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.

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).

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.