionable in 1920s Kits and Steveston, sigh…

I have been loosely acquainted with Michael for decades . . . he’s a nice guy, if you know what I mean, and he likes it that way.

What I thought hilarious, though, was his, interjection of his yellow shirt reading “Say no to drugs.” and Frances didn’t see that as “off-topic” whilst I was severely beaten up because I tried to set an environmental course in the 2010 bylaw debate, which if you read her post carefully, was not directed solely at Olympic security . . .

And, ergo, like the BB cycle thread turned almost paranoid . . . and a whoooo-ah post #9 to you too . . .

As she says “planning is never dull . . . ”

. . . except when our august director of planning interjects, clearly showing he is no quite up to speed on mixed use v’s industrial. Brent, we haven’t had industrial for decades unless of course big box and warehousing is: yunno, two minimum wage shippers to the hectare etc . . . and that madam is on topic . . .

. . . but I just read your latest G & M column . . . “City council is expected to approve initiative that will allow homeowners to build a second, small home on their lot.”

Words like “approve” and “allow” some how don’t seem to fit Lane-ways . . .

Lane-way houses, garages, coach houses go a long way back and in some cases have been grandfathered into use as residences.

I have no compunction in saying this approval overkill has not exactly resulted in “paradise” as the wag insists.

And maybe, just maybe, if council and its acolytes would get off our backs just maybe better planning would come out cool . . .

Some. Not many. What’s been done to Steveston has been done to far too many once-charming small communities, especially those on seacoasts: Genuine heritage and atmosphere has been demolished and replaced by ersatz pre-packaged heritage created by marketing firms. Steveston, as anyone who grew up in the area will tell you, used to be an authentically gritty and charming little community, soaked in history (some of it ugly), whose primary purpose was to service its resident commercial fishing fleet. It has always been far and away the most– hell the *only*– pleasant and genuinely human-scaled, pedestrian-friendly area in car-and-mall-choked Richmond, where on calm nights, for blocks all around, you can hear the howls of the deranged planners chained up in the basement of City Hall.

What grit and charm still remains in Steveston (and developers are doing their best to stamp it out once and for all) has hung on despite the hideous new buildings on and near the waterfront, which evoke the Fisherman’s Wharf tourist aesthetic at its worst. I know at least six people whose lives have been inexorably bound up with Steveston; either they grew up there, have lived there for many years, or work there. Whenever the topic of the changes to Steveston comes up, they react with disgust and dismay, and I am assured that there are many nearby residents who feel the same way.

Of course, I’m sure the hundreds of new arrivals who have bought into the new condo developments off Moncton in recent years couldn’t be happier with their new community. They never knew that older Steveston. It’s acquired all the hallmarks of civilization: a McDonalds, a Starbucks, a Blenz, a shiny new 4th-Avenue-style commercial/residential development at Moncton and #1 Road (which replaced an aging single-story block of shops, among them possibly the last stand-alone bakery in the area, where you could get a great bowl of soup for two bucks just a couple of years ago), and a few pretentious and overpriced restaurants (thankfully, Pajo’s and Kisamos are still going strong). We can now look forward to more such developments and the inevitable substantially increased rents which will gradually drive out the rest of the unique shops that remain.

I realize that in going on like this I am merely lamenting another kind of inevitable. I mean, apart from a few cranks like me, who the hell cares what’s happening to Steveston? But it irks me when the likes of Michael Geller stand up and bang their flippers together, cheering the destruction of something that was rare and precious and its replacement with a glitzy and mawkishly poor imitation. What we have here, I guess, is yet another example of that classic Newspeak rationale, left over from the Vietnam war: “It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it”. That, in a nutshell, is what has happened, and is happening, to Steveston Village, and the process has barely begun. Hip hooray.

One final note: Harold Steves, cited by M. Geller as applauding his proposed 1981 development, is nothing if not inconsistent. One never knows exactly which way Mr. Steves is going to jump on any given issue, despite his longtime reputation as Richmond’s token civic leftist. And if he genuinely entertained the delusion that a vast increase in density in the community that bears his family’s name would lead to a revival of rapid transit to that part of Richmond (long the home of some of the lousiest transit service in the Lower Mainland), he must have been spending too much time talking to his cows. One wonders if he still dreams of further density increases as he plows the back forty (square meters?) of his micro-farm down there by the dike, bordered on three sides by blocks and blocks of townhouse developments. The word “hypocrite” comes to mind.
gmgw

Again why is mixed use so controversial?

Vancouver was declared an “executive city” nearly forty years ago. That I assume meant the wealth-creating component was elsewhere while we stayed home watching, unfortunately not all of us, compound interest do the work. That certainly is the case today!

So why is “industrial land” still on the agenda? Smoke stacks and bad air are for China.

Reboot, and its highly lucrative spin-offs, can be made in the basement. Movies are made anywhere. Compound interest can grow whilst we sit on our yachts.

Interestingly, Mayor Phillip declared the False Creek flats to be the Canadian West version of Silicone Valley: that was supposed to be the great Canadian wealth producer. So far it hasn’t worked out and several, low wage, box retails have taken over.

Mixed use, work close to home, good building methods, nix to over zealous marketing techniques (i.e. high LEED points equal high prices) and a reasonable use of environmental controls.

I believe Vancouver is going to need, imminently, all the wealth creating it can get. As for Brent saying residential encourages speculation well I am sorry to yet again remind you sir, the greatest encouragement for speculation, in the recent past has come, willfully, from your department.

This issue isn’t for the planning department. This is for council to decide and to guide Mr. Toderian.