With little brush fires of community resistance to new projects breaking out here and there, city council is being kept busy. The West End is, of course, a major forest fire at this point, meriting its own advisory committee.
In Marpole, where there is a massive project planned for Marine and Cambie, more towers planned for the Safeway lot at Granville and 70th, and just generally more, things are building up.
So Raymond Louie is introducing a motion at council tomorrow that, to help deal with a lot of “misinformation” floating around the community, the city will hold two public events in September. (Sounds sort of like what the city did with the West End in April, as planners were sent out to talk about the rental-housing-incentive program and the specific buildings being proposed through it.)
The problem with all of these meetings, as people who work in community engagement will say, is that they’re coming so far down the road. The later communities get pulled into discussions about projects, the harder it is to convince them it wasn’t all some massive plot.
61 responses so far ↓
1 Bill McCreery // Jul 25, 2010 at 3:04 pm
30″ high concrete planters examples of the above within the 66′ r.o.w. can be experienced in Penticton & Nelson on their main drags. They are typically @ corners + mid=block & create a good pedestrian sidewalk zone.
With 10′ more wonders could be achieved along the full length of each block. In addition, traffic would move better, fewer pedestrians would be minced, a separated bike lane could be part of all this. The mind boggles!
There is a Vancouver solution here. We love to combine more generous ‘soft’ landscaping with the ‘hard’ bits here & our climate loves us for doing it. Such improvements really would celebrate an important part of what Vancouver is all about.
2 Lewis N. Villegas // Jul 25, 2010 at 11:15 pm
“Lewis. You certainly are a trove of ideas & info”
Bill, we’re posting on the “Sunday Magazine Edition” of the Bula Blog so, there is need to be entertaining. It cheers me up to hear you doodling on the idea of private lots “releasing” the first 10-feet of land to the public R.O.W. as part of an intensification scheme that might deliver as much as 10x more density over the single family house. Our presentation of just this concept went 747 over the FormShift panel.
“fundamental component — the economic model which would allow your dreams to be realized.”
Well, there are two big things to pay for, so let’s take them one at a time.
1. Land—here I am no expert.
The intensification could proceed as an “overlay zoning”. If you meet the criteria, then your project can qualify for the 10x increase in density. Would it be possible to have the applicant simply “sign over” the first 10 feet of his lot in the rezoning process? I wonder.
If “land for free” seems undemocratic, the second question that arises is in what market would the value of the land be calculated for fair compensation? The single family residential market, or the fee-simple zero-lot-line? If the former, the land would be had at a hefty discount.
Finally, there is everybody’s favourite. Use the “land lift” to pay for it. Essentially tax-back the increase in land value to the project, and use those revenues to pay for the land. 10-feet of a 122.5-foot lot is 8%, so we are not talking a great deal of money.
2. The Transportation—not an expert either.
The opinion among some transportation analysts is that implementing BRT/LRT on streets that already have heavy bus service would not increase operating costs. Obviously, there would be some capital costs up front for construction of the R.O.W., erecting medians, installing signage and stations, planting trees, etc.
However, there would also be significant improvements in trip length by having the BRT/LRT running in the middle of the street, with signal control. Those would be important measures for luring additional passengers out of their cars, and increasing ridership and revenues.
“With 10′ more wonders could be achieved along the full length of each block.”
Note that most of our “arterials” are more than 66-feet wide, and sections of Cambie are significantly wider. Our arterial R.O.W.s are either 80 or 99 feet wide (the later 1.5 chain).
With 10-foot contributions from either side, those arterials could become 100 and 119 feet wide. Consider that Broadway and Hastings today are only 99-feet wide.
If we want to build human-scaled urbanism, then at a 1 : 2 aspect ratio, widening the street by 2 x 10-feet or 20 feet, means that the buildings on either side can add an extra storey, or an additional 10 feet.
That additional density “bonus”, of course, is something that can be captured back in part, or in whole. This might also be part of the formula for “buying back the land”.
3 Bill McCreery // Jul 26, 2010 at 10:34 am
F0r starters the 10′ precident is the 10′ lane dedication for properties without a lane. If the owner wants to get permits they have to dedicate half the lane r.o.w. to the City. They are allowed to use the original site area to calculate FSR, so no financial loss.
A similar front yard exercise could work. There might have to be a below grade allowance for underground parking in the dedicated setback in some sites [120′ typical property depth can allow 2 double loaded rows of parking].
But, let’s get back to what this post is about. I & FB said in 4 above:
“& as FB has said, ‘to little, to late’. This committee is just another coverup to try to obfsicate the process until they slip it through.”
That is what appears to be going on. “To little, to late”. @ this point the only course for this Council to regain some credibility is to call a stop to these spot rezonings. Once neighbourhoods have their own plans development proposals can be considered.
4 Sean Bickerton // Jul 26, 2010 at 12:03 pm
Mr. Villegas, Thank you for these extraordinarily thought-through posts. I’ve sent you an email to see if we could talk directly.
Thanks
sean
FYI, I’ve published a post today on my blog about public consultation.
5 Lewis N. Villegas // Jul 26, 2010 at 7:25 pm
The lane dedication is a great precedent, Bill. The ability to preserve the 120-foot dimension for below grade parking will be a great benefit for the building types that are not fee-simple. If this works, we can get 10-foot dedication to the R.O.W. as part of neighbourhood intensification at no real cost to the City, at a great benefit to the community, and at a benefit to the property owner.
Win, win, win. We can build consensus on that.
That leaves the problem of how to fund the public consultation part of the process, including charrettes and drawing the urban codes.
My suggestion is to use T.I.F. (Tax Increment Financing). The idea is that the local government “borrows against growth”. A portion of the development levies, and the new property taxes to be collected in the future as the neighbourhood intensifies, is set aside to pay off a 10 or 20 year bond.
Others have argued that governments can borrow more cheaply from sources other than the bond market. However, U.S. jurisdictions that have the ability to do T.I.F.s use them as a matter of fact. They are never the whole story in financing development or transportation, but they are typically found to be one component of the package.
What I like about it is that it ties-in realizing growth with planning for growth. Rather than the “To little, to late”, this concretizes a neighbourhood vision in advance of developers investing energy and resources into visioning deals one site at a time (Frances’s point).
It also puts the right people behind the steering wheel. Neighbours get to decide how neighbourhoods will change. All that talk about NIMBY, I’ve been surprised to see, never enters the room. People are interested in making changes, and people are delighted when we put words to the deficiencies that so clearly, and so often, greet us when we get out in our neighbourhoods, especially when we leave the tank behind.
6 Bill McCreery // Jul 26, 2010 at 9:52 pm
@Lewis. I am reluctant to borrow against the future of anything. While I would be willing to have such a scenario examined, I would keep an open mind.
Let’s not lose sight of what’s happening here. We have a non-functional planning process that has gone off the rails because of bad decisions & bad management. Based on my experience in Vancouver, all 3 of those can be fixed but, not by this bunch.
7 Jo-Anne Pringle // Jul 27, 2010 at 6:30 pm
Peter Ladner – I was somewhat disappointed by your comment. If you’ve been watching closely, the folks in Marpole aren’t saying don’t develop here and we aren’t saying don’t densify – this project came to us with one pretty picture and then was quietly switched to another much larger and much less attractive design – with no picture, details or announcement. The public process quietly stepped by us and we now find ourselves battling to get process to come back to our neighbourhood. Marpole is going to be hit with a large amount of redevelopment which will completely alter our neighbhourhood. Whether this volume of redevelopment were taking place in Marpole, Kits, Cedar Cottage, Champlain or Kerrisdale, it only seems fair that the people who already live there, be let in on the real plan. Certain neighbourhoods seem to be looking at relatively small amounts of redevelopment, such as the very small redevelopment at the Choices on West 57th and West Boulevard. Since they are rebuilding at least half of that strip mall, that would have been a perfect opportunity to put up 24 stories and really densify over there. But it looks like two to three stories seems to be the limit in that neck of the woods. So you’re right, if certain neighbourhoods feel that they shouldn’t be subject to towers (or SkyTrains), then we will never have a truly green city. I’m sure our neighbourhood could get revved up and cheer for density – if only someone would be willing to be honest with us about that density in the first place. The issue in Marpole isn’t density – it’s about honesty, transparency and a public process that is real.
8 Angus Wong // Jul 29, 2010 at 10:03 am
@Jo-Anne Pringle: I am also a resident of Marpole and whole-heartedly agree with your sentiments. I’m not opposed to density either; I only wish it didn’t feel like the developers and the City were pulling the wool over our eyes! Part of me feels like they were trying to push it through to see if it could happen; if it weren’t for good folks like yourself who’ve stepped up to the plate, we could have ended up with a disaster in our own neighborhood.
9 Jo-Anne Pringle // Aug 10, 2010 at 11:10 pm
@Angus Wong – thanks for your support. I have met and spoken with so many Marpole residents in this past while – and all echo your comments about feeling as though there was an attempt to pull the wool over their eyes. There is an incredible lack of trust between residents and “the partners” in development. I have never been involved in battling public process before and despite the wool – my eyes have really been opened since I began this venture. Please stay in touch Angus – your voice in this process is much needed!
10 rob sandhu // Sep 16, 2010 at 9:25 am
Where is the Community Vision Plan for Marpole?
11 Mike // Oct 8, 2010 at 12:41 pm
This isn’t being done in the interest of the public, that’s for sure. It’s all about money in this city and any politician that will tell you otherwise is getting a nice piece of the pie in one way or another. Marpole is one of the last affordable neighborhoods in Vancouver, and it’s already plenty dense with apartment buildings. Let the working class people that live here keep their dignity. You greedy developers start colonizing the area with your unseemly towers, sell 400sf condos for $400K then a bunch of rich Asian folks fill up the place, I know how it goes. Then the people of Marpole lose their Safeway for who knows how long. Developers, leave things the way they are and stop running this city into the ground with your greed.