55 responses so far ↓

• 1 Larry Beasley // Jan 29, 2010 at 5:19 pm

  Bravo to the Planning Department and to City Council! Some may know that I never felt it was important to review the view corridor policy because it was doing just fine as a policy and there are more important things that need doing from a planning angle. However, having said that, I feel nothing but elation about the decisions that Council has made to reconfirm the view corridor policies and, as I had suggested, even add some new corridors. I also feel total admiration for the Planning Department and a job well done on this matter. It was very intelligently handled. Thanks to everyone for preserving what I think is one of the most valuable public assets of our city – our spectacular views of the glorious mountains and water.
  Larry Beasley, January 29, 2010, Vancouver

• 2 Wendy Pedersen // Jan 29, 2010 at 5:40 pm

  Here is a letter that we published in response to to the decision. It is circulated to about 3000 people.

  *********
  More condos for the Downtown Eastside. That’s what City Council decided after hearing speakers until late at night on Jan 22. “I’m predicting that more people will be pushed out of hotels and become homeless, and that some of the good qualities of our low income community are now even more at risk,” said Wendy Pedersen of the Carnegie Community Action Project (CCAP).
  The Council decision came after many Downtown Eastsiders and supporters called on them to have an impact study and plan for the neighbourhood before allowing more high buildings. Council did actually agree to an impact study but not before the extra building height is allowed. Council also moved a step closer to funding a local area planning process in the neighbourhood but there is no certainty whether or not such a process
  will work in the favour of the low-
  income community. Council made its decisions about extra height after hearing a report from their staff on the Historic Area Height Review. This area includes Gastown, Victory Square, Chinatown and the Main and Hastings area. The report called for 3 towers of about 15 stories on specific sites. It also wanted Council to allow developers about two extra floors of height in the Main and Hastings and Chinatown South areas.
  CCAP opposed the increased height because it will bring more condos to the neighbourhood, creating ripple effects of higher property values, higher rents, stores that serve richer residents, displacement of low income people and a loss of the low income community’s assets. CCAP has been researching the good things about the DTES community and found that people like the sense of community, empathy for suffering, caring, lack of judgment, services for low income people, and social housing.
  Our Member of Parliament, Libby Davies, sent a letter to Council supporting CCAP’s position. DTES resident Lane Walker told Council that “Displacement is a reality. It’s not just developers and views but actual homes that people are losing.”
  Harsha Walia of the Power of Women also supported CCAP’s position, saying many housing units had been lost to rent increases and tourist conversions.
  Donald MacDonald, a DTES resident, told Council that he was making plans to deal with homelessness because the building he lived in was up for sale. “My real concern is homelessness,” he said. The poor didn’t create the housing shortage.”
  Hugh Lampkin, Vice President of VANDU, told council that he had “never been to a place that had the level of empathy” of the DTES. Hugh talked about the place where he lives where rents have risen to $500 a month, $550 with a washroom, and an extra $15 for cable. He said he was opposed to increased heights “until we deal with the housing” for low income people.
  Matthew Matthew, president of the Carnegie Centre Community Association told Council that the new height wouldn’t help the low income community that lives in the DTES now. He was also concerned because there was no plan.
  Council actually decided to allow up to 5 additional towers of around 15 stories than their staff recommended. Two of the original 3 towers proposed by staff were also approved.
  “We’re not giving up,” said Pedersen. “We need to keep pressing our governments to build more affordable housing in the DTES. Our low income community has a right to exist and work for improvements without being pushed out.”

• 3 Urbanismo // Jan 29, 2010 at 8:45 pm

  MB (on the previous string but relevant here) “The only other person I recall talking about human perception relative to height-width ratios was Sheila Lindsay, a UBC prof I had in the 80s.”

  . . . except , of course, Roger Kemble’s “The Canadian City. St. John’s to Victoria, A critical commentary”. Harvest House 1989 ISBN 0-88772-22-9. Check it out MB, VPL has it. You may find it interesting: it is replete in heights, proportions, scale covering many public spaces and places in sixteen of Canada’s major cities.

  Sheila was on my SCARP, MA thesis committee and yeah, you’re right!

  I wouldn’t put too much faith, though, in the charrette to design your community, Wendy even though some one, no doubt, will push it.

  I have participated in many: the last a couple of weeks ago.

  Three issues conspire against you:

  1. The public is far too deferential to authority as it is led by whatever current fashions the charrette leader is following.

  2. Architectural schools do not teach urban design or indeed humility, yet architects, hungry for little snippets of power, always end up running charrette: usually pretending qualifications they do not hold.

  3. Consequently participants are condescended to and leaders indulge: to wit . . .

  i. Imposing either one of the Kriers’ Luxembourg line-up of Lombardy poplars masking street-upon-street of uniform row housing: this obsession with low rise debases our intellects, surely, the point is diversity!

  Usually the “archiect” has not visited Luxembourg but swoons over Krier’s drawings. I have visited Lux: my take, it is very beautiful, leave it alone. Ditto your community!

  And line-ups of Lombardy poplars are inappropriate in DTES or anywhere, for that matter, other than Lombardy.

  ii. Formulaic “New urbanism” will be pushed. New Urbanism is jargon for real estate marketing: sentiment usurps design, inappropriate Victorian semiotics etc.

  The likes of Quinlan Terry’s Poundbury will be invoked: or maybe DPZ’s Florida sprawl.

  I visited Poundbury 2005. it is a very exclusive, expensive anachronism held by the Duchy of Cornwall: gentrification at it worst!

  My long experience with charrettes describes a community spirit controlled by a leader dutifully taking note, then scurrying off to his basement to do what the hell he likes, usually promoting the latest glossy magazine images.

  Among professionals the burnt umber proboscis is redolent: so beware!

  I cannot imagine how London’s Parliament blgs would have turned out if this current prurient up-tight, judgmental process has prevailed: the architect A W N Pugin did his design, in a fisherman’s smock, on a Thames fishing barge off Lowestoft: ditto Ralph Erskine designing the magnificent Byker Village Newcastle UK . . .

  Sentient professionals are rare and discouraged in our current military design/approval process, if they do not fit the corporate model: Creative independence is anathema.

  So I hope you see the charrette is quite inappropriate if you want to build your community.

  Nothing can replace incremental design/build/as you/go responding to community exigency and circumstance: real economics at street level!

  So, Wendy, rage, rage against the dying of the light! Rage against the long enervating, soul destroying, jargon-larded education design professionals must endure: anything but creative, anything but artistic!

  Look out the window: see my point!

• 4 Voony // Jan 29, 2010 at 11:39 pm

  I don’t understand the view of Wendy Pedersen,

  is she arguing for ghettoization of communities?
  concentrating the poor and socially disadvantaged in DTES, and keeping economically advantaged one away?
  what good at that?

  isn’t it better to have mixed communities?

  I feel like Beasley, nervous at the idea to review the view cone policy, but pleased by the outcome

• 5 Urbanismo // Jan 30, 2010 at 3:42 am

  Indeed, MB has hit a button in brining up the issue of height/space proportions.

  Woodward’s, for instance, despite the misplaced big W, proportions are grotesque: the inner space will soon be dubbed, “the little grotto were the Sun don’t shine”.

  Huh, decades of pompous planners, at God knows what expense, and all we get is pompous puffery!

• 6 michael geller // Jan 30, 2010 at 8:51 am

  A number of people have been asking me what I thought about the two reports dealing with heights and views. While I have previously shared some of my opinions publicly (on this site, at the SFU forum, and most recently on CBC) and privately (Brent Toderian and I have had a few genuinely constructive chats) I would like to summarize my thoughts since this topic is not going to go away, and some unsettling issues remain unanswered for me.

  As I mentioned on CBC, when I first saw the view corridor report and the proposal for 4 strategically located ‘tall buildings’ I was reminded of the New Yorker cartoon of the man and woman looking at the New York skyline with all its construction cranes. The woman turns to the man and says:

  “I just can’t wait until the city’s finished.”

  No one should deny that views of the mountains and water are exceptionally important in Vancouver; they are. And in many cases, the view corridors have been beneficial in keeping open certain public views that might otherwise have got lost. But in other cases, the view corridors (which were established at fixed intersections or points along the waterfront and bridges) have been eroded by trees and low rise buildings. In a couple of instances they have become little more than tiny vertical slivers.

  One might say, so what…surely they are better than nothing. The problem is that those slivers are sterilizing, if you’ll pardon the pun, the development potential of some key properties. Why the pun? Because one such property is the St. Paul’s Hospital Site, which one day will need to be redeveloped in whole or part, to fund new hospital facilities.

  This, in my opinion, is a very good example of why it was called a ‘View and Capacity study’. Unfortunately, and this is not a criticism of anyone in particular, I don’t think many people fully understood the trade-offs that needed to be considered.

  Do you want to protect views? Of course!

  My advice? While an important decision has been made (for the time being), some independent entity should be charged with the responsibility of carefully filming with movies, not stills, the view corridors that we have decided to maintain (and the new ones we have just created) so that over time we can properly evaluate their benefits.

  Indeed. I would suggest that if we were to sit together in the Fifth Avenue Cinema and look at the film version of some of the view corridors we have just protected, and then be told of the building design and financial consequences for some of the property owners (like St.Pauls and a few of the recently designated office building sites ) we would not likely be so adamant or joyful that the right decisions had been made.

  As for the proposal for 4 tall building sites, I was opposed to this for two reasons: as the New Yorker cartoon so beautifully illustrates, the city is never finished. Yes, we established a few sites a few years ago (including the Shangri-la and the Ritz Carlton sites) and we might establish 4 more now, but realistically there will be and should be many more to come over the years. (Some might even violate a particular view corridor.)

  However, I think it will be better to evaluate each one on its merits at the time. (We weren’t really able to evaluate the trade-offs for these 4 sites).

  The future evaluations could be accomplished with the aid of dynamic view analysis and hopefully one day in a CITY URBANARIUM with a giant model of the city and life-like visuals. Singapore and Shanghai have such Urbanariums…why even Havana has a wonderful giant model of its Old City to review and evaluate what’s happening and likely to happen.

  Ray Spaxman proposed this concept for our city decades ago, and as a former director of the Urbanarium Society, I would like to see the city, community and private sectors start to again plan for such a centre now…perhaps as part of the new development around BC Place, or wherever…(There’s a report going to Council this Tuesday requiring a $522,000 contribution from the property owners to the city to fund the planning work for this area….let’s see if we can’t use some of this money to investigate the requirements and financing structure for an Urbanarium as part of the development.

  (Ironically, if it was built, it would likely support some different planning visions for this area including, yes, some taller buildings protruding into current view corridors in order to allow better major park designs!)

  Finally, with respect to Heights in Heritage areas, I was and am still opposed to the proposals for taller buildings. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure I like the 12 and 15 storey heights.

  While there are some nice 12 storey buildings in Kerrisdale surrounded by mature trees, depending on the floor plate dimensions, sometimes it is difficult to tell whether a 12 storey building is a short tall building, or a tall short building.

  I still prefer a 10 storey height limit for these neighbourhoods primarily for aesthetic reasons. While the number may seem arbitrary, anyone who has been to Washington DC or many European cities knows this is the upper limit for a mid-rise character.

  ( I initially supported this character for SEFC (and feel that it was compromised by going up to 13 storeys)

  To those Chinese merchants who said this isn’t enough ‘density’ to revitalize the area, I would say you are wrong…you can achieve very high densities within 10 storeys…

  To get a sense of how this character works, just look at some of the fine 10 storey buildings developed by DERA and others in the area, and imagine them continuing along the streets, with some of the older important heritage buildings maintained.

  So I am a bit nervous about the recent approval for greater heights, but we can monitor the situation, and maybe I’ll be proven wrong. I am glad that we did not agree to a few really tall buildings in this area now, since that would have compromised the possibility of creating neighbourhoods with a different character.

  As to the social implications of the decisions, while I do not agree with those who feel more condos will be the end of the DTES, I do agree with the call for an overall master plan and defined socio-economic vision for the area.

  I would like us to try and determine what we collectively think is the right mix of new market and non-market housing over the next 20 years; where new parks should be built along with other amenities; and where new commercial can be encouraged. I don’t think any of us really know how we want this area to turn out.

  Unlike the former director of the UofT School of Architecture, Peter Pragnell, who once said good planning is simply good architecture, side by side, I believe there are benefits in overall master plans, even though they will need to be changed over time as the city is ‘finished’.

  To those of you who are still reading, sorry to have gone on so long. I look forward to the comments of other Fabula readers on these important subjects.

• 7 Urbanismo // Jan 30, 2010 at 10:05 am

  PS . . . MB Sheila had a term for it . . . “ecstasy” and she wasn’t talking mood change . . .

• 8 mary // Jan 30, 2010 at 2:27 pm

  Conducting a socio-economic impact analysis of recent development such as Woodward’s(Wendy) and developing a vision for the DTES (Michael) would be resources well spent. But we shouldn’t expect complete clarity from what research there is on mixed income communities to tell us what is best. As ever, the devil is in the details. Diverse communities are generally healthier, stronger, more resilient. But cities, countries, regions where there is great disparity between income groups have poorer health (for both rich and poor), weaker economies, less efficient governing institutions, etc. The greater the disparity, the more exagerated the undesirable results. Read Richard Wilkinson’s Darwin award winning book Mind the Gap for examples and a plausible theory about why this is so. This is something we all should be concerned about, and not just in terms of what the built form future of the downtown eastside/Chinatown should be. We should be thinking about our tax policies, our health and social support programs and policies, just to name places to start. Reducing income disparity between the top and the bottom would, over time, be good for all. Good defined as resulting in better health status for everyone, more efficient government (think bigger bang for your tax buck), stronger democracy – the list goes on. We need to cultivate a culture of enlightened self interest.

  But we could start with a “do no [more] harm” approach to the DTES.

• 9 Bill Lee // Jan 30, 2010 at 2:31 pm

  Date of the Toderian letter? You say that it was posted earlier. Which is when? Then we get context of the “Tuesday” reference.

  And do we get a set of links to sites that Michael (Suburb-destroyer) Geller has done.
  He’s ruined Steveston, killed all the deer on Burnaby mountain for freezing squalid cages for wealthy students, etc.

• 10 Joe Just Joe // Jan 30, 2010 at 2:55 pm

  I would like to thank council for allowing me to continue worshipping the mountain gods from 27 attributively selected worshipping stops. We will give quite a bit to think about for the future anthropologists that will study us. I would also like to thank Richard Henriquez, that was the best presentation I’ve seen in a long time.

• 11 Gassy Jack's Ghost // Jan 30, 2010 at 3:04 pm

  (Apologies for the length of this post, which turned into a late night essay before early morning hockey…)

  Mr. Toderian, thank you for your willingness to provide your comments here, and to address my questions in the earlier post. I especially look forward to hearing your thoughts on the approval of the towers in the Heritage District. Here’s my take – what I would have liked to say to council if I could have been there. I offer these points with the caveat that I’m no expert, just a hometown boy and long-time Gastown resident who cares deeply about this city’s history and heritage. So, to all experts out there, please feel free to counterpoint or correct some of my assumptions.

  As far as I can ascertain, there is little or no research to support the argument that building towers will help “revitalize” a depressed historic neighbourood. In contrast, there is a fair amount of research to suggest that the opposite is true. I point to a UNESCO report, “Balanced Urban Revitalization for Social Cohesion and Heritage Conservation” (UNESCO International Urban Seminar, Jan 2007), with papers from multiple urban planning experts from around the world focusing on redevelopment in historic city centres.

  As far as I can tell, every single one of these experts disagrees with the key assumptions the HAHR tower proposals make. Not a single one of them recommends (and several outright condemn) building towers as a means to revitalization.

  Simply put, conservation of heritage and preservation of historic context revitalizes and provides assets that all strata of society enjoy the fruits of. Destroying history or denuding heritage with large-scale developments exacerbates existing social problems. To quote one of the papers: “dominant physical structures lead to a fragmentation of the city’s neighbourhoods and landscape.”

  In eastern Europe, after the fall of the iron curtain, the rapid destruction of heritage and occasional appearance of towers around historic cores created “interventions, dominated by private real estate developers, (that) changed the original urban landscape and architectural environment, and cultural heritage has constantly been at risk.” It is described as negative/loss, not positive/gain.

  In contrast, “The valorization of cultural heritage and environmental resources is a strategic priority for the political action of the municipality of Naples. …These are investments for the future, which will not only produce significant results for cultural and urban development, but will also raise the economic activities and the employment rate of the communities involved, and at the same time, reduce the social inequality.” My distaste of the HAHR stems from the fact that a 3rd option – the valorization and stewardship of cultural heritage, and tightening (not relaxing) the restrictions – was never put forward for public consideration. That seems to me to be a glaring mistake.

  The lessons of all these UNESCO papers are clear:

  Adding density is a moot point, for, like the well-planned historic centres around the world, our Heritage district is already one the densest areas of the city, despite the height restrictions the HAHR proposes changing.

  Economic “rebalancing”, if that is our goal, can easily be achieved without towers given the density inherent in the district. In fact rebalancing is already rapidly occurring west of Main through development within the current height limits. The changes to this western side of the DTES in the last few years have been remarkable, to say the least.

  The trade-off for amenities argument is, I think, an extremely weak justification for destroying or denuding historical assets, and recent history suggests that the amenities gained would fall far short of what is really needed, even if 20 towers were built.

  The argument that developers can’t make money on renos and low-rises is also suspect, given that many of the UNESCO papers are concerned with cities in Eastern Europe, Southern Italy, South America, etc. that do not have the wealth or resources Vancouver does. If they can find ways to do it, and do it right, why can’t we? Nixing the heritage density bonus program, for example, was a shortsighted decision. Fixing its very clear structural problems is what needed to happen. Shutting it down just opened the door to adding this justification for towers and raised heights.

  No land in the core left to develop? Every day I stare at the railyards that stretch from Main to Waterfront Station and the huge tract of land that represents, and shake my head when I hear the claim that “Northeast False Creek is the last undeveloped waterfront in downtown Vancouver.”

  But what is the reasoning behind towers and added height from an architectural/historical integrity perspective? Anecdotally, I don’t know any locals who live or work in my neighbourhood, rich or poor, who think the Woodwards towers are anything other than horribly out of place. And how many people cringe at the thought of Shanghai Alley reduced to placards in a tower courtyard? Then again, how many even have a clue what once was there? Now that it is gone, it is close to being forgotten.

  So I ask, what legacy do you believe you are leaving to future generations by this plan, Mr. Toderian? What do you think the decision to build towers in the heritage district – perhaps the most important heritage district in Western Canada – will look like in 40 years?

  Well, looking back 40 years after nixing the “Project 200” proposal, most Vancouverites thank our lucky stars that the north side of Gastown didn’t get overrun by towers. Most view it as a prescient, city-shaping decision (however it came about) on par with the decision to protect view corridors. People look at the “200” proposal with utter disdain, do they not? Whatever one thinks of the neighbourhood now, there is no denying that the potential for it to be great is still there. But that is only true because no towers were allowed to destroy it.

  You are now the steward of Vancouver’s architectural history and its heritage district, but this proposal does not seem to me to respect that heritage, nor does it appear to be based on any factual evidence to support its justification as a key to revitalization and future prosperity and pride for the whole city. I know a tight rope of compromise was walked when developing this plan, but I think all that resulted was a plan that comprises our historical legacy.

  The socio-economic status quo needs to change, for sure, but the scale and character of the area does not need to change to achieve this. If it’s already well-planned and high density, why mess with it? Revitalization can occur without desecrating the district with more towers. As most of the UNESCO papers suggest, you may actually end up creating more problems and more social fragmentation, destroying our heritage and the public assets they represent, and not solving any existing problems.

  So I can’t understand for the life of me why towers were ever even considered?

• 12 Urbanismo // Jan 30, 2010 at 4:37 pm

  “The valorization of cultural heritage and environmental resources is a strategic priority for the political action of the municipality of Naples. …These are investments for the future, which will not only produce significant results for cultural and urban development, but will also raise the economic activities and the employment rate of the communities involved, and at the same time, reduce the social inequality.” That’s a bit of a mouthful GJG.

  Naples has the advantage of over one thousand years of heritage: developing habits preceding centuries of history. Would that Vancouver were so lucky!

  There are some very deliberate limitations to our ideal city and, since we are talking historic, we need only go back two hundred years, or so, to our European heritage.

  Lurking beneath all our urban ideals and aspirations are two heritage facts we could do well without: both of the late eighteenth century: i.e. the “closures” and “fractional reserve banking’. You’d be amazed how these two apparently innocuous little items shape our urban lives today.

  The closures created our concept of “private property”. That is why there is a dearth of public places in Anglo cities created after the Georgians.

  Latinos were lucky to have Philip ll’s “Laws of the Indies” that ensured most cities south of the border to be replete in connected public urban places. Again, would that Vancouver were so lucky!

  “Fractional reserve” distorts our concept of corporate and personal money so that just about every active economic entity and individual is in perpetual debt.

  How this stress and hectic pressures impacts the design/development community manifests in what we see around us.

  This impacts the conversation, to quote J. M. Barry’s fictional lawyer Surtees, as, “time is money”.

  No need to remind ourselves that as we develop our various urban functions we are always beating the clock: the developer, the city, and particularly the mortgage bearer and the mortgage holder.

  The above creates a level of universal anxiety that becomes evident in the semiotics of the city: more so since WWll.

  Ergo, in my opinion, evidently shared by MB, height, within reason, is not a top priority: of course at seventy stories the debate takes on another dimension.

  But in the case of the Historic Precincts: Gastown, Hastings, Chinatown, Victory Square at seventy feet and Woodward’s imposed at 320 feet the debate becomes a matter of the integrity of the process.

  Street level economics, activities and vitality depends on the manner all these elements are handled: i.e. height can be mitigated at street level with enclosed atriums that may include an existing heritage treasure, a humane scale on the street and enclosed privacy at the stoops.

  The beauty of Heritage Chinatown Pender Street is that it came about before the above constraints without twenty-first century, corrupting money-games and high-tech building devices.

  Heritage, everywhere . . . Preserve it!

• 13 Andrea C. // Jan 30, 2010 at 9:11 pm

  From Urbanismo: “Woodward’s, for instance, despite the misplaced big W, proportions are grotesque: the inner space will soon be dubbed, “the little grotto were the Sun don’t shine”.”

  Thank you for saying this out loud on FB’s forum!

  A lot of people are spewing hot air about the “miracle of W” on the internet these days, since public access of some sort has been allowed. Me, I’ve lived in the DTES since 1990, and few things have ever felt as claustrophobic and creepy as entering the dark belly of the W courtyard. Even the “Vancouveritis” display, a wonderful exercise in hubris, and the accompanying comedy “Body Heat – the Woodwards story” fail to dispel the gloom. I’m sorry, but the much-vaunted courtyard and about 80% of the frontage of this poverty-be-gone development are an Epic Fail. Having said that, I do like the way the taller tower looks from a distance. But from the street level , Wooodwards is merely alienating.
  Now Henriques is on his merry way to fix the troubled West End with his vision. Oh, nooooos….

• 14 Lewis N. Villegas // Jan 31, 2010 at 6:50 am

  “Urban Quality” not “design quality” is what we are after in building a great city: a whole greater than the sum of the parts. The announcement of four towers in Chinatown sparked concern in the very place one would hope not to see any: in the people that understand it best.

  Savannah walling, Shirley Chan, Ghost, hataway, and others have made eloquent and resonating statements about their neighbourhood in a manner that only someone living there is able to do. Local knowledge: high-value stuff. (See this blog’s “Vancouver council nixes three of four new tall towers, allows some increases in Chinatown”)

  From MB, “the sheer magnitude of the 19th Century urbanism and heritage represented in these neighbourhoods [the five neighbourhoods that make up the so-called Downtown Eastside] requires protection from being eroded at the edges by taller buildings.”

  For those who would build higher than 50-feet fronting a 99-foot arterial R.O.W. (right of way); or 35-feet fronting a residential street 66-feet or wider, we quote Statistics Canada numbers below to show that fee-simple, human-scale, low-rise urbanism can provide equivalent densities to the tower-and-podium.

  The measure of urban quality is not to be had in height alone. Considerations of height, width and length must be taken together.

  However, there is a “trickster-like” reversal afoot that must be heeded if we are to get the urbanism right: what we are concerned with measuring is not the building height, width, and length, but rather the dimensions of urban space itself—the ether, as it were—being shaped by fronting construction. In urbanism, architecture is properly background except for the rare, monumental buildings housing public functions (refer to my earlier posts for more detailed discussion on human scale).

  Furthermore, in urbanism it matters whether or not there are doors on the street, with the attendant, unpredictable comings and goings, and whether the places are inhabited year round.

  I had discussed with Larry Beasely the principle that towers should be built exclusively in our city’s downtown peninsula. At a Plan Talk I demonstrated how that portion of our city projects into the Inlet, and is set off by park, water, and development history.

  By limiting the location of where towers can go, we can contain the market’s predictable push for tower sprawl. The Woodward’s block, and recent approvals in Chinatown, show the towers on the march. Thus, one has to ask: for what benefit?

  “By now the twin towers are icons, as familiar in souvenir shops as those little miniatures of the Empire State Building. We have all come to some sort of accommodation with the towers, God help us, and there have even been moments when I have seen them from afar and admitted some small pleasure in the way the two huge forms, when approached from a distance, play off against each other like minimal sculpture. But the buildings remain an occasion to mourn: they never should have happened, they were never really needed, and if they say anything at all about our city, it is that we retreat into banality when the opportunity comes for greatness.” [p.11]

  Paul Goldberger, some time architecture critic for the New York Times, writing about the World Trade Center in his “The City Observed: New York”, (1979).

  I too have observed what I tentatively term the “Inverse Square Rule of Tower Aesthetics”: tower appeal increases proportionately with the square of their distance from the observer. Thus, for an observer four times as far away, towers will look twice as good.

  The “view corridor” has never made sense to me as an urbanist concept. The best I can do is to report back what a woman told me after we presented the “Nanaimo Urban Design Plan” a few years ago:

  “Lewis, I like my views just fine where they are. Please don’t put them in a corridor.”

  Urbanism resonates with plain common sense, and I have never understood why my friends who are planners don’t understand that even renown figures like Kevin Lynch are voicing a bankrupt ideology. His “Image of the City” for example, as far as I am concerned, should have been subtitled as, “Image of the City: As seen thru the windshield driving behind the wheel of my car.”

  To get the “urban quality” you have to walk. Living in it is better still.

  “All buildings, large or small, public or private, have a public face, a façade; they therefore, without exception, have a positive or a negative effect on the quality of the public realm, enriching or impoverishing it in a lasting and radical manner. The architecture of the city and public space is a matter of common concern to the same degree as laws and language—they are the foundation of civility and civilization.”

  Leon Krier’s opening lines in the conclusion to his “The Architecture of Community” (2009).

  Coming from South America, as I did at twelve years of age, and growing up in the Lower Mainland, the trajectory of my education here led me to try to understand the persistence of two untenable realities:

  (1) The complete abdication of the public realm, or the street (including its sidewalks and fronting uses) to dominance by the automobiles; and

  (2) The toleration and containment of human misery and suffering in the so-called downtown eastside.

  The continuation of either, or both conditions in our city—”our little slum” has no equal in Canada—cannot but result in the debasement of our social and cultural fabric. As these values erode, what will be left standing? The single-minded ethos of the corporate boardroom?

  Finally, with the help of fellow blogger Bill Lee, we will put to rest a second misconception about urbanism. Namely, that you have to build towers to get high density.

  Lee did some work with the Stats Canada database and provided the following, remarkable numbers.

  Population per square kilometre (high to low):

  Strathcona: 19,748
  North False Creek: 15,813
  South False Creek: 10,924

  [For his explanation of how he compiled the data see his post in "Vancouver council nixes three of four new tall towers, allows some increases in Chinatown"]

  Strathcona wins the density challenge. And it does so with an “urban quality” that I argue is far superior to the podium-and-tower.

  Furthermore, as Simpson and myself demonstrated in our three FormShift entries—the one hand delivered to the AIBC two days before deadline we fear was lost and never reviewed by jury, or competition advisor—the house row represents an increment of intensification beyond the historic Strathcona model that preserves all the urbanistic characteristics intact.

  Yet, for reasons no one can cite, there appears to be resistance for building free-hold, or fee-simple, high-density, low-height house rows in our city. The Charter decrees it!

  The Director of Planning sheds some light on this issue, noting his disappointment.

  With fee-simple house rows work can proceed at an incremental pace. Small contractors, as well as large developers, would be able to bid and win projects. Consider that small job sites have a way of picking up locally available labour in a manner large projects cannot. Further, realize that there are many places in our city that would benefit greatly from this type of intensification.

  For example, the incremental intensification of the so-called Downtown Eastside neighbourhoods—precursors of the CPR and thus the cradle of our city—would achieve superior results than towers. By creating employment opportunities right in the place, incremental intensification would contribute to a healthy, local economy. Something that I have always held as a “missing pillar” in our harm-reduction strategy.

  Furthermore, does not the prospect of a neighbourhood populated by owners of buildings and land title promise a higher level of community involvement, and street bustle than a same-size community of strata owners?

  Back to the numbers.

  North Shore False Creek, the poster child for what every city in Canada (I am told) would like to achieve, delivers 20% less tax revenue to the host city than Strathcona.

  South False Creek has 55%, or about half, the density—and Tax Increment—of Strathcona.

  After thanking Bill Lee once again for making this analysis possible, I want to conclude with two points:

  (1) If we can achieve equivalent densities with either tower-and-podium, or fee-simple, human-scale, high-density, low-rise buildings, then which building type produces the best urban quality?

  (2) What is better for the DTES? A community of strata owners riding in elevators, coming and going from buildings that turn their back on the street (reference comments we have already heard here about Woodward’s). Or a community of land and building owners, with mortgage-helper rental suites, who will sweep the sidewalk, pick up trash from the lane, garden in their front yards, and give me dirty looks every time I drive by with the top down exceeding a tacit 20 km/h speed limit?

  So, back to our Director of Planning: We don’t need towers for density. We don’t need towers to spark redevelopment. Thus, a question needs to be answered: why do we need towers in the historic heart and cradle of our city?

• 15 david hadaway // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:30 pm

  Many years ago I lived in Milan. It has a humid, misty climate and generally speaking even from the tallest buildings you cannot see beyond the city. Occasionally, however, typically in Winter, the whole plain of Lombardy is filled with dry clear air from the Alps. On those days you could go out and see snow capped peaks apparently looming up at the end of the street. In fact they are some forty miles away. Those days always created a frisson of excitement, everyone seemed happier.

  For us something comparable is almost an everyday experience and therefore easily undervalued.

  On the subject of urban fabric it would be hard to exceed the quality of the great European cities. The Viales, Boulevards and Avenidas all have the height limits and height to width ratios mentioned above. I’m not against towers per se, on the contrary, but it’s got to be said that when you get the density of structure we are now seeing it is a bit worrying.

• 16 michael geller // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:46 pm

  David, I agree…the new Ritz Carlton is 20.8 FSR or more than 3 times the FSR of the rest of the Georgia Corridor which was zoned to 6.0 a number of years ago. I think it’s about time for a proper forum to discuss how high do we go, both in terms of buildings and density. Perhaps the Planning Commission or City Program can start the ball rolling.

• 17 Higgins // Jan 31, 2010 at 2:41 pm

  (Blog) Logorrehea (noun):
  …excessive and often incoherent talkativeness or wordiness; verbal diarrhea; usually the result of debating the “free” advice from an unsolicited letter.

• 18 Sean Bickerton // Jan 31, 2010 at 4:13 pm

  Those of us who care deeply about seeing Creekside Park built as originally promised – as a contiguous, destination, recreational park – are willing to accept increased density close to the stadiums / stadia in order to leave Lot 9 completely free and clear of towers.

  I remain hopeful that with this concession, and with new developments in soil remediation, we can move forward expeditiously to get Creekside Park built in the next five years, rather than waiting another twenty.

• 19 Brent Toderian // Jan 31, 2010 at 9:12 pm

  As promised, here is the second part of my summary of process, recommendations and Council decisions, this time for the Historic Area Height Review. This item is even more complex and nuanced than the View Corridor work, thus this overview will be longer than part 1, so my apologies in advance.

  Perhaps to start, a commenter asked why we were even considering heights for “towers” in the Historic Area. The short answer – the work was based on Council direction. Followers of the EcoDensity (ED) process will recall that when staff brought our first draft ED actions to Council for permission to take them out for further public consultation, Council added several new action items, including one to study the possibility of taller buildings in the DTES to achieve additional public benefits. When we brought back the final ED actions for Council decision, we proposed a re-written version of that action based on public input that emphasized the preservation of the area’s historic scale and character in such a review, and Council agreed and approved the revised action. This was the basis of the work we’re discussing.

  A comprehensive review of heights in the area did have a strategic value – at the time we were being presented with several proposals for very tall towers (350-400 ft) in the DTES, with many other properties possibly changing hands with land values that assumed such tall buildings. Such assumptions are never a good thing for the city, as over-assumed land values always makes for much more challenging discussions around proper densities, and public benefit contribution negotiations. The Woodwards project had some assuming that a 400 ft height was the “new normal” for projects in the area, rather than seeing the Woodwards height as a unique case in the community. At the time there were also rumours of proposals inside City hall to allow “ten 400 ft towers along Hastings” – whenever I was asked about this rumour, I clarified that I had never heard such a proposal. Those with smaller project aspirations made passionate arguments for more density and height to facilitate population growth in the area, for economic revitalization reasons (especially in Chinatown) and to contribute to the “body heat” in the area. As all this was creating much uncertainty, debate and speculation in the area, it made sense to look at the height and heritage question at the wider community and sub-area scales, rather than trying to deal with many individual proposals and rumours.

  As one might expect, the process was extremely complex, and the public engagement very challenging. At a mid-way point in the process, staff developed various options for the public and stakeholders to comment on, based on a “pattern and punctuation” concept for the height question. Staff didn’t support the idea of significant height increases across the board, but developed ideas for slight and strategic pattern height increases in various sub-areas for the public to comment on. As tall buildings were the key question in Council’s direction, we also floated the idea of various tall tower building sites (with heights in the range of 250-300 ft) based on various approaches to “punctuation” criteria. We included for discussion all building sites that were the subject of inquiries or discussions, official or unofficial, as we felt this was the time to put everything on the table for public comment. For the record, it was never a staff-supported proposal to put a tower on the Chinese Cultural Centre site. However, this was an idea being discussed and debated in various circles in the community, and was raised with us during the early consultation, so we made the decision to include it in the public discussion so that people could comment on it as part of the bigger context.

  A significant majority of the public and stakeholder input we received, including from various advisory bodies to Council such as the Urban Design Panel and the Heritage Commission, did not support the punctuation tall tower concept. Such towers, we were told clearly, were too tall, and the wrong building form for the historic area. We also heard from a significant majority that the Woodwards height was indeed unique, not the “new normal”. Staff agreed with these messages.

  It was Staff’s primary recommendation that the heritage scale and character in the area should be generally respected and preserved in the context of any changes. It was noted that Gastown had recently been recognized as a National Historic District and that we had recently requested such a designation for Chinatown as well (and hopefully eventually, a Unesco World heritage designation). The heritage character of the area continues to be one of its greatest strengths.

  Staff ultimately developed a series of careful and strategic recommendations that proposed slight pattern height increases in some areas (i.e. from 65 ft to 75 ft in Chinatown along Pender, and in Chinatown south a continued base height in the zoning of 90 ft but a new ability to rezone up to 120 ft). In other areas, we proposed that the height potential be left as-is, especially where the majority of heritage buildings are located (i.e. Gastown would stay at 75 ft, and Victory Square at a 75 ft base with potential for up to 100 ft through rezoning as per current policy). The strategy erred on the side of preserving or staying close to heritage scales, while adding some strategic density potential. These strategies ultimately received support and compliments from the various heritage groups that provided us advice, including the Heritage Commission.
  As for tall towers, staff agreed that tall “punctuation points” of 250 ft + were the wrong height and form for the historic area. Instead, staff suggested the idea of no more than three “high points within the pattern” at about 150 ft, for Council consideration (at Pender and Abbott aka the Budget site, Pender and Carrall aka the BC Electric site, and Keefer and Columbia aka the Keefer Triangle site). As with the view corridor work, we recommended a new higher standard for exceptional architecture for such taller buildings. I know the word “tower” is subjective and that many might see these still as towers, but they certainly differ significantly in height from what had been previously discussed, and differ in building form as these would be more of a perimeter-block building form rather than Downtown-south style slim towers. This form means more density, not just more height, and most agreed it was a form more appropriate for the heritage area.

  Although there were several other significant items addressed at the special council meeting on Friday January 22nd (Phase 1 of the Cambie Corridor planning, UBC Line planning principles, and View Corridors), a significant majority of speakers spoke to the Historic Area Heights Review. Many from the Carnegie Community Action Project (CCAP) and the low-income community asked Council to delay any changes until after a socio-economic study of the Woodwards project, and a comprehensive area plan for the DTES are both completed. A few speakers, representing a group calling for Chinatown economic revitalization that includes the Chinatown BIA , made the argument that the pattern height increases and the few 150ft heights were insufficient to bring about the revitalization that they felt Chinatown needed. Some suggested that the building forms being proposed would not be economically viable without greater height.

  On the other hand, there were many speakers from various heritage groups, and a Coalition concerned with the conservation of Historic Chinatown made up of numerous Chinatown stakeholder groups, that commended staff for the balanced and careful approach to heritage and revitalization issues. These speakers recommended that Council support the recommended height increases, but no more. Several speakers expressed specific concern about one of the three possible 150 ft sites, the Keefer Triangle site, primarily based on shadow and view impacts related to the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Gardens. Many other concerns and comments were raised, and Council asked many questions – all in all, it was a very sophisticated discussion, appropriate for a very complex community.

  Ultimately, Council made a series of thoughtful and nuanced decisions that I thought illustrated careful listening to the many voices that spoke to them. They approved the various pattern height changes, with no amendments. For the 150 ft “high points within the pattern”, Council supported 2 but rejected a third, the Keefer Triangle site, based on the concerns raised by the public. Although some had asked for the “generally 150 ft” height to be increased, Council didn’t do so. Only in the case of the South Chinatown HA1A zone though, Council chose to keep the door open for additional 150 ft sites to assist with further Chinatown economic revitalization, asking staff to report back.

  Thus for the majority of the historic area, after a time of considerable uncertainty and speculation, we now have a high level of certainty – Confirmed slight pattern height increases, only 2 sites that can go to about 150 ft, and no further tall towers. For South Chinatown specifically, we have partial certainty in the form of a new pattern height of up to 120 ft through rezoning, and further study for possible additional 150 ft buildings.

  In addition, Council passed several related motions based on the requests of speakers. They directed staff to report back regarding approaches and budgets for three pieces of work: a social-economic study on the impacts of new developments in the DTES on the existing low-income community; a priority approach for an Economic Revitalization Strategy for Chinatown (recognizing that such revitalization is affected by much more than height and density, and is positively influenced by heritage assets); and based on much discussion over the past few years within both the community and City Hall, a comprehensive DTES strategy.
  Overall, I believe that Council’s decisions were consistent with the values heard from the public and stakeholders, but also reflect the complexity of perspectives and strong differing opinions. Making clear decisions with so many differing opinions is never easy.

  My sincere compliments to our senior planner Jessica Chen and her team, for their great work on this challenging exercise, and to the many community leaders and citizens who showed great passion while educating us and each other on the many issues involved.

  Brent Toderian

• 20 Bill Lee // Jan 31, 2010 at 9:53 pm

  Reply to my own question.

  The earlier blog reference that Toderian posted was http://www.francesbula.com/uncategorized/vancouver-council-nixes-three-of-four-new-tall-towers-allows-some-increases-in-chinatown/comment-page-1/#comment-17237

  (Comment 21 is the label, above is the Permalink to Comment 21 (and the title of the broad discussion)

  http://www.francesbula.com/uncategorized/vancouver-council-nixes-three-of-four-new-tall-towers-allows-some-increases-in-chinatown/comment-page-1/#comment-17237And the date was
  “Brent Toderian // Jan 29, 2010 at 4:07 pm
  Hi Frances, and readers. This past Tuesday was the climax of two very complex exercises, the …”

  So Tuesday means Tues 26 Jan 2010

• 21 Gassy Jack's Ghost // Feb 1, 2010 at 4:53 pm

  (I think Higgins is on to my “Gassy” avatar!)

  Admittedly, I am somewhat mollified by Mr. Toderian’s comments, and the decisions by council in the context of his explanation. The Budget site, being across from Tinseltown (and same block as Shanghai Alley but outside the Chinatown gates), seems a decent choice if a high rise had to go anywhere, since the heritage in that area is pretty much screwed already, and a heritage tower is almost kitty corner to the west – it won’t necessarily stick out like a sore thumb.

  On the other hand, Pender and Carrall (I assume the southeast corner, since the other corners are heritage?) does not really seem like a good place for a tower at all, for all the reasons I pointed out earlier, including its proximity to many great 3 storey buildings across the street. I’m not sure a high quality design could counter its placement near the core of Chinatown, although, as David H. pointed out a few threads back, there is a fair amount of junk around here on the south side already (one of which would be demo’d to make way for this high rise), so maybe it would work?

  I still don’t get the “more density=revitalization” argument, and have no idea why this appears to be a given and unchallenged. I fear that those who put it forth are really only interested in making money, and don’t give a damn about history or architecture or revitalization at all…

  I am very suspect about tiering so quickly up to 120 feet to the south, that’s a really big jump, and will create a serious wall-in effect, which will really become the antitheses of human-scale. The streets are too narrow for this to work without making it claustrophobic.

  I would also point out that, heading south from Gastown, the sheer number of non-protected sites vastly out-numbers the protected ones (see the HAHR models or VanMap). Which means that the newer buildings will, over time, eventually overwhelm the heritage buildings, leading to the denuding effect. And that’s where this becomes really problematic, and where Urbanismo’s oft-repeated message about design quality, and Lewis’ concerns over human scale and ratio, will certainly come into play.

  So, will we end up with more junky faux-heritage sites that everyone agrees are crap, or will architects and Planning demand something more, say, Gaudiesque; take some real risks and maybe make the 21st century buildings something cool and unexpected, adding some real excitement to the district? Hopefully, the lessons of Concorde’s Greenwich proposal will not be forgotten, and the standard of design will be held to only: ultra high. There won’t be much hope for a UNESCO World Heritage site if we build to the lowest common denominator, and remake the streets where the sun don’t shine but for three weeks a year, when it’s directly overhead…

  Nevertheless, resigned to the changes, I hearken back to the original debates on the bulablog last May, where I suggested near the end of one of the threads that maybe one of the future Form Shifts should call for innovative and exciting designs for the heritage district?

  It seems to me that, if we are going this route of higher buildings that will remake the district (and it will, given the high proportion of non-heritage sites), then let’s try to make it an exercise in building a new legacy of 21st century heritage, one that could be bold, daring, and yes, maybe controversial. Let’s make it a challenge for our architects and designers and planners, and hold them accountable to the highest possible standards and creativity. Isn’t that why you all got into the building profession? Not to make money first and foremost, but to build beautiful, cool, exciting and creative buildings? To make the city you work in great? If the status quo is changing, let’s also change the status quo of Vancouverism, and shift away from the monotonous, lazy, tiresome designs we’ve all grown so utterly sick of…

  Think about yours and the City’s legacy as you go forward to build in this historic district, please!

  Just my humble suggestion…

• 22 Urbanismo // Feb 2, 2010 at 6:09 am

  Mr. Toderian offers his ” . . . sincere compliments to our senior planner Jessica Chen and her team, for their great work on this challenging exercise, and to the many community leaders and citizens who showed great passion while educating us and each other on the many issues involved.”

  There is an alternative opinion:

  Having worked with the planning department, lived and practiced in Vancouver for many decades, and indeed lived in other large international cities from which I draw comparisons, I am not sure I derive comfort from Mr. Toderian’s self congratulatory expressions.

  Of course he is deeply in love with himself and his department: however I, and perhaps a few other sentient observers, may not be!

  First I am not acquainted with senior planner Chen: I know not of her back ground, urban sensitivities or education: indeed if the is of the conventional university planning education, then I fear she is report-bound and ill equipped.

  Who are these “community leaders and citizens who show great passion”? I have watched this parade long enough to become quite cynical.

  Are they offshore, say-anything-to-get-approval, professional itinerants looking out for the main chance? Or indeed local professionals who have become marinated, so deeply, in the “yes-sir-no-sir” local planning ethos that whatever vestige of talent they may, once, have harboured has long since been handed to credit card companies.

  Are they meek little people, trained for so long to defer to authority: unfortunately our citizenry is replete in such having been exposed to year upon year of debilitating, mind numbing, civic conditioning: yunno, a shut up, smile and do as you are told.

  There are an awful lot of these deferential, perennial “community activists” who succumb to this syndrome.

  Lastly the proof is in the pudding: Mr. Toderian’s pudding in this case.

  Despite his assurances, the sentient observer, who is not in it for the money, sees an urban agglomeration that is a disgrace to civility: noise, chaos, clashing, incoherent forms, brutal traffic noise and congestion, minimal leisure havens.

  We are deflected, perhaps intentionally, by height when, indeed, the issues is overall ambience, revolving around space, form articulating that space, textures and integrate functions that wencourage a healthy economic environment.

  And all this after sixty years of a every expensive planning department succoring some hundred +/- very well paid planners: evincing a very disturbing mass of contradictory conditions that Mr. Toderian evidently is unable, or unwilling, to acknowledge!

  This is the considered opinion of:

  Roger Kemble, Master of Arts (Urban Planning), Academician of the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts, Member of the Architectural Institute of British Columbia.

• 23 MB // Feb 2, 2010 at 12:37 pm

  This is a great discusion. Many thanks to Lewis, Brent, Gassy, Urby, Michael, Bill and David for their unique perspectives.

  But it is still painfully obvious that our city-building efforts so far have two magnificent obsessions: the vast scale of entire communities at one pole, and the single, individual site scale at the other. Folks, there is an entire world between these poles, and other than Lewis’s and Urby’s allusions, no one has addressed the street or the often remarkable variations in neighbourhood character within a community.

  Is there a graduate project or something out there already mapping in detail the distinct neighbourhoods of Chinatown and the DTES?

  Buildings form only a part of a neighbourhood body that is fleshed out on the skeletal frame known as the street grid. In area alone, public streets and lanes occupy a third of our land area, yet are commonly treated as lowly functunaries of service access with no relation to the buildings or neighbourhood, or the various forms connectivity can have.

  Buildings + individual sites and over-arching policy get much attention, but when was the last time you heard of an urban design exercise for the stretch of Pender (or any other) Street through the historic core of Vancouver? Streetscapes should attain as much importance as the building walls that line them. They are our market and gathering places, the location of our front doors, and mark our social identity.

  Block-long building walls — especially in our heritage neighbourhoods — must be perceived as integral to the whole, not as creatures compartmentalized and isolated. Just because some adjacent lots and parcels of land may have become derelict for whatever reason, doesn’t mean they need to attain as much return on the development investment as possible (via political pushes to increase FAR and height) as though private economy is the only worthwhile consideration to a neighbourhood.

  In our newer and infilling neighbourhoods with less intense heritage, we need to consider that we are in essence creating a new heritage. Heritage, like architecture, is both a private commodity and a community asset.

  So much attention has been focused on the downtown peninsula and False Creek, yet 70% of Vancouver’s land area lies outside of the inner city and is practically all zoned for single-family. No one really cares about downtown view cones in Kerrisdale and Cedar Cottage, but they do care about densification, building height and design character in their own neighbourhoods.

  Now is the time to prepare the larger community and individual neighbourhoods outside of the inner city for the challenges of the 21st Century, and I submit that broad brush stroke planning and site specific architecture are not enough. While they have performed effciently in guiding development, they have also led to an arcane language full of formulaic terms not well understood by the public (FAR, park land-to-population ratios …), and that have little meaning to residents concerned about things like the scale of social housing and the design of specific buildings popping up in their neighbourhoods.

  This is an opportunity to push for a greater understanding of what urban design can truly accomplish. It is a call to establish an Urban Design Department in every city hall and a deeper set of public consultation processes that deals with neighbourhoods on a neighbourhood by neighbourhood basis. This goes beyond — or builds on — the City Plan visioning exercise (which to me was quite a remarkable way to engage citizens compared to other cities), but affords a more finely-grained process relative to each distinct neighbourhood, and, I would say, to each distinct section of every major commercial and residential arterial.

  Where I disagree with Urby is in fostering citizen involvement in design charrettes. He feels they’ll fail if led by an ego-centric planner or architect. I contend urban design also includes other professions like engineering, landscape architecture, social planning and ecosystem planning, and a balance would have to be struck between them in an urban design department and the public consultation techniques it uses.

  Getting back to Chinatown, I believe citizens are smart and would quickly grasp the fundementals if they participated in drawing out and describing what they would be willing to accept through a design charrette, and to propose ideas of their own. Just having blow ups of photos of the entire south side street wall of Pender from Gore to Beatty pinned to a wall, and overlaying heights and massing, and having orthophoto blowups of the area handy with various height, building massing and streetscape treatment scenarios would communicate a tremendous amount to a neighbourhood group. This process shouldn’t be under estimated or demeaned before it has a chance to be practiced widely.

• 24 Gassy Jack's Ghost // Feb 2, 2010 at 12:45 pm

  What’s that you say Urbanismo? Public support for any tower proposal was virtually non-existent?

  At the risk of being tossed in the klink for a sideways glance on Day Six of the DTES popo pre-Olympic sweep, last night I took a late stroll around Chinatown to check out the only TWO tower sites approved, right? Huh? Right?

  Nothing like a walk in the rain to heighten your senses! It’s money well spent, so to speak. Unlike other things I can think of….

  I reconfirmed in my own mind that the Budget Rental site one could sorta swallow a high rise on, given Fung owns it and it’s still under the height of the Sun – pretty much anything will improve this intersection, And hey, now someone will be there to complain to Alex Tsakumis about the pissing drunks, loud groups of girls, too many furries coming and going, or the constant reek of McDonald’s deep fryers from across the street in Tinseltown.

  But 8 East Pender on the SE corner at Carrall (bordering the new Greenway no less) is right across the alley to the north of Sun Yat Sen. So how the heck is this site any different than the site Council nixed at Keefer Square or the Cultural Centre site that didn’t even make it to Council?! It’s still 150 feet over and above Sun Yat Sen, and much closer to it than Keefer Square. Remember, the business plan here says: go for UNESCO World Heritage Site. But, but… the Scholar’s Room won’t see this one unless you stand on your tippy toes, so, yeah, its totally OK, and there’ll be no shadows coz it’s to the north? A fine logic, indeed.

  Yes, a tower and podium proposal to set it back …yawn… and lessen the spatial impact, but then, on the other side, across the street on Pender, a string of heritage pearls lie low, awaiting polishing. Either way, aspect ratio be damned, the sun will hardly illuminate the pearls, you know. And we’re gunning for FIFTEEN storeys here! Blah! It won’t matter what size plate you serve this thing up on…

  And speaking of nimbys, I bet all these new high risers on Carrall will band together and force Rennie to take down Everything Will be Alright, or at least turn it off by nine pm so they don’t have to stare at it every bloody night from their roosts.

  And, in an ode to how fast public council quorums can make private real estate decisions, the For Sale sign is already up on the old (unprotected heritage) service station in Keefer Square – the one tower site that got nixed by Council. I guess there’s really no point in updating the Heritage Register at this point, eh? It certainly wasn’t on the agenda presented to council by Planning, because hey, this review is all about high ideals, right? Groans (from speculative heights). More groans.

  Twelve storey Paris-style apartments traversing the Hastings parade route! Think of it, even higher than the ugly Luxling! Quick, wall that whole sucker in before an Area Plan process is approved! The 20% is already institutionalized; so there’s really no limit to what we can do here now, old boy! Ever been to Greenwich, mate?

  For Wendy P, and all the starving or successful artists who live around here, a final thought to ponder about the INTENSIFICATION! policy that’s behind all this, as quoted from a Skyscraper:

  “These changes should allow the populate to increase from 8000 today to just under 17000 upon build-out in about 20-40yrs.” (Sic)

  Most of you will be dead by then anyway, eh? It doesn’t really matter if it’s livable.

  And either way, I’ll still be a ghost.

  So I’ll give it a rest, already…

• 25 Urby // Feb 2, 2010 at 1:33 pm

  MB . . . Urby, thanqxz I like that . . . I hope you intend it as a term of endearment . . .

  Thus from now on . . .

  Urby ” . . . feels they’ll fail if led by an ego-centric planner or architect.”

  Yes I do because I am an ego-centric architect myself (my kids say so). . so I know . . . !

  The charrette is not a vehicle for community design, development or improvement because:

  i. Most people are intimidated and as they prefer to be part of the group tend to follow the loudest voices.

  Group thinq leads to delusion: i.e the charrette I attended two weeks ago centred on a very steep graded neighbourhood. I know the neighbourhood well: it is my home. Despite that the prevailing delusion is “everyone walks to the store” which I know from observation is not true . . . yet we must agree!

  ii. There are always one or two very loud voices.

  iii. Architect are usually the leaders. I have no idea why because . . .

  a. They are trained to see building and not the spaces between.

  b. They are easily influenced by fads and international gurus.

  c. International trends have no place in the community (hopefully). The guiding word in community building is autochthonous!

  d. They are not economics-trained and economics is a vital part of a healthy community.

  . . . and after lunch I will probably thinq of a dozen more reasons . . ojala . . .

• 26 Bill Lee // Feb 2, 2010 at 5:13 pm

  @Gassy Jack’s Ghost // Feb 2, 2010 at 12:45 pm link comment 24

  “But 8 East Pender on the SE corner at Carrall (bordering the new Greenway no less) is right across the alley to the north of Sun Yat Sen”

  Yes, and built for the TV station and a certain prominent Chinatown lawyer, former councillor etc. Perhaps you can get away with anything if you know the right people.

  As for SunYatSen (Zhong Shan) building, it was an idea, but not well supervised. Tenants were left to not pay rent and it fell into disrepair.

  The Chinese Gate from Expo in front of the Chinese Cultural Centre was a mistake in the first place, warned by old CCC veterans that it would be expensive and not necessary. But it pleased Mother China to be buying a piece of wood and concrete from the Expo 86 Class B “world fair’ Chinese pavilion. And it has had to be ‘restored’ twice at great expense.

  At the same time as the CCC, there was a second one opened in Richmond quite conveniently across from the early Aberdeen and Parker Place mall, on property owned by the same person as the Aberdeen mall.

  No shadows over the Sun-Yat-Sen gardens though. Right to direct sunlight is becoming a bit issue in this Greenest Capital city.

• 27 Higgins // Feb 2, 2010 at 6:51 pm

  Hmmm, the Blog Loghorrhea continues.
  Hey, CH4 let’s talk, call me @ (604) BITE ME! This discussion could make a lovely lecture. Period. You all realize that the only outcome is a bigger speech written to self by the Lead Logomaniac planner of the city. As per all the other endless nights when people lined outside council chambers for their take on the stringent issues, this one is going on the same route… towards the garbage bin. With a short pit stop by the sandwich & coffee table. And I am sad to see so many interesting points of view wasted. Pardon my candor.

• 28 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 3, 2010 at 1:14 am

  I will need another day or so to shape my response. The Director of Planning has given us an openness and transparency in his posting that exceeds anything I have seen before (given my time on the blogs is very restricted). It is refreshing and encouraging to see such a carefully crafted account of the planning process in our city.

  However, that doesn’t mean that the DoP and I are on the same page. But, it does mean that the discussion, as much as possible, should proceed along the lines of folks who value each other precisely because—or in spite of the fact that—they do not see eye to eye on matters of Canadian urbanism.

  Sometimes diversity of opinion is the real mark that there is richness in our midst.

• 29 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 4, 2010 at 12:11 am

  Part I: The Paradigm Shift

  I believe that a paradigm shift is overtaking our cities, both in the way we build them, and in the way we govern them.

  In governance, for example, the old “You Can’t Fight City Hall” is giving way to a culture of “Openness, Transparency and Consultation”. In planning and architecture, the modernist ethos that “we can’t learn from the past” has come full circle.

  It is difficult to assert today whether or not these changes will extend to cover the full spectrum of human activity, including global economics, politics, and culture. If we think back to the last great explosion, made by the recovery of classical texts and the invention of the printing press, all aspects of society were in flux more or less all at the same time. Times were turbulent, yet the results remain awe inspiring.

  The digital revolution has landed us in a new Renaissance. Not so much a march of progress, but bending the words of Harold Bloom, “The Re-invention of the Human”; or what Robin Blaser titled “The Recovery of the Public World”.

  1. The Police Chief from Santa Rosa, California.

  I witnessed a concrete example of the paradigm shift playing out at the Vancouver Coalition conference where the Four Pillar Strategy for harm reduction was first introduced. I was standing at the microphone, waiting to ask a question at the session where the former police chief of Santa Rosa had just talked about the necessity of decoupling addiction from criminality, when I noticed something funny going on between the questioners and the Chief. So I sat down.

  Something must have detained me getting to the lunch that followed the session because when I came into the room, the place was already packed. Tray in hand I was much surprised to see an empty chair right beside the featured speaker, the Santa Rosa Police Chief. I took the golden opportunity, introduced myself, and asked about what I thought I had seen going on in the proceedings just ended. Was that really the local police force out in numbers challenging him? It was.

  He explained that the criminalization of addiction is so embedded in policing that officers have come to him fully seven years after first hearing his message to say, “Chief. We are finally on the same page about addiction.”

  2. Two Types of Planning.

  I sense that we are in the same place, more or less, with urban planning. The old paradigm clings on, and is very difficult to shed if you are a professional planner. Who knows how long it will take those individuals currently practicing to accept, and open up to a new way of thinking about city making. It goes against everything they learned in school, and have achieved professionally since graduation.

  Nevertheless, for some time now, there have been two types of planning: the old way, repeating all the modern mistakes; and a new type of planning rigorously based on urban design.

  Planning with urban design will be discovering mistakes of its own, to be sure. However, its core principles are rigorously scientific in a way the old planning never was: they are built on measurable facts. Urban design springs from measurements of the human experience of place, and has done so since before the time of Vitruvius.

  Keep your eye on the “measurement” part—that’s the key that unlocks the whole puzzle.

  3. The “Englishness” of not planning.

  At the culmination of the build out of London’s West End—the land on the north shore of the Tames from Westminster to the City, roughly the area from Charing Cross to Bishops Gate—the Barry-Pugin Palace of Westminster (the Houses of Parliament including Big Ben, 1840-1870) was not the only story rising from the banks of the river. The stench of untreated sewage reached such levels that Fleet Street dubbed 1858 “The Summer of the Great Stink”.

  Vastly improved, the flushing toilet had taken hold, and the great metropolis was a-flush in it by mid-century. The West End, comprised almost entirely of private lands, or estates, was a planning fiasco. For example, there was no coordinated plan for road construction, much less for water supply and sewer. After all, who was going to tell “His Lordship” what to do.

  Is the impossibility of co-ordinated planning an inheritance in our English cultural heritage?

  [Note: the Brits are well aware of their urban problems, and are using urban design to solve them. Download a free pdf, "Urban Design Compendium 1: Urban Design Principles" by the English Partnerships, at http://www.englishpartnerships.co.uk/qualityandinnovationpublications.htm.

  4. "Pattern and punctuation" as seen from Giotto's tower.

  Florence seen from atop the bell tower designed by renaissance painter Giotto presents "pattern and punctuation". Buildings of uniform height, textured by terra cotta roof tiles, are punctuated by monuments such as Brunelleschi's dome, and the domes and bell towers of the surrounding parishes that spread out as far as the eye can see.

  However, down at ground level, the experience of the city is entirely different. Yet, this too can be described in terms of "pattern and punctuation". On the ground plane we encounter a pattern of tall and narrow medieval streets, meant to keep out the hot Tuscan sun, punctuated by "urban rooms" or piazze. The contrast between street space and public square is memorable. Approaching the square is a threshold experience. The squares veritably burst upon our senses, full of sunlight, and open space.

  Piazze burn images in our memories precisely because they are the antithesis, or counter point, to the medieval street. But the urbanism is defined in terms of the ether, of the shape the buildings give to the streets and squares they front. The churches that front the piazze achieve monumentality, and timelessness, only in so far as their design resonates with the proportions of the fronting open space.

  Two things bear further comment. The first is the utter and total difference between the elements that form the "pattern and punctuation" we see after climbing the 414 steps of the campanile, and the elements that compose the "pattern and punctuation" experienced in everyday life by citizens. It is pointless to argue for the primacy of one over the other. The view from atop the tower is a curiosity, an effect of the hard work, and purposeful application, of the urban design principles that shape the experience had on the streets and squares below.

  If one were to characterize the process followed by the City of Vancouver Planning department from what we have heard above, we would say that it resembles climbing Giotto's tower to decide on what will be permitted in the city below. Yet, these are pronouncements and judgements shaped from a vantage point where the facts that really matter cannot be apprehended.

  This is planning from the clouds, pure and simple, when it should be design-in-the-street-and-in-the-square.

  The second point that bears mentioning is that no examples exists of successful "pattern and punctuation" built with modern towers. There is not a single town or neighbourhood built with modern towers that works.

  I love New York, but I too escape to the Village and to Central Park. And when we venture further into the boroughs that surround Manhattan we realize at what prize the modern Rome was built.

  5. The Pattern Language problem.

  Reduction to "Degree Zero" or the "death of history" is perhaps the most pernicious of the modernist lies.

  Christopher Alexander's "Pattern Language" presents black and white photos of italian renaissance towns without captions, or identification. Whatever their intention, the photos have never worked for me. The way to understand urbanism is "in context"—as part of the larger social, political and economic functioning.

  6. A Modern Planning Mistake (a built example).

  For a local example of modern planning gone wrong, in a setting to rival Vancouver's historic neighbourhoods, take the ferry and walk on Nanaimo's Commercial Street.

  The superb 19th century stuff will be on the west side—human in scale, suitably sized for a small town. The best part of Nanaimo's urbanism is its town plan, exquisitely walkable, and expertly laid out to capture the contours and panoramic rhythms of the site.

  Thanks to recent redevelopment opposed by half the population, the historic urbanism now faces "pattern and punctuation" of the 20th century variety on the opposite side of Commercial Street. The old buildings remain, but the feeling is lost.

  7. You can have a car of whatever color you want as long as it is black.

  The real problem in the urbanism emanating from the Vancouver Planning Department is that for every problem there seems to be but one remedy: generate land-lift.

  Part II: Getting the Urbanism Right

  How can it be that we have gotten the DTES so wrong for so long?

  The Four Pillar strategy for harm reduction is working. However, in the areas of mental health and homelessness, there is need for more action. In the area where I cast an expert eye, in the neighbourhoods impacted by poverty the planning is a mess.

  I've come to the conclusion that there is a missing pillar: neighbourhood intensification as the means to revitalize the local economy. Our problem is that we have failed to understand the 19th century urbanism. The lack of urban design in our planning methodology only makes things worse.

  1. Building consensus: What is a tower?

  Is the Sun Building a tower? Is the Dominion Building, with the red mansard roof rising over the north side of Victory Square, tallest in the British Empire when it was built, a tower? Half a mile to the west along Hastings Street is one of the sentimental favourites in North American Deco… is the Marine Building a tower?

  I submit that only the Sun Building has a "tower element". However, the other examples "tower" over the 19th century urbanism, with the intention to transcend, dominate or destroy—you choose—that tradition. It is in this latter, negative sense, that we talk about any tall building being a "tower" in neighbourhoods where the urban fabric consists of perimeter block massing, 50-foot tall fronting arterials, and not more than 35-feet tall in residential streets.

  I think that Ghost puts his finger on it when he raises the spectre of Project 2000. Will the legacy of this Council and Director of Planning be that, on their watch, the market forces finally broke through, and built towers in the places of our city's origin, and birth?

  2. Repeating the mistakes of modern planning, over and over again.

  For whatever reason(s), the Vancouver Planning Department continues to operate under the old rules. Thus, right from the beginning, their work is doomed to failure, and can be seen doing just that with clockwork regularity. Present cases included. It is a tragedy of sorts, playing against the wealth of our community, and the quality of life of its residents. The more vulnerable the person, the more these mistakes impact their every day existence.

  Planning mistakes are as plain as the posts to this blog. The people are not being heard, much less listened to; there is a near-total obsession with tower height; every solution regardless of place is the same—North Shore False Creek, Wall Centre, Shangri la, the Olympic Village, Woodwards, etc.

  Finally—and this is perhaps the most telling outcome of all—there is little if any capacity shown by the planning department in the all important areas of historic preservation and neighbourhood intensification.

  3. Difficulties communicating without urban design principles.

  One has to lament the total lack of urban design in the planning methodology presented above and used to recommend towers in the historic neighbourhoods (first the W in Gastown, now towers for Chinatown).

  The principles or planning concepts—presented by the Director of Planning in quotation marks—are esoteric and without basis in historic precedent. Furthermore, they have nothing to do with human sense perception in urban space. They do not relate, or measure, how we experience neighbourhoods.

  To read the voices of residents that walk and see the place everyday, and to hear the account by the Director of Planning of how his team understood the very same place, is a hallucinogenic, schizophrenic experience.

  Absent the ability to present concrete and verifiable facts, the tired and old "open houses" leave the public in a fog. The few that turn up are left with the impression that they are not being heard, and that the outcome is predetermined. Planning becomes a battlefield littered with winners and losers. Rather than finding common ground, neighbourhoods and entire communities are split.

  The best way to do "openness, transparency, and consultation" is to communicate the fundamental "facts" of urbanism, then offer a demonstration of how these facts may apply to the neighborhood(s) under study.

  In our historic districts such an approach would be a fascinating way to get to common ground. Lessons in urbanism would be discovered every step of the way, and I am confident the process would become a joyous occasion for all, a time to celebrate our one common cultural heritage.

  4. A closer look.

  I had asked one question based on two simple premises:

  We don’t need towers for density. We don’t need towers to spark redevelopment. Thus, a question needs to be answered: why do we need towers in the historic heart and cradle of our city?

  Answer:

  "The short answer – the work was based on Council direction… to study the possibility of taller buildings in the DTES to achieve additional public benefits."

  Then, in Chinatown [1/5 of the DTES]:

  “Only in the case of the South Chinatown HA1A zone … Council chose to keep the door open for additional 150 ft sites to assist with further Chinatown economic revitalization, asking staff to report back.”

  There appears to be a clear divergence of views. The Vancouver Planning Department seems to hold the view that:

  (1) towers are necessary for density; and
  (2) towers are necessary to stimulate economic revitalization.

  We have provided factual evidence here that the density of Strathcona is higher than North Shore False Creek by 25%. 19th century-style urbanism achieves higher density—and I would say a superior urban quality results—than with podium-and-tower.

  Therefore, we seem to hold facts in hand that the planners are unaware of: namely, that the statement that towers are necessary for density—is factually not true.

  However, we have to cede ground as regards point (2). If we accept as a “given” that planning is to be practiced as it is today at our city hall, then quite possibly towers are the only way to stimulate economies at the neighbourhood level. Yet, if the only economic tool we have is land-lift profits, extracted in “public benefit contribution negotiations” that are not open, transparent, or consultative, then we really have a new bottom in a bankrupt planning ideology.

  The notion that “towers are necessary to stimulate economic revitalization” is the best possible signal that the time has come to shift paradigms. We must turn from planning one tower at a time, to embrace neighbourhood design as a whole.

  Below, in “Part III: Principles for the Intensification of Vancouver’s Historic Neighborhoods”, I offer a glimpse of what I mean by “We don’t need towers to spark redevelopment”. The alternative is to draw a neighborhood-wide urban design plan to meet an agreed-upon level of build out.

  5. The real story, the real answer.

  There is in the Director’s exposition a back story. The Woodward’s project—which he inherited—had the immediate negative effects we all predicted: the flood gates opened to building towers in the historic neighbourhoods. The rumour mill also had it right. All sides in the political debate were sizing up the possibilities of land-lift profits, or “public benefit contributions”, arising from building towers in the DTES.

  6. The elusive pursuit of permanence.

  Another troubling idea permeates this fascinating exposition of planning work in Vancouver City Hall. It is the belief that subtle moves made here, and changes made there, will be the final word in the historic districts:

  “Thus for the majority of the historic area, after a time of considerable uncertainty and speculation, we now have a high level of certainty – Confirmed slight pattern height increases, only 2 sites that can go to about 150 ft, and no further tall towers. For South Chinatown specifically, we have partial certainty in the form of a new pattern height of up to 120 ft through rezoning, and further study for possible additional 150 ft buildings.”

  Wish it were true. It is as if the protagonists were unaware that development forces enjoin a race to the bottom, always pushing for more, and always trying to do it for less. Even Wall Street understands that, putting curbs on trading on those days when the “irrational exuberance” gets the better of most. The only certainty being cemented here is that other Councils, and other Directors of Planning, will cave in much the same way at other times in the future. This process will continue permitting more, destroying more heritage, until someone has the balls to say “no”.

  Only then will we breathe a collective sigh of relief.

  The best solution hinges on establishing two boundaries:

  (1) The downtown peninsula as the “tower zone”; and
  (2) The historic neighbourhoods as the “place with no towers”.

  Bells and sirens of warning would sound any time these principles would be challenged. Further, two different—two meaningfully different—types of urbanism would emerge in our city more or less side-by-side.

  Part III: Principles for the Intensification of Vancouver’s Historic Neighborhoods.

  The following principles are classified under the seven elements of an urban design plan for restoring full function to our historic neighbourhoods.

  1. Neighbourhood footprint—the Quartiers.

  The DTES measures about 512 acres (207 ha). It is composed of five neighbourhoods or ‘quartiers’: Gastown, Chinatown, Strathcona, Oppenheimer, and a place with no name centred on Hastings and Clarke.

  Three miles to the east, at the Hastings Townsite (between Nanaimo and Renfrew streets; Wall Street and E. Georgia) two quartiers are platted with their respective cores at Slocan & McGill Street; and Slocan & Hastings. Together these represent an additional 250 acres (c. 100 ha) of land platted in the 19th century tradition of the pre-CPR era. New Brighton Park is at the NE corner of the Hastings Townsite.

  Note: The footprint of a quartier overlays the same land area as the catchment for a tram stop.

  1. Neighborhood footprint—social housing.

  The urban design plan needs to test the concept of having 33% non-market, 33% affordable, and 33% market housing in the DTES neighbourhoods. At a buildout population of 3x current levels, 45,000 people would live in the DTES neighbourhoods. If feasible, that figure would translate into housing for 15,000 in each of the three categories.

  There needs to be common ground, then consensus built on facts all can agree about, including the number and the type of housing required to deal with the homelessness issue. Then, will come the need to innovate.

  2. Platting—Block Pattern.

  The grid pattern of late 19th century urbanism is one thing. The length of city blocks generated is quite another. We have stated elsewhere that the 20-foot lane system is a development advantage in the historic neighbourhoods.

  As redevelopment takes place, long blocks should break down in scale as they approach neighbourhood centres. Building residential squares can be part of that design strategy.

  3. Village Squares.

  The DTES has a deficit of park space when compared with the city at large. One way to affect this disparity is to develop public open spaces defined by fee-simple row houses.

  The experience of place can become one of walking in “a linked sequence of squares and parks”. This experience would become the new signature feature tying the historic neighbourhoods together.

  If you look today there are several places in the 19th century plat that already carry the DNA for building public squares. Laying out, or “platting”, the squares as part of the intensification plan is an activity that only the municipal authority can complete. Developers, or the one-site-at-a-time planning approach, cannot achieve this result.

  The platting has to be done in consultation with both the public and the development community, as part of an open and transparent process.

  However, once that process is complete, and there are squares shaping the urban design plan, the sites fronting the squares will enjoy a competitive advantage. We should expect that these sites will be the first to re-develop.

  4. Building Type.

  Only two building types are necessary to realize the intensification of our historic neighbourhoods: fee-simple house rows; and mixed-use, strata, arterial fronting, buildings with dual aspect apartments.

  This intensification plan calls for the removal from the Charter of the prohibition on fee-simple, high-density, low-rise building types. Without these building types, incremental build out at high-density is not possible. Closing of the possibility for incremental intensification carries with it two negative consequences.

  First, without fee-simple house rows, high-density requires land assembly, a costly procedure that inflates the price of housing.

  Second, without incremental intensification the possibility of having small construction firms working in the historic neighbourhoods also recedes. That is too bad if you believe, as I do, that small construction companies are more likely to create employment opportunities for area residents.

  5. Streets—”The Miracle Mile”.

  Hastings Street should be restored as the “urban spine” linking the historic neighbourhoods.

  I have called the stretch of Hastings Street from Carrall Street to Raymur Avenue (just west of the rail overpass) Vancouver’s “Miracle Mile”.

  In a slideshow presented to a packed UDI audience (Urban Development Institute) photographs taken standing in the middle of Hastings, at every crosswalk in every cross street on the “Miracle Mile”, were used to show how block after block, corner after corner, for as far as the eye could see, the great majority of properties fronting Hastings were: (1) re-developable; (2) on a great location, provided that; (3) there was street revitalization.

  5. Streets—A Hierarchy of Public Open Spaces.

  We have become accustomed to classifying our streets according to “Level of Service” for vehicles (local, collector, arterial). It is time to think of the hierarchical classification of streets according to the “human experience of place”.

  Streets that have fronting residential uses should have low levels of vehicular use. In cases where residential homes front heavy traffic arteries—including Hastings Street—the building types should be mandated to have dual aspect units.

  In addition, the design of high-volume streets in residential zones should be modified to soften the impact of high volumes of traffic. Continuous rows of trees in medians should provide “islands of safety” for pedestrians. Pedestrians should not be required to cross more than two, or at the most three, traffic lanes without a safe refuge.

  6. Systems—Streetcar & Fiber Optics.

  An underwater fiber optics cable connects Seattle and Vancouver at Harbour Center. That “pipe” can extend for another 2.5 miles in any direction without loosing service capacity. East along the Hastings Streetcar line, it could extend as far as Templeton Drive, two blocks short of Nanaimo Street, the Hastings Townsite western boundary.

  Businesses locating on Hastings, and connecting to this pipe, would access the fastest internet speeds possible. There would also be modern streetcar service at their door, and ample housing within easy walking distance.

  The Hasting streetcar connecting Stanley Park to New Brighton Park would also put the DTES neighbourhoods in easy contact with the missing green space. On a cold, rainy day, riding the streetcar may be as enjoyable an outing for the kids as running in a park.

  6. Systems—Municipal Infrastructure.

  One advantage of building out in the historic neighbourhoods with building types that are compatible with the historic fabric is that the municipal infrastructure may already be in place to handle the projected 3x increase in service levels.

  At least that has been the experience, more often than not, in intensification projects that I have been involved with.

  7. Financing.

  Returning streetcar service on Hastings is an example of how to stimulate the local economy by investing in municipal infrastructure.

  A Hastings Street revitalization is an example of the second premise of my question: “We don’t need towers to spark redevelopment.” Street revitalization, transit implementation, and neighbourhood intensification, planned and executed all at the same time will grow the local economy.

  Once the potential for growth returns to a neighbourhood, neighbourhood urban design plans can “make growth the engine of change”. We can plan to grow out of our problems. When Mayor Adams of Portland spoke at SFU Downtown last summer he said something remarkable: he has no trouble selling property for redevelopment along the new, downtown Portland streetcar lines.

  Tax Increment Financing—using the new tax revenues to service a municipal bond issue—can be part of the financing plan to pay for the plan and its implementation. Including: drafting the urban design plan, paying for a charrette-driven consultation process, and funding parts of the contemplated investment in municipal infrastructure.

• 30 Urbanismo // Feb 4, 2010 at 4:07 am

  ” . . . there is a near-total obsession with tower height . . . ” Well said Lewis!

  Are the Marine Building, the Red-roofed Dominion Building and the old Sun Tower, which when built, to be correct, was the tallest in the British Empire, high rises?

  And urban design in the West End is a little easier than Vancouver’s ‘cos the Duke of Bedford has owned all the leases since the middle ages.

  Good show. You put a lot into that!

• 31 Urbanismo // Feb 4, 2010 at 5:07 am

  However . . . As for the Nanaimo thingie . . . “For a local example of modern planning gone wrong . . . take the ferry and walk on Nanaimo’s Commercial Street.

  The superb 19th century stuff will be on the west side—human in scale, suitably sized for a small town. The best part of Nanaimo’s urbanism is its town plan, exquisitely walkable, and expertly laid out to capture the contours and panoramic rhythms of the site.” Yup!

  “Thanks to recent redevelopment opposed by half the population, the historic urbanism now faces “pattern and punctuation” of the 20th century variety on the opposite side of Commercial Street. The old buildings remain, but the feeling is lost.” Yup again . . .

  However, the privately sponsored design charrette fell apart because of all the elements listed in post 25.

  The leader, masquerading as an architect, pontificated the usual New Urbanism marketing platitudes, egged-on by a gaggle of know-it-all doctoral academics, missed totally all the winning nuances that could have saved the day, and piddled off to his basement, only to come back with his truck load of plagiarized doodles.

  Then to screw it all the charrette leader . . . truly deep “sicked” any possibility of success, at the well-attended presentation, by strutting like an out-of-season gopher on speed and alienated every councilor and citizen who may have saved the day!

  . . . and now Nanaimo is lumbered with C$800 g’s per annum loss while keeping a straight face!

  What was it the fumigated oracle of Delphi said, “Doctor heal thyself . . . ” or did it just say “Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot”!

• 32 Urbanismo // Feb 4, 2010 at 6:20 am

  And ah the hoopla . . .

  . . . as Brent and his dinner table partner are planning the bejezzus out of everything, gently caressing the usual user friendly activists, massaging a totally out to lunch mayor and council, and laying waste the city, ready for the next off-shore interloper to plant his internationally renowned archy-tech’s . . . errrr . . . I dunno waddaja call ‘em now . . . my inbox is festooned with online glossies I relegate to trash, so I don’t know nuddin’ no mo . . .

  And despite Brent’s pious pontifications you can expect more of the same: i.e. the dragon ladies leftovers on Kingsway and Knight or Big Larry/Himmler/Speer’s, value-village-views and other assorted droppings as on FCN . . .

  Ah the hoopla . . .

• 33 Brent Toderian // Feb 4, 2010 at 8:11 am

  Hi Lewis, interesting and thoughtful comments, some of which i agree with, and others we can continue to “agree to disagree on”. But as always I enjoy the debate and discussion about urbanism, with anyone prepared to give the opinions of others reasonable respect.

  The only points i thought I’m clarify, are your suggestions that the planning department suggests or supports the positions that height is necessary for density, height is necessary for economic revitalization, and planning should be based on “chasing land lift”. Again, I encourage you to watch the videos on the Council process – is these instances, as always, i think we do the opposite.

  Our advice to Council is always that height often doesn’t lead to higher density (particularity when slim towers and low podiums are involved) and that proper form is the more important discussion than height; That revitalization is a very complicated process, and equating it just to height is overly simplistic, and often counter-productive; and that urban form always comes first in our analysis , with land-lift calculations coming after the right form recommendation is made (our common phrase is “the tail shouldn’t wag the dog”). The Planning Department has always been consistent in these positions, i think. If we occasionally have requests to study whether additional capacity can be found within the context of these positions, that doesn’t change our position, or the direction at which we look at the question. I think these attitudes can be seen to permeate our recommendations on the Historic Height Study, and the View Corridors reports.

  With this last thought, I leave you to your continued interesting discussions.

  Regards,
  Brent

• 34 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 4, 2010 at 1:04 pm

  Can you imagine the tedium if we did agree on everything, Brent? Consensus is a big tent, and I have tried to show how it is big enough for both towers and not-towers.

  Two pieces that I meant to go in, but left out. In order to be able to say “no” successfully (with whatever part of the anatomy), one really needs to have a workable alternative sketched out. The second piece that I missed is an elaboration on the house row building type. I include in “house rows” back-to-back arrangements that present some interesting characteristics for lane-side housing.

  I hope people understand that when I get after “the planning department”, my intention is to engage in cultural criticism. It is our society as a whole that is being represented by our professional staffs and elected officials. It is to them, through the organ of the city, that ultimately the commentary is directed to.

  That’s why we said, in the Mt. Pleasant string—where we learn that we are putting social housing in towers… ouch!—that the best way forward is to educate ourselves, our leaders, etc. I think everybody gets it that the Director of Planning is practicing OTC (openness, transparency, and consultation) when he’s blogging. We are lucky to have that. However, it does not mean that the organization itself, or our society as a whole, is there yet.

• 35 Ron // Feb 5, 2010 at 2:03 am

  In terms of “economic lift” I would venture to say that a condo purchaser faced with a view across the street into the windows of another similarly sized apartment block or into the bowels of a grotty alley won’t be paying the same price as that for a condo with a distant view of – anything (whether it be the waterfront, the playing fields, rooftops or even the SkyTrain and viaducts).

  I also think that it is a “given” that a streetwall form of development with 6-10 storey blocks meeting the sidewalk will not let much light to the streets (take a walk on Hornby between Pacific and Drake). But if that is the form that is desired, then so be it. People live quite happily in Paris with gray views into shadowy streets or into lightwells.

• 36 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 5, 2010 at 8:50 am

  A residential floor is about 9 feet (3m) including structure. Commercial space is typically 12 feet floor-to-floor.

  A 50 foot residential streetwall on arterials would be 5.5 storeys high. The half storey is a “set back” calculated on the basis of solar penetration.

  Or it can be part of making the ground floor 13.5-foot high. Look at the storefronts in Gastown, the best right behind Gassy Jack’s statue to get an idea of what the extra height does both to the shop and to the experience of the street.

  The Vancouver arterials are typcialy 80 feet (Granville downtown) or 99 feet (Broadway, Hastings). We can introduce “set backs” at sidewalk level in an urban design plan as part of both intensification, and adding streetcars.

  The ratio of streetwall to streetwidth we are looking for is 50 to 100 or 1 to 2. That coincides with the Parisian Boulevards of the 1850-1870 era. However I agree with you not all the streets in Paris were built to those standards.

  10-storey streetwalls in Grenoble and in Turin, built of apartments or housing, were down-right depressing.

  Residentially, the street width is one chain or 66 feet in the CPR platting. A 35 foot building as you can appreciate, would result in the 1 to 2 ration.

  The house row comes complete with a “front door yard” (there are many aspects to this building type that are neighborhood-reinforcing). That yard is typicallly 5 to 10 feet deep (you can find exceptions in either direction as far as actual depth—New Orleans and Edinburgh come to mind).

  Thus, this represents a set back added on to the 66-foot R.O.W. (right of way). The actual width might end up as being 8o feet once you include door yards on either side.

  For FormShift we showed house rows giving back 10′ of land to the R.O.W. We were thinking of houses fronting arterials 66 or 80 feet wide, and wanted to create space for rail, and for continuous rows of trees, and more distance from the much higher density neighbors across the street.

  That would then result in 35 foot streetwalls fronting up to 100 foot streets, lots of street trees, medians as islands of safety, etc. The streetwall ration would be better than 1 to 2.

  Urban design is a comprehensive application, but it is based on concrete and measurable facts.

• 37 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 5, 2010 at 9:28 am

  “ratio” not “ration” [me fingers not workin']

• 38 Gassy Jack's Ghost // Feb 5, 2010 at 9:43 am

  “In order to be able to say “no” successfully… one really needs to have a workable alternative sketched out.”

  Lewis, here are a few “sketches” to consider as part of a larger alternative plan that might help revitalize, without handing over our Historic Area to a bunch of greedy developers. Not based on building forms (not my thing, you know), but grounded in the real workings of the neighbourhood that I have lived in for the better part of 20 years:

  1. Restore the Pantages Theatre. We need an economic driver and a landmark that also creates pride in the area? Here it is. This one has been on the books for 4 straight Councils, yet it still sits rotting. A diamond in the rough if there ever was one, and a perfect symbol of just how little political will, economic sense, or creativity Hallistas have demonstrated when trying to deal with DTES revitalization issues. And this despite an incredible groundswell of public support from all strata of Vancouver society.

  2. Cultural Precinct Plan: Rip up Ken Dobbel’s ill-conceived report and re-envision the Cultural Precinct where it really belongs, in the Historic Area. That means: relocate the new National Aboriginal Art Gallery and Chinese Centre for Culture and Trade within their historic neighbourhoods, not some dead space downtown.

  Those two facilities, together with other cultural anchors like the Pantages, Sun Yat Sen, SFU School of Contemporary Arts, and the many smaller galleries and historic sites already within the heritage area, would become a truly magnificent cultural heart for Vancouver, and a major engine of economic and community revitalization.

  Money? Leverage funding and restoration efforts from senior governments through the sale of the Bus Depot site where the Precinct is currently planned for: land value is at least $50 million. Trade out the towers in the Historic Area and build them on the bus depot site. Lots of other leveraged funding options are available if you look beyond the “development” silo: arts and culture, housing, education, health, transportation, etc.

  3. Greenway: Connect the Seawall from Canada Place to CRAB Park, and then across the tracks to the Carrall Street Greenway. Connected to the Seawall, this last elbow would complete Vancouver’s “Green Ring Road” and provide a huge flow of people through the area. Currently, the new Greenway is wasted on a dead-end. (Remember the “Public Square” competition last year? One of the entries was an “organic” overpass from CRAB Park to the foot of Carrall Greenway and Maple Tree Square.) The other stretch, Crab Park to Canada Place, is only a couple hundred metres of Seawall.

  4. Transportation: Streetcars servicing the DTES and connecting it to False Creek, downtown, and points East would have a huge economic impact on sustaining a Cultural Precinct. The Mayor, and virtually every Vancouver resident I have talked to, seems onboard with streetcars. Translink? Well, they’d have to sell a business plan that is a way cheaper than skytrain and would service far, far more of the City, so it’s likely the Premier wouldn’t want anything to do with it.

  5. In keeping with the piazza theme, protect the heritage service station on Keefer Square, thus ensuring that a larger “public room” exists in Chinatown. These buildings could be a repurposed into a permanent extension of the Night Market, or also double as a relocated DTES Farmer’s Market location, or a daily flea market. Some more trees would sure help, too.

  6. UNESCO World Heritage Site: part of the Chinatown revitalization plans with obvious connection to the Cultural Precinct, but a tower on Carrall and Pender smack in the middle would likely put the kibosh on this application, as would raising heights and destroying the scale and character of the district through condo developments on unprotected sites. See also my Form Shift suggestion on earlier comment.

  7. Tied to 6: Update the heritage registry to make sure we don’t continue destroying our historic buildings and,

  8. fix the structural problems of the Heritage Density Bonus Program and get it up and running again. Without these tools (7 and working properly, a UNESCO World Heritage Site becomes even more of a pipedream.

  So I ask again, which legacy do we choose for Vancouver’s future? The silo-bound and visionless HAHR, or something more along the lines of a Cultural Precinct with some of the details sketched out above?

  What will make our children proud 40 years from now?

  What will make them recoil at our short-sighted stupidity?

• 39 Gassy Jack's Ghost // Feb 5, 2010 at 10:23 am

  Last thoughts…

  Most commentators appear to agree (and the Director of Planning also admits), that the HAHR’s very narrow focus on height is, to put it respectfully, problematic.

  The problem here is that ANY development policy in the Historic Area, no matter how narrow its focus, directly impacts significant issues facing the City of Vancouver: a concentration of poverty, mental health, addiction and homelessness in the DTES; the long-term preservation of our City’s history and heritage (and the very real value it represents for our region’s Public Trust).

  These issues are the elephants in the room. When Council faces a speaker’s list with 80 names on it, and most of them want to talk (very passionately) about a building code revision, you know there’s a whole lot more going on here than a review of height regulations.

  But reference to these pressing issues make only fleeting appearances in any of the HAHR literature and Mr. Toderian’s posts. They simply aren’t within the parameters of Planning’s discussion.

  We hear lots about the sham that is the public process we all know and love only too well, punctuated by the odd technical jargon, but does anyone feel inspired about the new future being platted for Chinatown? The steward of our city’s Public Trust, when discussing a Historic Area Review, never once utters the words “heritage” and “restoration” side-by-side. Telling omission indeed.

  The DTES low income community’s fear is that, through an innocuous, narrow and problematic review, Planning has basically shaped the City’s social policy for the DTES for the next few decades without ever engaging in a discussion of any of the big issues at stake. It is silo-bound study that, nevertheless, affects multiple constituencies when the new regulations are applied on the ground.

  I don’t know about you, but I’m not at all comfortable with the Planning Department being the key driver mapping out the future of the DTES. We all know where that will likely lead: boring buildings built by greedy developers, displacement of low income community, and destruction of the City’s public heritage and history.

  And the fact is, despite virtually no public support for the HAHR, council passed almost all of the new regulations unopposed.

  The image this invokes for me: Ray Louie, as he motors by Urbanismo on Terry Hui’s yacht, giving the middle finger salute…

  And the more I think about it, the more it scares the shit out of me.

• 40 Michael Geller // Feb 5, 2010 at 4:26 pm

  While I know that there are different opinions on the value of charrettes, I think there would be merit in a weekend ‘design charrette’ for the DTES that brought together community representatives, the people who post on this blog, architects, planners and civic minded people and city hall officials and politicians.

  We would start with large plans of the area, with an indication of which buildings are ‘heritage’, and which are not heritage but likely to remain for the next 10 years or more; vacant sites, commercial areas, community amenities…we would identify all the social housing projects, SRO’s etc…with an the numbers…as well as the market housing projects….rental, ownership,etc;

  the goal would be to undertake a first cut as to where additional housing might be located, and at what heights….where additional park and amenity space would be located, as well as commercial and employment areas. This might help us understand options in terms of mix of market and non-market housing, etc.

  This is not necessarily going to result in a refined plan, but what it might do is give us all an idea of what the area might look like in 10to 20 years, given the recently approved height limits, market demand, etc.

  We could test out a variety of approaches…Lewis’ ideas; Urbanismo’s ideas…the planning dep’t's ideas, etc.

  I believe a lot of people who care about the DTES and nearby areas would participate in such an event…we’d need some funding, but not much…hey, some of us would happily contribute to the cost of food, drink, venue rental and materials.

  WHAT DO YOU THINK?

• 41 Urbanismo // Feb 5, 2010 at 4:40 pm

  I’m in!

  What’s for lunch?

• 42 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 5, 2010 at 5:31 pm

  Ghost, looks like we’ve demonstrated that neighbourhood folk can also draw.

  Nice sketch!!

  If we could just get people to appreciate the uniqueness of the historic neighbourhoods, the quality of the urban spaces, and the sheer joy of their location—say, going out early in the morning to pick up a loaf of fresh baked bread and smelling the sea in the air—then I think they would agree that these neighbourhoods are the obvious choice for the Cultural Precinct.

  However, we better have something like land-banking already in place, because the second-hand history of the gentrification of the Village and SoHo in NYC is that the artists moved in first.

  The way to ease fear and to build consensus, coincidentally, is to get to the facts that we all can agree about.

  Before we go too far into “designing”, what is the split of housing types that we can all agree to?

  How many non-market and how many sub-market units, in hard numbers, do we need in the five historic neighbourhoods to put an end to homelessness? And how are we going to pay for that?

  Michael Geller, you have better numbers than I do for working this out…

  Let’s keep it in round numbers. Say we need 10,000 units, 8 million square feet residential. Construction is fee-simple, concrete party-wall, wood frame. Land is free (either NGO or Government grant). No structured parking, parking is lane access on occupier-built carports. What’s the bill?

• 43 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 5, 2010 at 6:11 pm

  It’s two 16-foot units per 33-foot lot (or you can base it on a 25′ frontage if you prefer), four storeys high, full basement excavation.

• 44 More Be Us // Feb 5, 2010 at 6:55 pm

  While I’m appreciative of the great discussion about theories of urbanism and principles of urban design, let us not lose sight of the possibility that some of the criticism of Vancouver’s planning department is much like trying to reprimand the tail in complete ignorance of the City Hall dog.

  I am growing increasingly of the opinion that most of Vancouver has a laissez-faire, “market knows best because they keep buildings that we covet” view of the development of this city. That really speaks to where power ultimately lies in the whole scheme of things – while planners in principle possibly should have the authourity to shape and help design our urban landscape, the reality is that City Hall’s planners are staff, meaning they are at the whim of their employers. Any doubt of the CoV planner’s current paradigm simply requires a viewing of any Council Planning & Environment meeting where a major report is presented (plenty of videos on the City’s website). It doesn’t require too much reading between the lines to distill the true nature and purpose of the proceedings between staff and this Council. There is, after all, precedent for Council to go against staff recommendations, for whatever reasons that may compel them (Surely a superior grasp of planning principles must always be Council’s primary motivator!).

  When commenting on the City’s planners’ capacity to reflect these ideals of urbanism and design, I think fair consideration is due of the burden that staff shoulder with the implicit expectations as the gatekeepers a main revenue source for the City. I don’t believe there currently exists the “openness, transparency and consultation” within City Hall itself to foster the realization of this ideal world that readers of this blog have the pleasure of envisioning in our hearts and heads, a vision I’m sure plenty of CoV planners share in their hearts and heads as well.

  Again, great ideas about how to shape this city that need to made accessible to the forces that be if we are to bring these dreams to light.

• 45 More Be Us // Feb 5, 2010 at 6:56 pm

  As for one poster’s patronizing dismissal of community leaders without entreating to be a part of the process himself, it is aggravating to have someone preach nearly in tongues about street level perceptions from his high ivory tower. While I will admit that there are often nuggets of gold to be found in the boulders of his posts, it is a tragedy that the value of insights offered risks being overlooked by those who may be compelled to prefer the wisdom of the unlearned to the folly of the loquacious.

• 46 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 5, 2010 at 7:11 pm

  I think we’ve covered de-coupling Brent the person from Brent the DoP. However, it is a fact of our professions that we are in a time of paradigm shift. And, I oversimplified by isolating the planners, it is all the city-design professions that confront this challenge in their professional development (architects, landscape architects, engineers, transportation engineers, etc.).

  I was the only presenter at a city committee, one lazy afternoon, and the session quickly deteriorated into a Q&A on street design. I didn’t get the project I was advocating for built (it was a “heads up” on my part for how to treat Pender Street in front of Tinseltown).

  However, it did demonstrate that there was a great capacity among the elected leaders for curiosity and learning. Day in and day out I expect that is part of what Toderain is doing.

• 47 Urbanismo // Feb 6, 2010 at 1:22 am

  Post 40 . . . Good idea Michael but as usual . . . looks like we have just baffle gagged our way out of it . . .

• 48 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 6, 2010 at 8:00 am

  Charrettes that I have participated deliver a fully vetted urban design plan at their conclusion. For the DTES that would be 7 days minimum.

  There may be competing plans drawn, but there is general agreement on the urban design principles (method and methodology) amongst the participants.

  The charrette begins with a slide lecture that identifies urban design principles, then applies them to the site in questions. On the first night, open to the public by registration, participants are asked to sit at a round table headed by a professional designer and talk about the neighbourhood, the issues, and how the urban design principles might apply, or need modification. The table reports back to the assembled group at the end of the night.

  There is an open house mid-week on a Wednesday, and we typically end in a mad rush on a Friday with drawings still coming in as the final slide lecture begins.

  However, there is a preamble. Sometimes for several months leaders of the charrette are in contact with the host municipality, and as importantly, with key representatives of the community, community stakeholders, and just plain folks you might might when on site (there’s a whole lot of “on site” that goes on).

  This is also when meetings take place with developers, and special sessions, not open to the public, are set up.

  Ahead of the charrette the office has urban design professionals preparing materials. If you look at the 7 elements that I presented above for vetting get fleshed out (what’s your take on those? Agree or disagree? Anything to subtract or add?}.

  Assuming the host city and the stakeholders agree to the principles up for vetting, there are a number of areas to research and map out. Not the least, the streetcar implementation and the fiber optics. The engineering department needs to be consulted about a Hastings Street revitalization and the state of municipal infrastructure in the 7 quartiers being identified.

  They should be the ones to give an opinion on whether the streetcar is feasible and when. We would ask them to consider a BRT implementation right away, on dedicated bus lanes, then put in the medians and the trees that would serve both BRT and LRT when it is ready. The redesign of the street has to anticipate that staged implementation to avoid the Cambie Street scenario as much as possible.

  Thursday night the charrette team meets for a dinner. Friday night night, at the airport, Bill Lennertz always bought a double martini. Both traditions seem worth continuing.

  However, a good place to start might be with some construction numbers. Let’s give readers a feel for what 10,000 units, fee-simple units would cost (concrete fire wall and wood frame, full basement excavation, no parking, 3200 s.f., 4-storey, 16.5 x 500 foot on half of a 33 x 122 foot lot—lt.’s keep the land cost separate)

  If you read the post 47, the natives are getting restless.

• 49 michael geller // Feb 6, 2010 at 2:55 pm

  Ok Lewis…you keep asking for numbers so here are a few for your consideration…

  Land in the DTES is now selling for $40 to $70 a built foot, for 5 FSR buildings. If you do a three or four storey building at 2.5 FSR, you can see that the land numbers are really getting up there.

  I would note that for many years, we considered social housing land costs to be no more than $30 to $40 a buildable foot. This is similar to the maximum one could pay for a rental housing site.

  Construction costs at the moment are in the order of $160 a foot for a simple 4 storey frame building and $190 to $225 a foot for a concrete tower, depending on complexity, amount of repetition, and the required parking ratio.

  Soft costs are in the order of 20% of hard costs. Again, this is a rough yardstick, and can vary depending on the amount of development cost levies, CAC’s etc.

  I hope this is helpful. However, as you can see, a fee simple row house is going to be too expensive in the DTES because even if it is only 12-13 feet wide. However, higher density frame apartments, or mid-rise concrete apartments can be economically developed….but they won’t look like some of the recent social housing units with their fancy exterior cladding, and somewhat inefficient layouts.

  That’s it Lewis. I don’t think anyone wants to hear much more from you or me at the moment!

• 50 Gassy Jack's Ghost // Feb 6, 2010 at 7:05 pm

  Actually, Michaeal, I wouldn’t mind at all…

  Apologies for my cynical last post, will try to be more constructive…

  So, if you folks are really serious about, maybe not a charette, but at least a meeting where some of the above posters – who all seem to genuinely care very deeply about the Historic Area and these issues — can bang heads for a few hours to get some consensus and momentum that might lead to a future charette, I would be more than happy to help arrange it – might even be able to work something out with the group I’m working for now (venue and maybe a little $). In a roundabout way, they are very interested in these types of issues.

  However, like Urbanismo, I fear a full-on charette at this point might not be that productive at all, at least not at first. There needs to be some planning and consensus-building (skip straight to the part where we break into small groups and brainstorm) to get to the point where a charette might actually be useful. Let’s not forget: council made their decision, and planning is probably in no mood to revisit this so soon.

  Nevertheless, Lewis, Michael, Urby, MB, etc. feel free to contact me through the blog link above. Leave a comment with your email. Again, I’m no expert at any of this, but I have read about 2 dozen reports related to the DTES, and have daily experience of the area workings. So, I’m not sure how much I could contribute to the techie stuff, but I’d love to be there to listen to you all and help anyway I can! And I promise to be on my best behavior!

• 51 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 7, 2010 at 11:02 am

  Thanks for the numbers, Michael, and before we put this string to bed, let’s just move the discussion over to the “media wars on housing”.

  It is interesting how the numbers that are driving the process are the last ones to come out. Hopefully we can crunch some options together off-blog, then report back.

  However, on the face of it, we may have to move to the other tid-bit reported by Portland’s Mayor: dropping the FSR in the historic nieghborhoods back to 2.0 FSR.

• 52 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 7, 2010 at 4:11 pm

  Becky, it’s not just that “Hello! As a taxpayer, I don’t want to provide housing for every goddamn individual in the world!”, consider that the ratio of workers to clients can be as high as 5 to 1 for high risk cases.

  Dealing with homelessness, mental illness, and addiction is not easy, or cheap. However, if “we are not the saviours that will end homelessness?”, then who is?

  So, if you want to end homelessness, (a) what’s the best way to do that; and (b) recognizing that what you are reporting fact, how do we account for our region being a magnet for the marginalized from other jurisdictions?

  Clearly, there is a need to have a direct relationship between the Federal and Municipal levels of government. Who else but the Feds can balance that ledger?

  Latecomer Murphy quotes a piece of “Death and Life… (Jacobs)” that I did not remember. It’s a good point. However, if your “Once economic circumstance improves” applies to the five historic neighbourhoods, you’re talking about the future. If it is meant on a case by case basis, fear not, there is a waiting list.

  Tthe question of Land Title is an important one. Can the city “own” the land, and lease back to non-profits and coops, say up to 99-year terms? Then, three of four generations from now, a new set of Vancouverites would have a win-fall of sorts when land reverts back to municipal control.

  Finally, the facts. Michael Geller’s numbers suggest that the real issue has gone by unnoticed: FSR of 5.0 in the historic neighbourhoods.

  [Primer: FSR is the multiple of the lot area that you are allowed to build. Vancouver bungalows were 0.4 FSR, and the Vancouver special probably hiked that up to 0.6 FSR—I used to know this. In contemporary terms, the building rarely occupies the entire site. At FSR 5.0 your building can have 5 times more floor area than the size of the lot (or lot assembly), thus towers are a given.]

  (1) Building types that are in-keeping with the historic buildings in residential streets of the five neighbourhoods don’t exceed FSR 2.0.

  (2) Fronting Hastings FSR 2.5 may still remain in keeping with the historic character.

  This begs a question. Who in their right mind can hold on to facts (3) and (4) below, Paul C:

  (3) We will allow buildings 2x larger (and many times higher) along the main spine of the neighbourhoods; and buildings 2.5x larger (and many times higher) along the residential streets; yet

  (4) We are serious about historic character and historic preservation in the cradle of our city.

  I don’t believe a word of it. Consider that FSR is like the Richter Scale for earthquakes, a small increase in the number means you get a lot more, then think about this consequence:

  (5) The “land lift” effect of raising the FSR in such gargantuan manner has priced the neighbourhood into a market where the only affordable building types are precisely those types that are considered ill-suited for the purposes of treating homelessness, mental illness, and addiction.

  The solution? Mayor of Portland reported that his city has taken “the plunge” to a session at SFU Downtown, Portland lowered the FSR:

  (6) Bring back FSR 2.0 (FSR 2.5 along Hastings provided buildings meet specific urban design criteria).

• 53 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 7, 2010 at 4:16 pm

  Correction (first paragraph previous post): 8-person team working 40 cases. Ratio is 1 to 5.

• 54 More Be Us // Feb 8, 2010 at 12:37 am

  I am heartened to hear that our elected officials demonstrate an openness to these concepts and I welcome this open exchange of ideas. My hopes are that this discussion continues in the most constructive way possible – this latest exchange helps move the ideas forward in a more realistic context.

  An important next step would be to help the masses begin to appreciate these principles – an accessible charrette would be one great way to approach that challenge. I would think that a lot of people out there haven’t got a clue to understanding how the rest of the environment outside of their granite adorned boxes impacts their quality of life. It is the citizens, after all, that have the power to elect the Council that runs City Hall.

  Let’s keep building this forward momentum of bringing principles into reality instead of focusing on myopic dissections of things that cannot be changed at this point.

• 55 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 9, 2010 at 5:13 pm

  We’ve moved over to the “media wars on housing” MBU, but it’s good to hear back from you. We’re going to run out of space there too, but my next area of focus will be the 2005 DTES Housing Plan, which is “home” to council policy.

Leave a Comment