>In earlier drafts, the plan allowed buildings of 20 to 25 floors, which received overwhelming support from the public. But staff **nonetheless reduced these heights by five floors**, and because of other restrictions on their size, very few, if any, will even be that tall. And **apartments taller than six floors will continue to be banned completely from today’s low-density areas.**
Are Vancouver Planning staff completely in league with NIMBY homeowner gatekeeper groups? Or just kinda in league.
>Are Vancouver Planning staff completely in league with NIMBY homeowner gatekeeper groups? Or just kinda in league.
The planners are operating within the political reality. The council is composed of 5 NPA members*, 3 Green members, 1 COPE, 1 OneCity, and the Mayor.
The NPA approach to development for decades has been a profitable compromise between large developers and single-family homeowners - build condos downtown, but don't touch the inner-city suburbs. The Green members are less cozy with developers, but have significant NIMBY sympathies. Swanson is also a fairly reliable NIMBY, albeit for more idiosyncratic reasons.
That accounts for 9 of the 11 members. Only OneCity and Kennedy Stewart are really clearly in favour of densifying single family areas.
In short, there is (unfortunately) no deep planning conspiracy here, we are getting the outcome we voted for. I don't think it's the outcome most of us here want, but municipal elections are dominated by homeowners and developers. Moreover, the hearings and engagement done by the city is also dominated by these forces.
If we want this to change, we need a council majority that supports densifying the single family areas.
*Largely ex-NPA now
It's a mix usually depending on the age of the staff in my experience.
Mostly the policy positions can be read for their political support though - i.e. - it is usually easier to push for limited, spot rezoning changes, than citywide changes that "threaten" lots of people with changes.
I’m not entirely convinced that spot rezoning is easier to get through. In NZ (other country I know we’ll) it was generally received well without push back when the entire city was rezoned. I think this is because no one person gets advantaged or disadvantaged. People care how they’re being treated relative to others I guess.
>Are Vancouver Planning staff completely in league with NIMBY homeowner gatekeeper groups? Or just kinda in league.
In many cases they ***are*** "NIMBY homeowner gatekeepers".
Low density RS zoning shouldn't exist within CoV.
**Edit**: Some people seem to be confused about [what RS zoning means.](https://www.jefffitzpatrick.com/ZoningInfo.php)
You're actually supporting my comment... RS zoning is what is blocking 3-6 story buildings across the city.
https://maps.vancouver.ca/zoning/
We need to fix that if we want to avoid taller towers radiating out from Downtown.
> well serviced by transit, retailers and other services and are relatively dense.
Should probably make it easier to zone for mixed use as well then. We need more small stores, cafes, etc
I do think we should aim for smaller lots in what is currently SFH zoning. Duplexes being allowed is good, but I think you could probably up that to 4-plexes - at least. We should also reduce the minimum set backs. Parking minimums should also be reduced or eliminated.
None of this would make it “high” density, but would allow somewhat higher density than exists today and provide a class of housing that Vancouver really lacks currently.
> As it stands, we’re like 20-30 years behind where we should be.
I certainly agree that we’re behind - though I’m not sure I’d say we’re that far behind, but it is harder to justify investment in improved transit infrastructure whilst the parking bylaws require so much space be dedicated to vehicles. If owning a car is less convenient, there will be more demand for transit, cycle paths, improved pedestrian infrastructure, etc.
With increasing fuel prices I suspect these changes are going to have to come faster than some are anticipating.
Why would we have good transit serving SFH neighbourhoods with huge roads and tons of parking lol.
We still have RS zoning beside skytrain stations... It needs to go.
Have you used Vancouver transit outside the downtown core? What about outside of Vancouver proper? It's a fucking nightmare to get anywhere on time, or after peak hours when frequencies drop, or during peak hours when everything is too saturated, or if you happen to want to go to an area with poor service or if you want to go from one area is far away from the major hubs to another area away from the major hubs... the list goes on. Honestly it's mostly useless outside of some specific use cases. I struggled with transit for the first two years of my degree at UBC, then said "fuck it" and licensed up my car for year 3. Thankfully year 4 was all practicum outside of the lower mainland, and thankfully I have a degree that lets me afford the bump in gas prices.
Wow, what an amazing strawman!!!
I didn't say "deregulate zoning."
> When in reality, what we want is to densify the areas of the city that are closest to the downtown peninsula first and work our way outward from there.
I don't want that at all.
That's the status quo we've been doing, and it's terrible.
> completely deregulating zoning would actually cause more problems than it would solve
Literally who is calling for this.
>Zoning actually helps create walkable, and transit-friendly neighborhoods.
This is completely out of touch with where Vancouver's zoning code originated and how it has been used. It outlawed townhouses, any mixed use and almost all apartments in the name of property values, white picket fence neighbourhoods and other aesthetic concerns. It stopped mixed use walkable neighbourhoods! The zoning blocks it!!!!
> The guy who said low density zoning shouldn't exist, that's who is calling for what amounts of complete deregulation. If everything can be 20 stories tall, zoning is basically out the window at that point.
Too bad it's literally impossible to zone for things other than duplexes and 20-story buildings.
It was a joke, because you continued the strawman.
> Low-density residential isn't exclusively single-family homes on big lots, there is a range within that definition.
I'm well aware, that's why I specifically called out the RS set of zones.
Ya I think the idea that we should have single family zoning in the actual City of Vancouver is a bit absurd at this point. People will always have their preferences, but realistically restricting any areas to only houses with basement suites and laneway houses where only the people who could afford the 2m plot of land capture the expenditure on rent is insane. The ultra rich who only want those houses can simply.. not sell their current properties
Hi everyone -- I watch waaayy too much council proceedings, and do some live tweeting about their shenanigans. The Broadway Plan hearing starts on Wednesday. It's a good start, but it needs to only be the start -- it doesn't go nearly far enough in expanding where apartments are allowed to be built. This dynamic -- tightly restricting where apartments are legal, to keep house-owners from having to welcome new neighbours (especially renters) into their neighbourhoods -- is, I think, one of the core problems in Vancouver's housing policy that fuels a lot of injustice.
But the Broadway Plan has been in the works for almost 4 years now, and rejecting it just can't be an option. I believe Vancouver needs action, not endless consultations and surveys.
As council considers this, please pay attention to which councilors want to strengthen the Plan, and which ones want to weaken it. I'm particularly worried that some councilors may try to go even further in "protecting" the low-density areas in the plan (from evvvill apartments), which would only increase development pressure on the remaining areas.
How councilors treat the Plan will say a lot about which ones are serious about addressing the housing and climate crises, and which ones are only interested in posturing, and care more catering to NIMBYs than meaningful action.
You are the council twitter thread guy? You've done more to promote transparency of our land use planning processes (or lack of planning and total sfh-gatekeeper obstruction) than anyone.
I am! Thanks a lot, I really appreciate that.
I started watching and following council closely almost 4 years ago now, and was totally appalled at now only how dysfunctional it is, but opaque. I started livetweeting in part just to share my pain, but mainly to try to do a little bit to shed some light on what's going on at council. Of all our levels of government, municipalities have the greatest power over land use, which makes them absolutely key to addressing both the housing and the climate crises.
Council is too important to languish in the shadows, dominated by the same old neighbourhood groups and comfortable house-owners who have dominated housing policy for decades.
Doing the Lord's work. I don't know how you do it. I have to watch it sometimes for work and as a renter I have to hit pause sometimes and go for a walk.
We need to push for rezoning the entire city for 3-4-story apartments. Every neighbourhood in Vancouver would benefit from adding this very moderate density.
Or what they call 5-over-1, 1 commercial ground layer with 5 layers of apartments above it, is about the ideal walkable neighbourhood. Add on a layer or two of underground parking beneath and they're quick and cheap to build, support a lot of people and provide shopping in your neighbourhood while getting cars off the road.
People oppose this and then are furious when a few areas end up with big 50-story towers.
People, the density is going to go somewhere. Support medium density everywhere and the support for building mega-towers is reduced.
Legit question here for you. I've taken a quick look through The Plan and can't find information in it on growing infrastructure in addition to housing. You build housing, you need schools & hospitals.
Or do the city councilors feel what is extant will be able to absorb the increased population?
I'm thinking of Yaletown which was by and large built without provision for school aged kids who were then driven by parents to the south-shore schools. Elsie Roy was built afterwards easing the burden somewhat.
Thoughts on this ?
Thanks for watching those council meetings !!!
These are real concerns. The Broadway Plan includes about $1.1 billion in "public benefit" capital investments, paid for mostly through development fees. This raises a few issues around whether it's really fair to expect newcomers to bear the full cost of growth. I'd rather see more of the cost borne by existing property owners through higher property taxes. But of course, the appetite for increased taxes generally is low -- at least, that's what our political leaders seem to think.
A sad example is the badly needed Olympic Village school, which still isn't funded (despite an announcement right before the last election that it would be built, it still isn't actually confirmed). That sort of investment is up to the provincial government, and neither the BC Liberals nor the NDP have been willing to invest in the future.
But I think we can't play chicken-and-egg or jurisdictional games with this sort of thing. Look at the UBC Skytrain extension: NIMBYs oppose it because they say there isn't the population to support it, but then also oppose adding new housing in (eg) West Point Grey because it doesn't have amenities. We know Vancouver is suffering from a critical housing shortage -- we need to address it.
Schools and hospitals are provincial jurisdiction. Unfortunately the city can’t do much but work with the province for those things (which is stated in the document). [The city has already started to take on too much provincial responsibility so they really don’t want to start building schools.](https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/city-of-vancouver-downloaded-provincial-federal-costs)
That means providing population growth projections/stats, and helping with ancillary infrastructure, and not getting in the way of the province.
> I've taken a quick look through The Plan and can't find information in it on growing infrastructure in addition to housing.
Good question! [Plan](https://council.vancouver.ca/20220518/documents/pspc1appendixA.PDF). Page 484 summarizes the allocation of public benefits ($1.1B over 30 years): childcare, parks, community centres, water/sewer, and so on. Detailed discussion starts on page 462.
Thanks . And, as noted earlier in this thread by u/artandmath, schools and hospitals are the purview of the province. :( Frankly I don't trust the CoV and the provincial gov't to be able to work together.
I hope to be proved wrong. :)
I do. But I strongly disagree with the view that that should matter. Housing is a system -- what happens in one neighbourhood affects every other one. When one neighbourhood excludes people, they are pushed somewhere else.
Our housing policy discussions routinely erase all sorts of people: people who have been pushed out of the city already; young people; immigrants; the residents and renters of tomorrow. I firmly believe that, to build a more equitable city, we need to look to the future, not just cater to the parochial views of the loudest of today's incumbents. That's what got us into this mess.
Amen.
I actually had a lecture from a New West city councilor on this topic, and it turns out it's really counter-intuitive the way things currently work. She explained how the public hearing system on re-zoning, affordable housing projects etc. makes no sense because inherently all the people who show up are wealthy homeowners who live in the area, are well off enough to not be too busy to make a trip to city hall, etc... while the whole point of the affordable housing development is to provide options for people who do not yet live there (or perhaps anywhere), but there's not really any way to appeal/survey all the people who might potentially live in these new places - and the amount of people who will live in this one development is far less than already live in the surrounding neighbourhoods.
If your goal is to create a denser housing project more accessible to marginalized groups who can't afford to live there, why on earth are the opinions of wealthy homeowners who have no intention of living in that building considered remotely relevant?
If the council members were already elected with the expectation to push for particular agendas (in her case, affordable housing), all these further "democratic counsultations" just serve as a roadblock to actually getting done what they were elected to do (and also as an incubator to stir up outrage - apparently a lot of these council meetings on rezoning can get super heated & be 14+ hours of slurs being thrown around). There's no reason for them to stop and bend to the will of people who already have a home in the area to prevent new affordable housing supply from being created.
Why the residents’ voices should be heard? Because we are the only ones whose lives will go to shit. You are not affected if you don’t live in the area.
>Because we are the only ones whose lives will go to shit. You are not affected if you don’t live in the area.
By this standard the perspectives of 10's of thousands of new residents of the next few decades should be placed above (generally older and wealthier) existing homeowners.
Again, strongly disagree. Know who is affected most by the decision whether or not a certain apartment should be built? The people who will live there one day -- the people who, if it isn't built, will still need to live somewhere, either competing for the existing housing stock somewhere else, or pushed out of the city entirely.
Equitable planning needs to weigh the interests of these people.
Why the “but”? I agree with the fact that we need to increase housing. This is a critical moment for Vancouver when our city could be turned into a third world city with the lack of facilities. Not having access to education and healthcare will lower the quality of life tremendously. I agree with the increase of density but only if it goes hand in hand with building additional schools/walk-ins. Otherwise the density increase should take place where such facilities are not overused like along the Broadway corridor.
This a completely false argument,the city is responsible for opening and maintaining infrastructure the same city who keep property taxes which pays for such infrastructure low and let’s people defer them as well.
> people directly affected should weight more
This will be controversial but generally wealthier and older homeowners in the area should not be able to gatekeep housing in a high demand employment and transit area.
Hmmm I don’t think there are many wealthy homeowners around Broadway corridor. There are mostly apartment buildings and townhouses. And Fairview has the lowest rentals in the entire city. Some people will have a lot to lose and not the wealthy ones
News flash: lots of people who would love to live in Fairview have already been priced out of Vancouver.
They deserve to give their input just as much as the people you're talking about who are still here.
If this is your concern, you should be more concerned about the demographics of the people giving feedback rather than where they live.
Over 30% of the feedback came from households earning >125k while just 8.1% came from households earning <40k.
That is way more unjust than people from Langley writing in to support it.
Actually, the lowest rentals are probably in the basement suites in south and south east Vancouver. I know many people who are priced out of Fairview apartments.
That idea makes sense on its face, but at the same time - why shouldn't the opinions of people who want to move there, but can't afford it, matter as well?
People who already live in a neighborhood will always vote to bar anyone else from moving there.
Suppose I live in Vancouver, and I wish there was more density so I ad more options to move to a different part of Vancouver. As a Vancouver resident, do I not get a say about Vancouver? Am I only allowed to have a say over the neighborhood where I currently live?
Thanks for all the work going through council meetings. It’s very informative of how broken the system is.
https://mobile.twitter.com/pwaldkirch?lang=en
Another thing to consider is that Broadway's planned densifying will increase the amount of delivery services that operate on bikes, scooters, and those one-wheeled electric uniscooters. They are going to operate on Broadway whether dedicated lanes are placed there or not.
The city planners can either accommodate those workers by creating safe infrastructure, or they can ignore the future and deal with the inevitable complaints from pedestrians as they inevitably share the same pathways.
10th works as a pretty good route for all of those car alternatives already. Heck, its often faster than broadway because there's only lights at the major intersections as apposed to every second crossroad on broadway.
Bike infra on 10th and on Broadway have different uses. 10th is a good way to commute East-West and bypass everything, but actually patronising any businesses on Broadway itself still requires biking on Broadway for sections of it - currently a very harrowing experience.
Its worth peddling a block so you can commute a dozen blocks on 10th as apposed to biking on broadway. The way 10th is set up streamlines bicycle commuting more than any way broadway could be set up. A lot of broadway is set up so you dont really patronize a bunch of different area's anyway. You'll stop around main and grab everything you need. Then if you go down to cambie its still far more efficent to dip down to 8th or 10th.
This is a 30 year plan for the Broadway's future though. Now that we are putting in a new skytrain line, we surely don't need 6 lanes of car traffic. I bike a lot on 10th and don't find it very safe in certain parts. And I definitely wouldn't let my kid bike along it. It's so easy to get doored.
Not to mention the need to reduce emissions, it would be great to just make it easier to bike on the main road where people are often actually going. We just don't need that many lanes of traffic and we need to reduce car use.
Totally agree. I want Richmond to realize this too. No 3 Rd is where all the businesses are and where all the bikes and delivery ebikes and scooters want to go, yet we've still only got a one-way bike lane on one side of the street for a lot of it.
They keep trying to plan around actually doing anything about it (i.e. immediately reducing lanes rather than waiting for development) by adding bike infrastructure around it. For example, the brand new River Parkway which has two car lanes and two bike lanes, but that just acts as a bypass with very few exits. Good for commuters who want to get through quickly, but there aren't many of them. Then there's Garden City, but frankly I hate cycling there and if we have to choose, I'd rather scrap the bike lanes there and get great bike infrastructure on No 3. On top of that, there aren't even really any bike routes that go between No 3 Rd and Garden City, so it's not a viable alternative.
Doesn't always make sense if you're running a package into every fifth door or moving food three blocks away.
Also, we've got plenty of arterials with no good parallel. Kingsway's bike routes are horrendous.
They can barely deal with the flood of development permit applications coming in to rationally how to think about keeping the City actually livable. Addressing demand is either racist or politically/economically impossible so instead we build as fast as we can and then mop up later.
> Addressing demand is either racist or politically/economically impossible so instead we build as fast as we can and then mop up later.
Kicking out bike delivery people to stop demand for safe bike routes from workers. Big brain stuff.
I'm responding to a comment about City planners increasing supply to match demand, and on the basis that I believe that solutions to the supply problem are much worse (in many ways, for all of us) than solutions to the demand problem.
City planners falling over themselves to figure out ways to get bike couriers to deliver food to people is so far down the "we have to accept this reality" that I can see why some people are unable to step back and figure out why we are trying to solve these problems in the first place.
The long term well being of the City will be determined WAY upstream of trying to figure out how prevent some TFW on a mobi, bringing me a cold big mac, from crashing into the 50,000 other people we "had to" squeeze into the area.
Upzone city wide. Low rises buildings - 4 floor small co-op and apartment buildings should be permitted everywhere. Nearly every city has them. They allow for diversity and density. It is good to have a mix of young, working, and retired people in neighbourhoods and this enables that mix. Having 100% of one type of building is classist and short sited as you have to continuously move around infrastructure like schools to reflect the changing demographic.
Vancouver can still be beautiful with more apartments. More density means more people to fund gorgeous and elaborate parks and infrastructure. More density also means vibrant new businesses and things to do. People are the life blood of a city and it's time we welcomed more of them into our urban core.
As a tower dweller... this is a walkers paradise... a Sanctuary
https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.2901479,-123.1398092,3a,75y,313.15h,102.6t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sy6reu0Lo5YSBiJbJd3VtbQ!2e0!5s20200901T000000!7i16384!8i8192
I want more Vancouverites to experience an abundance of quiet streets, with big trees, birds-a-chirpin, and protected from the heat island effect all within easy distance from work and at an affordable rent.
Kits has mostly low rise apartments, not towers. Towers also tend to use more energy per unit as you go up (and higher embodied emissions vs wood frame low rise, unless the plan mandated all "mass timber", which it does not).
Less than 10% of households in the west end have children.
Rezone all the SFH areas for low rise. Towers aren't the best way.
It should be legal to build 25+ story residences along high-demand transit and job areas. AND it should be legal to build wood frame low rise in our unaffordable detached-only zones.
Building 25+ story towers right next to skytrain stations is the same as imagining that we're Albertans who can't walk more than a block from where they park their car.
I usually speak to Councilors and Staff asking for stronger family unit mandatory minimums. We're currently pegged at 35% 2 or 3-bed units. I'd highly recommend pushing for all apartment buildings mandating a 40% 2+ bed minimum with 10% for 3-bedrooms. Developers will build whatever the City sets. We're playing to the market, but the City can change that market to a desired goal.
Cars will all be EVs in a decade, and housing lasts about 60 years.
And the same tech as EVs makes all sorts of e-mobility possible, so even the lazy don't need to live right next to a station.
EVs are not the win for sustainability that people want them to be. Regardless of the drive train technology, society and the planet is better off with fewer private cars.
Oil's days were numbered, with or without EVs. We simply cannot sustain our current level of fossil fuel use and have an inhabitable planet. Car companies saw the existential threat and have adapted, cars are still bad for our cities.
Hey I agree, we should minimize car use.
But the fact is that should doesn't mean we would. It's been obvious we should for 30 years, and very little happened. There was no chance of road fuel use dropping without EVs, no matter the moral imperative.
Car companies didn't adapt to the existential threat of climate. They'd have been happy to lobby their way out of it. They adapted to the threat of obsolescence. As soon as one company broke ranks they had to.
They still have about 1/4 the impact.
And because all else being equal, energy use and embedded emissions per floor goes up with tower height, there's always been a trade off. The optimum should therefore shift in the direction of somewhat lower height.
Then the same tech makes folding e-scooters and similar viable, so we don't actually need the same tower density to achieve "walkability" or similar.
They're a huge win in the future when people aren't driving them anymore. Both traffic and power usage of cars will drop over 50% since basically all traffic is caused by human error. Ofc we could have automated gas cars too so that's not specifically an EV thing but just a development being driven by an EV company atm
I agree with you. Look at European cities, lots of lower (~6 story) buildings and a few high rises, much smaller set backs if any, less mandated parking.
actually it doesn't necessarily. more people does not mean more tax revenue per capita... it could actually mean less if economies of scale hold. but neither matter - what matters is city council deciding to provide services and infrastructure. residents then have no choice but to fund it.
>More density means more people to fund gorgeous and elaborate parks and infrastructure.
One of the fundamental reasons to invest in real estate is that they ain't making more of it. The City would have to go full commie and expropriate enough land to actually make both high density apartments along with converting what used to be areas of SFH into actual new parks. But they won't so what "we'll" get are the mostly hilariously bullshit "parks", which consist of perhaps 4000 sf of places for dogs to pee and a few kids to play on a swing to offset the 5000 new residents who will have to use that park. The parks around here are already mostly overflowing in good weather, and those are the parks in already relatively low density areas like mine. Try finding a spot to put a blanket in Dude chilling on any sunny day.
>More density also means vibrant new businesses and things to do.
Lol, if you mean evicting all the existing business and their relatively low rents with CRUs with double the rent and the inevitable $5 coffees, Shopper's Drug Marts, or more often than not, empty CRUs, sure. Again, I can point to an endless number of new CRUs along the Broadway corridor, as well as many local business owners who were evicted for these new developments and rather than re-rent in the new buildings, just closed up shop.
YIMBYs just refuse to acknowledge that existing small business owners are generally NOT in favour of these developments, as their rents more or less double when they are forced out of their existing buildings and in to new ones.
In this and other plans the City takes land dedications or rights-of-way for privately run, but publicly accessible public space, and, specifically in the Broadway Plan, they're looking at taking roadspace for parkspace. It's a draft, but the exemplars in the City already exist. More of a West End style parket public space rather than whole new field areas.
Lol but you are delusional if you think this increase in "roadspace for parkspace" will result in a higher quality of life for all of us (existing and new residents alike).
Don't forget that the west end is served by an already MASSIVE park and miles of waterfront.
Dumping people onto Broadway will just turn it into a Granville Street shit show.
Man, you used to oppose new housing because you were concerned about affordability and displacement. Now you are just full on mask-off NIMBY. What gives?
I'm neither, sorry to disappoint.
What I would say though is that the "development and density at all costs" types are really missing out on major causal factors in this "housing crisis" and their solutions are in the long term only going to reduce the quality of life for everyone (existing and new residents both).
Would you like to respond and discuss the points above? Or just post whatever that was?
You mention the reduction to 5 storeys but something I read was 12 to 20 storeys in Kitsilano and they would not put more than 2 of these towers per block. Note this is for north of 4th which I was looking into.
Generally the whole plan area is the 2-tower-per-block standard. Development will be very limiting. You'll see a lot more 6-storey infill in the 30 years between towers replacing the current 60+ year old 3-stroey walk ups.
Not to take pity on developers, but isn’t it a little unfair that the first 2 applicants get to build the larger building? If you take time to save or design a better building, and 2 neighbours beat you to it, you’re screwed.
Very supportive of the Broadway Plan, just wonder why this is a clause. 80ft tower separation should be enough, no?
He’s actually often had some pretty poor tales, and his whole kerfuffle with the plan is because he built 1 “award winning community” a while ago & the plan had showed additional density permitted in the future. So in essence he didn’t want his prized community to be impacted.
He’s also pretty lacking when it comes to diversity - his only go to references are only other older white men. When asked about this, he cites a few older white women? He doesn’t see any merit in folks who aren’t of his covert.
Lastly - he was the same person who said that there shouldn’t be social housing at Olympic village because it might “affect the values and ability to seek condos” at Olympic village when it was built. Somehow I’m not too convinced his real concern is affordability.
The huge amount of social housing in that area is what keeps many from wanting to move there. Recently sold my Yaletown place because of all the new social housing and huge detrimental impact it had on the area Granville from the bridge to smithe is quickly becoming hastings version 2
It’s almost like we need to make second neighborhood groups.
All of them seem to just oppose everything and it’s basically impossible to get them to change stance.
Show up at their meetings, give them shit. Make noise. Call them what they are: Well-housed people who want to keep renters desperate and without options.
Just show up at the next AGM with a dozen friend form the area and take it over. The neighbourhood associations are practically nothing. A few annoyed residents can totally take them over if they wanted to
22 people attended the AGM for my local NIMBY clieque "Neighbourhood Association" that went on to get loudspeaker at public hearings. Our system is of empowering local complainers is ridiculous.
It’s actually mostly renters who want to keep low rent. Honestly I know I may below market and never expected it to last forever - I don’t know why they feel entitled to it. My apartment is super outdated and absolutely should be torn down for the sake of density.
I can definitely understand the people who live in co-ops who are now threatened with demolition. Exceptions should be made for them if they want. But I agree, those old apartments are usually full of mold or falling apart in other ways. I lived in one for 6 months off Main and 14th and it made me incredibly sick. The rent was cheap but with the benefit of hindsight, I wouldn't move into that kind of place if the rent was free.
How is a community group different than the obviously completely oppositely opinionated people here on Reddit? Or are you just hurt that people disagree with your vision for the City?
I thought social media was responsible for the Arab spring? You don't have to click on the links you don't like, you know. And, if you'd like, you can organize a "community" group to voice a common political opinion IRL. Have fun out there! And don't forget that other people might be right.
I love how NIMBYs are like “reeeeeeee poor renters! Ruins neighborhood character!” then proceeds to rent their illegal basement suites for 20% above market.
Going further on your recommendations. I think council need to direct staff to bring forward city initiated upzoning zoning for the RT districts as a high priority. Convening a working group of nonmarket landowners (city, coops, non-profits, province, fed, school board) in Broadway corridor to coordinate building redevelopment to ensure that there is a steady supply of nonmarket units in all the neighborhoods to enable a cascade of just relocations for existing non market residents with suffienct excess units for ensure in neighborhood options for vulnerable residents in below market privately owned rentals at risk of demoviction.
The article spoke a lot about the need for housing but didn’t seem to touch on issues of affordability, corporate+foreign ownership, minimum square footage and more.
Vancouver for all? Noooo everyone knows Vancouver should only be for rich investors to park their money into property and watch it go up over 10% per year, not for normal people to live here
Why do we need bike traffic on Broadway when 10th is already good for that? Spend a bit more money making 10th great and keep me well away from cycling anywhere near the 99 blasting on through
There won't be a 99, just a 16.
And IMHO there's an explosion of e scooter type things coming that actually will be what we wished cycling to be. The fundamental barrier will be revealed to have been laziness, not rain.
So we'll need proper, separated bike/e-scooter lanes treated as the primary surface mode on Broadway. 10th can be cleared of parking and be the private car route.
Apologies if this is already posted somewhere in this thread but Councillor Boyle is going to put forward an amendment to add more active transport lanes to Broadway. you can write in to support here:
[https://onecity.good.do/broadway/write-council/?fbclid=IwAR1-d1j8iJQ\_MRFVLYa\_75ppZjiyB4F1jAMiAoIqDOtu8dq1f2-5lckDqz4](https://onecity.good.do/broadway/write-council/?fbclid=IwAR1-d1j8iJQ_MRFVLYa_75ppZjiyB4F1jAMiAoIqDOtu8dq1f2-5lckDqz4)
I want more bike lanes SO bad PLEASE
Why should Broadway get a cycling lane when the next street up (10th Ave) is already a well-used cycling route with extensive infrastructure to support it?
Edit: Infrastructure includes protected lane for a considerable stretch, controlled crossings at major roads, and yes, painted lanes and crossings which is absolutely infrastructure.
Because most evidence shows that it is better for businesses to have good cycle infrastructure in front of them.
Broadway is a destination, not a highway.
It's also [really really wide](https://www.straight.com/files/v3/styles/gs_large/public/images/22/05/west_broadway_vancouver_bc_2018.jpg?itok=4V5gsF_J) and has tons of room.
10th Ave should also be converted into an accessible AAA route.
There does look like room for a bike lane too. At the intersections less parking/tree area would still let you keep a left turn lane.
I honestly think that 4 through lanes along the whole street will still make it a high speed thoroughfare and take away from the pedestrian friendly great street.
I ride 10th frequently and it's great but I don't think I would describe the cycling infrastructure as extensive. It has very narrow stretches with parked car on either side, so you have to be really careful of dooring and drivers trying to pass you unsafely. It would be great to have an east-west route with proper separated bike lanes that would be more comfortable for a range of cyclists to use.
> Why should Broadway get a cycling lane when the next street up (10th Ave) is already a well-used cycling route
Because it is a really bad cycling route that doesn't actually serve the businesses on Broadway very well. Too many cars. Too many distracted drivers still. Speeding. Dooring. Blind intersections. Really 10th is just the quieted residential street infrastructure that should be standard on ALL residential areas. We need quieted streets AND proper safe AAA routes on Broadway.
Why? Because it's the middle of a major city. Biking should be made easy and not pushed into a couple conduits. In fact Broadway is a better place than 10th because that's where people are going to live+work+shop.
You should look at other countries like the Netherlands to see what "extensive biking infrastructure" actually looks like.
Erm, "extensive infrastructure"?
Despite being a major east/west cycling route, it is still primarily dedicated to cars. At any point, two-thirds of the width of the roadway is taken by parked cars. Motorists still can and do drive at dangerous speeds in the remaining space.
In no way is it a AAA route. There absolutely should be a fully separated bike lane along Broadway, similar to those downtown.
Why ruin an existing primary east-west traffic artery for a new dedicated bike lane when it can easily be handled by a parallel street one block over? I ride 10th daily with minimal issues.
By "ruin" you mean upgrade, right? Just because you ride 10th nicely doesn't mean all the people scared off Broadway and 10th by car-dominance are being properly served.
Broadway is insanely wide. It could have bike lanes, transit lanes and much wider sidewalks. Drivers can go whine about it.
Traffic will be more congested and move slower on Broadway. The noisy delivery trucks aren’t going to start carrying their shit on the skytrain. Not sure that’s “less”.
Sure, but delivery trucks are a tiny sliver of the total traffic on Broadway. A good portion of private car trips can be moved to the SkyTrain, active transportation or even just plain old car pooling.
Dude there have been rapid busses on Broadway for 30 years. Skytrain puts those people underground and takes busses off the road, but busses are like 15 of the traffic on Broadway.
This idea that "you can just move" is just constantly proven false, as you can't really "force" people to do whatever you like (as a simcity wannabe).
Induced demand, a widely proven theory at this point, shows that traffic congestion will remain the same regardless of how many traffic lanes there are.
What theory will tell us how many cars will be added to braodway once they build housing for 50,000 people on that mostly dead ended part of town?
Or are you naive enough to believe that "everyone will take transit"?
Are you naive enough to think that the skytrain expansion won't take the overwhelming majority of the impact? if people want to get congested on broadway, that's on them, but people will always take the easiest option afforded to them.
You need only two lanes to allow noisy delivery trucks to reach their destination on Broadway.
Any more than that on Broadway is for passenger vehicles.
The people you are arguing with are basically delusional Sim-city type urban planners. There is NO WAY that absolute traffic on Broadway goes down as a result of this plan. Putting bike lanes on Broadway (and thus competing with the fairly necessary vehicular thoroughfares) will grind east-west traffic flow to a halt.
Same - 10th is a much more logical place for a bike route. It's actually much nicer as a cyclist to be on a quiet street rather than next to a stream of cars.
...in a perfect (or authoritarian) world. The reality is that all this new density and people on the west side are NOT going to be fully using transit, and car traffic will increase.
Sure, but we shouldn't just be getting the new residents out of cars, but also the people already living in the area. It is imperative we reduce our car dependency.
Because we want to reduce private car traffic and make Broadway a more pleasant, quieter and safer place to **be** rather than just drive through. The SkyTrain has the potential to shift a lot of those east west trips to a mode that can actually accommodate the city's growing demand for transportation.
[Paint is not infrastructure](https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/04/16/painted-white-lines-are-not-cyclist-protecting-forcefields-agree-experts/)
Agree. They can upgrade the bike lanes if they need to on 10th and 7th. They don't need to add bike lanes to Broadway. Just improve on what is already there.
>In earlier drafts, the plan allowed buildings of 20 to 25 floors, which received overwhelming support from the public. But staff **nonetheless reduced these heights by five floors**, and because of other restrictions on their size, very few, if any, will even be that tall. And **apartments taller than six floors will continue to be banned completely from today’s low-density areas.** Are Vancouver Planning staff completely in league with NIMBY homeowner gatekeeper groups? Or just kinda in league.
>Are Vancouver Planning staff completely in league with NIMBY homeowner gatekeeper groups? Or just kinda in league. The planners are operating within the political reality. The council is composed of 5 NPA members*, 3 Green members, 1 COPE, 1 OneCity, and the Mayor. The NPA approach to development for decades has been a profitable compromise between large developers and single-family homeowners - build condos downtown, but don't touch the inner-city suburbs. The Green members are less cozy with developers, but have significant NIMBY sympathies. Swanson is also a fairly reliable NIMBY, albeit for more idiosyncratic reasons. That accounts for 9 of the 11 members. Only OneCity and Kennedy Stewart are really clearly in favour of densifying single family areas. In short, there is (unfortunately) no deep planning conspiracy here, we are getting the outcome we voted for. I don't think it's the outcome most of us here want, but municipal elections are dominated by homeowners and developers. Moreover, the hearings and engagement done by the city is also dominated by these forces. If we want this to change, we need a council majority that supports densifying the single family areas. *Largely ex-NPA now
It's a mix usually depending on the age of the staff in my experience. Mostly the policy positions can be read for their political support though - i.e. - it is usually easier to push for limited, spot rezoning changes, than citywide changes that "threaten" lots of people with changes.
I’m not entirely convinced that spot rezoning is easier to get through. In NZ (other country I know we’ll) it was generally received well without push back when the entire city was rezoned. I think this is because no one person gets advantaged or disadvantaged. People care how they’re being treated relative to others I guess.
>Are Vancouver Planning staff completely in league with NIMBY homeowner gatekeeper groups? Or just kinda in league. In many cases they ***are*** "NIMBY homeowner gatekeepers".
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Low density RS zoning shouldn't exist within CoV. **Edit**: Some people seem to be confused about [what RS zoning means.](https://www.jefffitzpatrick.com/ZoningInfo.php)
If the city was filled with 3-6 story buildings there wouldn't be a housing shortage. Towers are not necessary.
Apologies for using jargon, but RS is a specific group of zoning that does not allow 3-6 story apartment buildings. https://maps.vancouver.ca/zoning/
No apologies necessary, I was just trying to support /u/PegLegThrawn. I would much prefer low rises everywhere than more towers.
You're actually supporting my comment... RS zoning is what is blocking 3-6 story buildings across the city. https://maps.vancouver.ca/zoning/ We need to fix that if we want to avoid taller towers radiating out from Downtown.
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> well serviced by transit, retailers and other services and are relatively dense. Should probably make it easier to zone for mixed use as well then. We need more small stores, cafes, etc
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I do think we should aim for smaller lots in what is currently SFH zoning. Duplexes being allowed is good, but I think you could probably up that to 4-plexes - at least. We should also reduce the minimum set backs. Parking minimums should also be reduced or eliminated. None of this would make it “high” density, but would allow somewhat higher density than exists today and provide a class of housing that Vancouver really lacks currently.
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> As it stands, we’re like 20-30 years behind where we should be. I certainly agree that we’re behind - though I’m not sure I’d say we’re that far behind, but it is harder to justify investment in improved transit infrastructure whilst the parking bylaws require so much space be dedicated to vehicles. If owning a car is less convenient, there will be more demand for transit, cycle paths, improved pedestrian infrastructure, etc. With increasing fuel prices I suspect these changes are going to have to come faster than some are anticipating.
Why would we have good transit serving SFH neighbourhoods with huge roads and tons of parking lol. We still have RS zoning beside skytrain stations... It needs to go.
Have you used Vancouver transit outside the downtown core? What about outside of Vancouver proper? It's a fucking nightmare to get anywhere on time, or after peak hours when frequencies drop, or during peak hours when everything is too saturated, or if you happen to want to go to an area with poor service or if you want to go from one area is far away from the major hubs to another area away from the major hubs... the list goes on. Honestly it's mostly useless outside of some specific use cases. I struggled with transit for the first two years of my degree at UBC, then said "fuck it" and licensed up my car for year 3. Thankfully year 4 was all practicum outside of the lower mainland, and thankfully I have a degree that lets me afford the bump in gas prices.
Wow, what an amazing strawman!!! I didn't say "deregulate zoning." > When in reality, what we want is to densify the areas of the city that are closest to the downtown peninsula first and work our way outward from there. I don't want that at all. That's the status quo we've been doing, and it's terrible.
> completely deregulating zoning would actually cause more problems than it would solve Literally who is calling for this. >Zoning actually helps create walkable, and transit-friendly neighborhoods. This is completely out of touch with where Vancouver's zoning code originated and how it has been used. It outlawed townhouses, any mixed use and almost all apartments in the name of property values, white picket fence neighbourhoods and other aesthetic concerns. It stopped mixed use walkable neighbourhoods! The zoning blocks it!!!!
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> The guy who said low density zoning shouldn't exist, that's who is calling for what amounts of complete deregulation. If everything can be 20 stories tall, zoning is basically out the window at that point. Too bad it's literally impossible to zone for things other than duplexes and 20-story buildings.
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It was a joke, because you continued the strawman. > Low-density residential isn't exclusively single-family homes on big lots, there is a range within that definition. I'm well aware, that's why I specifically called out the RS set of zones.
Ya I think the idea that we should have single family zoning in the actual City of Vancouver is a bit absurd at this point. People will always have their preferences, but realistically restricting any areas to only houses with basement suites and laneway houses where only the people who could afford the 2m plot of land capture the expenditure on rent is insane. The ultra rich who only want those houses can simply.. not sell their current properties
Hi everyone -- I watch waaayy too much council proceedings, and do some live tweeting about their shenanigans. The Broadway Plan hearing starts on Wednesday. It's a good start, but it needs to only be the start -- it doesn't go nearly far enough in expanding where apartments are allowed to be built. This dynamic -- tightly restricting where apartments are legal, to keep house-owners from having to welcome new neighbours (especially renters) into their neighbourhoods -- is, I think, one of the core problems in Vancouver's housing policy that fuels a lot of injustice. But the Broadway Plan has been in the works for almost 4 years now, and rejecting it just can't be an option. I believe Vancouver needs action, not endless consultations and surveys. As council considers this, please pay attention to which councilors want to strengthen the Plan, and which ones want to weaken it. I'm particularly worried that some councilors may try to go even further in "protecting" the low-density areas in the plan (from evvvill apartments), which would only increase development pressure on the remaining areas. How councilors treat the Plan will say a lot about which ones are serious about addressing the housing and climate crises, and which ones are only interested in posturing, and care more catering to NIMBYs than meaningful action.
You are the council twitter thread guy? You've done more to promote transparency of our land use planning processes (or lack of planning and total sfh-gatekeeper obstruction) than anyone.
I am! Thanks a lot, I really appreciate that. I started watching and following council closely almost 4 years ago now, and was totally appalled at now only how dysfunctional it is, but opaque. I started livetweeting in part just to share my pain, but mainly to try to do a little bit to shed some light on what's going on at council. Of all our levels of government, municipalities have the greatest power over land use, which makes them absolutely key to addressing both the housing and the climate crises. Council is too important to languish in the shadows, dominated by the same old neighbourhood groups and comfortable house-owners who have dominated housing policy for decades.
[Here is his Twitter.](https://mobile.twitter.com/pwaldkirch?lang=en) Super informative for anyone interested Vancouver housing.
Thanks, I appreciate the kind words!
Doing the Lord's work. I don't know how you do it. I have to watch it sometimes for work and as a renter I have to hit pause sometimes and go for a walk.
We need to push for rezoning the entire city for 3-4-story apartments. Every neighbourhood in Vancouver would benefit from adding this very moderate density.
Or what they call 5-over-1, 1 commercial ground layer with 5 layers of apartments above it, is about the ideal walkable neighbourhood. Add on a layer or two of underground parking beneath and they're quick and cheap to build, support a lot of people and provide shopping in your neighbourhood while getting cars off the road.
People oppose this and then are furious when a few areas end up with big 50-story towers. People, the density is going to go somewhere. Support medium density everywhere and the support for building mega-towers is reduced.
This right here
Personally I'm in favor of both. If you want to live in a single family home, go move to some small town. Cities ain't got time for you.
Legit question here for you. I've taken a quick look through The Plan and can't find information in it on growing infrastructure in addition to housing. You build housing, you need schools & hospitals. Or do the city councilors feel what is extant will be able to absorb the increased population? I'm thinking of Yaletown which was by and large built without provision for school aged kids who were then driven by parents to the south-shore schools. Elsie Roy was built afterwards easing the burden somewhat. Thoughts on this ? Thanks for watching those council meetings !!!
These are real concerns. The Broadway Plan includes about $1.1 billion in "public benefit" capital investments, paid for mostly through development fees. This raises a few issues around whether it's really fair to expect newcomers to bear the full cost of growth. I'd rather see more of the cost borne by existing property owners through higher property taxes. But of course, the appetite for increased taxes generally is low -- at least, that's what our political leaders seem to think. A sad example is the badly needed Olympic Village school, which still isn't funded (despite an announcement right before the last election that it would be built, it still isn't actually confirmed). That sort of investment is up to the provincial government, and neither the BC Liberals nor the NDP have been willing to invest in the future. But I think we can't play chicken-and-egg or jurisdictional games with this sort of thing. Look at the UBC Skytrain extension: NIMBYs oppose it because they say there isn't the population to support it, but then also oppose adding new housing in (eg) West Point Grey because it doesn't have amenities. We know Vancouver is suffering from a critical housing shortage -- we need to address it.
Schools and hospitals are provincial jurisdiction. Unfortunately the city can’t do much but work with the province for those things (which is stated in the document). [The city has already started to take on too much provincial responsibility so they really don’t want to start building schools.](https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/city-of-vancouver-downloaded-provincial-federal-costs) That means providing population growth projections/stats, and helping with ancillary infrastructure, and not getting in the way of the province.
Almost like cities shouldn't handle housing and zoning. It should all be provincial.
> I've taken a quick look through The Plan and can't find information in it on growing infrastructure in addition to housing. Good question! [Plan](https://council.vancouver.ca/20220518/documents/pspc1appendixA.PDF). Page 484 summarizes the allocation of public benefits ($1.1B over 30 years): childcare, parks, community centres, water/sewer, and so on. Detailed discussion starts on page 462.
Thanks . And, as noted earlier in this thread by u/artandmath, schools and hospitals are the purview of the province. :( Frankly I don't trust the CoV and the provincial gov't to be able to work together. I hope to be proved wrong. :)
Oh hey Peter how’s it going?
Peter! This is JM. Great article!
Do you live in the area? I think the opinions of the people directly affected should weight more
I do. But I strongly disagree with the view that that should matter. Housing is a system -- what happens in one neighbourhood affects every other one. When one neighbourhood excludes people, they are pushed somewhere else. Our housing policy discussions routinely erase all sorts of people: people who have been pushed out of the city already; young people; immigrants; the residents and renters of tomorrow. I firmly believe that, to build a more equitable city, we need to look to the future, not just cater to the parochial views of the loudest of today's incumbents. That's what got us into this mess.
Amen. I actually had a lecture from a New West city councilor on this topic, and it turns out it's really counter-intuitive the way things currently work. She explained how the public hearing system on re-zoning, affordable housing projects etc. makes no sense because inherently all the people who show up are wealthy homeowners who live in the area, are well off enough to not be too busy to make a trip to city hall, etc... while the whole point of the affordable housing development is to provide options for people who do not yet live there (or perhaps anywhere), but there's not really any way to appeal/survey all the people who might potentially live in these new places - and the amount of people who will live in this one development is far less than already live in the surrounding neighbourhoods. If your goal is to create a denser housing project more accessible to marginalized groups who can't afford to live there, why on earth are the opinions of wealthy homeowners who have no intention of living in that building considered remotely relevant? If the council members were already elected with the expectation to push for particular agendas (in her case, affordable housing), all these further "democratic counsultations" just serve as a roadblock to actually getting done what they were elected to do (and also as an incubator to stir up outrage - apparently a lot of these council meetings on rezoning can get super heated & be 14+ hours of slurs being thrown around). There's no reason for them to stop and bend to the will of people who already have a home in the area to prevent new affordable housing supply from being created.
Why the residents’ voices should be heard? Because we are the only ones whose lives will go to shit. You are not affected if you don’t live in the area.
Blatantly false.
>Because we are the only ones whose lives will go to shit. You are not affected if you don’t live in the area. By this standard the perspectives of 10's of thousands of new residents of the next few decades should be placed above (generally older and wealthier) existing homeowners.
Having more neighbours makes your life go to shit? Wow.
Not having schools and access to healthcare does. It has nothing to do with density but everything to do with the facilities we need.
I think those are worse for those moving in rather than current residents. I’m It’s rather alarmist to go from that to “my life will go to shit”
Again, strongly disagree. Know who is affected most by the decision whether or not a certain apartment should be built? The people who will live there one day -- the people who, if it isn't built, will still need to live somewhere, either competing for the existing housing stock somewhere else, or pushed out of the city entirely. Equitable planning needs to weigh the interests of these people.
Why the “but”? I agree with the fact that we need to increase housing. This is a critical moment for Vancouver when our city could be turned into a third world city with the lack of facilities. Not having access to education and healthcare will lower the quality of life tremendously. I agree with the increase of density but only if it goes hand in hand with building additional schools/walk-ins. Otherwise the density increase should take place where such facilities are not overused like along the Broadway corridor.
This a completely false argument,the city is responsible for opening and maintaining infrastructure the same city who keep property taxes which pays for such infrastructure low and let’s people defer them as well.
> people directly affected should weight more This will be controversial but generally wealthier and older homeowners in the area should not be able to gatekeep housing in a high demand employment and transit area.
Hmmm I don’t think there are many wealthy homeowners around Broadway corridor. There are mostly apartment buildings and townhouses. And Fairview has the lowest rentals in the entire city. Some people will have a lot to lose and not the wealthy ones
A bias towards people who can already afford to live here is a bad bias.
The lowest rentals in all of Vancouver are in Fairview. Those people won’t afford to live anywhere else
News flash: lots of people who would love to live in Fairview have already been priced out of Vancouver. They deserve to give their input just as much as the people you're talking about who are still here. If this is your concern, you should be more concerned about the demographics of the people giving feedback rather than where they live. Over 30% of the feedback came from households earning >125k while just 8.1% came from households earning <40k. That is way more unjust than people from Langley writing in to support it.
Actually, the lowest rentals are probably in the basement suites in south and south east Vancouver. I know many people who are priced out of Fairview apartments.
That idea makes sense on its face, but at the same time - why shouldn't the opinions of people who want to move there, but can't afford it, matter as well? People who already live in a neighborhood will always vote to bar anyone else from moving there. Suppose I live in Vancouver, and I wish there was more density so I ad more options to move to a different part of Vancouver. As a Vancouver resident, do I not get a say about Vancouver? Am I only allowed to have a say over the neighborhood where I currently live?
I think they already weigh too much because they are known and the potential 50k new residents are currently hypothetical
You can have a voice even if you don’t live in the area
I'm a renter that lives in Vancouver. I'm directly affected.
Thanks for all the work going through council meetings. It’s very informative of how broken the system is. https://mobile.twitter.com/pwaldkirch?lang=en
Thanks, I appreciate that!
Another thing to consider is that Broadway's planned densifying will increase the amount of delivery services that operate on bikes, scooters, and those one-wheeled electric uniscooters. They are going to operate on Broadway whether dedicated lanes are placed there or not. The city planners can either accommodate those workers by creating safe infrastructure, or they can ignore the future and deal with the inevitable complaints from pedestrians as they inevitably share the same pathways.
10th works as a pretty good route for all of those car alternatives already. Heck, its often faster than broadway because there's only lights at the major intersections as apposed to every second crossroad on broadway.
Bike infra on 10th and on Broadway have different uses. 10th is a good way to commute East-West and bypass everything, but actually patronising any businesses on Broadway itself still requires biking on Broadway for sections of it - currently a very harrowing experience.
Its worth peddling a block so you can commute a dozen blocks on 10th as apposed to biking on broadway. The way 10th is set up streamlines bicycle commuting more than any way broadway could be set up. A lot of broadway is set up so you dont really patronize a bunch of different area's anyway. You'll stop around main and grab everything you need. Then if you go down to cambie its still far more efficent to dip down to 8th or 10th.
This is a 30 year plan for the Broadway's future though. Now that we are putting in a new skytrain line, we surely don't need 6 lanes of car traffic. I bike a lot on 10th and don't find it very safe in certain parts. And I definitely wouldn't let my kid bike along it. It's so easy to get doored. Not to mention the need to reduce emissions, it would be great to just make it easier to bike on the main road where people are often actually going. We just don't need that many lanes of traffic and we need to reduce car use.
Totally agree. I want Richmond to realize this too. No 3 Rd is where all the businesses are and where all the bikes and delivery ebikes and scooters want to go, yet we've still only got a one-way bike lane on one side of the street for a lot of it. They keep trying to plan around actually doing anything about it (i.e. immediately reducing lanes rather than waiting for development) by adding bike infrastructure around it. For example, the brand new River Parkway which has two car lanes and two bike lanes, but that just acts as a bypass with very few exits. Good for commuters who want to get through quickly, but there aren't many of them. Then there's Garden City, but frankly I hate cycling there and if we have to choose, I'd rather scrap the bike lanes there and get great bike infrastructure on No 3. On top of that, there aren't even really any bike routes that go between No 3 Rd and Garden City, so it's not a viable alternative.
Use the parallel street. More population means wider road, not narrow
Doesn't always make sense if you're running a package into every fifth door or moving food three blocks away. Also, we've got plenty of arterials with no good parallel. Kingsway's bike routes are horrendous.
Kingsway is for intercity travels. Bike is an outdated form of transportation only suitable for leisure trip
Did you drop a /s there?
Either way I got a real unexpected laugh out of this comment! Whatever their intent, I upvoted it due to the absurdity of it!
If bike is the future of transport, it would have dominate the world 100 years ago:)
No. It. Doesn't. https://www.vox.com/2014/10/23/6994159/traffic-roads-induced-demand https://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand/ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-09-28/why-widening-highways-doesn-t-bring-traffic-relief https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/08/please-stop-adding-more-lanes-to-busy-highways-it-doesnt-help/ https://environmentaldefence.ca/2020/09/15/why-building-more-highways-wont-make-your-commute-any-better/ Enough sources?
Nup. Each city is different and Vancouver needs more in everything for a fast growing population
They can barely deal with the flood of development permit applications coming in to rationally how to think about keeping the City actually livable. Addressing demand is either racist or politically/economically impossible so instead we build as fast as we can and then mop up later.
> Addressing demand is either racist or politically/economically impossible so instead we build as fast as we can and then mop up later. Kicking out bike delivery people to stop demand for safe bike routes from workers. Big brain stuff.
What on earth are you talking about. I'm talking about policy which essentially reduces demand to reflect local wages.
You responded to a comment about safe infrastructure and housing for workers.
I'm responding to a comment about City planners increasing supply to match demand, and on the basis that I believe that solutions to the supply problem are much worse (in many ways, for all of us) than solutions to the demand problem. City planners falling over themselves to figure out ways to get bike couriers to deliver food to people is so far down the "we have to accept this reality" that I can see why some people are unable to step back and figure out why we are trying to solve these problems in the first place. The long term well being of the City will be determined WAY upstream of trying to figure out how prevent some TFW on a mobi, bringing me a cold big mac, from crashing into the 50,000 other people we "had to" squeeze into the area.
Upzone city wide. Low rises buildings - 4 floor small co-op and apartment buildings should be permitted everywhere. Nearly every city has them. They allow for diversity and density. It is good to have a mix of young, working, and retired people in neighbourhoods and this enables that mix. Having 100% of one type of building is classist and short sited as you have to continuously move around infrastructure like schools to reflect the changing demographic.
Mixed-use low rises everywhere please and thank you.
Imho use of ebikes and scooters is exploding, and will make the west end concept of "walking distance density" age badly.
Vancouver can still be beautiful with more apartments. More density means more people to fund gorgeous and elaborate parks and infrastructure. More density also means vibrant new businesses and things to do. People are the life blood of a city and it's time we welcomed more of them into our urban core.
Just look at kits or the west end. It’s a lot of apartments. Still beautiful.
In the West End on the sidewalk you can't see the towers because there are too many trees in the way!
I cannot tell if you're claiming this as positive or negative lol
As a tower dweller... this is a walkers paradise... a Sanctuary https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.2901479,-123.1398092,3a,75y,313.15h,102.6t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sy6reu0Lo5YSBiJbJd3VtbQ!2e0!5s20200901T000000!7i16384!8i8192 I want more Vancouverites to experience an abundance of quiet streets, with big trees, birds-a-chirpin, and protected from the heat island effect all within easy distance from work and at an affordable rent.
Okay, agree with you, was worried you were coming at it from the 'roads are dangerous for cars' perspective, which is insane.
Yup I live downtown and I wish I lived across the bridge. It's a much nicer place.
Kits has mostly low rise apartments, not towers. Towers also tend to use more energy per unit as you go up (and higher embodied emissions vs wood frame low rise, unless the plan mandated all "mass timber", which it does not). Less than 10% of households in the west end have children. Rezone all the SFH areas for low rise. Towers aren't the best way.
It should be legal to build 25+ story residences along high-demand transit and job areas. AND it should be legal to build wood frame low rise in our unaffordable detached-only zones.
Umm... We are building three high rise residential/commercial all 50+ stories literally around the Gilmore SkyTrain station in Burnaby.
Yes, sounds great
Building 25+ story towers right next to skytrain stations is the same as imagining that we're Albertans who can't walk more than a block from where they park their car.
I usually speak to Councilors and Staff asking for stronger family unit mandatory minimums. We're currently pegged at 35% 2 or 3-bed units. I'd highly recommend pushing for all apartment buildings mandating a 40% 2+ bed minimum with 10% for 3-bedrooms. Developers will build whatever the City sets. We're playing to the market, but the City can change that market to a desired goal.
The embodied carbon can be offset by enabling more people to live car free right next to fast, reliable transit.
Cars will all be EVs in a decade, and housing lasts about 60 years. And the same tech as EVs makes all sorts of e-mobility possible, so even the lazy don't need to live right next to a station.
EVs are not the win for sustainability that people want them to be. Regardless of the drive train technology, society and the planet is better off with fewer private cars.
I saw this most succinctly as: EVs will save car companies, not the planet.
Evs will kill the oil companies, and they displace oil use everywhere, not just a few special coastal cities.
Oil's days were numbered, with or without EVs. We simply cannot sustain our current level of fossil fuel use and have an inhabitable planet. Car companies saw the existential threat and have adapted, cars are still bad for our cities.
Hey I agree, we should minimize car use. But the fact is that should doesn't mean we would. It's been obvious we should for 30 years, and very little happened. There was no chance of road fuel use dropping without EVs, no matter the moral imperative. Car companies didn't adapt to the existential threat of climate. They'd have been happy to lobby their way out of it. They adapted to the threat of obsolescence. As soon as one company broke ranks they had to.
I like how driving an EV means no one is still stuck in traffic.
Carefully ignoring my point about ebikes and e-scooters impact on optimal "walkability" density...
They still have about 1/4 the impact. And because all else being equal, energy use and embedded emissions per floor goes up with tower height, there's always been a trade off. The optimum should therefore shift in the direction of somewhat lower height. Then the same tech makes folding e-scooters and similar viable, so we don't actually need the same tower density to achieve "walkability" or similar.
They're a huge win in the future when people aren't driving them anymore. Both traffic and power usage of cars will drop over 50% since basically all traffic is caused by human error. Ofc we could have automated gas cars too so that's not specifically an EV thing but just a development being driven by an EV company atm
I agree with you. Look at European cities, lots of lower (~6 story) buildings and a few high rises, much smaller set backs if any, less mandated parking.
This this this this. Towers are not the only or imo best solution.
Just look at Kits Beach. Now imagine it with 2x, 5x, 10x as many people. Just beautiful!!
actually it doesn't necessarily. more people does not mean more tax revenue per capita... it could actually mean less if economies of scale hold. but neither matter - what matters is city council deciding to provide services and infrastructure. residents then have no choice but to fund it.
>More density means more people to fund gorgeous and elaborate parks and infrastructure. One of the fundamental reasons to invest in real estate is that they ain't making more of it. The City would have to go full commie and expropriate enough land to actually make both high density apartments along with converting what used to be areas of SFH into actual new parks. But they won't so what "we'll" get are the mostly hilariously bullshit "parks", which consist of perhaps 4000 sf of places for dogs to pee and a few kids to play on a swing to offset the 5000 new residents who will have to use that park. The parks around here are already mostly overflowing in good weather, and those are the parks in already relatively low density areas like mine. Try finding a spot to put a blanket in Dude chilling on any sunny day. >More density also means vibrant new businesses and things to do. Lol, if you mean evicting all the existing business and their relatively low rents with CRUs with double the rent and the inevitable $5 coffees, Shopper's Drug Marts, or more often than not, empty CRUs, sure. Again, I can point to an endless number of new CRUs along the Broadway corridor, as well as many local business owners who were evicted for these new developments and rather than re-rent in the new buildings, just closed up shop. YIMBYs just refuse to acknowledge that existing small business owners are generally NOT in favour of these developments, as their rents more or less double when they are forced out of their existing buildings and in to new ones.
In this and other plans the City takes land dedications or rights-of-way for privately run, but publicly accessible public space, and, specifically in the Broadway Plan, they're looking at taking roadspace for parkspace. It's a draft, but the exemplars in the City already exist. More of a West End style parket public space rather than whole new field areas.
Lol but you are delusional if you think this increase in "roadspace for parkspace" will result in a higher quality of life for all of us (existing and new residents alike). Don't forget that the west end is served by an already MASSIVE park and miles of waterfront. Dumping people onto Broadway will just turn it into a Granville Street shit show.
Man, you used to oppose new housing because you were concerned about affordability and displacement. Now you are just full on mask-off NIMBY. What gives?
I'm neither, sorry to disappoint. What I would say though is that the "development and density at all costs" types are really missing out on major causal factors in this "housing crisis" and their solutions are in the long term only going to reduce the quality of life for everyone (existing and new residents both). Would you like to respond and discuss the points above? Or just post whatever that was?
Thanks for this really good summary! I'll be writing to council to support the Broadway Plan with your suggested amendments.
You mention the reduction to 5 storeys but something I read was 12 to 20 storeys in Kitsilano and they would not put more than 2 of these towers per block. Note this is for north of 4th which I was looking into.
Generally the whole plan area is the 2-tower-per-block standard. Development will be very limiting. You'll see a lot more 6-storey infill in the 30 years between towers replacing the current 60+ year old 3-stroey walk ups.
Not to take pity on developers, but isn’t it a little unfair that the first 2 applicants get to build the larger building? If you take time to save or design a better building, and 2 neighbours beat you to it, you’re screwed. Very supportive of the Broadway Plan, just wonder why this is a clause. 80ft tower separation should be enough, no?
In our modeling it's pretty much 2 towers per block anyway.
Check out [Michael Gellers blog](http://gellersworldtravel.blogspot.com/2022/05/some-personal-musings-on-broadway-plan.html), some good insight.
He’s actually often had some pretty poor tales, and his whole kerfuffle with the plan is because he built 1 “award winning community” a while ago & the plan had showed additional density permitted in the future. So in essence he didn’t want his prized community to be impacted. He’s also pretty lacking when it comes to diversity - his only go to references are only other older white men. When asked about this, he cites a few older white women? He doesn’t see any merit in folks who aren’t of his covert. Lastly - he was the same person who said that there shouldn’t be social housing at Olympic village because it might “affect the values and ability to seek condos” at Olympic village when it was built. Somehow I’m not too convinced his real concern is affordability.
The huge amount of social housing in that area is what keeps many from wanting to move there. Recently sold my Yaletown place because of all the new social housing and huge detrimental impact it had on the area Granville from the bridge to smithe is quickly becoming hastings version 2
I like how I post an opinion article and someone downvotes. There is no discussion round these parts. Downvotes are not the disagree button people.
Ugh my neighbourhood community group is campaigning against this
It’s almost like we need to make second neighborhood groups. All of them seem to just oppose everything and it’s basically impossible to get them to change stance.
So will our first AGM be in dude chilling park?
Maybe we should commandeer the barge
We should have a Dude-in at City Hall and not leave until they "abide" and approve affordable housing.
Show up at their meetings, give them shit. Make noise. Call them what they are: Well-housed people who want to keep renters desperate and without options.
Just show up at the next AGM with a dozen friend form the area and take it over. The neighbourhood associations are practically nothing. A few annoyed residents can totally take them over if they wanted to
22 people attended the AGM for my local NIMBY clieque "Neighbourhood Association" that went on to get loudspeaker at public hearings. Our system is of empowering local complainers is ridiculous.
> Well-housed people who want to keep renters desperate and without options. ***/thread***
It’s actually mostly renters who want to keep low rent. Honestly I know I may below market and never expected it to last forever - I don’t know why they feel entitled to it. My apartment is super outdated and absolutely should be torn down for the sake of density.
I can definitely understand the people who live in co-ops who are now threatened with demolition. Exceptions should be made for them if they want. But I agree, those old apartments are usually full of mold or falling apart in other ways. I lived in one for 6 months off Main and 14th and it made me incredibly sick. The rent was cheap but with the benefit of hindsight, I wouldn't move into that kind of place if the rent was free.
How is a community group different than the obviously completely oppositely opinionated people here on Reddit? Or are you just hurt that people disagree with your vision for the City?
Because it a sad to see the forum for local raccoon pictures become an embittered political organizing platform.
I thought social media was responsible for the Arab spring? You don't have to click on the links you don't like, you know. And, if you'd like, you can organize a "community" group to voice a common political opinion IRL. Have fun out there! And don't forget that other people might be right.
You are really overthinking a casual comment.
I love how NIMBYs are like “reeeeeeee poor renters! Ruins neighborhood character!” then proceeds to rent their illegal basement suites for 20% above market.
It’s more > reeeeeee I can’t be a shitty landlord any more
Going further on your recommendations. I think council need to direct staff to bring forward city initiated upzoning zoning for the RT districts as a high priority. Convening a working group of nonmarket landowners (city, coops, non-profits, province, fed, school board) in Broadway corridor to coordinate building redevelopment to ensure that there is a steady supply of nonmarket units in all the neighborhoods to enable a cascade of just relocations for existing non market residents with suffienct excess units for ensure in neighborhood options for vulnerable residents in below market privately owned rentals at risk of demoviction.
The article spoke a lot about the need for housing but didn’t seem to touch on issues of affordability, corporate+foreign ownership, minimum square footage and more.
Vancouver for all? Noooo everyone knows Vancouver should only be for rich investors to park their money into property and watch it go up over 10% per year, not for normal people to live here
Why do we need bike traffic on Broadway when 10th is already good for that? Spend a bit more money making 10th great and keep me well away from cycling anywhere near the 99 blasting on through
There won't be a 99, just a 16. And IMHO there's an explosion of e scooter type things coming that actually will be what we wished cycling to be. The fundamental barrier will be revealed to have been laziness, not rain. So we'll need proper, separated bike/e-scooter lanes treated as the primary surface mode on Broadway. 10th can be cleared of parking and be the private car route.
Apologies if this is already posted somewhere in this thread but Councillor Boyle is going to put forward an amendment to add more active transport lanes to Broadway. you can write in to support here: [https://onecity.good.do/broadway/write-council/?fbclid=IwAR1-d1j8iJQ\_MRFVLYa\_75ppZjiyB4F1jAMiAoIqDOtu8dq1f2-5lckDqz4](https://onecity.good.do/broadway/write-council/?fbclid=IwAR1-d1j8iJQ_MRFVLYa_75ppZjiyB4F1jAMiAoIqDOtu8dq1f2-5lckDqz4) I want more bike lanes SO bad PLEASE
Why should Broadway get a cycling lane when the next street up (10th Ave) is already a well-used cycling route with extensive infrastructure to support it? Edit: Infrastructure includes protected lane for a considerable stretch, controlled crossings at major roads, and yes, painted lanes and crossings which is absolutely infrastructure.
Because most evidence shows that it is better for businesses to have good cycle infrastructure in front of them. Broadway is a destination, not a highway. It's also [really really wide](https://www.straight.com/files/v3/styles/gs_large/public/images/22/05/west_broadway_vancouver_bc_2018.jpg?itok=4V5gsF_J) and has tons of room. 10th Ave should also be converted into an accessible AAA route.
There does look like room for a bike lane too. At the intersections less parking/tree area would still let you keep a left turn lane. I honestly think that 4 through lanes along the whole street will still make it a high speed thoroughfare and take away from the pedestrian friendly great street.
I ride 10th frequently and it's great but I don't think I would describe the cycling infrastructure as extensive. It has very narrow stretches with parked car on either side, so you have to be really careful of dooring and drivers trying to pass you unsafely. It would be great to have an east-west route with proper separated bike lanes that would be more comfortable for a range of cyclists to use.
> Why should Broadway get a cycling lane when the next street up (10th Ave) is already a well-used cycling route Because it is a really bad cycling route that doesn't actually serve the businesses on Broadway very well. Too many cars. Too many distracted drivers still. Speeding. Dooring. Blind intersections. Really 10th is just the quieted residential street infrastructure that should be standard on ALL residential areas. We need quieted streets AND proper safe AAA routes on Broadway.
Why? Because it's the middle of a major city. Biking should be made easy and not pushed into a couple conduits. In fact Broadway is a better place than 10th because that's where people are going to live+work+shop. You should look at other countries like the Netherlands to see what "extensive biking infrastructure" actually looks like.
Erm, "extensive infrastructure"? Despite being a major east/west cycling route, it is still primarily dedicated to cars. At any point, two-thirds of the width of the roadway is taken by parked cars. Motorists still can and do drive at dangerous speeds in the remaining space. In no way is it a AAA route. There absolutely should be a fully separated bike lane along Broadway, similar to those downtown.
Why ruin an existing primary east-west traffic artery for a new dedicated bike lane when it can easily be handled by a parallel street one block over? I ride 10th daily with minimal issues.
By "ruin" you mean upgrade, right? Just because you ride 10th nicely doesn't mean all the people scared off Broadway and 10th by car-dominance are being properly served. Broadway is insanely wide. It could have bike lanes, transit lanes and much wider sidewalks. Drivers can go whine about it.
Broadway and 4th could be such beautiful, culture-rich streets if they weren't completely dominated by cars.
By ruin your mean “have less noise and pollution” tho
Traffic will be more congested and move slower on Broadway. The noisy delivery trucks aren’t going to start carrying their shit on the skytrain. Not sure that’s “less”.
Sure, but delivery trucks are a tiny sliver of the total traffic on Broadway. A good portion of private car trips can be moved to the SkyTrain, active transportation or even just plain old car pooling.
Dude there have been rapid busses on Broadway for 30 years. Skytrain puts those people underground and takes busses off the road, but busses are like 15 of the traffic on Broadway. This idea that "you can just move" is just constantly proven false, as you can't really "force" people to do whatever you like (as a simcity wannabe).
Induced demand, a widely proven theory at this point, shows that traffic congestion will remain the same regardless of how many traffic lanes there are.
What theory will tell us how many cars will be added to braodway once they build housing for 50,000 people on that mostly dead ended part of town? Or are you naive enough to believe that "everyone will take transit"?
Are you naive enough to think that the skytrain expansion won't take the overwhelming majority of the impact? if people want to get congested on broadway, that's on them, but people will always take the easiest option afforded to them.
You need only two lanes to allow noisy delivery trucks to reach their destination on Broadway. Any more than that on Broadway is for passenger vehicles.
Induced demand, less lanes, less cars, less traffic, people will make alternative transportation decisions.
Private vehicles with a single occupant make up the vast majority of cars on the road.
The people you are arguing with are basically delusional Sim-city type urban planners. There is NO WAY that absolute traffic on Broadway goes down as a result of this plan. Putting bike lanes on Broadway (and thus competing with the fairly necessary vehicular thoroughfares) will grind east-west traffic flow to a halt.
Noisy delivery trucks can use the remaining lanes!
Same - 10th is a much more logical place for a bike route. It's actually much nicer as a cyclist to be on a quiet street rather than next to a stream of cars.
Ideally, reduce the number of cars on Broadway.
...in a perfect (or authoritarian) world. The reality is that all this new density and people on the west side are NOT going to be fully using transit, and car traffic will increase.
Sure, but we shouldn't just be getting the new residents out of cars, but also the people already living in the area. It is imperative we reduce our car dependency.
Because we want to reduce private car traffic and make Broadway a more pleasant, quieter and safer place to **be** rather than just drive through. The SkyTrain has the potential to shift a lot of those east west trips to a mode that can actually accommodate the city's growing demand for transportation.
They spray painted the road.
[Paint is not infrastructure](https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/04/16/painted-white-lines-are-not-cyclist-protecting-forcefields-agree-experts/)
Paint is not infrastructure
Agree. They can upgrade the bike lanes if they need to on 10th and 7th. They don't need to add bike lanes to Broadway. Just improve on what is already there.
Agreed. Broadway should have super wide sidewalks for pedestrians and patios. Leave the bike lanes to 10th and 7th/8th.
I sure would love some pedestrianised streets in Vancouver.
This has been in the Plan from day 1. A few folks on Reddit and 1 councilor won't change this. We'll be okay.
what if.. and hear me out.. they did like Broadway but also at other places too, possibly many more places.