As promised, I am going to try to give my mind a rest (though I will check out the Green Line in Portland shortly — thanks for the suggestion) and therefore not be posting until Sept. 1.
The comments section is open here for anyone to post anything they like related, however vaguely, to urban issues. The comments will be monitored from time to time for general civility. I decided not to have guest moderators as that would allow access to the email addresses of people who post here and I want to ensure their privacy.
Finally, before I disappear for this bit, I wanted to thank everyone here for making this blog a part of your day. It’s now been a few days over two years since I started it. In that time, it’s grown from 30,000 page views a month (I use webalizer as a counter) to, last month, just over 130,000 page views. That means well over two million in the two years. I’ve put up 940 posts in that time and had 13,662 approved comments.
I’m grateful for all the passionate conversations you’ve carried on here and the (mostly) thoughtful, informed comments, along with the occasional falling-down-funny interjections.
118 responses so far ↓
1 Bill Lee // Aug 19, 2010 at 11:06 am
I only visit this blog for the many vi***gra c***s adverts that come up when I search on Google for sexy sites.
[ wink]
I’m sure that some of the other millions do too.
2 Lewis N. Villegas // Aug 19, 2010 at 2:48 pm
Teacher’s just left the room—like, for about 13 days—so let’s throw some urbanist chalk around.
Why does “urbanism” cause us so much trouble? Is it because land, wealth, and power are all brought together in one footprint? Is this why we have such trouble keeping up two balls in the air at the same time:
(a) private benefit
(b) the public good
War, I have often thought, is the only other human activity that comes close to it, and war—notably WWII—plays an important role in the development of North American urbanism.
For me, the basic fact of urbanism is the experience of the city on foot.
Driving in our cars won’t do it. Cycling or even running through the city increases our speed to the point that our sense perception is altered. From the point of view of forming an opinion about the quality of the urban space, walking, sitting, and preferably living in it for a good long time, all these are of paramount importance. Walking tours are fundamental to begin to get to the meaning of a place.
Something happened in 1942 (WWII for our purposes spans 1938-1945): The speed limits across North America went up from 20 m.p.h. to 30 m.p.h. A subtle by critical shift. Consider that the speed limit at Granville Island today is 30 km/h (20 mph) and nobody obeys the posted speed—I usually drive much slower. And the speed in our neighbourhood streets is 30 mph, but drivers regularly exceed it.
Driving at 30 mph we travel one order of difference greater than walking at 1/4 mile per 5 minutes; 1 mile in 20 mins; or 3 m.p.h.
Thus, when Urbanismo, or so many others that make reading this blog fun, wax poetic about the “human scaled streets” what we are talking about is how a place feels when you move about it at walking speed for some time. Say, an afternoon. That doesn’t mean that these places are not fun to drive and cycle in.
However, it means that decisions that are made, and values that are formed, as we drive around in our vehicles exceeding walking speed can result in distortions to those human values that are supported by our sense experience. There is only one way to get at those. You can’t do it from the car, google street view, or the boardroom. ‘Good’ urbanism results from applying carefully the data we collect just walking around.
If the city we get is not the city we want, the fact that everyone from the Chairman of the Board, to the politician, to the architect, planner, engineer, and brick layer have grown up travelling at 30 m.p.h. may have something to do with it. To walkg the site just takes too much time. Ten times more time, to be precise. And, who can afford to charge that back to their clients? Why should they pay for it, anyway?
* * * *
WWII is important for another reason, which I have never researched. The planning that it took to build an army here, ship it over there, then take it across the channel, and finally support it as it made its way across continent without GPS or reliable transportation networks—I suspect—marks the birth of modern planning.
Montreal’s planning department began in the 1940’s. My recollection is that Vancouver’s did too. Maybe others will post with more accurate information.
Secondly, the first issue that the “new planning paradigm” had on the table was to provide for the baby boom generation. Freeways, suburbs, schools and shopping centres went up, and the private automobile was driving the paradigm. The vast majority of these projects, and the capital behind them, were centralized in national and international corporate giants where the values driving the board room’s decisions were not necessarily in line with ‘good’ urbanism. The bottom line always seems to have trumped everything else.
Certainly the Bretton Woods Accord, and the Marshall Plan, were godsend to General Motors, General Electric, General Dynamics, and Captains Coke and Pepsi.
When it came time to offer an alternative to the suburb for the ageing boomers that were fed up with the remoteness, mowing the lawn, not willing to put up with the gridlock, and quite happy to adopt “sustainability” as the new jargon, we developed the tower and podium—what i have termed urban sprawl—to supplant its suburban precedent.
That, more or less, is a sketch of “how we got here”.
3 grounded // Aug 20, 2010 at 4:59 am
@ Lewis:
Great post. You make a good point in explaining how a city is best experienced and understood on foot. In terms of your explanation of “how we got here” though you overlook the magical resource that did get us here: cheap oil. With major international orgs and gov’t agencies (e.g. Lloyd’s of London, Virgin, Allianz, International Energy Agency, US DoE, US Joint Force Command) all pointing to a looming energy crunch “where do we go from here”? How are we going to adapt our planning and other urban and regional systems to an increasingly oil constrained world where prices are both higher and more volatile? How are we going to get around in the region? I imagine we will see more trip chaining, car pooling, transit riding, cycling and walking as we saw in 2008. But from a regional perspective there are many areas (e.g. Maple Ridge, Langley) where a car remains a very necessary part of daily life. Is there an assumption that people will simply buy electric cars or will this predicament mean governments will be forced to invest more heavily in regional transit and cycling infrastructure?
4 Bill Smolick // Aug 20, 2010 at 9:23 am
> WWII is important for another reason, which I have never researched
Well that inspires confidence. it’s a bit like saying “Vancouver is the most awesome city…and the only one I’ve ever been too.”
5 Dan Cooper // Aug 20, 2010 at 9:35 am
[With apologies to the Kingston trio]
There are days in Vancouver when everything is dreary;
I grow pessimistic, sad and world weary.
But when I’m tearful and fearfully upset
I always sing this merry little minuet:
They’re rioting on Granville Street
The West End is filled with “hacks”
There’re bedbugs in the DTES
And rats in the VAG stacks
The whole city is festering
With unhappy souls
The businessmen hate bike lanes,
And everyone hates the pols.
Urban villagers hate Skytrain
And their neighbours’ chicken hutch.
No, no one likes anybody very much!
They’re rioting on Granville Street
There’s strife in our urban plan
What nature doesn’t do to us
Will be done by our fellow man.
[Hurry back, Frances! We'll miss you!]
6 AnnetteF // Aug 20, 2010 at 9:48 am
Well said LNV!
When I moved to Vancouver almost seven years ago, I set myself up downtown within an easy walk to work, shopping and recreation. I had given up my car a few years before when I was working in fly-in communities and have never missed it.
I feel like I have a knowledge and feel for the downtown core that my car-driving friends miss out on. And I never wear headphones. I love picking up bits of conversation, dogs barking or music playing as I walk. It makes me feel more connected to the city.
What’s interesting is how my sense of distance has changed. When I lived in Victoria, which was so easy to navigate in a car, I would never dream of walking to an appointment a kilometre or two away. Now that I have been walking as my main mode of transport for years, I think nothing of running errands all day on foot, often covering a distance of five to ten kilometres as I go. When I return to Victoria to visit my family I now walk to places I never would have before.
And one of my favourite things to do while traveling is to explore cities on foot. I love getting lost in a new place and discovering things that I was never looking for.
People who’s only mode of transport is their car just miss out on so much. And they often seem so angry (as was the woman who yelled at me on my walk home last night to “walk faster, bitch!” after she just about drove into me as I crossed the street with the right-of-way).
Anything that we can do to get more people out of their cars in this city would do us all good.
7 Michael Geller // Aug 20, 2010 at 11:44 am
Interesting discussion, and poetry!
I have just returned from 4 weeks in Spain where I walked and walked and walked, although I did also drive around the Costa Brava for some of the time.
As I explored Barcelona and Madrid, with their very dense walkable neighbourhoods of mid rise buildings, which extend from side lot line to side lot line, connecting to the building next door, I tried to envision such buildings along Cambie Street or other major arterials, and wondered whether they would fit within our city.
If you are interested, you can see what I found at http://www.gellersworldtravel.blogspot.com.
My conclusion? I don’t think we can import the dense European neighbourhood designs without some modifications. I think we have established in Vancouver an aesthetic that requires spaces between buildings and greenery, in the form of front lawns and planting, that should be maintained.
That being said, there are many opportunities to ‘densify’ single family neighbourhoods with townhouses and low and mid-rise apartments, without dramatically altering the city’s overall character.
One of the interesting discussions taking place in Spanish cities relates to the introduction of the high rise. There have been very few highrises built in downtown Madrid and Barcelona, (by high rise, I mean buildings over 12 storeys) although that seems to be changing. I must say some of the newer towers seem terribly out of place.
As I looked at these buildings, I couldn’t help but think about the proposals for some very tall buildings in what are essentially very low rise neighbourhoods in the city. While I can’t say that they are necessarily wrong, I think it is important to see an overall plan for a neighbourhood in place, before approving individual buildings that are significantly different in scale than their surroundings.
One of the impressive things about Barcelona was the large scale ‘master planning’ that took place 100 years ago. The L’Eixample Neighbourhood is an excellent example of this, and it is really interesting to see the aerial photos, a couple of which I have posted.
For one thing, it was decided that the corners of every building should be cut off at every intersection. While the buildings along the street are very dense, the intersections are much more open. I noticed that a similar approach has been taken in some of the newer subdivisions, and in Madrid as well. This is an example of how an overall plan can help create a more attractive and cohesive neighbourhood.
In some of the older towns and villages, the extensive use of materials and colours also helped to create a cohesion and more delightful places. For examples, nearly all the buildings in Cadaques are whitewashed, while all the buildings in Pals are built from the same stone.
Now I appreciate that some people do not like the ‘cohesion’ that results from the extensive use of the same materials (ie green glass), but I think this is a topic worthy of discussion.
As a final comment, I must agree with Annette that one is prepared to walk further in dense, more interesting, and well designed neighbourhoods. And as Lawrence Frank and others have pointed out, one of the side benefits of this is a healthier population.
Taking holidays also contributes to a healthier population. I hope you enjoy yours, Frances, as well as other readers who can’t stop reading this blog, even though they too are ‘away’.
8 Michael Geller // Aug 20, 2010 at 11:56 am
Postscript: An Urbanarium for Vancouver?
One of the places I visited in Madrid was the City Museum. Like many other cities around the world, it has created a special building to showcase models and exhibits related to city planning and building. Ray Spaxman, and a group of Vancouver citizens proposed such a facility in Vancouver, called an ‘Urbanarium’.
I think it would be a wonderful thing for the city, notwithstanding the costs associated with its creation. I have posted some photos of the Madrid facility, and given the keen interest in civic affairs and planning issues in Vancouver, as evidenced by the number of visitors to this site and discussions taking place in the city, I think now is a good time to resurrect the discussions about a possible city museum for Vancouver.
9 spartikus // Aug 20, 2010 at 12:22 pm
If you are interested, you can see what I found at http://www.gellersworldtravel.blogspot.com.
The Mojito machine is a definite win.
The bike lane markers are interesting too.
10 Bill Lee // Aug 20, 2010 at 5:49 pm
The VanSun’s (Civic) Lee (Jeff Lee not blogging on the Olympic beat though there are plenty of daily stories there as the scandals come out), writes in his Sun’s Civic blog (August 20, 2010)
“Former Vancouver Sun reporter Frances Bula has an interesting profile in this month’s issue of Vancouver Magazine of Mike Magee, Mayor Gregor Robertson’s chief of staff. It is an illuminating piece, looking at Magee’s early political history, his ability to see the long political perspective and his close relationships with people who have deeply vested political interests in the mayor. Such as Joel Solomon, who was the subject of a recent profile by The Sun’s Lori Culbert. She also looked at the impact Solmon and others have in driving social change in the city.”
Profile URL http://www.vanmag.com/News_and_Features/Mayor_Gregor_Robertsons_Right_Hand_Man?page=0%2C5
11 Joseph Jones // Aug 21, 2010 at 12:28 am
Michael Geller: “I think it is important to see an overall plan for a neighbourhood in place, before approving individual buildings that are significantly different in scale than their surroundings.”
Me too. Consider the implementation of CityPlan so far. In Vancouver’s first two “neighbourhood centres,” a central monstrosity has blockbusted the communities – through a “special site” rezoning that had no integration with the neighbourhood centre planning.
(1) King Edward Village with a car-filled alley at the heart. (2) In the works, 2300 Kingsway, featuring another central alley, overlooked by a sizeable privatized plaza.
12 Tiktaalik // Aug 21, 2010 at 9:47 am
@Bill Lee
Thanks for the article link.
I’ll contribute myself as well:
Once merely condo royalty, Bob Rennie emerges as Vancouver’s cool king of modern art
http://bit.ly/a7Hw2Z
13 Bill Lee // Aug 21, 2010 at 12:49 pm
@Joseph Jones. What about the ‘sterilization’ of Norquay Park in the same neighbourhood? Besides the “King Edward” towers and barren grounds and library at Knight, the forthcoming Rennie-marketed brothels at the former Eldorado hotel site, they are tearing up and have fenced off Norquay park for a year to titivate it up and make it as unpleasant to be on the grass as possible.
This is the same as the ‘sterilization’ for a year of Grandview Park.
And we’ve seen the damage they have done with Oppenheimer Park where you can’t play softball anymore, but the yuppies have a view.
Norquay Park is going to be a photo shot from new towers up at Earles.
The old Parks Board in the fifties would do redevelopment and refurbishing all by themselves within a month. Now it is subcontractors who take a year and have a “fence-it-all-in” policy because they can’t plan the work well.
14 mezzanine // Aug 21, 2010 at 2:04 pm
@Joseph Jones,
But the plaza in the centre functions as a porte-cochère for the residences, businesses and library.
If you had to be angry at something, I would be angry at the 20 year covenant against a grocery store safeway put on the land when they sold it in 1993. The empty lot and the flea market were horrible. I suppose to safeway’s credit, they relented adn waived it early, but I am still unsure how that happened in the first place..
“However, when Safeway sold the site in 1993, it slapped a 20-year covenant on the property preventing a medium-to-large grocery store from being built there. A seedy flea market moved in after Safeway left and nearby neighbours fumed.
“The city expressed its desire to have a grocery store as part of this development when it approved the rezoning [for high density housing],” said Mayor Larry Campbell, who is reported to be meeting with Safeway to discuss the issue. “We hope that the developer and Safeway can negotiate an agreement to have a grocery store there. Clearly the citizens want it.” ”
http://archive.vancourier.com/issues04/082104/news/082104nn1.html
========
@Bill Lee:
“And we’ve seen the damage they have done with Oppenheimer Park where you can’t play softball anymore, but the yuppies have a view.”
Can you clarify? the diamond on the northwest corner is still up and the fencing is down from that area. The playground is still fenced off though…
15 Lewis N. Villegas // Aug 21, 2010 at 8:59 pm
We can use the “walking experience of place” to get to an open and transparent consultation consultation:
“I think it is important to see an overall plan for a neighbourhood in place, before approving individual buildings that are significantly different in scale than their surroundings.”
— Michael Geller
“Consider the implementation of CityPlan so far. In Vancouver’s first two “neighbourhood centres,” a central monstrosity has blockbusted the communities – through a “special site” rezoning that had no integration with the neighbourhood centre planning.”
— Joseph Jones
First, a point about City Plan: that was old paradigm planning. Had it been concerned with building suburbs, schools, shopping centres, and freeways it would have been a great success. However, since the issue at hand was how to build ‘good’ urbanism in our city, as far as I could tell, the planners and the planning lacked the necessary tools.
Urbanism is an observable and quantifiable phenomenon. There are many things that are unpredictable about it, that’s true. Yet, if we focus our attention on the things that we can observe, measure, and classify, it turns out that there is a heap of stuff, a long list of “verifiable statements” about what makes cities ‘good’ places for living. Of course, the list is probably just as long about the many things to avoid.
The concrete and verifiable statements about how ‘good’ urbanism works are what I like to call the “primary principles of urbanism”—the building blocks of good cites all over the world.
Yes, we should be curious about how much of what works in Barcelona can also work here. As importantly, we should also try to understand what is best left in Barcelona and why.
An example would probably help. We throw around the word “quartier” a lot around this blog, and we do it because to say, “an area of urban land with a footprint equal to a circle with a 1/4 mile radius” is just too darn complicated.
The 1/4 mile is an observation and a measure of how far people can walk in 5 minutes. The 5 minute mark as far as I know is arbitrary. We could walk for 3.5 minutes, or we could walk for six or seven. But, certainly, to walk 10 minutes every time we need something would be tedious. Whereas we will walk for 5 minutes without realizing it, especially in places that are designed to make walking a pleasure.
So, the measure of “easy walking distance” or 5 minutes, has come down to us from urbanist tradition, and it has a proven track record as a workable assumption for designing a neighbourhood footprint, or “quartier”. If we identify a centre, then all the front doors that are within an easy walking distance of that centre shape the “quartier”. In classical urbanism—Greece, Rome, the Renaissance, etc.—the centre is most frequently and empty place, a square or an agora. Of course, it filled with people, markets, sports events, etc. every day. But on the map, it resembles the hole in the middle of the donut.
Today, we’re not so lucky. The dispersal pattern of the streetcar, and the automobile that replaced it, generate a kind of linear city form that gives the outward appearances of lacking any focus. However, if you break it down to the neighbourhood level, these “centres” can still be found, typically without the word “community” or “shopping” attached to them.
Returning to the issue of public consultation, my observation has been that a planning paradigm that lacks urban design principles also lacks the tools necessary to deliver open and transparent consultation, and consensus-building. The failure we decry today is not the fault of the planners, it’s built into the planning paradigm.
Yes, these plans that Michael Geller talks about, in my view, should be consensus visions of place. What will make such outcomes possible is the veracity of the urban design principles themselves.
Now, if planning carries on the way it is today and public consultation comes after the developers have spent the better part of their design budget; dealings with City Hall have all been held behind closed doors because spot rezoning makes it impossible to go public before the deal is struck; and most of the important decisions have already left the barn by the time the public open houses and hearings at Council are held; then all the bets are off.
However, if we invest our future in the new planning paradigm, and go to the neighbourhoods to draft new visions of place based on the concrete and verifiable principles of urbanism, then I think consensus is not just possible: It is the most likely outcome along with it’s sister—good urbanism.
What guarantees this rather ambitious view more than anything else is an odd confluence of facts. It turns out that one of the methods for building consensus consists of presenting people with facts that they can verify for themselves. As we have just seen, urbanism is chuck full of that kind of stuff.
AnnetteF (6) does a superb job of showing just that. She confirms by her own experiences that the walking experience of place is the baseline measure for urbanism. I doubt she an urbanist—perhaps I’m wrong—but the fact is that every resident of every neighbourhood is an expert of their own place. And, the principles of urbanism, more often than not, are flexible enough to inflect to local conditions. In fact, it is the uniqueness of each locality that in the end saves us from having cities that all look identically alike.
So, by some strange twist of fate, it turns out that ‘good’ urbanism is the kind of thing that we can all sit down and agree about. It’s been that way for centuries. Only in the past few decades, and with the advent of the distorting effects of driving in our automobiles, or a planning paradigm that defaults on urban design, has this basic condition of human existence been altered.
16 michael geller // Aug 22, 2010 at 7:32 am
I have enjoyed reading the above comments, and agree with the criticism of the King Edward Village development. For the life of me, I have never understood why the city staff, community, and Council thought it should be approved and built. I say this recognizing that at one time, people probably thought the Sylvia Hotel was too high and out of scale with the surrounding West End properties!
As these postings are demonstrating, not only has this development upset people in the immediate area, it has threatened the potential for good redevelopment and densification in other parts of the city. I would add that the same holds true for other Metro municipalities.
Lewis makes some very good points about what makes a ‘quartier’ successful. However, having participated in dozens of planning programs and rezonings, I have found that most often, neighbourhood residents do not support new projects that might result in good urbanism (whether on a neighbourhood or building scale) because they fear the worst.
A number of years ago, the Vancouver Planning Department, under Associate Director Ann McAfee undertook a study to assess how residents of single family neigbourhoods felt about new multi-family developments.
(City of Vancouver Planning Department (1986) New Neighbours: How Vancouver’s Single Family Residents Feel About Higher Density Housing.)
The study reviewed the attitudes of residents to social housing projects and other developments before they were approved, and after they had been completed and occupied. It concluded that the fears that people had prior to the approvals did not materialize.
It was a valuable piece of work. However, because of the manner in which the study was managed, many people outside City Hall questioned its objectiveness and validity.
I personally think there would be great value in initiating another similar study related to both large and small projects that have been developed in the more recent years. It might look at King Edward Village, Arbutus Walk, The Lanesborough in Kerrisdale, and other controversial rezonings. By reviewing the initial staff reports and rezoning documents, and surveying neighbourhood attitudes, it would analyze the initial concerns, and then assess their validity. The study could be initiated by the city but overseen by an advisory committee that would include thoughtful community representatives like Joseph Jones, Ned Jacobs, Mel Lehan, etc. to minimize bias.
It might examine whether concerns about traffic and parking were valid; were views as negatively affected as feared; were property values adversely affected; did the project affect the neighbourhood character as feared, etc. etc.
Similarly, did the project achieve the good urbanism that the project architect/planner promised; was the promise of affordability realized; were the sustainability goals achieved; did the development meet the expectations of city staff and the Urban Design Panel, etc.
I realize that every project is different, and just like mutual funds, you cannot judge future performance by past performance. However,by going back and reviewing past projects, I think we could improve our collective ability to predict the validity of community concerns related to new proposals.
We might also establish new protocols related to the planning process, including the interface between developers, their consultants, community residents, city staff, and politicians…. because whether it be Vancouver, or the surrounding municipalities, the current system is not working.
That’s one thing that I think all of us can agree on at the moment.
17 Mary // Aug 22, 2010 at 9:07 am
Michael’s suggestion for something resembling a post-occupancy evaluation is an excellent one.
If any of you bloggers have a connection with the Mayor’s office, it would a great one to promote. Sadly, staff get nowhere attempting to promote ideas such as this. In spite of development revenues continuing to come in, albeit mostly for smaller developments and single family replacement, the tight-fisted attitude on consultancies and vacancy filling continues.
18 Chris B // Aug 22, 2010 at 6:15 pm
Michael Geller said “As I looked at these buildings, I couldn’t help but think about the proposals for some very tall buildings in what are essentially very low rise neighbourhoods in the city. While I can’t say that they are necessarily wrong”
I lived in Vancouver until 3 years ago and now am in Ottawa, and I can see over and over again where this was done here (and in TO as well) and it is really an unmitigated disaster. In the middle of low/low-medium density, up goes three or four 20 story towers. In not one case do these bring any form of urbanism – no walkable communities, no stores, no real density, since they are set back and leave 2/3rds of the lot empty.
So, I wholeheartedly agree that new additions have to respect the character of a neighbourhood – if most buildings are three story, then 8 story is really the max… build gradually.
Here is one example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lees_Avenue_apartment_buildings.jpg
19 Lewis N. Villegas // Aug 23, 2010 at 7:42 am
“I personally think there would be great value in initiating another similar study related to both large and small projects that have been developed in the more recent years. It might look at King Edward Village, Arbutus Walk, The Lanesborough in Kerrisdale, and other controversial rezonings. By reviewing the initial staff reports and rezoning documents, and surveying neighbourhood attitudes, it would analyze the initial concerns, and then assess their validity.”
—Michael Geller
With one of the principals at the Planning Partnership in Toronto, I have been conducting a study similar to the one Michael suggests. Our focus is on “building type”, one of the primary elements or building blocks of a critical theory of urbanism. Anticipating some of the discussion we have seen on this blog, we called our study “Canadian Quartiers”, focusing not just on the building, but testing how “building type” performs when measured at the larger, more cohesive urban unit: the quartier.
Michael was at our first presentation at the Canadian Institute of Planning (CIP) annual conference, Winnipeg 2008, when we presented:
The Hydrostones, Halifax [32](2.5)*FDY
Rue Cuillard, Quebec Citadel [108](4.0)*
Cabbagetwon, Toronto [40](2.5)*FDY
Market Square, Winnipeg (the Warehouse or Exchange District)[70](4.5)
Arbutus Walk, Vancouver (the Molson Brewery redevelopment)[85](9)FDY
At CIP 2009 in Niagara Falls, Ontario, we presented the following 5 Quartiers:
Dartmourth, Nova Scotia [54](3.5]*
Place Roi, Montreal [102](4.5)*FDY
Westdale, Hamilton, Ontario [4](2.5)*
ByWard Market, Ottawa, [87](4)*FDY
Granville Island [14](2)*—showing the density possible if buildings were measured as residential.
Our proposal to present 5 more Quartiers in Montreal this year was not accepted. We will try again for CIP 2011 in Vancouver to show:
Charlottetown, PEI;
Rue St. Denis, Montreal;
Queen Street West, Toronto;
Vancouver’s Olympic Village, and
False Creek North, Vancouver.
For our purposes we can make the base comparison the Vancouver bungalow, on a 33 x 122.5-foot lot:
Bungalow, Vancouver [6](1.5)
The numbers in square brackets [xx] following each entry above is the gross density number. That is total amount of habitable space per acre of land. The land area includes 50% of the fronting right of ways (i.e. The streets), but does not include park space. Unit size used to calculate density is 800 s.f.
The numbers in round brackets (yy) following each entry show building height for the density quoted. In places where there are various heights in one quartier, a representative height is given.
An asterisk “*” following an entry denotes that the units are fee-simple, and ground oriented. For ground oriented houses must have a rear garden at least 35-feet in one dimension. We look for, but do not report here, roof terraces that at least 25% of the building footprint. Front door yards are denoted as “FDY”.
The point of showing Granville Island as a residential density is not to suggest we turn that veritable place into a co-op(!). Rather, we mean to give a comparative idea of the density on that site. The presentation explained that the footprint of Granville Island equals ⅓ the footprint of the Quartier, and that one could look at Granville Island as a prototype “core” or centre for the prototypcial Canadian quartier.
Looking at the list critically, we can see that there is a “building typology” for a fee-simple, high-density, human-scale building that would deliver equivalent densities to high rise buildings (the last bit was to be completed for Montreal, with the analysis of North Shore False Creek and the Olympic Village—alas, we’ll try to show it at the Vancouver conference next year instead).
The word “typology” is much abused, even by friends of mine, so it bears explanation. The type (originating in the Greek word ‘typos’, or the Latin ‘figura’ according to Northrop Frye, “The Great Code”) is a ‘form’ developing slowly over time. In the case of the fee-simple, high-density, human-scale house we can trace the type to Paris, Amsterdam, London, and Quebec City building out in the 17th century. The concept of “type” carries with it all the attributes of the human face: every type is alike, yet each one is individually unique. There is a stock number of parts, but the manner in which these parts can interplay is endless.
The fee-simple, high-density, human-scale house type is seen in the following Canadian quartiers:
The Hydrostones, Halifax [32](2.5)*FDY
Rue Cuillard, Quebec Citadel [108](4.0)*
Cabbagetwon, Toronto [40](2.5)*FDY
Dartmourth, Nova Scotia [54](3.5]*
Place Roi, Montreal [102](4.5)*FDY
Westdale, Hamilton, Ontario [4](2.5)*
ByWard Market, Ottawa, [87](4)*FDY
But not in these:
Market Square, Winnipeg (the Warehouse or Exchange District)[70](4.5)—similar to the north side of Water Street in Vancouver.
Arbutus Walk, Vancouver (the Molson Brewery redevelopment)[85](9)FDY
Of course, the photography that accompanies these studies tell a tale all its own. However, just on the strength of the tables presented here we can see a remarkable diversity in the kind of buildings possible under this type. Note the variety in both the building height and the gross density numbers. What is more, we can begin to see that we can achieve great diversity by “zoning” the quartier by building type. The core might be four storeys, while the periphery might be 2.5 storeys.
In central areas, where land values are high, using a 4-storey building type generates a larger building area, and more return for the investment. These larger homes might include one or two “mortage helper” suites, making them more affordable to own at the same time that they provide affordable rental units in the neighbourhood. The building type is very flexible. Non-profits could own one or more of these buildings and provide non-market housing that looks every bit like every other house on the street.
In keeping with the principle of human scale, the width of the street might be kept in proportion to the height of the fronting building type. For example, narrow and short streets in the Place Roi quartier were fronted by 2 storey buildings. The narrower streets in Cabbagetown—where streets were platted in a great variety of widths adding to local character—are fronted by buildings that typically do not exceed 2.5 stories. In Vancouver’s 66-foot right-of-ways (R.O.W.s) 33-feet would keep human-scale; while the wider 99-foot R.O.W.s could take buildings 45 feet tall and still retain the quality of human-scale, and solar penetration.
The clear “win” when quartiers make the built form in proportion to the fronting right-of-way is experienced in the resulting quality of the urban space… And, best experienced by walking.
Arbutus Walk, which tries in every way imaginable to shoe horn the Vancouver 3-storey walk-up apartment into the fee-simple, high-density, human-scale house type is a good example of what happens when we take too many liberties with a building type. While no one would argue that the Arbutus Walk is a lush and gorgeous place (so are all these projects), the public realm at Arbutus Walk is less than exciting. The whole place feels strangely out of scale, and the senior housing is in the worst possible sort of building. The barbecues are chained to the front door yards, and the new streets were designed without originality or sense of place.
Arbutus Walk turns inward. Despite the considerable effort and expense at public space design and landscaping, Arbutus Street itself is over run by traffic and lacks any of the qualities of Robson Street, 41st Avenue in Kerrisdale, 4th Avenue west of Burrard, or Commercial Drive north of 1st Avenue.
Our entry into the Formshift competition showed what was possible using the standard Vancouver lot:
Simpson/LNV FormShift [65](3.5)*FDY.
Our design released 10-feet to the fronting arterials, allowing for both transit implementation (BRT/LRT) and the creation of local access fronting lanes. We employed the fee-simple, zero-set back, human-scale house typology and generated sufficient density to support LRT on all the Vancouver arterials. Our entry supporting a doubling of the existing city wide population by redeveloping solely existing single family lots fronting arterials.
20 Dan Cooper // Aug 23, 2010 at 12:03 pm
[ With apologies to Shel Silverstein ]
“I fear my city’s in decay,”
Said little Peggy Ann PeEy.
“The government is run by chumps,
The economy is in the dumps.
Our parks are closed, our restaurants dry.
Huge condo towers block the sky.
My neighbours have a stash of guns,
Not to mention sixteen chicken runs.
And there’s one more – that’s seventeen,
And don’t you think False Creek looks green?
Y’oughta know, though it might look blue,
The rain runoff fills it up with poo.
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
The rendering plant air scrubber’s broke.
The homeless are in my recycling bin,
The school budget is caving in.
What’s more, the housing system’s strained,
My condo leaks each time it rains.
The poor are cold, the citizens numb,
(And the HST is really dumb!)
My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
Council don’t listen when I speak.
Their “consultations” make me pout,
I’d wish for Gregor’s yard guy’s clout!
The Lions are in the cellar, and my heart is…
What? What’s that? What’s that you say?
You say it’s almost…………..Labour Day?
G’bye, I’m going out in the sun to play!”
[ I couldn't resist little Peggy's alliterative middle and family names. Any resemblance between the views expressed in this poem and those of any civic political party, living or dead, is purely coincidental. No, really! ]
21 Well // Aug 23, 2010 at 1:18 pm
The west side south of 16th needs to accept densification.
22 rf // Aug 23, 2010 at 2:09 pm
so can someone just confirm for me what the deal is with Frank Luba and Frances Bula?
Are they one and the same or is it just a bizarre coincidence?
23 spartikus // Aug 23, 2010 at 3:43 pm
There’s a reporter at The Province named Frank Luba.
24 Bill Lee // Aug 23, 2010 at 4:23 pm
How limited you are in your imagination with 4 letters in combinations Bula, ABLU,Luba etc.
Bizarre is in the ear of the beholder. Maybe RF went to an all-anglo named school?
Other than an inordinate interest in Hornby Island/Bike lane, no connection.
LinkedIn Profile
Frank Luba
Journalist at The Province
Location Vancouver, Canada Area
Industry Media Production
Current •journalist at The Province
Connections 0 connections
Public profile http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/frank-luba/2/930/90
Interested In
●job inquiries
●expertise requests
●business deals
●reference requests
●getting back in touch
http://twitter.com/frankluba
fluba@png.canwest.com
Bike lane
http://www.cbc.ca/onthecoast/+frank+luba&cd=27&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca
Wednesday August 11
“A proposed bicycle only corridor on Hornby Street is stirring up some negative sentiment. Veteran transportation reporter Frank Luba steered us through the ins and outs of life in the bike lane. Listen to interview (runs 6:51)”
http://www.cbc.ca/video/news/audioplayer.html?clipid=1564566654
And I’ll let you play with one of many tools (with poor ‘dictionaries’) on the net for anagrams of Frances Bula or Frank Luba
http://wordsmith.org/anagram/
The far more creative Fabula of this civic salon shows 45 times more anagram possiblities that a common street transportion reporter. Sniff!
25 Ron // Aug 23, 2010 at 7:28 pm
… not to be confiused with the 80s singer “Luba”
26 The Fourth Horseman // Aug 23, 2010 at 10:26 pm
Has anyone ever seen Frank and Frances TOGETHER!?!?!?
Really, we should be told…
27 PeterG // Aug 24, 2010 at 10:45 am
Apropos absolutely nothing…. I was out walking the dog at 5:30 am when I saw a skunk at Homer and Nelson. It was hobbling along the sidewalk without a care in the world. It seemed a long way from City Hall. I wonder where it lives?
28 Morven // Aug 24, 2010 at 2:40 pm
One incendiary topic might be the concept of planning blight as it applies to Vancouver (one definition below – there are others).
It seems to me that from time to time our elected representatives and their advisers mistake planning blight for planning lite.
Who is prepared to throw gas on this (conceptual) fire ?
-30-
Planning Blight
(one definition)
n: the harmful effects of uncertainty about likely restrictions on the types and extent of future development in a particular area on the quality of life of its inhabitants and the normal growth of its business and community enterprises
……………….
29 Joseph Jones // Aug 24, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Morven: What you define as planning blight smells like a flipside first cousin of redlining. Pick out a neighborhood for whatever reason and declare open season.
30 Lewis N. Villegas // Aug 24, 2010 at 5:15 pm
I’ve come across the idea of “redlining” in reference to mortgage and small business loans in Canada. I know that in Halifax, in the 1960′s and later in the area of the Hydrostones, banks would not lend or were reluctant to lend on the basis of the width of the lot frontage.
If the property did not have a “suburban” lot frontage, no mortgage would be issued.
The Hydrostones were inner city, and the lots did not conform to new suburban standards. Built on the hillside that was wiped out by the explosion of the munition’s ship in World War I. It is both the east end of Halifax, and a non-suburban location. It was probably an distinctly marked racial area.
Of interest to us today, of course, is that we hold it up as an example of sustainable urbanism. A place that balances density, sense of place, and access to transportation—that later is a future dream, since the streetcar was ripped out of Novalea Street much the same way they were in the rest of the country.
In our own town, I see the same thing happening with the freeway project that was never built. The central planning authorities—and I don’t just mean city hall, but the banks, and the various levels of government—redlined the area because it was going to flip from inner city to transportation/industrial/who-knows-what.
When the freeway fight was lost, I see no indication that the redlines were lifted.
But, to Morven’s point, I think that what may come closer to the issue being raised is a kind of “Neighbourhood Bill of Rights”. A kind of requirement of a minimum level of engagement across the full spectrum of urban issues. Not just community centres, social housing, towers, etc. But also the quality of the street space and the public realm; the availability of parks and transportation; and yes, the existence of a plan or urban code for the intensification of the neighbourhood to 2040.
31 Bill McCreery // Aug 24, 2010 at 9:33 pm
To add another topic into the mix, I would appreciate your collective thoughts on the significance & implications of 2 developers recently indicating they were or, would like to pull out of the STIR projects they are involved in.
PCI, the Gateway project developer @ the recent Design Panel mtg. all but cancelled the STIR units [going 187 to 31 from memory]. Why? Busby, the architect, said they were not cost effective. I agree. I have done proforma analysis on projects similar to the 2 WE STIRs & have found that STIRS in those projects do not make economic sense. If the developer sells the STIR units @ just over cost, the investor purchaser has to rent them @ rents of 50% more than the going rate [existing average $1.75/sf; STIR @ $2.70]. It is my view these units will not rent @ those prices & the developer / investor will be back cap in hand to the City in 3 years asking for more concessions or going broke.
As well in the West End, Real estate consultants Pottinger & Associates recently organized a by-invitation-only “private dinner / project update” on the controversial proposed rezoning for a 22-storey 100% STIR tower on the current site of St. John’s Church @ 1401 Comox. The event was hosted for “loyal and active members” of Gordon Neighbourhood House to learn how they “can help secure a brand new neighbouring facility for Gordon House at 1401 Comox.” About 21 people attended. The presentation described the modified designs of the project, not yet released publicly, notification that the originally planned townhouses have been removed to be replaced by one building of 3700 square feet to be shared by Gordon House (daytime) and Qmunity (evenings only), and that the previous seniors’ housing component had been cancelled.
But, here’s the big hook: guests were asked their opinion for other ideas for the site, including abandoning the idea of 100% market rental under the STIR program and going with 100% market-priced condominiums or a hybrid of rentals and condos.
Participants questioned whether other options were still possible, and voiced concerns, not only about the physical design of the buildings, but also about the use of the site. It was suggested that Westbank’s Ian Gillespie and Peterson’s Ben Yeung actually visit the West End and talk to individuals and more groups for direct input about community needs. The meeting never got to the point of informing participants what they were expected to do to “secure a brand new neighbouring facility.”
Perhaps this is the beginning of developers realizing they’re getting into deep water with these STIR projects & they better get back to shore. It would be smart for the STIR developers throughout the City to take a close look @ what & why PCI have done & Westbank wants to do in this regard. I think they will come to the same conclusion [if they're smart], The STIR programme does not make financial sense.
The Director of Planning Mr. Toderian told the WEN group in June that he plans to advise City Council to stop the application of STIR in the West End, although not in the City of Vancouver generally. He also said he doesn’t think new rental is a needed primary public benefit in the West End. I attended the meeting & challenged him to acknowledge the STIR programme was not working & his reply is paraphrased above. He also said it was to late in the process to stop them. Those in attendance disagreed with him on that assertion. But, in light of these 2 developers voting with their investment dollars to abandon their STIR units, maybe the DOP would be well advised to reassess his position.
32 Morven // Aug 25, 2010 at 12:19 pm
A somewhat quiet reaction.
Think back to the issues around the Cambie Line and wonder why all levels of government are leery of any discussion of planning blight. If they had done a proper cost/risk/benefit analysis of the Cambie Line, the issue of planning blight would have been factored in- but it was not and it took legal action to get any recognition.
Where is the City of Vancouver in all this (since the largest part of planning blight comes from local not strategic investments).
Who is going to weigh in ?
-30
33 Tiktaalik // Aug 25, 2010 at 6:33 pm
Weigh in on what? What is the example that you’re dancing around without explicitly mentioning?
“Issues around the Cambie Line.” Which ones?
34 Lewis N. Villegas // Aug 25, 2010 at 9:48 pm
There seem to be three issues around the Canada Line/Cambie, possibly four, discussed on this blog in the very near past.
1. Cut and Cover
The Cambie Street merchants took a beating for no good reason. I remember in the early stages of the discussion being told/reassured that it would be a bored tunnel all the way. It wasn’t, and while the powers that be because we voted them in get it wrong, we are left on the sidelines unable to react.
2. Transit Oriented Development (or TOD)
It is well established urban design practice, but not planning paradigm, to intensify neighbourhoods in the station areas. If we understood this concept completely, for example, putting LRT on the B.C. Electric R.O.W. on Surrey and Langley would be a no-brainer.
Instead, the plans for Cambie are going on now, and the urbanism to my eyes is not of a very high caliber.
3. Service Delivery
Apparently the P3 contract to run the line makes it so that there are irregularities built into the service that cannot be addressed while the P3 contract is in place.
4. Cambie BRT
Perhaps the most interesting comments I’ve read here suggest that the Canada Line below grade should be complimented with a Trolley BRT on the street.
5. Success
Can we carp about what went right?
We’ve heard here that the ridership is hovering around 110,000 trips per day. If we assume one car per trip, and 10,000 cars per lane of roadway, Canada Line service today delivers the equivalent of 11 lanes of roadway.
That’s really good news. Consider that if BRT can take 60,000 trips per day (my guess, anyone out there with good numbers?) that would be the equivalent capacity to another 6 lane arterial.
“To add another topic into the mix, I would appreciate your collective thoughts on the significance & implications of 2 developers recently indicating they were or, would like to pull out of the STIR projects they are involved in.”
—Bill McCreery
I don’t have the numbers to be able to say, one way or the other, whether STIR works, or not.
However, from urban design principles, there is little profit in having the local authorities tip the playing field one way or another to achieve a particular form of tenure (rental vs. ownership).
If the problem is affordable housing, then the preceding discussion seems more to the point. By building transit we make more of the region available to a larger number of people, and hedge against high prices.
The core-periphery pattern of urbanism will always make it so that the center is priced more highly than the edge.
If the problem is keeping the planners busy, I’d rather they’d be trying to figure out how to get better building types built in this market, than spend valuable time and air space getting out a message that does not seem to need airing.
35 Dan Cooper // Aug 26, 2010 at 8:59 am
@Morven. I have to second Tiktaalik (and am glad I’m not the only one who was a bit confused!). Could you clarify your concern? Is it that the regulations that are being made are not clear? That the regulations being made are bad? That any regulations violate the sanctity of the Infallible Free Hand of the Market?
I suppose, of course, since it isn’t about bike lanes, we still may not have anything to say about it, but at least we’ll have a strong grasp on what we’re not discussing!
36 yippies in love // Aug 26, 2010 at 4:54 pm
vancouver seems calm enough these days, but we were once the protest capital of canada.
that was in 1970, and now you can relive the glory days in the ‘annals of andy.’ it’s vancouver’s, canada’s, and possibly the world’s, first twittoir (rhymes with pissoir), or twitter memoir, the story of a surfer dude who finds his inner yippie during that memorable era.
in chapters of 140 characters or less, andy is currently recalling the yippie invasion and trashing of blaine, wash., in retaliation for kent state and nixon’s invasion of cambodia.
later, he will detail how the yippies tackled such urban issues as the mayoralty election of 1970, the gastown police riot and the yippie people’s park on georgia street.
you can follow andy’s adventures at http://www.twitter.com/yippies in love. and watch the blaine invasion video on youtube at yippiesinlove – blaine.
and wouldn’t you know it? There’s a yippies in love facebook site, too.
37 Bill Lee // Aug 26, 2010 at 5:32 pm
Should churches, synagogues, and federal and provincial buildings be taxed?
Montreal is considering it over the next two years.
http://argent.canoe.ca/lca/affaires/quebec/archives/2010/08/20100825-182307.html
38 Bill Lee // Aug 26, 2010 at 5:41 pm
Re: Bula-boolah, Juba, Luba. (see above)
The Province also has Tamara Baluja, a former Toronto Star intern who worked the ‘radio room’, ex-CFRB reporter, now a general reporter. See theprovince.com.
I suppose at quick glance, people might read Bula.
But see Fabula’s real busy “other blog” at http://www.fabula.org
39 mezzanine // Aug 26, 2010 at 10:06 pm
Some movement on transit fronts – TL will be receiving 7 new west coast express bi-level cars in the next 2 months. They just recently took delivery of the first 2 cars.
There should be further interesting developments as TL and victoria are also finalizing long-term funding plans for the evergreen and TL in general.
“Langley City Mayor Peter Fassbender, chair of the Metro Vancouver’s Mayors’ Council on transportation, said a solution is close on the transportation authority’s ongoing financial woes.
“Before the end of this year, we’ll have a resolution to both the Evergreen Line and as I said, just as importantly, the issue of long-term funding,” Fassbender told The Province.”
http://www.theprovince.com/news/Ridership+jump+West+Coast+Express+rolls+cars/3446925/story.html
40 Morven // Aug 27, 2010 at 11:22 am
Dan Cooper /Tiktaalik
My question was, I now admit, a bit indirect (a bit like city hall consultation). And the subject of planning blight is a long and controversial one.
In a nutshell, who pays directly for adverse planning consequences and who pays indirectly for adverse planning consequences ( and the issue is far broader than development cost levies).
Planners, developers and architects go to great lengths to be trained or have the experience to assess likely benefits and risks of a proposed development which is why we have a consultation process to flesh out the potential impact. When a decision is made by the elected representatives, the greater public is in effect accepting the negative aspects. Yet when the development produces unintended consequences that produce a planning blight (i.e., negative impact on existing stakeholders that was not foreseen) then who is responsible for compensation, if any?.
If, for instance, the planners anticipate that a bicycle lane (to use a topical example) will produce a temporary drop in business sales but the lane in fact, when it is constructed, puts some or all of the businesses out of operation, who is responsible ? – all the citizens, some of the citizens, the businesses or the bicycle ridership?
I think the jury is out when that assessment is made.
We all depend on the city planners being objective and dispassionate when they assess development risk and so advise the elected representatives. If they are, for any reason, knowingly or unknowingly captured by one or more special interests, then who accepts the responsibility for unanticipated consequences?
Please tell me.
I am neither a planner, a developer or an architect but as a citizen, always wonder why when a major project is planned, there are not more independent studies outside the planning department,. In another post, another writer advocated some sort of planning audit to assess the accuracy of initial impact assessment. Not a bad idea but this and other blogs go far towards getting that information in the public arena.
-30-
41 Bill McCreery // Aug 27, 2010 at 12:49 pm
@ Mez 39. But, where is the City of Vancouver in all this? Gregy’s idea of solving regional transit problems is to go kayaking. The City historically has played a major role in regional issues such as transportation. This Vision Council is on the sidelines.
42 Joe Just Joe // Aug 27, 2010 at 1:22 pm
I’ve just returned from 3wks in Spain/Portugal, and while I had a great time I will admit to being happy to return to Vancouver. Could just be the home effect, but it certainly does feel good being here.
I know we all like to harp on what’s wrong with our fair city, but how about we each take a moment and describe a neighbourhood in our city that we love and provide the reason why.
43 Sean // Aug 27, 2010 at 7:07 pm
@Morven
Ultimately the politicians are accountable for the negative effects. That is as it should be, since the power is in their hands.
And let’s not forget that there are beneficial planning consequences too. To use the bike lane example, what if business goes up (as has happened in some other jurisdictions). Who gets the credit for that? The politicians, of course.
44 mezzanine // Aug 27, 2010 at 7:22 pm
@Bill, in all fairness Mayor Fassbender is the chair of the TL’s mayor’s council, so although he is the point-man for negotiations, he reports back to all mayors.
“The Mayor’s Council contains representatives from each of the 21 municipalities, as well as the Tsawwassen First Nation, from within the transportation service region and collectively represent the viewpoints and interests of the citizens of the region.
The Mayors’ Council appoints the Board of Directors for TransLink and the Commissioner. It approves plans prepared by TransLink, including the transportation plan, regional funding and borrowing limits.”
http://www.translink.ca/en/About-TransLink/TransLink-Governance-and-Board/Mayors-Council.aspx
45 Lewis N. Villegas // Aug 28, 2010 at 7:26 am
I like Spain and Portugal, and I agree that there are many things about western Canada—we are western Europe’s “Portugal” here in B.C.—that I like that are missing in the Iberian peninsula, Europe, and even the British Isles. Good urbanism is not one of them, and that’s why we I refer back often to places that have a history of 2000 years and more dating before 1942. If the land has been shaped by the hand with a mind to walking we get one result. If driving, then another. We give up a lot to sit on our perch. I often think that the Rocky Mountains are a granite monolith impervious to culture.
Bill & Mezz help remind us that transportation and governance are regional issues as well, and that we need to have representational government to make that work. Politicians whose future depends on winning the mandate on a province-wide basis, and politicians that depend on winning a local mandate, can no longer articulate a workable set of principles at the regional scale.
We heard from Metro Portland that their council puts the municipalities into a contest, to see who will be the “queen” and win the much desired transportation monies. Mistakes are still made, but accountability seems to be closer at hand.
46 Lewis N. Villegas // Aug 28, 2010 at 7:30 am
For the transportation folks, here’s a late summer teaser…
Has there been any movement afoot to make the B-Lines BRT? That is, to put them in the center of the R.O.W., build station platforms, and give them signal priority?
What are the next 2 or 3 best B-Lines to get up and running from the point of view of providing better overall service?
47 michael geller // Aug 28, 2010 at 7:34 am
I think Morven has raised some very interesting issues in post 40. If I could restate his concern, if a planning decision related to a private property, or a public initiative has either expected or unexpected impacts and consequences for a neighbour, a street, or neighbourhood, who, if anyone, should compensate the affected parties?
I have often thought about this since there is no doubt that some of the projects with which I have been involved involving private properties have negatively affected adjacent property owners. However, I have been told that the developer is not obliged to compensate the neighbours, nor is the city. On the contrary, when developers have tried to offer some form of compensation, they have often been chatised and told not to do so. I will give you three examples.
Twenty years ago, as a planning consultant to a wealthy and compassionate land owner, I was involved in a proposal to rezone a low rise apartment site for a new high rise. Many of adjacent property owners objected, and when I told my client, he told me to offer to buy the immediately adjacent properties that would be most affected. When I told him I was sure some would not want to move, he basically said agree to pay them whatever they want, within reason.
I initiated discussions along these lines and started to agree on prices for some of the houses. But then City Hall heard what we were doing and I had a phone call chastising me for ‘bribing’ the property owners. I said I wasn’t bribing them. Rather, we were trying to compensate a small number of neighbouring property owners who were clearly going to be affected if the project was approved. I was told this was completely inappropriate. In the end, the rezoning did not get approved.
However, in another instance in Point Grey, without telling the city, my client did quietly agree to purchase the home of a neighbour who “didn’t want to live next to a new apartment complex”. Ironically, he sold it after the project was completed and made more money on the resale of the house than my fee to manage the two year long rezoning!
More recently I was involved with another project where, in my opinion, some suites in a neighbouring building would be adversely affected by a rezoning decision, if approved. I thought it was only fair that there be some compensation, and discussed this with my client, and other members of the planning team. The question then became how should this be managed. Should the applicant agree to give money directly to the affected homeowners if the project is approved, or should it be done through the city?
Remembering my experience of 20 years ago, I spoke to City Staff and others to discuss the situation. Were there other precedents where a developer had agreed to offer compensation directly to affected neighbours? Yes, of course I was told, it happened all the time. But only in an informal way. However, the city frowns on such arrangements since it is always difficult to assess who really are the aggrieved parties.
Furthermore, under the law, no one really has a legal right to a view, or even light and sunshine. (I would welcome a commentary on this from any lawyers or planners who might have a differing or more informed opinion).
In other words, there is no formal framework to allow such compensation to affected parties, other than the Community Amenity Contributions that are often used to provide additional community facilities in a neighbourhood to minimize the impact of an increased number of households.
I could go on to point out that under our current system there is no effective system in place to assess whether the CAC funds or monies received as ‘payments in lieu of parkspace, etc. are actually used for their intended purposes, but that’s another story. However, I do agree that Morven’s question does deserve further discussion.
48 Bill McCreery // Aug 28, 2010 at 9:57 am
@ Mez, 43. I understand all that. I was speaking of ‘leadership’ & you don’t have top be ‘Chair’ to provide it.
49 Bill McCreery // Aug 28, 2010 at 11:03 am
@ Morven, 40. Your ‘planning blight’ notion is interesting indeed. If refined it may be a useful tool or mechanism which, if applied correctly, could not only help to focus redevelopment more positively but, also provide the necessary data, policies & initiatives which could encourage now often opposing stakeholders to find consensus. I have spoken in the past of the need to include key information & data to all parties in the planning process so they will be able to arrive @ such consensus or @ least understand where & why certain conclusions come from.
That information is missing, in particular in the Norquay Community Planning [a lack of the statisitical info defining the customers - read density - required to support retail & other services within a sustainable neighbourhood], as well as in the Cambie Corridor [the above + the assessment of the amount of added density a given CL station can support so the CL & the adjacent street network will not be overwhelmed] processes.
A good case on point in this discussion might be the Gateway South & now North proposals. Based on the info provided in the PCI proposal documents there will be an additional 9,200 people added in the immediate area of the Marine & Cambie Station, an increase of +10.8 times. In addition, there will be further catchment increases from Laneway & other smaller redevelopments. Can the CL & the street network handle this? This information is not available. Is this an acceptable unintended consequence or a planning blight’ ?
What impact will this increased density have on the already congested Cambie & Marine intersection? @ the very least a bypass will have to be built through the industrial are to the south [through traffic mixed with trucks loading - brilliant transportation planning]. @ what cost? Who pays? There is also already an unacceptable level of by-pass traffic funneling through the side streets. This will only get much worse. Given the present near capacity & future gridlock, what effect will that have on the ability of buses to efficiently feed into the Marine / Cambie Loop? Independent, trustworthy analysis must be done & made available to all stakeholders.
If this information was indeed available I suspect it may allow developers & their financiers take a 2nd look @ the wisdom of their trying to extract to much density from this restricted location – in other words – info created as a result of citizen opposition would in the end allow them to make better, informed decisions.
In addition, Ash Park & the adjacent elementary school are depicted by the PCI shadow studies as not being within the shadow zone @ the 10am equinox. What this does not show is that the Park & School will be entirely in shadow for more than 2/3s of the school year when you broaden the data base to include 8.30 to 10am when children are outdoors playing before school & @ recess &, the school year which goes from September to June. Is this an acceptable unintended consequence or a planning blight’ ?
50 mezzanine // Aug 28, 2010 at 5:29 pm
Transit planning dilemma of the week: Port Moody is protesting the lack of any firm plan for a 3rd western station in PoMo. Evergreen planners state that it would be possible if PoMo plans for higher densities around the potential site and pays $20 million for construction costs (raised presumably thru development fees from the increased density). However, PoMo council is hesitant to increase density around the planned station.
In contrast, Coquitlam is also asking for an extra station by lincoln, but they are making a lot of effort to plan for higher denity around the planned station.
“In Port Moody, Mayor Joe Trasolini is opposing making developers pay fees to justify a $20-million third station. Trasolini told The Tri-City News recently that making some developers pay extra fees and not others is not fair and the density required to generate $20 million would boost the city’s population by 50%.
To get a third station for the city by opening day in 2014, PoMo would need a land-use plan identifying potential densities as soon as the end of the year. Next Thursday, council will be holding a special meeting to discuss the environmental assessment review for the Evergreen Line and Trasolini said he plans to raise the station funding issue.
Meanwhile, Coquitlam is in talks with the Evergreen Line project office about a potential extra station and could have some proposals to present to the city’s land use committee this fall, according to the city’s general manager of planning and development.
“We are proceeding with working with the province and other possible parties,” Jim McIntyre said. “We want to see it in place on opening day.”
For [coq. mayor] Stewart, increasing density around stations is just good planning and he doesn’t buy the argument that developers are being unfairly singled out to pay for transportation improvements. On the contrary, Stewart said, owners of properties within 400 m of an Evergreen Line station stand to gain enormously from a “lift” in property values.
He cites land owners in the vicinity of the Surrey Central station, which is now poised to become the city’s new civic centre. “We have to start looking at things as a big city would and behaving in a way that’s prudent for all taxpayers,” he said.”
http://www.bclocalnews.com/tri_city_maple_ridge/tricitynews/news/101104694.html
51 yippies in love // Aug 28, 2010 at 8:43 pm
for the legions searching frantically for the correct twitter address in yippies 36, it’s http://www.twitter.com/yippiesinlove.
52 Lewis N. Villegas // Aug 28, 2010 at 9:58 pm
“To get a third station for the city by opening day in 2014, PoMo would need a land-use plan identifying potential densities as soon as the end of the year. Next Thursday, council will be holding a special meeting to discuss the environmental assessment review for the Evergreen Line and Trasolini said he plans to raise the station funding issue.”
—Mezz
That “next Thursday” Mezz, was two nights ago. A friend who lives in Port Moody was in attendance. The Mayor and one other Councillor voted for the station, and the rest of Council voted against it. Like Jarrett Walker, Port Moody residents seem to be of the opinion that Skytrain builds towers, and they seem to have had enough of that.
The additional Port Moody station would most likely locate near the base of Clarke Hill, near the opening to the tunnel, and on the threshold of history Moody Centre.
It was precisely this runaway Port Moody debacle that got me looking at the Translink map all over again last week, and prompted me to post the question, “which Translink B-Lines should go BRT (bus rapid transit) first?”.
http://www.translink.ca/~/media/documents/maps/transit%20system%20maps/entire_system_map_effective_21june2010.ashx
The remarkable thing about the 97B Line in Port Moody-Coquitlam is that it follows the precise alignment for the proposed (and I think far superior) LRT route.
If there are any transit experts out there that would agree with making the 97B Line the first B Line to go BRT, then it—rather than Skytrain Evergreen—would be the North-East corridor transit system.
When capacity reaches saturation point, we could take the buses off the BRT lanes, lay down rails, and run Bombardier LRT on the same route, providing all the service of Skytrain and more.
The other pertinent point by Jarrett Walker was that reducing transfers is not that critical to transportation planning, exposing one of the key criteria used to flog Skytrain on the Evergreen as bad judgement.
53 Lewis N. Villegas // Aug 28, 2010 at 9:59 pm
“To get a third station for the city by opening day in 2014, PoMo would need a land-use plan identifying potential densities as soon as the end of the year. Next Thursday, council will be holding a special meeting to discuss the environmental assessment review for the Evergreen Line and Trasolini said he plans to raise the station funding issue.”
—Mezz
That “next Thursday” Mezz, was two nights ago. A friend who lives in Port Moody was in attendance. The Mayor and one other Councillor voted for the station, and the rest of Council voted against it. Like Jarrett Walker, Port Moody residents seem to be of the opinion that Skytrain builds towers, and they seem to have had enough of that.
The additional Port Moody station would most likely locate near the base of Clarke Hill, near the opening to the tunnel, and on the threshold of history Moody Centre.
It was precisely this runaway Port Moody debacle that got me looking at the Translink map all over again last week, and prompted me to post the question, “which Translink B-Lines should go BRT (bus rapid transit) first?”.
“http://www.translink.ca/~/media/documents/maps/transit%20system%20maps/entire_system_map_effective_21june2010.ashx”
The remarkable thing about the 97B Line in Port Moody-Coquitlam is that it follows the precise alignment for the proposed (and I think far superior) LRT route.
If there are any transit experts out there that would agree with making the 97B Line the first B Line to go BRT, then it—rather than Skytrain Evergreen—would be the North-East corridor transit system.
When capacity reaches saturation point, we could take the buses off the BRT lanes, lay down rails, and run Bombardier LRT on the same route, providing all the service of Skytrain and more.
The other pertinent point by Jarrett Walker was that reducing transfers is not that critical to transportation planning, exposing one of the key criteria used to flog Skytrain on the Evergreen as bad judgement.
54 Morven // Aug 28, 2010 at 10:38 pm
Mayor Robertson today on NW radio stoutly defended the nature of the city’s consultation process, with especial reference to the Hornby bike lane.
I totally disagree with Mayor Robertson.
It is a fatal planning flaw to bury the process in the appearance of policy conflicts of interest among the officials who will make recommendations to our elected representatives.
One, as far as I can tell (and I am no cyclist), the strategic choice of the route was made then the consultation started (it should be the other way around).
Two, the consultation is being carried out by the Engineering Department who develop and administer transport policies in the first place. I am not alone in seeing this as a conflict of interest. Far better it be conducted by the Planning Department and even better, by independent consultants. There are many fine independent consultants in Vancouver who would be happy to do so.
Three, and this is only my opinion, there has been no clarification of potential mitigation measures.
If Mayor Robertson wants to assure us of the integrity of the process, then he should ensure the consultation procedure is transparent and it is not carried out by the same city staff who develop and recommend the same proposals they are consulting on.
How about a set of consultation guidelines where both sides know what is anticipated and expected and not the verbal skirmishing under way (which I am contributing to).
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55 Lewis N. Villegas // Aug 28, 2010 at 10:51 pm
Sorry for the double post, Frances. I need a crash course on html…
Morven, 1, 2, 3… I think you’re getting a lot of agreement on this here.
“I have often thought about this since there is no doubt that some of the projects with which I have been involved involving private properties have negatively affected adjacent property owners.”
—Geller
“Ash Park & the adjacent elementary school are depicted by the PCI shadow studies as not being within the shadow zone @ the 10am equinox. What this does not show is that the Park & School will be entirely in shadow for more than 2/3s of the school year when you broaden the data base to include 8.30 to 10am when children are outdoors playing before school & @ recess &, the school year which goes from September to June.”
—McCreery
How about those all important views. What if you are the poor Joe whose picture window, formerly the source of lovely southern light, gets taken over by the Gateway tower one, two, or three blocks away! Geller again:
“[W]hen City Hall heard what we were doing and I had a phone call chastising me for ‘bribing’ the property owners. I said I wasn’t bribing them. Rather, we were trying to compensate a small number of neighbouring property owners who were clearly going to be affected if the project was approved. I was told this was completely inappropriate. In the end, the rezoning did not get approved.”
And one more:
“under the law, no one really has a legal right to a view, or even light and sunshine.”
—Geller
Yeah-but-said-the-rabbut. There are no laws dictating aesthetics either, and we still know a “dog-faced-piece-of-architecture” when we see one. So, urban design codes can do stuff that we do not regulate through the law.
I now have a nicely refinished oak floor, but I have not had a chance to do a walk in Kerrisdale. Hence, I am still unable to respond to Geller 16, “The Lanesborough in Kerrisdale”:
“Lewis makes some very good points about what makes a ‘quartier’ successful. However, having participated in dozens of planning programs and rezonings, I have found that most often, neighbourhood residents do not support new projects that might result in good urbanism (whether on a neighbourhood or building scale) because they fear the worst.”
—Geller #16
The reason I don’t agree with this statement is that in my own experience (in cities far from ours, it is true)… we got exactly the opposite result. Go figure. We got standing ovations for our work.
So, either the water was different, or something’s afoot.
I want to walk Kerrisdale between 37th and 45th avenues (0.5 mi); and Larch and the Boulevard (0.33 mi). That is a tower zone developing in an area where the platting turns 90° and the long dimension of the block orients north-south, rather than the typical east-west. It is also a tower zone developing in an area shaped by LRT service (the BC Electric).
Is it possible that neighbourhood patterns laid down so long ago resonate to our day?
The only place that I have been where a slender 8 to 10 storey tower work amidst a compliment of human-scaled buildings is in the historic Art Deco district of Miami. Two observations from that site.
First, as soon as one crosses the “historic district boundary” the towers fatten up, and build to 30-plus storey in height—Deco be damned! Second, the Deco district itself has a lot of bare patches, and the urbanism suffers from having not found a balance for the volume of automobile traffic on the arterials.
Can a slender less than 12-storey tower work? Why would the residents opt out of having ground oriented units, and a garden? Given that the same densities can be achieved, why stack the human-scale buildings on their side to get to 12 storeys or less? Is this just so that one property owner can max out on investment? Can we not make the same returns from human-scaled, high-density?
The opinion is forming that we have just failed to consider workable alternatives. It’s not the water, or the air that we breathe, but a set of concrete and verifiable facts that seem to be left out. However, until such time as these do enter the day to day discussions in our midst, there is no way for the market to price them, or for their positive effects on land values (read: anti-inflationary) to be felt.
Given all that, walkable neighbourhoods, and human-scaled quartiers does seem like a pipe dream.
56 Bill McCreery // Aug 28, 2010 at 11:01 pm
@ Morven, 63. Amen re: “the strategic choice of the route was made then the consultation started (it should be the other way around).”
I was advised that the Hornby installation was to be a “trial”. If so, why the very physically intrusive [read jackhammers & concrete curbs] designs? How much is this going to cost? how much would a truly “trial” installation cost?
There seem to be a vast array of unanswered ?s, the “integrity of the process” being only 1. Methinks his nibs might start implementing his “transparent” “consultation procedure” by answering these & other unanswered ?s now.
57 Lewis N. Villegas // Aug 28, 2010 at 11:22 pm
Give’m hell, Bill!
58 michael geller // Aug 29, 2010 at 8:27 am
“Can a slender less than 12-storey tower work? Why would the residents opt out of having ground oriented units, and a garden? Given that the same densities can be achieved, why stack the human-scale buildings on their side to get to 12 storeys or less? Is this just so that one property owner can max out on investment? Can we not make the same returns from human-scaled, high-density?”
Lewis, you surprise me with this question, since you surely know the answer. I’d like to repeat the conversation I had with Jim Green on last Tuesday’s Bill Good Show Civic Affairs Panel (which was sadly missing Frances.) We’ll be doing it again this Tuesday at 9 am if anyone is interested.
We were discussing the benefits of higher density housing in terms of improved transportation, improved health, and housing affordability. However, I tried to make the point that HIGHER DENSITY DOES NOT ALWAYS MEAN GREATER HEIGHT. I used the example of Kerrisdale.
In Kerrisdale, the 11 storey ‘high rise’ buildings are at a 1.7 FSR. However, as Lewis points out, you can develop a 3 or 4 storey building with the same density. So why build the higher building?
A significant reason is because a lot of people prefer to live on the fifth floor or top floor, rather than the ground floor (especially those moving out of a single family house). Lewis may not like highrise buildings, but a lot of other people do.
Furthermore, a taller building allows more of the site area to be landscaped, and while it may cast longer shadows on some properties, more often than not, a taller building reduces the shadowing and view blockage for many others.
Lewis, your comment implies that a developer makes more money from a tall building than a shorter building, and that’s why they want to build highrise. This is not necessarily correct. Indeed, sometimes the opposite can be true. If you need proof, just look at all the significant number of low rise buildings that have been built in areas where high rise is permitted.
Often, a high rise building in concrete construction can be much riskier and more difficult to finance than a smaller, wood-frame building. From the developer’s perspective, what really matters is whether there is a market demand for what he can build. For these reasons, I support the notion of a choice of building types in an area. It is why I would like to see a mix of townhouses, mid-rises and high-rises along the Cambie Corridor, rather than a preponderance of mid-rise buildings
Finally, on an even more personal note, I am pleased to announce that I have decided to put my money where my mouth is!
Some of you will remember an earlier posting about what was happening in West Vancouver. At the time, I supported the District’s Pilot Housing Program, (to which I had submitted an application with the late Art Cowie) and also a small rezoning application to redevelop 3 single family lots with 6 duplexes and 3 coach houses.
At the time, it looked like the rezoning might not succeed, which would have been very sad, since the site is close to the new community centre, the seniors centre and two churches, and one block off Marine Drive, with its Library, nearby shops and transit. Moreover, it was a perfect opportunity to demonstrate very ‘gentle densification’.
Ironically, as a result of posting my comments on this blog, I started a discussion with Joel Slone, the West Vancouver builder and resident behind the project, and this past week we agreed to become partners in the rezoning application and hopefully, the future development.
In terms of height, the request is similar to that permitted for single family housing. I might add that the requested density is less than that currently permitted for single family houses in Vancouver. It’s a very low density scheme, but higher than the 0.35 currently permitted in the area. (Vancouver allows approximately 0.6 plus laneway housing.)
Rather than seek a ‘spot-rezoning’, the application includes an Official Community Plan amendment for the entire block.
If approved, I am hopeful that this small development will offer new, much needed housing choices on a well located block in West Vancouver, and also serve as a demonstration of what might be suitable for many other single family properties around the region. I will keep you apprised of further public meetings and discussions.
59 Richard // Aug 29, 2010 at 9:18 am
@Bill McCreery
A lot of people including businesses don’t want the ugly temporary barriers along the street as was done on the Viaduct and Burrard Bridge. I believe this is one of the main reasons why the city is putting in the curb work instead of using the temporary barriers.
60 Morven // Aug 29, 2010 at 9:48 am
There may be hope for Vancouver.
For one, in her absence, the blog host (Ms. Bula) opened up her blog site.
Two, the informed comment and discussion suggests the urban community if far more dynamic and flexible than the city planners would have us believe, and,
Three, if we are to use modern communication styles in the manner intended, why do the city officials not jump in and contribute to the discussion?
After all , they did say that consultation is open and transparent or does that refer only to the media routes that they control?
That said, there have been more sensible ideas and comments in this extended blog than I see in months of council reports.
My message for city officials is that Vancouver is alive and well and not deferential to the elected representatives. Good news.
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61 Morven // Aug 29, 2010 at 10:22 am
@Bill McCreery, 55
Has anyone asked the question whether the costs of the Hornby bike project are being covered under the federal infrastructure incentive funds. These have a deadline of late March 2011 for completion.
If so, this might explain the frantic hurry to consult, report and implement otherwise the funds are lost.
The very idea that federal incentive dollars are being used to bludgeon city taxpayers seems peculiar.
Can the city clarify this funding issue?
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62 Richard // Aug 29, 2010 at 9:53 pm
Looks like bike lanes are good for business.
http://www.emilydrennen.org/research_trans.shtml
Quote:
Twenty-seven randomly selected merchants located in the Mission District of San Francisco were interviewed about what impacts the Valencia Street bicycle lanes have had on their businesses. Four after the bike lanes were built, the vast majority of the interviewees expressed support for the bike lanes. Sixty-six percent of the merchants believed that the bike lanes have had a generally positive impact on their business, and the same percentage would support more traffic calming on Valencia Street. Thirty-seven percent of merchants reported that the bike lanes have increased their sales. Surprising percentages of merchants reported that increased congestion (41%) and reduced auto speed (46%) were good conditions for business. On eleven of the nineteen variables, not one merchant reported that the bike lanes had made conditions “worse”, while only 6% of the overall responses were negative. These results and more are presented in the context of the aforementioned six hypotheses, and future directions for research are offered.
63 Lewis N. Villegas // Aug 29, 2010 at 10:12 pm
The FSR in the fee-simple human scale buildings can be as high as 2.33. Compare that to 1.7 FSR for a Kerrisdale ‘high rise’ at 11 storeys, and people can get an idea of how tricky this debate can be.
I’m glad that the listeners of the Bill Good Show have been given a chance to hear that “you don’t have to build high-rise to get high densities”. The next step will be to get them some idea of what it takes to design neighbourhoods neighbours will stand up and cheer for.
Strangely enough, “mix” is not necessarily what delivers high quality urban space. And, we wont get to the “good” neighbourhoods unless we shift gears, and turn tofocus on the overall result of all the buildings put together.
That’s why I look forward to a walk in Kerrisdale. Google shows me that there is enough of these 11 storey buildings to present a kind of “critical mass” for that building type. We should be able to test the resulting quality of the urban spaces and the urbanism.
The problem with “a mix of townhouses, mid-rises and high-rises along the Cambie Corridor, rather than a preponderance of mid-rise buildings”, Michael, is that it flies in the face of an old postulate of mine:
Paris is arguably the most beautiful city in the world, yet all the buildings look more or less alike.
We can say the same about the capitals of the Georgian era, London’s West End, Edinburgh, Dublin and Bath. What we admire about the white washed hill towns of the Costa del Sol, and the Agean is the continuity of character in the architecture. The buildings all look more or less the same. The best parts of Barcelona exhibit just this trait. And, when the principle is broken, Barcelona starts to stop looking and feeling like Barcelona.
A good mix would be mid-rise, fee-simple 3.5-storey (both human scale, or built in proportion to the width of the fronting street, rather than an arbitrary number like”11″), and the bungalows already existing. That is three types with a lot of flexibility, and more than enough space to deliver 10,000 souls per quartier.
It is one of the most interesting aspects of our own urbanism up to about 1908, the time of the building boom set off by the anticipation of the completion of the Panama Canal, that there is a remarkable consistency in the built form. There are brick buildings and frame buildings. The brick types are represented by the taller warehouses on the north side of Water Street, and the smaller hotels on the south side. The frame buildings are mainly bungalows, although among the exceptions that prove the rule we have onion domes, worker’s row houses, and theatres like the Western Front. Opsal Steel and the Salt Building are later, but still belong to the same vernacular.
I believe our historic neighbourhoods present the best opportunity to preserve this heritage, and learn an old lesson anew.
64 Lewis N. Villegas // Aug 29, 2010 at 11:10 pm
The goings-on in Port Moody-Coquitlam are just as instructive. By some twist of fate we are going to see pitted one against the other the options of BRT/LRT and Skytrain—read: “good” urbanism & blight.
We can try to get to concrete facts by beginning with the stations. Evergreen will have 5 stations after Lougheed Mall:
1. Burquitlam (before the tunnel)
2. Port Moody
3. Ioco
4. Coquitlam
5. Douglas College
By comparison, the 97B running on the proposed route for LRT has 18 stops:
1. Austin Ave.
2. Cameron St.
3. Foster Ave.*
4. Smith
5. Como Lake
6. Glenayre
7. Barnet/Clarke
8. Queen Street
9. WCE
10. Moray
11. Ioco [Newport, City Hall]
12. Ungless [Hospital]
13. Falcon
14. Landsdowne
15. Johnson [5 min. walk to get to Douglas College]
16. Pinetree [City Hall]
17. Guilford
18. Lincoln
19. Coquitlam
Looking at station spacing, it may be possible to remove one station (Foster), but the other 18 looked very solid, especially if the municipalities employ TOD strategies (transit oriented development) developing urban quartiers around the stations.
BRT/LRT could service all 18 sites helping to shape a much more vital urbanism. At one quartier per stop, and 10,000 per quartier, we can house 180,000 in human-scaled neighbourhoods all living within an easy 5 minute walking distance of transit.
It is likely that the tunnel would still be required in order to achieve a more gradual incline climbing Clark Hill.
By the same numbers, Skytrain will only extend that service to 50,000. In stark contrast, the Skytrain approach will bring towers to those places that are not already tower sites. Ioco will be joined by new tower areas in Burquitlam and Port Moody WCE. Coquitlam centre will sprawl to the north and to south adding towers at the two new stations.
The rest of the folks living in the 13 stops not served by Skytrain wont be walking to transit. They will take the bus to get there, adding waiting and travel time in a bus to their transit experience. We won’t be able to prove it, but my sense is that ridership will be lower.
We really could not ask for a better case of how transit shapes urbanism.
My prediction is that Skytrain will blight the neighbourhoods. Port Moody-Coquitlam along the Skytrain route will look like Surrey Centre at King George.
65 Morven // Aug 29, 2010 at 11:39 pm
Richard @ 61
I am not confident that you can extrapolate from the Mission district in San Francisco to the Hornby Street case in Vancouver.
The Drennan study you identifiedis an excellent study in itself but the Mission District is not the core of the San Francisco business district whereas Hornby is a key artery in the business district of an international financial centre (for that is what downtown Vancouver is).
The whole matter is a bit like the HST disaster.
It is not so much the actual details itself that are irritating but the manner in how the initiative is/was introduced.
Do communications directors in the city and provincial government never learn?
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66 Richard // Aug 29, 2010 at 11:40 pm
@Lewis
The area is “blighted” already by too much traffic and auto-oriented development. Walkable transit-oriented development will be a big improvement over what is currently there. SkyTrain will make it better, not worse. Sure, LRT might be somewhat better from some points of view but it is not worth delaying the project for another couple of years while the whole process is repeated yet again.
Fewer stations will ensure that development is concentrated around these stations instead of being spread out over a greater number of stations. This will help ensure that the stations have a critical mass of housing, businesses and shops to be walkable communities in a reasonable amount of time.
One can also expect that people are willing to walk somewhat further to stations if the transit is fast. As this expands the catchment area in all directions, this could actually result in higher ridership than if stations were placed more closely together thus slowing down the transit. The higher frequency of SkyTrain service will also help increase ridership.
It would be a good idea to avoid over dramatic terminology such as “blight” in these discussions. There are plenty of examples around this region including in Port Moody of high density developments with towers that are not “blight”. They may not to be your taste but at least acknowledge that others may like them.
67 mezzanine // Aug 30, 2010 at 12:15 am
^I agree. remember, ridership on the #15 fell since the c-line opened, and if anything, TL reduced service to re-allocate buses elsewhere.
And skytrain doesn’t necessarily mean towers. The residential area by royal oak is building townhouses as infill. what one builds depends on the zoning and their area plan, which is all dependent on the municipality.
=======
“[EG project manager] Duncan said the city is not required to build a community of 16,000 people — a number identified by Trasolini as the figure required to generate enough development fees to pay for a western station. Instead, Duncan says density and dollars will both be examined.
“We haven’t set a density number. What we’ve said to the community is we’re interested in seeing what your plans are for density,” he said.
In fact, only very few stations along the current SkyTrain lines have populations in the 16,000 range.
There are 15,000 to 16,000 people living and working within a 600 to 800 metre radius of Metrotown and Burrard stations. But some stations have fewer people close by, such as Royal Oak in Burnaby and Renfrew in Vancouver, which have 8,000 people in their respective neighbourhoods, and Brentwood in Burnaby has 7,000. Along the Canada Line, Richmond Brighouse has 11,000 people in its vicinity while the Olympic Village has 5,000 although plans are to have 16,000 living in the area one day.
….
Given those parameters, how do the proposed Evergreen Line stations stack up?
Duncan said there are no numbers for a Falcon Drive station, and the Lincoln station population and job numbers are complicated by the fact there is overlap with Douglas College. “What we are seeing is those people have reasonable access to Douglas College [station].”
Consequently, Coquitlam is looking at increasing density significantly around the Lincoln station, which is a patch of parking lot at the back of Coquitlam Centre along Pinetree Way. Mayor Richard Stewart has said he wants the province to give cities the tools they need to be able to collect funds for an extra station from developers who benefit from increases in their property values.”
http://www.bclocalnews.com/news/101594173.html
68 rf // Aug 30, 2010 at 7:48 am
“NDP at the Nat Day shows who Vision really is”
Not much of a turnout for NDP at the Nat day. I guess when there are no free tickets it’s hard to rally people to the socialist trough.
Looked like only Carole James, Adrian Dix and a handful of Jim Sinclair look-a-likes showed up.
Notably, Constance Barnes was there with them. I guess she’s trying to snuggle up to her future masters and grab an MLA riding nomination.
The good news, Constance appeared to be drinking coffee on this sunny Sunday afternoon. What a difference a year makes!
Someone needs to have a fashion intervention on Adrian Dix. The NDP ladies (Constance and Carole) looked sharp, but Adrian had rolled out his best short cargo shorts, 1986 Eddie Bauer short sleeve plaid, along with ankle high socks and runners.
Ironically, Adrian looked very uncomfortable having to wait in line with the rest of the common folk to buy a ticket. Quite a contrast from what he expects from those who provide 95% of the taxes to fund public healthcare.
69 Lewis N. Villegas // Aug 30, 2010 at 7:57 am
“Sure, LRT might be somewhat better from some points of view but it is not worth delaying the project for another couple of years while the whole process is repeated yet again.”
— Richard
That “not worth delaying the project” part is the one that I am highlighting. 97B is currently running on exactly the same route that was planned for LRT—and shelved.
How much delay is involved in converting a B-Line to BRT? When could 97B-Line be put in the middle of the R.O.W.? We know that Guilford Way was designed to carry transit, and Ioco Road has an embarrassment of black top available. Does 97B already function with ITS and signal priority?
We are talking a matter of months if not weeks for implementation. Once in place, a transition to LRT might be even faster. But BRT would buy time to set up the system and order the components. The question of station spacing, and catchment populations I will pick up on a later post.
“It would be a good idea to avoid over dramatic terminology such as “blight” in these discussions. There are plenty of examples around this region including in Port Moody of high density developments with towers that are not “blight”
—Richard
Point well taken. The “blight” doesn’t arrive until the Skytrain is built. Newport Village in Port Moody has not felt the brunt of elevated/at-grade-between-barbed-wire-fences implementation of transportation aesthetics. There are plenty of examples along the Skytrain and Millennium Lines that show urban blight. New Westminster is perhaps the worst, and therefore the most important.
Mezz brings up Royal Oak as an exception. There are probably others. The view from the Alex Fraser bridge, however, tells a different tale. You can trace the Skytrain stops by seeing the clusters of towers.
I don’t object to towers per se. Taken as an isolated object, some towers are world famous works of architecture and engineering. However, taken as a group, the resulting quality of the public realm in tower neighbourhoods is of concern. We have been dealing with those issues in detail here with Geller and McCreery.
Another way to judge the urbanism that is going up around Skytrain is to look out the window while riding the train. Between New West and say Metrotown, we do not see many towers either. However, the quality of the product that is going up leaves a lot to be desired. Skytrain, whatever its transportation advantages, delivers bad urbanism.
It is not too much to say that it blights the neighbourhoods that it crosses. I was having coffee at the back of the Starbucks on Terminal Avenue the other day, opting for parking lots and warehouses rather than elevated track and a mindless streetscape out front. Terminal was blighted by the Skytrain elevated track.
We have 25 years of post-implementation development to prove it. The towers clustered on Main Street, where they really have not brought about neighbourhood intensification, or street revitalization. Terminal is now a long alley of second rate buildings, no pedestrian-oriented uses, and nothing happening on the horizon.
70 michael geller // Aug 30, 2010 at 8:20 am
“The problem with “a mix of townhouses, mid-rises and high-rises along the Cambie Corridor, rather than a preponderance of mid-rise buildings”, Michael, is that it flies in the face of an old postulate of mine:
Paris is arguably the most beautiful city in the world, yet all the buildings look more or less alike.
We can say the same about the capitals of the Georgian era, London’s West End, Edinburgh, Dublin and Bath. ” Lewis V.
Lewis, I too love the architectural harmony of much of Paris and Barcelona, and lauded it in one of my Barcelona posts
http://gellersworldtravel.blogspot.com/2010/08/leixample-and-its-corner-cut-offs.html but I would never advocate that we rebuild Vancouver with only one or two building forms…not even our beloved street oriented, fee-simple row house!
I also agree that there are benefits from enforcing architectural continuity in an area…. something I tried to do at UniverCity where we mandated that the first four developments all use the same honey coloured brick. The subsequent developments along the street have also used the same, or similar brick.
However, the building forms vary…there are townhouses and stacked townhouses which cater to one demographic; mid-rise wood frame apartments that appeal to others; and mid-rise and some high rise buildings that attract others.
While it is not perfect by any means, I believe the continuity resulting from the colour of the brick and mandated colour palate, and certain imposed design guidelines (eg: all units at grade must have individual entries from the street; and roof designs are generally flat and buildings are terraced to respect the architecture of the SFU Campus) does create harmony and a very attractive environment…by the way, designing the buildings to keep significant trees and landscaped areas also helps.
So while I admire Lewis’ passion for a very dense street oriented character, and the lovely way he articulates this passion, I would strongly urge our city planners not to try and replicate the streets of pre-20th century Paris or Barcelona along the Cambie Street corridor, or anywhere else for that matter.
The world has changed since those buildings were designed and built, and so has construction technology. So I will continue to argue for a mix of building types throughout our region including ‘point block’ highrises (which have a slimmer ‘floorplate’ than the big bulky apartment towers we see all Toronto); mid-rise buildings from 5 to 10 storeys in height; 3 and 4 storey apartments and stacked townhouses; 2 and 3 storey townhouses with and without underground parking; other forms of ground oriented ‘compact housing’ including up and down, front and back, and side-by-side duplexes, triplexes, four-plexes, etc. and also smaller lot detached single family houses, with and without basement suites and laneway units.
There is a need for each of these forms, along with zoning by-laws and design guidelines that ensure harmony between existing buildings and new buildings and in overall neighbourhood design.
ps: and along with this variety of building form, there needs to be variety in the forms of tenure…not just rental or ownership, but also cooperative ownership, shared equity, co-housing, life-lease, etc. But that’s another story.
71 SV // Aug 30, 2010 at 9:17 am
@RF-Constance Barnes was snuggling up to her new masters? Stay classy.
72 Bill Smolick // Aug 30, 2010 at 9:24 am
It’s been a month since the Aquatic Centre at Hillcrest Park opened. How much more awesome is it than that lame-ass concrete shell at Mt. Pleasant was? How many Raging Yummy Mummy’s are liking the taste of crow?
73 rf // Aug 30, 2010 at 9:41 am
yikes….i did totally miss how that could be interpreted. Certainly not intended as such.
74 Gassy Jack's Ghost // Aug 30, 2010 at 9:53 am
Bill, don’t be twit. My son, who grew up swimming at Mt. Pleasant, and I (and his yummy mommy) still prefer it any day over Hillcrest. State of the art facilities are one thing, but a sense of neighbourhood and community are what have been lost, and which Hillcrest will never, ever have.
This is what we’re talking about on this blog being destroyed all around Vancouver these days, not only with the loss of a pool or small community centre, but the fragmentation of neighbourhoods due to massive density projects, and the inability to walk to your neighbourhood amenities. The community centre at 1 Kingsway is by far a better facility than the old MPCC too, but it’s an intimidating gong show for little kids because it’s so busy, not a safe, comfortable space where you knew virtually everyone as soon as you walked inside. Kids can’t walk there alone due to the absurdly dangerous intersection, there’s no place to play outside, etc…
The other issue is consultation: you rail on about the lack of consultation in numerous posts, but this neighbourhood went through a decade of consultations and were lied to, had the goal posts changed numerous times, and finally were totally ignored and lost everything they were fighting for.
And now you scoff at them and want them to eat crow!?
Wow.
75 SV // Aug 30, 2010 at 9:53 am
@RF-just thought I’d point it out.
76 Richard // Aug 30, 2010 at 10:55 am
@Lewis
All the places that you blame SkyTrain for the “blight” were just as bad or worse before SkyTrain arrived. Number 3 Rd is much more pleasant to walk along now after the Canada Line was completed. It is the automobile that delivers “bad urbanism” or even worse “bad suburbanism”.
I can list any number of roads in the region without any SkyTrain in sight that are much worse than the examples you have given where there is SkyTrain. Many parts of the Marine Drives and Ways in Vancouver, North Van and Burnaby for example. Bridgeport in Richmond, King George Hwy in Surrey with and without SkyTrain along it.
Yes, there are many towers that are not great but that is a matter of the design of the towers, it has nothing to do what so ever with SkyTrain. There are some pretty bad towers that are nowhere near SkyTrain and many that were completed way before SkyTrain was completed. The ones around Lougheed Mall for example.
I for one, quite like many sections of Downtown Vancouver that have towers everywhere. In fact, the busy streets in downtown are much nicer places to be than most of the other busy streets around the region.
Yes, it can be challenging to integrate towers in to the urban environment but it can and has been done successfully here and in many other places in the world. The same goes for elevated guideways.
BRT was considered and rejected. The people in the Tri-cities are demanding rail. When money is tight, it makes little sense to spend tens of millions of dollars on BRT and then throw away all the effort and money spend so far on the SkyTrain process so far.
77 Dan Cooper // Aug 30, 2010 at 3:50 pm
[With apologies to everyone involved with 'A Clockwork Orange']
“Welly, welly, welly, welly, welly, welly, well. To what do we owe the extreme pleasure of this surprising city?”
M. JCubed asked sometime back for people to set aside their kvetching and say what they like about a neighbourhood in this, our surprising city. So here I go, and to wit: A short list of some of the fine things about Douglas Park/Cambie, and more broadly the City as a Whole.
1) You can walk just about anywhere/to anything you want or need. You want it, you got it.
A good mixture of single-family and multi-family housing. Feels family friendly.
1a) Broadway is close, but not too close.
2) If you can’t quite walk it, you can certainly bicycle to it.
3) Failing that, there’s a bus, not to mention the Canada Line. The newish bus route #33 is very useful.
4) Fun to mention to out of towners: His Worship the Mayor lives just across the park.
5) Speaking of which, Douglas Park itself is way cool, and the Centre offers a goodly variety of programs.
6) Good street trees. Trees are good. I like trees.
7) The sun on the dome of the Ukrainian Catholic church is stunning, especially around sunset, if you’re walking over to Safeway or other points North, or home from work in the Fall.
Cheers, and all y’all have a great weekend!
78 Dan Cooper // Aug 30, 2010 at 3:51 pm
Heh! Didn’t notice that “8″ followed by “)” would end up being interpreted as a smiley. Oh, this modern world.
79 Dan Cooper // Aug 30, 2010 at 3:58 pm
Oh my, that should be, “have a great week” not “weekend.” Yes, indeedy.
Okay, I’m going to stop posting now, and go outside in that sunshine I mentioned before.
80 voony // Aug 30, 2010 at 8:59 pm
Lewis 55 said
“Lewis makes some very good points about what makes a ‘quartier’ successful. However, having participated in dozens of planning programs and rezonings, I have found that most often, neighbourhood residents do not support new projects that might result in good urbanism (whether on a neighbourhood or building scale) because they fear the worst.”
—Geller #16
The reason I don’t agree with this statement is that in my own experience (in cities far from ours, it is true)… we got exactly the opposite result. Go figure. We got standing ovations for our work.
—–
That is interesting and raise the question of when you have to evaluate the urbanism result?
from what I have seen, mostly in France, I have found that the most controversial project has been the most successful ones while the most consensual one has end up to be a long time failure. (BTW it doesn’t means that all controversial project are a success…)
On another note, the west end architecture is a reminiscence of the british council flat, or french social housing architecture of the 60′s…it has been an non repeated experience in Europe, but work well here, it could be interesting to understand why?
81 Lewis N. Villegas // Aug 31, 2010 at 9:41 am
“I would strongly urge our city planners not to try and replicate the streets of pre-20th century Paris or Barcelona along the Cambie Street corridor, or anywhere else for that matter… The world has changed since those buildings were designed and built, and so has construction technology.”
—Michael Geller
Much has changed, it is true. However, I find more profit in focusing on what has remained the same. What we may truly say is “universal” in the human experience of place.
It is there that I seek common ground to break down the professional silos, silence the NIMBYs, and get the neighbours up on there feet applauding. It is uncovering the things that we experience en masse that we will ultimately arrive at “good” urbanism.
“It is the automobile that delivers ‘bad urbanism’ or even worse “bad suburbanism”.”
—Richard
“I can list any number of roads in the region without any SkyTrain in sight that are much worse … the Marine Drives and Ways in Vancouver, North Van and Burnaby for example. Bridgeport in Richmond, King George Hwy in Surrey with and without SkyTrain along it.”
—Richard
Let’s not omit Scott Road in Delta and Kingsway. Here, transportation and urbanism find common ground.
I wonder if we can also agree on Leon Krier’s view on towers and subscribe to the view that there should be “tower zones” (like the downtown peninsula), and that there should also be “zones without towers”.
However, we won’t find convergence here:
“…it can be challenging to integrate towers in to the urban environment but it can and has been done successfully here and in many other places in the world. The same goes for elevated guideways.”
—Richard
MoMA (the Museum of Modern Art in New York) was undergoing its second full renovation, adding what I take to be an obscenely profitable condo tower on its property (Geller is sounding like he vacationed in Haiti, not Barcelona, when he proposes the Voodoo economics that towers do not make more profits than human-scaled development), when I flew in to take in the Picasso-Matisse show in their temporary site in Queens.
Oh, the contrast!
Off Manhattan, the subway went elevated track, on a Frederick Olmstead designed boulevard if I am not mistaken. The above ground view of the elevated train made it plain and clear. While the borough of Queens had retained the 5-storey-or-so urbanism that is human-scaled in relation to the street widths in that area, the building type could not have been of a worst character. Clearly, the tenement or apartment building type with hallways and suites on either side was in the low rental end of the market. Not the kind of building type we want to see providing affordable rentals in our midst.
Setting up a photo shoot across the street from the temporary MoMA that included the front door, arriving patrons, and a hot dog seller—on my first day in Paris (in 1982) I paid $5 dollars for a can of Coke, and $5 dollars for a hot dog from a sidewalk vendor outside the Louvre—I could not keep one thought from pushing forefront in my attention.
Over there, across the Hudson, lies the Great Metropolis paid for by the cost of all this human suffering, and municipal disinvestment so clearly palpable.
Richard, the elevated guideways in Paris, Chicago and Queens don’t work. Why copy a failed model? It’ll raise the dead…
“This is what we’re talking about on this blog being destroyed all around Vancouver these days… The community centre at 1 Kingsway is by far a better facility than the old MPCC too, but it’s an intimidating gong show for little kids because it’s so busy, not a safe, comfortable space where you knew virtually everyone as soon as you walked inside. Kids can’t walk there alone due to the absurdly dangerous intersection, there’s no place to play outside, etc…”
—Ghost of Gassy Jack
You’ve got to have been dead for 100 years to notice that our streets are “absurdly dangerous”.
Grade separation (i.e. “Blight”) contributes by going against the principles of “defensible space”. That concept is of course a judgement about urbanism. And, urbanism is something that I suspect a saloon keeper in the 1880’s understood in far more concrete detail than we do today.
I want to conclude on Morven-65’s point, which Voony-80 echoes:
“The whole matter is a bit like the HST disaster… It is not so much the actual details itself that are irritating but the manner in how the initiative is/was introduced.”
How are we—all of a sudden—to change gears and deliver meaningful, open & transparent community consultation? As Voony puts it, how do you “evaluate the urbanism [that]results?”
We’ll need a process, but we’ll also need a stick—a yardstick. Here we confront the “gap” in our collective practice old planning paradigm.
Breaking free has a minimum two requirements.
First, for open & transparent consultation, we must have a consensus on what we will consult about. In other words, we must have come to a common understanding or a set of principles that we can readily articulate. That is, we require a well calibrated view of what we mean by “good” urbanism in order that we may put that yardstick up against the innumerable local conditions we will encounter, and have a high level of confidence that we will achieve a near perfect record of success.
Such an articulation must be at the core of the open & transparent consultation, else what is the point?
We cannot be soliciting public input at the neighbourhood consultation stage to see if we have our professional ducks in a row. That work needs completing ahead of time.
No wonder just plain folks are protesting.
In the new paradigm of planning, the same urban design principles backed by concrete and verifiable proof that build consensus form the basis for conflict resolution. They also provide the standard against which we measure performance of place.
In other words, what makes an urbanism “good”, and Scott Road or Kingsway more of the “other” stuff, is how we “evaluate the urbanism [that]results”.
When we carry out that evaluation on the basis of “first statements” about place, we get good results. Armed with such a set of concrete and verifiable guidelines—many using built examples that are hundreds and sometimes thousands of years old, but also recent stuff—the scales fall from our vision. NIMBYs respond to those tools in conflict resolution discussions. The neighbours stand up and applaud when we put these standards to measure the existing conditions of their place, then use them to set out an even playing field for the next 30 years of urban development and community investment.
Finally, the results we obtain work. The place is “good” to live in, to walk in, to get around and go to work, or take the kids swimming or to school.
“Good” urbanism has eluded us. The principles of urbanism that we sadly lack have been missing since sometime between 1908 and 1942.
However, that does not mean that it is something elusive. The performance of urban places can be observed, measured, and classified. Beats me why we haven’t done it already. Isn’t it time we start?
82 Bill Lee // Aug 31, 2010 at 11:08 am
In looking at nice districts, or even bad ones, one has to take into account the life-stage of the observer.
Kids want lots of bright lights, candy shops and public play areas and natural parks.
Adults want bars, playing field deserts and a certain non-kid quiet.
Kerrisdale used to be nice, but Elm park is taken over by “organized” (like the Mafia) sports. And the street is ovewhelmed by too many big, dead frontage banks.
Because Maple Grove park doesn’t front on a main pedestrian street, it doesn’t get the usage it might, much to the relief of the puritanical neighbours.
Consider outside Vancouver. The little village of Edgemont in North Vancouver District was a planned 1950s village, tarted up in the 1970s and works better than the nearby Delbrook area.
North Burnaby, “The Heights” is a stimulating retail area with ‘wild’ parks and public facilities at the Willingdon end. Shops have been there for many decades despite the chopping of 4 metres of frontage to widen the street, (expropriation is the explanation for large blank spots, and the setback leaking tower apartments where a retail set refused to go with the Burnaby NPA plans for a new model city in the 1950s.)
Much of Vancouver Heights, cut off from Vancouver by the PNE desert that the Parks Board refuses to re-green and open to the passerby, and the cities only Freeway (though 12th, or Broadway would qualify for much of their lengths as does Marine Drive now)
Wander along the street with wikimapia.org or google.ca/maps and it’s street-view, since you all refuse to ride your bikes in the rain today.
And read “Hamburg’s New Quarter” in ://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,714008,00.html (2 parts. in English for those who don’t know the language of God and Bach)
where a False Creek refinement is attempted in Germany’s largest city.
While some will remind you of False Creek (or Point Grey Road Cemetery) , it is an attempt to make do with industrial lands no longer used as such.
Note the lack of birds comment on the second part, and think of the small town view of Vancouver and its giant sparrows in the failing yuppie slum that should have been given to the poor in the first place by the VV Posh Party.
83 Sean // Aug 31, 2010 at 11:48 am
Regarding elevated Skytrain lines and “blight”…
While I agree that the elevated guideway has it’s issues, I want to point out that these need to be weighed against it’s benefits. I commuted by Skytrain for many years and the thing I appreciated most about it was the view. In terms of making the city a livable place and making Skytrain a desirable mode of transportation, the wonderful experience of soaring above the city on Skytrain is something that I rarely hear touted as a benefit – yet it surely is one.
I for one am very disappointed that commuters and tourists coming into our city on the Canada Line are buried away underground before cresting the southern ridge at QE Park and seeing that amazing view that reaffirms just what a special place this is.
84 Michael Geller // Aug 31, 2010 at 3:57 pm
Lewis, since I consider this blog as a way to inform and educate I will repeat, a high rise is not necessarily more profitable than a low rise development on a property.
For example, right now it would be very difficult, if not impossible to get a CMHC insured loan to build a high-rise apartment in Coquitlam or New Westminster. There are simply too many units on the market, and the costs are greater than the potential sales prices. However, you could likely get financing to build townhouses or low rise apartments on the same pieces of land, (even thought the cost of land per square foot might be higher) and you could likely make a profit….because there is a DEMAND for this type of product….there isn’t a demand for more highrises.
That’s why I said that you should not conclude that developers want to build high rises because they are more profitable. Often they are, but not always. Especially at the moment.
There’s another consideration that should not be overlooked. The City of Vancouver and other municipalities are now wanting to share in the ‘lift’ that comes from a rezoning. So if a single family lot is worth $1 million, but it is worth $2 million with an apartment zoning, the city wants to get about 75% of the extra million. So rezoning today is not as profitable as it might have been in the past. I might add that if the building on the rezoned land loses money, the city does not give its share of the land ‘lift’ back.
Another problem with high rises is that they are difficult to phase…you can’t build the first 8 floors and then wait to complete the other 12 floors when the market improves. You also have to presell about half the units or more, before you start. But you can phase townhouses and low rise apartment blocks. In other words, it is much easier to respond to market conditions. This can significantly affect profitability of a project.
Just ask those Coquitlam high rise developers…some of whom may have to wait quite a while to sell out their buildings.
I hope this helps explain why I wrote what I wrote. It had nothing to do with voodoo economics. Just Urban Land Economics!
85 Gassy Jack's Ghost // Aug 31, 2010 at 5:37 pm
Funny how things come full circle. I have been reading “Voices of British Columbia” compiled by Robert Budd from recordings made by the CBC’s Imbert Orchard sometime in the 1970’s of some of the last living pioneers of our province. (A great read/listen, it also has Cds of the recordings.)
Anyway, Lewis mentioned 1908 as the probable start of urban design principles getting lost, and Michael countered with an account of boom/bust development financing. It just so happens I was reading an account of early Vancouver in 1909 by a chap named Alfred Skelton. At the time, North America was in the midst of a nasty depression, brought on by (what else?) the shenanigans of a bank, the Knickerbocker Trust, which had left many people destitute. Nevertheless, Vancouver’s long tradition of land speculation is described, which I thought might be worth sharing:
“Spring of 1909, I felt like getting a move on and then I got into Vancouver – all the trees coming out nicely in bloom and the leaf and the flowers in bloom—everything was just beautiful! Vancouver, in those days, wasn’t as big as it is now [1970s] but it was quite a sizeable town and a very nice place to be.
There was one thing that impressed me was, though, most people seemed busy buying and selling real estate. They’d buy it from one fellow one day and sell it to another fellow, or back to the same fellow perhaps, the next day. It was just a real game. I think most of them lost their shirt…. They couldn’t pay the taxes on the land they’d bought, a good many of them.”
100 years later, and things haven’t changed a bit!
86 Lewis N. Villegas // Aug 31, 2010 at 7:51 pm
Here are some ways I see a tower poised to reap huge profits:
1. Once the land has been assembled and the permission secured adding one more typical floor—or ten—simply piles profit on the project costs: design; foundations; materials acquisition en masse; parking; marketing; you name it.
2. Vancouver and environs finally experienced a condo-bubble the way Toronto did some years ago. From time to time, saturated market conditions will make it impossible to go to the well. Yet, rest assured, the good days will come again.
3. Other pressures are piling on, including government grab-back in the form of taxes and levies. Off site is also prohibitive. There is a massive road dig along Clarke this summer that looks like an infrastructure upgrade project in the environs of that Behemoth on the corner of Clarke & Kingsway. Yet, if the project is paying for this, it suggests the profit margins have to be kept wider still.
4. I had not thought about the “phasing problem”. We’re seeing something of that issue with the sale of property at Olympic Village. However, there is a mitigating factor. In Coquitlam, or White Rock, there are rarely comparables around to provide competition. The marketing and sales techniques of the tower product in the hands of the experts has been refined to a high art.
When the winds are favourable—we’re in a slump or market anamoly right now—building towers is much more lucrative than building to human scale. The “voo-doo” part was just a jocular way of playing with the location of your recent whereabouts…
We both agree, there is a return to be made in any kind of carefully managed investment. However, great risks reap great benefits. The towers hold a sizeable market advantage.
Great nuggets Gassy. Let us just underscore the part that when the right investments are made in building quality in the public realm, everyone benefits. Those leafy trees and flowering beds might well be 50% city owned and 50% private.
87 Lewis N. Villegas // Sep 1, 2010 at 7:12 am
‘We lose’ when the Expo Line blights the urban land on both sides of Terminal Avenue, as elsewhere. Investing tax payer money in transit implementation without planning neighbourhoods, residential intensification and street revitalization at the same time is a gross miscalculation of the public good.
As I see it every lot along Terminal is under-performing—generating less municipal revenue, less employment, and less residential density than the quality of the transit service present can sustain.
The walking experience of Terminal is not had by anyone because the place is just more urban blight. Skytrain on Terminal—as urbanism—is a mistake with a quarter century of proof behind it. What has built out are storage warehouses and big box stores. The barristas at Starbucks report that 70% of their business is done in the morning rush (they are on the going-to-work-side of the highway). On the weekend, it is walk-in traffic from the Flea Market 150m away.
Over to the Evergreen corridor.
By making the 97B/LRT/Skytrain comparison, the intention is to learn something about the various systems via an analysis of the concrete facts of urbanism. I do not mean to suggest that the next mistake can be stopped—we build our cities complete with colossal errors in judgement.
I lack a reliable source for transportation information in Canada. From a UK source, here are numbers for stop interval & threshold population per stop for bus, BRT, LRT and subway service:
Bus/Trolley: stops at 200m—threshold population served: 500
BRT: stops at 300m —threshold population served: 2,000
LRT: stops at 600m —threshold population served: 5,000
Subway: stops at 1000+ —threshold population served: 24,000
[From: “Urban Design Compendium”, English Partnerships, 2000 (p. 74—available for free download as pdf)].
(1) The stop interval assumes a walking speed of 400m/5 minutes; or 1000m/13 mins. The UK intervals seem a bit tight. I would walk 10 minutes for LRT and a bit further for subway, and reap health rewards for my efforts. Of course, this is provided I was walking in urban spaces designed with the walking experience of place in mind. I would not feel safe walking along the full stretch of Terminal at night, for example.
LRT and subway stop interval can be 2x the walking distance, or 1000m for LRT and 2000m for subway. Leaving my front door, I would head for the nearest stop on the line, making the maximum walking distance ½ the stop interval or less.
(2) Transportation catchment and quartier overlay the same urban footprint. Transportation catchment area is typically calculated as all lots within easy walking distance. The quartier is an area with a radius equal to a 5 minute walking distance. This convergence in transportation planning and urbanism is the genesis for TOD—Transit Oriented Development.
(3) Using urban design principles we postulate the population for an urban quartier as 10,000 people. The quartier radius is 400m radius and build out does not exceed the proportions for human scale urbanism. Homes benefit from all the particularities of the debates we have here as to what constitutes “good” urbanism at high density.
(4) LRT with a 1200m stop interval can serve 22,500 or the equivalent population of 2.2 quartiers (the UK figures are smaller because they represent the population “threshold” for implementation of each form of transit).
(5) The jump in population served by subway is partially a function of the larger catchment, and partially a measure of non-local trips entering the system. Subway with a 2000m stop interval can serve local populations of up to 62,500 people. A 2400m stop interval serves a local population of 90,000 without exceeding the proportions for human scale in the quartiers.
Evergreen Skytrain Station Intervals (as planned):
0. Lougheed Mall
1. Burquitlam (1600m)
2. Port Moody (4600m)
3. Ioco (1900m)
4. Coquitlam (2200m)
5. Douglas College (1700m)
Two problems crop up when we measure stop intervals as proposed in the Evergreen Skytrain.
First, many of the areas served have suburban densities. At 4 persons per household, and 6 units per acre, that’s 3,000 people per quartier or catchment (subways would serve a local population of 18,500 at suburban density due to larger catchment area). While that density may work for bus service, it is thin for LRT and Skytrain.
Second, while 5 Skytrain stations may seem too far apart to provide sufficient access, 18 LRT stops would be too many, slowing down the service.
Thus, the winning strategy for BRT/LRT implementation might be to develop urban quartiers around the suburban stops, then use TOD intensification strategies (Transit Oriented Development) to combine two or more stops into one. As intensification takes place new neighbourhoods could combine two B-Line stops into one LRT stop. With that in mind, the evolution of BLine to BRT to LRT service might eliminate some stops along the route:
0. Lougheed Mall
x. Austin Ave. (200m)
1. Cameron St. (500m)
x. Foster Ave.(300m)*
x. Smith (500m)
x. Como Lake (350m)
2. Smith & Como Lake combine as one stop in a new neighbourhood plan
3. Glenayre (1.3 km)
4. Barnet/St. Johns (1.3 km)
5. Queen Street (650 km)
6. WCE (1 km)
7. Moray (900 m)
8. Ioco [Newport Village, City Hall](1 km)
9. Ungless [Hospital] (500m)
x. Falcon (400m)
x. Landsdowne (750m)
10. Falcon & Landsdowne combine as one stop in a new neighbourhood plan (1.2 km)
11. Johnson St (600m)
12. Pinetree [City Hall] (800 m) [5 min. walk to get to Douglas College]
x. Lincoln (600m)
x. Coquitlam (700 m)
13. Lincoln & Coquitlam combine as one stop with special linkages to WCE (1 km)
(6) At 10,000 population per quartier, Skytrain will support a population of 5 x 62,500 or 312,500 people.
(7) LRT serving 13 stations along the current 97B Line route would support a population of 292,500 people.
The difference in local population served is almost negligible. Yet, the difference in the planned routes is day-and-night. 97B Line/LRT goes through the heart of these neighbourhoods adding urban amenity along the way. Skytrain is routed far away from the population centers and will add transportation blight to the challenge of getting to a small number of distant station locations.
By this analysis, LRT would provide 13/5 or almost 3-times more stations.
If there are new stations added to Skytrain, it is likely that the tower developers will be paying a hefty surcharge to build in the station quartier. Guess who ends up paying for that?
So, where should we put the focus?
“Mayor Richard Stewart has said he wants the province to give cities the tools they need to be able to collect funds for an extra station from developers who benefit from increases in their property values.”
—Mezz, quoting Diane Strandberg in the Tri-City News.
The political focus appears to be on new mechanisms for taxation. Let’s build more stations and ignore every other reality.
It seems to me that the tools that we really need are urban design tools that will build TOD, making transportation planning an integral part of “good” urbanism. It would take real effort, but we can also show with an analysis of the concrete measures of urban performance that the LRT vs. Skytrain choice is a no-brainer.
LRT wins hands down every time the system crosses real neighbourhoods or quartiers. The fact that we are making mistakes shows the magnitude of the lack of understanding around the issues of urbanism in our midst.
88 Bill Lee // Sep 1, 2010 at 11:08 am
[Vancouver] City Hall coverage in the main medias. Has it gone downhill since Frances Bula quit the Vancouver Sun?
Question raised and fitfully debated at http://communities.canada.com/VANCOUVERSUN/blogs/civiclee/archive/2010/08/27/on-quot-lazy-pack-journalism-quot-at-vancouver-city-hall.aspx
by Jeff (Civic, not Olympic anymore) Lee over that the Sun on their hidden blogs.
89 Morven // Sep 1, 2010 at 11:17 am
I much appreciate the efforts of the bloggers to this site to inform and educate.
In particular Lewis Villegas and Michael Geller have been stellar in their informative comments.
Perhaps Ms. Bula can give them a medal or other recognition of their community minded spirit.
Thanks
-30-
90 Bill Lee // Sep 2, 2010 at 3:35 pm
Fabula posts about Mayor G’s forthcoming trip to Shanghai fair and other hotspots.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/vancouver-mayor-aims-to-boost-green-business-deals-on-china-trip/article1692782/
Soon to grace the blog with her recent travel pics, etc?
[First slide, (click)] Here is the bike lane on Hornby Island down to the ferry dock.
[Second slide, (click) ]….
91 Dave 2 // Sep 2, 2010 at 8:07 pm
@Lewis, I think it’s stretching it a bit to blame the Terminal Ave environment on SkyTrain. Residential Denisty? Even a railfan would be hard pressed to live on Terminal Ave, what with active railyards on both sides. I frequently visit friends who live in an apartment on the south side of Great Northern Way, and every Sunday we’re subjected to loud CERRRASHHHH sounds as freight trains are assembled in the BNSF yards. Of course, the railyards are the reason that land is there in the first place, False Creek east of Main was filled in 100 years ago for CN and GN.
92 Robert in Calgary // Sep 2, 2010 at 8:45 pm
I agree! The idea you can blame Skytrain for creating blight is rather silly.
For rapid transit, Skytrain, hands down is the better choice for Metro Vancouver. And I say this as a major LRT supporter here in Calgary.
If Lewis wants a LRT utopia in addition to Skytrain, that’s another issue.
93 mezzanine // Sep 3, 2010 at 8:16 am
New concept layouts for the hornby bike lane here:
http://vancouver.ca/engsvcs/transport/cycling/separated/effect.htm
It looks great! Taxi zones seem to be preserved in front of hotels, as with the drop-off bay by the VAG. I don’t like the jog along hastings to get to canada place – it’s less direct and running it thru the park by mink choclates make more sense. Although I suppose cyclists would be stopped by the breezeway at waterfront place anyway.
The new green paint on bike intersections also looks good.
94 landlord // Sep 3, 2010 at 8:54 am
@ Bill Lee 82 : Enjoyable post, thanks.
Interesting discussion, pity nobody from Council has an opinion to offer.
95 Gassy Jack's Ghost // Sep 3, 2010 at 11:34 am
In answer to Joe Just Joe’s suggestion, way up the thread:
I love living in Gastown for the fact that there is never a dull moment. Everytime I walk out the door I see something unusual.
One unusual thing I saw recently was workers at the Pantages Theatre clearing out all the rubble of what’s left of our 1908 art deco gem, presumably to prepare the way for its demolition.
Which brings me to why I hate Vancouver: its totally ignorant, indifferent, self-serving politicians and bureaucrats (past and present), who have absolutely no regard for the history and cultural legacy of our city, nor for the immense economic and social impact an investment in the Pantages Theatre would have made to the DES.
The imminent destruction of this theatre is an absolute disgrace for our City, and a spit in the eye of the DES residents and the billions of taxpayers money poured into the corrupt mismanagement of this neighbourhood year after year.
Endless comments and debate about a bike lane, but not a single word on The State of Vancouver about the Pantages…
“The sensitivity [of people] to small matters, and their indifference to great ones, indicates a strange inversion.”
Blaise Pascal
96 mezzanine // Sep 3, 2010 at 12:47 pm
^^ IMO a whole bunch of things contributed to the pantages closure.
-Worthington was asking for an unspecified amount of density transfer for the pantages restoration. I am not sure if they were also asking for other subsidies – but whatever it was the city balked.
-new performing arts space has been recently completed at SFU woodwards.
-and ultimately, destruction of the interior was hastened by thieves puncturing the roof membrane (according to the sun, they tried to drop a stolen parking meter off a next door building). water leaks over ‘several years’ destroyed the inside. Interestingly, worthington AFAIK made no attempt to repair the roof until their deal fell thru and repairs were prohibitvely expensive.
Regrets all around….
http://www.vancouversun.com/curtains+Pantages+Theatre/3232964/story.html
97 mezzanine // Sep 3, 2010 at 12:58 pm
this was also interesting:
“Former city heritage planner Jeannette Hlavach suggested the city should buy it at one point and “mothball” it until it could be restored. But she didn’t get much support from city staff.
“I believe that [then city manager] Judy Rogers felt that the private sector should do it,” Hlavach wrote in an e-mail. “Cultural Affairs thought it was too small and too old. Central Area Planning was concerned about fanning social tensions. Real Estate thought it a poor purchase — too expensive to renovate.”"
98 Joe Just Joe // Sep 3, 2010 at 2:48 pm
The above statement is correct, Worthington asked for what the city deemed was an insane amount of density in order to save the theatre. It did not help that the developer in question has a less then stellar reputation, google them to learn more about it.
In the end it is certainly a shame to lose it, I’m sure it could still be saved today, but at what cost? Maybe the city should’ve enforced it’s building maintance bylaws when it had a chance. Perhaps we’ll see someone build a new Pantages theatre in the same location and incorporate what they can from the existing building.
99 Gassy Jack's Ghost // Sep 3, 2010 at 7:24 pm
Yes, mezz and JJJ, all valid points, trotted out by the bureaucrats and politicos when they need to justify a travesty occurring. Like when one of Heritage Canada’s TOP TEN endangered sites in the whole country falls victim to neglect. Huzzah.
Rogers and former Cultural head Sue Harvey were dead set against the reno, despite the fact that their own Cultural Facilities Plan says very clearly that a mid-sized theatre (Pantages seated 650) was desperately needed in the City, and that top priority was facility development in the DES.
My understanding is they were asking for $26 million worth of density. Density is, of course, just AIR.
How much did the Salt reno cost the City, $32 million? How much density did Wall get for the York, 100%? How much did the developers towering around the Beasley get? Oh, right, none of these were near Hastings and Main, so there was no outcry from the bureaucracy.
Sure, $26 million sounds like a ridiculous amount. But this included three or four adjacent sites – most of the block to the west — and included 125 units of social housing, a 99 seat community theatre, opening up the alley into Chinatown, renovated retail at grade, and market. Sounding like better bang for your buck?
But the City also stood to gain a long-desired economic anchor tenant on this block that could have helped revitalize that whole cesspool, and then stood to gain again in the resulting business and residential taxes that would have resulted from this dead block becoming vital again. Tourism, surrounding businesses, arts, local residents, employment, all would have generated a large amount of economic activity for the City in an area that currently has virtually none.
Cost recovery on $26 million worth of air might have taken, what, 10 years? Then you’d have a century or two of reaping the economic benefits.
Say what you will about Worthington or the shrill PTS chair, but the plan itself was EXACTLY what everyone has been talking about for the past 2 decades being needed to revitalize the DES. I wonder how much money the City has spent studying the DES over the past decade, looking for solutions? And still practically nothing happens, while millions are poured down the drain with every passing month. Lip service is costly too.
Anyway, I could go on and on.
The fact remains, it’s a bloody joke for a prosperous City like ours, with such little valuable heritage, to allow this to happen to one of our prized historical buildings and a gem of a cultural facility.
An utter disgrace.
100 mezzanine // Sep 3, 2010 at 9:43 pm
@GJG: “My understanding is they were asking for $26 million worth of density. Density is, of course, just AIR. ”
Was it just $26 million? they seemed to be coy WRT specifying how much money they needed from the city.
“Developer Marc Williams announced Wednesday that restoring the Pantages Theatre at 144 East Hastings would cost $26 million. Up to 136 units of social housing may be built in a new building adjacent to the theatre, and Williams’s company Worthington Properties would get an unspecified amount of density transfer it could move to another site.
The plan depends on financing by the civic, provincial and federal governments, although no numbers were given. ” [1]
======
And IMO JJJ was being diplomatic in his assessment of Worthington:
“[Dan] White has established himself as an Alberta developer who specialized in distressed property sales. His company flourished during the West’s robust real estate market. Through Worthington Properties, he stepped into the Vancouver real estate market, developing Koret Lofts in the Downtown Eastside. Worthington also bought Vancouver’s Pantages theatre to redevelop it.
However, in the 1990s, White was a prime target in a joint Vancouver police-RCMP investigation into a vicious criminal ring. Further, he was identified in documents tabled in a separate U.S. proceeding that linked him with former Vancouver lawyer Martin Chambers in an illicit cigarette scheme. Chambers, notorious for being both brilliant and criminal, is now serving 15 years in a Florida prison for money laundering.
White acknowledged he had been convicted, but said he has turned his back on that page of his life.” [2]
101 Dave 2 // Sep 3, 2010 at 11:12 pm
It’s a shame we couldn’t save the 1st Pantages, or the 2nd in the unit block West Hastings for that matter. Or the Capitol, demolished to make way for the Capitol 6 which lasted only ~30 years.. or any of the other long gone movie palaces (Strand, Lyric)…
The 1st Pantages is infamous for the following legendary Vancouver event….
January 16, 1953
The novel Tobacco Road had been out for 21 years, a play based on it ran on Broadway for 3,182 performances, and a movie had appeared in 1941, but when the stage production of Erskine Caldwell’s book hit Vancouver in 1953 there was one hell-thumpin’ ruckus in these parts.
Tobacco Road was about the trials and tribulations of Jeeter Lester and his family, folks for whom the phrase “poor white trash” was invented. The language was crude (for the time) and at one point Vancouver actor Doug Haskins, with his back to the audience, appeared to be peeing into a cornfield.
Someone complained to the police and on January 16, 1953—Nine members of the Vancouver Police walked out on stage at the Avon Theatre during the third act and arrested five members of the cast on obscenity charges. The audience, nearly 1,000 strong, protested loudly, then—after brief remarks by the director, Dorothy Davies—settled back into their seats to wait.
Ninety minutes later, bail of $100 each having been paid, the five performers returned and finished the play. The charges were later dropped.
102 Gassy Jack's Ghost // Sep 4, 2010 at 12:28 am
Mezz, what are you saying, that White has reformed, and was trying to do something altruistic after a shifty past? That’s an interesting metaphor for this story, set in the DES! In a city built on a barrel of whiskey, and shaped partially by rumrunners, should we really care? Is City Hall processing applications based on what people did a decade or two ago? I haven’t heard any complaints about the Koret (more recent, relevant history) other than from me, who likes to complain about the occassional jerk that doesn’t clean up her doggie’s poops…
The Fed-Prov-City funding formula you quote was an easy cop-out for the City. Problem is, the Feds did pony up, under Harper no less. They set up an infrastructure stimulus fund specifically to restore heritage theatres (Centennial in North Van got one of the grants). Certain bureaus and councillors totally ignored this potential source of funding, even after being told about it face to face. (A similar fund to reno Centennial Pools like the old Mt. Pleasant Pool was also set up by Harper, and also ignored by the City, and we know how that one ended, eh?)
But as Hlavach suggested, the City could have stepped in at any time if they didn’t like Worthington or their plan – it was on council’s radar since 1994, and serious talks about density transfer began around 2000. What was the price tag in 2004, something like $400,000? A pittance for the PEF back then. The two foot-dragging constants through all this were Harvey and Rogers, oh, and the Heritage Commission…
…why is it only a Class B heritage building? A top 10 threatened heritage site in Canada but they never bothered to upgrade it to A class to ensure it was maintained and not destroyed? Read the commission’s last minutes and all you get is: “Received update on the Pantages”. Er, what was the update about, exactly? Reads like ass covering for a toothless board. Well meaning bunch, but apparently too polite to take a stand.
Nice nugget, Dave 2, the second one is where Chaplin played in his early days; and the infamous picture of The Babe was taken, I believe. I’ve only been in the Pantages twice after it was closed (raves, great memories, cool vibe). It wasn’t that long ago at all that it was still a beauty inside – the outside has always been pretty mundane. Pantages’ early history in the Klondike, where he first learned the vaudeville ropes before he started building the theatre chain, is also worth looking into, the company he kept….
With so many of our historical buildings vanished already, we should be fighting that much harder to save what little remains.
103 Joe Just Joe // Sep 4, 2010 at 9:24 am
Gassy Jack,
I don’t think anyone is arguing against saving the Pantages theatre, just the last deal proposed was not the right deal. Also I’m not so sure it was only the ancient history that was a problem, even the current history is a little suspect.
http://foresttalk.com/index.php/2009/03/27/worthington-properties-offices-burn-down
104 Bill McCreery // Sep 4, 2010 at 3:00 pm
Regarding the amazingly in depth comments about height, density & built form a while back & in other posts [I've been diverted], I must agree with Michael Geller’s contention of using the full pallet of built forms we are technologically capable of today for the reasons he cites – people want different kinds of homes – the marketplace is an excellent teacher – while @ the same time making it clear that the human scale, eyes on the street, neighbourliness of a healthy streetscape can both be achieved.
The important additional goal of creating sustainable, walk / cycle scaled neighbourhoods can also be achieved.
Using higher density building types can also help resolve another important reality – people, especially in single family neighbourhoods resist densification. So, being able to get some additional density using the oversimplified ‘tower’ form example in appropriate locations [ie: via not crap shoot, spot re-zonings Vision style] required to accomplish the sustainable community will achieve that density. A restaurant, drug & hardware store, bakery, etc. require a catchment population to support them.
From what I understand, such information is not part of the current neighbourhood planning process & it should be.
105 Gassy Jack's Ghost // Sep 4, 2010 at 4:38 pm
JJJ, wow, I never made the connection between the two stories until you pointed this out. Nice digging by you and mezz.
I still don’t think this lets our politicians, bureaucrats, and Heritage Commission off the hook for letting this happen, though. But I know, I was ranting again. This whole thing just boils my blood so much… and I hate being so powerless to do anything about it. C’est la vie. But if there is any new info anyone can add about the Pantages and what’s going on, I’d be grateful if you posted it here.
So, back to the discussion Bill has reinitiated. And to the issue of cachements, it might help to put this into the context of growth projections done by Metro Van, who estimate that by 2040:
City of Vancouver’s population will increase by 140,000 — from about 630,000 now to 770,000.
About 70,000 new dwelling units will be needed to accomodate that influx.
This represents about a 25% increase in building density.
However, since most of this growth will have to occur outside downtown, which is already over-built, the density increases in the residential neighbourhoods targeted will be very substantial.
No matter how you slice it — towers or laneway houses — if these projections are anywhere close to accurate, the opportunity this represents to developers is huge. They’re all going to stay busy and make lots of $$$. And so will the City.
But what will happen to our neighbourhoods in the process?
What Lewis and Michael and others have been presenting here gives me hope that this level of evaluation and planning is also occurring inside City Hall at the Planning Department. But from what we’ve been seeing for the last two decades (ie. leading to downtown becoming so overbuilt), and especially since 2005, suggests that our top dogs in planning don’t really have much of a plan at all, and are flying by the seat of their pants most of the time.
Change is badly needed.
106 Robert in Calgary // Sep 4, 2010 at 7:51 pm
I was going to suggest that Brent Toderian be invited to way in here…..and hmm, I see he actually has his own blog.
http://www.planetizen.com/blog/10088
107 Robert in Calgary // Sep 4, 2010 at 7:51 pm
…weigh in….. (oh my)
108 Bill McCreery // Sep 4, 2010 at 7:59 pm
Thxs for the stats Gased. This is the macro-end & important because it seriously impacts the micro-end – the neighbourhoods.
Agree completely, “top dogs [not necessarily planning, a lot of this comes from the top] don’t really have much of a plan at all, and are flying by the seat of their pants most of the time.
“Change is badly needed.”
Sorry to seem partisan, I call it as I see it & know from experience if you want to make a meaningful change you deal with the top.
109 mezzanine // Sep 5, 2010 at 12:25 am
Coming up on the radar: TL is considering raising rapid transit to Surrey as a priority over vancouver’s broadway line. A new regional growth strategy is being drafted over the next few weeks to flesh this out.
“Metro Vancouver’s chief bureaucrat wants TransLink to bump a proposed rapid transit line to the University of B.C. to the bottom of its priority list, and instead boost services in the fast-growing area south of the Fraser River.
Metro chief administrative officer Johnny Carline said Friday that Surrey will bear the brunt of the region’s growth in the next 30 years, and more transit is needed to help shape that city’s development.”
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Metro+pushes+transit+Surrey/3481310/story.html#ixzz0ydb7JaSc
110 Lewis N. Villegas // Sep 5, 2010 at 7:45 am
“It would be a good idea to avoid over dramatic terminology such as “blight” in these discussions.”
— Richard #66
I press on, with Richard’s admonition in mind, because I believe that urban blight is something that we can see, quantify and classify.
Destroying our built heritage is also “urban blight”. The west-east politic that has divided comes into high relief once more over the Pantages fiasco.
If the Ghost’s blood is set to boiling, something terribly wrong is afoot. In Montreal, they have turned grain elevators into condos and art museums. Yet, we can’t save a theatre with an interior worthy of CPR Hotel ballroom, or manage our historic neighbourhoods a notch above a slum district.
1. “Stabilize the building”—planning lingo for making sure the roof, foundations and drainage are working. Protect the building against vandalism, too. Then, find a compatible use for it.
I agree with Ghost, I hate Vancouver for its attitudes about culture. It’s so boom-town, set in the corridors of power, and entrenched in habit that you wonder if it will ever change.
2. “Intensify the Neighbourhoods”—urbanist lingo for making the local economy work again. Identifying and removing existing barriers to growth is often the first and most necessary step, requiring very little actual expenditure. When the districts under “blight” are the cradles of the city, it doesn’t take much to get them going again. The low-hanging fruit is too prevalent.
However, when we make a wrong turn (say, The Woodwards and HAHR), then we must brace ourselves to watch the whole thing unravel in a harrowing fall. In the final analysis we are left with the permanence of places, and the impermanence of narrowly defined ideologies. An imbalanced contest where the ‘good’ urbanism wins, but only at the very very end with very little left standing.
111 Lewis N. Villegas // Sep 5, 2010 at 8:08 am
Teacher’s back, I’m handing in my history essay in time for the Sunday Brunch…
“It would, moreover, be quite shortsighted not to recognize the extraordinary achievements of modern city planning in contrast to that of old in the field of hygiene. In this our modern engineers, so much maligned because of their artistic blunders, have literally performed miracles and have rendered everlasting service to mankind. It is largely due to their work that the sanitary conditions of European cities have improved so remarkably—as is apparent from mortality figures which have in many cases been halved. How many individual improvements must have transpired, to the benefit of all city dwellers, for such results to emerge! This we gladly grant, but there still remains the question as to whether it is really necessary to purchase these advantages at the tremendous price of abandoning all beauty in the layout of our cities.”
—Camillo Sitte, “Der Städtbeau” (Vienna, 1889); closing remarks from Chapter X: Artistic Limitations.
“New York, whatever its virtues, has never paid much attention to the niceties of a public environment; as a city, we are the ultimate example of Galbraith’s observation about private affluence and public squalor.”
—Paul Goldberger, in New York the City Observed (1979).
Therein lies our plight. Perched here in the western frontier of the English culture, will we succumb to our baser natures and count value simply in terms of our personal fortune? Or will we make our isolation and relative sense of lawless independence an opportunity to forge ground?
Utopia indeed. It is difficult to say how much of our cultural patrimony was involved with “good” urbanism. Sir Thomas More lost his head in a challenge to his Monarch, leaving no indication that although he lived in the sixteenth century he was a Renaissance man. In the following century the improbable figure of Inigo Jones brought to the land of the Thames the fruits of the Italian Renaissance for (partial) consumption.
London traded with Venice and Amsterdam, and fought with Paris and Rome. By 1600 urbanism in Paris was taking firm hold. The French King Henri’s daughter was married to the King of England, Charles I. His head fell in front of the Inigo Jones designed Banquet Hall in Westminster—classical, Roman, and not to be emulated as a model of any king.
Ours tradition was born in a tale of two cities: The City—London proper, with the footprint of the Roman castrum, the point of origin for all the Roman roads England all the way to Hardian’s Wall, the site of the Roman bridge, and of St. Paul’s; and Westminster—the upstream home of the Crown, the Abbey, the Parliament Buildings, and Big Ben. On the periphery of Westminster are St. James’s Park, Downing Street, and the Banqueting House. Charing Cross is the point of intersection for the road linking Westminster and the City. Christopher Wren’s plan for the reconstruction of The City after the fire surely must have seemed like a power grab by a newly re-instituted monarchy.
What the merchants settled for instead was an urban code. It set building heights in proportion to the width of the fronting street; building types that stipulated construction standards, and materials; and a law that expropriated private property that had not rebuilt by a prescribed period of time.
However, the rise of the British Empire would have to wait another half century of struggle, and is marked by the signing of the Treaty of Utrech. With some significant consequences for the lands of Acadia in our Maratimes, with the Utrech agreement England wrestled control of the trade in African people from the other European powers, most notably France and Holland. The next year the British Empire was formed. Setting up a quadrant of key trading nodes in Liverpool, north-west Africa, the Caribean, and New Amsterdam (New York), the British Empire was in ascendancy. Nicholas Hawksmoor’s St. George, in Bloomsbury, dates to this very time declaring the arrival of a new power on the scene that would not so much assume the Classical mantel, as try to redefine it in its own terms.
The workmanship is first rate. In the design vocabulary I sense the absence of the sure handedness and timeless serenity of the Greek and Roman models. An ingredient or two are missing from the formula in the hands of a gifted designer.
A century later, with the death of mad King George, the most ambitious foray into urban planning came to a grinding halt. John Nash was out, and a teenage Queen and her consort were in. From what I can read in the Victorian style, it was as if the flower children of San Francisco had ascended the White House. Whomever the handlers behind the monarchy were, things went from bad to worse.
Absent the knowledge of the possibility of microscopic cargo, international trade had brought Bubonic Plague to Europe—and via Venice and the Venetian Fleet, to the docks of the Thames—starting in 1348.
The second Cholera pandemic hit America and Britain in the 1830’s. By 1858 Fleet Street was pronouncing “The Summer of the Big Stink” rising from the stench in the Thames. In 1899 Doctor John Snow, anesthesiologist to the Queen, proved with his etymology map of the last Cholera epidemic that the business of urbanism must be managed on the basis of scientific principles applied for the public good, rather than the politics of profit of the landed property.
Meanwhile, Paris had been reshaped into our first modern metropolis. A constant trickle—I was recently told—of British municipal officials started touring the French Capital in the middle of the 19th century.
What they saw was a working model of what investments in infrastructure, neighbourhood intensification, and street revitalization can bring. Transportation had been re-planned along rational lines. State of the art sewers, water and gas distribution was burried below new streets lined with rows of trees set in place as fully mature specimens. Fronting the boulevards redevelopment came with new buildings—all more or less alike—and local access streets. The boulevards ran along the edges of the quartiers, and the centralized planning delivered markets, schools, hospitals, parks and prisons.
It all built amidst political struggle and the rising capitalism, but the facile dismissal that it was all about breaking up the rabble glosses over too much urbanism that is still missing in our midst.
We are children of a lesser God for being a British colony. Yet, we dismiss to our great loss the fact that Great Britain finally did get the urbanism right. And it was not queasy about finding it in the places of rivals and allies alike, including Germany, France, Italy and Holland.
We are heirs to a difficult urbanist thread. Can we reinterpret our history as a journey towards liberty and common ground? Maximum freedom within agreed upon boundaries? Paradox has never been a kind or gentle mistress to embrace.
112 voony // Sep 5, 2010 at 11:32 am
Mezz,
here is 2 transit philosophy:
does the people of Surrey are not taking transit because, there is no bus every 5mn at their door,
or does they are not taking transit, because the experience they will be facing at arrival will be like the one described by those Buzzer video:
http://buzzer.translink.ca/index.php/2010/09/tips-for-smooth-travel-during-the-first-weeks-of-september/
to speak in short, the view expressed in the sun paper seems to me extremely shortsighted, and ostensibly ignoring current problem.
113 Michael Geller // Sep 5, 2010 at 3:17 pm
Welcome back Frances. I look forward to our conversation with Jim Green and Bill Good on Tuesday at 9 on CKNW.
A few musings on the Pantages theatre and adjacent block. As a former member of the Building Community Society I sat in on a number of discussions with Marc Williams who claimed to own the property. Also in attendance were other community leaders keen to see this entire block redeveloped.
Williams confirmed that when he bought the properties he expected to get sufficient heritage density to make the deal work. However, as others have previously noted on this blog, there is a serious problem with the amount of density still sitting in the density bank, and this is the reason the city was not prepared to ‘print more money/heritage density’ and give it to him
I should also add that IMO the developer didn’t have a realistic proposition in terms of redeveloping the property….the amount of development he was suggesting would not fit on the site, and when I noted this, he responded that his solution was a 12 storey tower or something like that.
He had no pro-formas, no realistic understanding of costs, and since I wanted to see something happen, my conclusion was that the only solution might be for him to offer to sell to the city at a price that would make sense for all. I told him that I didn’t necessarily support the city buying the site, but I didn’t believe he had the wherewithall to make it happen.
I understand that Williams did in fact offer the property to the city, initially at a ridiculously high price. But eventually, an agreement on price was achieved. However, the new regime at City Hall didn’t like the proposition of acquiring this site and being responsible for renovating the theatre any more than the last regime and that’s why we are in the situation we are today.
It’s a shame, but I can’t really blame any one party for the current situation other than Worthington. The real shame is that someone else didn’t buy it before they did. Despite a lot of nice words, they didn’t look after the sites. But that’s now water under the bridge.
I gather thought has been given to a number of different proposals that might combine market and non-market housing and either a restored Pantages, or a new small theatre within the block. However, as someone has noted, SFU now has a new theatre, and that might exacerbate the likelihood of finding more money for this venture….. unless a well-heeled private donor who wants to see the DTES became a true cultural heart for the city came forward.
You never know. The property is now on the market. As long as the powers at be in the neighbourhood don’t come out against ANY market housing, something positive could still happen. But if they do, you can expect to see this block, and many other blocks in the area continue to rot. And that would be a real pity.
114 Bill Lee // Sep 5, 2010 at 4:39 pm
Theatuhs Dahntown?
The former Shaw is being a club now at 254 West Hastings has film showings and (short stage) dramas. rickshaw.com
The (overstaffed) Police Station is being torn down. The bulding was built on top of the ex-Star Cinema on Main. A phoenix like resurrection any one.
What’s in the old Remand Facilty that could be an art place?
There is the former Golden Harvest across Main from the Police Station that has been used as a preview house and presentation. Bad rake though.
And SFU can’t afford the theatres they have downtown except with increased grant moneys. First crisis always cuts the arts, the students fear as they are forced to quit the mountain where everything else is.
Grain elevators someone mentioned. There is the wonderful “Moulin des images” from the ex Machina group of Robert Lepage in Quebec city. Wonderful wordless presentation that gets many digs in on both sides. I had to see it twice to catch all the side pieces there was so much going on.
Among other limited views (it covers the visual horizon) http://www.google.sh/search?q=moulin+des+images+quebec&hl=en&safe=off&rls=com.microsoft:*&prmd=v&source=univ&tbs=vid:1&tbo=u&ei=yimETOjHOIGcsQOBj5X3Bw&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&ct=title&resnum=2&ved=0CBsQqwQwAQ
115 Gassy Jack's Ghost // Sep 6, 2010 at 10:00 pm
Thanks for your insights into the machinations of this, Michael. It’s hard for an observer to fathom what’s been going on – and from the Pantages Theatre Society you have an entirely different view, of course: a $1 million private donor from Chinatown, the overwhelming support of the Arts community (who rarely looked favourably on any of Sue Harvey’s decrees), and even a grand-nephew of Pantages in the mix. The slow death of the theatre is almost as interesting (and sordid) as its long life on the vaudeville circuit.
So, yes, the lack of political will is surely the result of a number of different factors. Location, bad timing and bad luck included.
But the last few years we have also seen the Planning Department run roughshod over the City’s long-established heritage preservation programs and bylaws. They are directly responsible for the HAHR, the moratorium on Heritage Density Transfer, and Standards of Maintenance bylaws being ignored, while at the same time pushing at every turn for more over-height buildings and more condo towers in the Historic Area.
So I would suggest that the real root of the problem (and it directly relates to both neighbourhood liveability as well as site-specific demolitions like the Pantages Theatre, Maxines, and other landmarks in the city) is the lack of a comprehensive Neighbourhood Plan being in place, one that clearly identifies the neighbourhood’s assets and values that govern the decision-making process.
No more lip service, freebie relaxations, or sham consultations like the HAHR, when you only get two choices and both of them stink. We can’t afford to sit on our hands waiting for a white knight to save the Pantages, or our neighbourhoods.
The best and most efficient solution I have heard (and often repeated on this blog) is to undertake a neighbourhood planning charrette. It is at this level that consensus and certainty is most needed right now.
A charrette would set clear growth targets for build-out at the neighbourhood level and then develop a consensus on the best way to get there. Metro and Condon and others have done excellent work at the macro level but, as Bill says, we need to focus more on the micro level; and for Lewis and Urbie, that means a quartier-based approach. As Michael says, a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t make any sense, especially (I would add) in a city with such distinct neighbourhoods. Local knowledge is a wonderful asset in planning, and it seems that charrettes help bring that knowledge into the forefront.
Again, with 70,000 new dwelling units expected by 2040 – a 25% increase across the City – there’s no reason at all to assume that developers and the City will be hard up regardless of what kind of growth plan a charrette yields. In this, the Historic Area is no different than the West End, Marpole, or any other neighbourhood in our city that has been targeted to absorb a huge amount of density in the decades to come. If anything, the building sector will benefit from the certainty and it will enable them to streamline approvals.
In any event, it’s better to try to build consensus sooner than later, or else the battles, bad press, and divisiveness will continue to be a problem for any Council that holds office.
And who knows how many more travesties like the Pantages we’ll take to the grave.
116 Bill Lee // Sep 7, 2010 at 11:50 am
Hmm, after bikes, chickens etc. can white roofs be far behind?
A Montreal quartier wants to try: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2010/08/31/mtl-white-roofs.html
117 Joe Just Joe // Sep 7, 2010 at 1:41 pm
And I though Mtl already had white roofs, at least for a few months of the year.
118 Lewis N. Villegas // Sep 9, 2010 at 6:55 am
“Local knowledge is a wonderful asset in planning, and it seems that charrettes help bring that knowledge into the forefront.”
—GGJ
[…And we are not listening…]
In charrettes that I have participated, and in charrettes that I have lead, the idea is to inject urbanist vision to shape the local knowledge. As Ghost rightfully asserts local knowledge is a wonderful asset in urban design. The locals bring the knowledge, and we bring the urban design tools. It’s an explosive and very creative combination.
This kind of charrette focuses on creating certainty—often we meet with groups of developers to exchange ideas, and benefit from their local knowledge. The Urban Code that is the product of the charrette can be used to streamline approvals. Proposals coming forward that meet the Urban Code can be green lighted and/or fast-tracked at City Hall.
Are municipal leaders ready to embrace a new way of doing business in districts that have often been dismissed as untenable, and laboured under protracted cycles of neglect?
The one-quartier-at-a-time approach strives to understand the city in the way that we experience it: one place at a time. Having identified the footprint for design, it makes all kinds of sense to ask questions that may cut across the silos that regrettably define professional practice today.
We want to know if the transportation works. Whether or not there are streets for people. Whether something like “red-lining” is holding development in check. Whether the NIMBYS have their facts straight, or are merely reacting against the process, the “same old way of doing business”. We want to know about shops and neighbourhood services. We care about what type of buildings are being built, and whether or not these take into view common sense stuff like: not overlooking neighbours; not shadowing the street space; and creating defensible space. Are we creating affordable space? Is there a mix of tenure in the build out, including social and non-market housing? Are we building neighbourhood places in the quartiers that support social interaction? Ideally, these are not “special build” community centers and the like, but rather combinations of elements with a little extra thrown in. For example, a transit stop, a strip mall, and a local access street might combine with an empty lot to shape a neighbourhood heart, or focus.
In other words, we want to know if build out will build on the local tradition, or build in spite of it. And, we want to know the quality of the resulting public open spaces. We have tools to measure this stuff and we will set up shop for a week right on the spot.
These are not complete lists, each locality demands a survey of a different set of issues. However, it is as much as possible a demonstration of the kinds of concrete and measurable facts of urbanism that are out there, and for the most part are not being taken into account. We care about the social sphere, but we recognize our own limitations, and look to partner with those who are engaged with it everyday for local knowledge.
The urbanist charrette is not a cure all. It is a very focussed analysis of the meaning of place. As such it provides for a gamut of issues that individuals are often unable to engage. Then, it turns over a functional neighbourhood plan to the very folks that will build it. The advantage is that the urbanist charrette has developed in response to all the things that the modernist paradigm planning failed to engage.
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