Others may waste their time raising children, tending gardens, or hiking the Coast Mountains, but for true urban wonks, there’s nothing more satisfying than seminars, open houses, and lectures about urban issues. A treasure trove this week.

June 5, 7 and 9: Open houses to look at the Vancouver city staff recommendations on removing the viaducts and re-organizing the land use in Northeast False Creek (and more explanations of those slides from their websites that, to the people like me who score low on visual-comprehension tests, are hard to understand). Evening sessions.

June 6: Also on the theme of older bridge-like structures we could rethink is the community forum on imaginative re-uses of the Pattullo Bridge, with speakers Gordon Price, SFU prof Anthony Perl, and New West city engineer Jerry Behl, organized in part by Daniel Fontaine of CityCaucus and Sam Sullivan chief of staff fame. It’s in the evening, so you could attend it after a full day at the event below.

June 6: The Urban Forum: Fourth Wave Urban Reform being organized by former mayor Sam Sullivan and his Global Civic Policy Society. Speakers include urban thinker rock star Edward Glaeser, former mayor of Bogota and guru of urbanists Gil Penalosa, and more. All day long

Are you knocked over by strollers every time you step out your door? Or do you find it hard to find a clothing outlet that caters to an under-60 set? Does the place empty out as everyone heads to work in the morning? Or does it come to life during the day, with everyone out puttering and toddler-minding?

As the census numbers roll out showing where the seniors, babies and worker bees are, I couldn’t help but think of my own neighbourhood and how young it feels these days. There is a stroller parade in this east Mount Pleasant neighbourhood every day. Plus lots of 20-somethings.

While the mournful news stories say the young are being driven out of the city, that’s not true here. Whether they’re doing it by living six to a house, getting money from the Bank of M&D, or they all secretly work as hedge-fund investors (while disguised in flannel shirts and toques), I don’t know, but there are loads of young adults in the ‘hood, thrilling oldsters like me with their enthusiasm for block parties and community projects of all descriptions.

It feels quite different from even a few years ago and hugely different from my previous, further-east neighbourhood. There, I had a feeling of complete security because the block was guarded 24/7 by the Italian, Serbian, and other retirees who spent the day in their gardens or the alley keeping an eye on everything. My neighbours would invite to get in on the seniors’ special at Swiss Chalet with them. but not exactly Yummy Mummy territory and teens seemed weirdly absent.

The Mount Pleasant vibe is also quite different from west-side neighbourhoods in Vancouver, where the numbers of children are steadily going down and the average age is going up. Young friends who live there say they feel isolated, marooned in a sea of businesses that cater to a more sedate set. (More detailed census-tract data should be proving that out in detail, when it arrives.)

That plays out across the region, with places like Abbotsford, Surrey and Mission booming with kids, while North Van, which was a teen heaven when I grew up there, slowly morphs into a retirement home.

I know city planners consciously look for ways to create balance in the city, so that it’s not so lopsided like this. But it seems as though they’re making slow headway. Which is too bad. I’d love to have more of those guard-dog seniors in my area again and I’m sure a few more kids, teens and young families on the west side would be welcomed.

Curious to know how others are experienced the population pyramid in their pocket of the region? Who’s your dominant age group?

Chicago is setting a new goal of trying to achieve zero traffic fatalities, the most ambitious of any North American city. But, as this story notes, that’s easier said than done.

Back here in Vancouver, no one has set a zero-fatality target but the city’s engineering department, with the help of UBC’s pioneering traffic-management research, is trying to figure out the most effective ways of preventing pedestrian-car collisions. As it turns out, some things you would think might work don’t (flashing yellows, speed-indicator boards, signs advertising pedestrian crossings), while others, no more expensive, do.

My story in the Globe takes a look at some of the science behind the city’s recent report on improving pedestrian safety.

Tangentially, the conflict-analysis technique that UBC prof Tarek Sayed refers to in this story was used to analyze why the number of car-bike crashes rose at Pacific and Burrard after the separated bike lanes were introduced. Turned out that it was because cars, in spite of signs telling them they couldn’t, were still trying to turn right from Burrard onto Pacific. The city is making an adjustment to that corner to make it much harder for a car to turn right, which should bring the crash rate back down.

Many school districts in the province are having to close schools. Few are building. One is Surrey. The other is B.C.’s francophone school board, which currently operates 35 schools around the province, from Prince George to Revelstoke (as of this fall) to Victoria to Vancouver.

Their rapid growth means they’re in negotiations with the city for a site at the Olympic Village, which Premier Christy Clark announced the funding for last fall, along with efforts to find a new site for a fourth elementary school on the city’s west side, improvements to the school in Port Coquitlam, and plans for new schools in Victoria and Revelstoke.

Contrary to what many might think, the system is not just attracting Quebeckers or francophones from New Brunswick. It’s also become a magnet for immigrants from the many countries around the world (many former colonies) that use French as an official language. There are about 70 second languages among the school population.

My story here explores this phenomenon a little more.

[Read more →]

Unbeknownst to most in the media, TransLink’s mayors’ council had a section that was open to the public at the beginning of its meeting Tuesday. That’s where CEO Ian Jarvis made a presentation on the latest belt-tightening news from the agency.

Which is: gas-tax revenues are tapped out, with the result that new gas taxes aren’t bringing in any more money because people are cutting down on their gas purchases t compensate for the higher prices.

So that means TransLink is now facing:

– $30-40 million a year less than projected for the next three years because of those lower gas-tax revenues

– $30-million a year missing for expansions of service because of the province refusing to consider new fees or levies and mayors refusing to add more onto property taxes

– $20-million a year missing that was supposed to come from fare increases that Transportation Commissioner Martin Crilly nixed for at least this year.

As a result, as Jarvis told the meeting, the already existing plan to sell the Oakridge bus barn will use the sale proceeds just to help pay for the system’s operating costs, instead of to finance other needed capital projects down the road. Although TransLink had envisioned back in 2009 possibly having to use the sale proceeds to finance operating costs, that  plan faded to the background as new revenue streams were anticipated to come in.

But with the financial picture looking bad again, Jarvis reminded mayors that the money from the sale of Oakridge, along with other properties, will be needed for the basic operating budget just to prevent TransLink from depleting its surplus and going into a negative position by 2014.

Mayors were dismayed by that news, to say the least, as I report here.

If you want to look at a really sad graphic that explains it all, check out Jarvis’s Appendix A presentation to the board here.

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The official posting for the general manager of planning and development: http://vancouver.ca/humanresources/jobs/pdf/GMPlanningDevelopment.pdf

Capitalizing on its success in hosting the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games,
Vancouver has firmly established its reputation as one of the world’s most liveable
cities. That reputation reflects, in large measure, Vancouver’s exceptional
achievements in urban planning and design, achievements in addressing the
homelessness challenge and aggressive pursuit of its goal to become the Greenest City in
the world by 2020. Looking into the future, dynamic and committed leadership will be
an essential contributor to Vancouver’s continued renown as a City that cares about its
people, the environment and opportunities for economic prosperity.
This role presents a unique opportunity to lead the City of Vancouver’s planning and
development services functions. Reporting to the City Manager and working closely with
the Mayor and City Council, the General Manager, Planning and Development is a
member of the City’s executive team and shares responsibility for overall stewardship of
the corporate strategic plan. The role will also encompass the statutory responsibilities
of the Director of Planning.
Advancing bold objectives for sustainability, liveability and affordability, and working
within the regional context, the ideal candidate will have the proven capacity to lead
high-profile, complex projects. Collaboration, both within the City organization and
with a wide range of external stakeholders, will be fundamental to your success. You
also bring strong business acumen and change management capabilities to deliver on a
mandate for transformation of the processes and technologies supporting the City’s
primary revenue-generating business.
Along with your relevant subject matter expertise and record of executive-level
accomplishment, your inspiring leadership style, relationship skills and ability to thrive
in a rapidly-evolving environment will serve you well in this extraordinary role.
A competitive compensation package will be provided including an attractive salary and
excellent benefits.
Please provide a cover letter and resume in confidence by June 15
th
, 2012 to:
Paul Mochrie General Manager, Human Resources, [email protected]

My narrow-focus little Twitterverse has been filled the last few weeks with heart-warming blips of news about the community planning processes in Marpole, Grandview-Woodlands and the West End.

There are story-telling sessions and walk-abouts and more, as enthusiastic planners and residents go about imagining the future of these negibhourhhods.

It’s great you all are doing that, but a word of warning to all.

This is pretty much what happened in Mount Pleasant five years ago. The first of the older neighbourhoods to get a re-planning process, Mount Pleasant had months of community meetings where residents walked around the area with planners and made finely detailed plans about what interesting retail areas they wanted to maintain or expand, where the natural meeting and walking points were, what they envisioned for the future of their neighbourhood, based on its rich past.

It was a beautiful thing to hear about, as I did through various messages from residents and the city.

But, to many, that lovely fairytale castle of possibility became a smoking heap of ruins at the plans’ first test: the Rize project at Broadway and Kingsway.

In spite of considerable opposition from the community over many aspects of the project — the form, the height, the inclusion or non-inclusion of neighbourhood benefits in the building — councillors approved the tower, largely on the basis of what they said the community plan had established. Which was that the Rize project was on one of three sites where the community had said it was willing to consider extra height and density if it fit with the neighbourhood.

The problem that I saw arise at council over this was two-fold.

1. There seemed to be many different interpretations of what “willing to consider” meant. To people in the community, it meant that they got a kind of veto power over projects. A developer could come forward with something, yes. But, in their minds, the community had the right to decide whether it fit the neighbourhood. They would act, in a way, the way the urban-design panel does when considering tall buildings that exceed the normal zoning — a special panel decides whether that tall building is beautiful, sustainable, beneficial enough to be worth breaking the usual rules for.

Councillors and other proponents, however, seemed to interpret the community plan to mean: The neighbourhood said height and density were okay here, so that means we can put a tower in. Maybe with some adjustments, but they told us this spot was okay and we’re going for it. (I’ve also heard them say that since no one came out to object when the official Mount Pleasant community plan was passed, they must have been okay with it. But that doesn’t take into account that perhaps many of them felt they would have more of a say in any major projects that were proposed, so they didn’t feel a need to go to war over the plan.)

2. The process ended up putting the planning department at odds with the community. Because the whole community plan largely rested on the planners’ summary of what they heard from residents, incorporated into the plan, the fight in subsequent real-life rezonings becomes muddied with much blame put on the planning department for misrepresenting the community’s wishes.

And it’s hard to know, without more concrete language in the plans or an actual vote or a number count or something objective, whether it’s a case of the planners accurately reflecting what the community said at the time, but when the rezoning happens, only the opponents come out or whether it’s a case of the planners accurately reflecting what the community said at the time, but when the rezoning happens, there’s been a change of opinion because there’s a whole new group of people who’ve moved in. Or whether it’s a case of the planners not catching that the residents thought they would have more of a say in deciding whether a new building fits in.

In any case, if something isn’t changed about the community-plan process between Mount Pleasant and these other three now in the works, it’s stormy waters ahead.

I hope the residents in those three areas are vigilant about the language that gets used and what the outcomes will be from development ideas that they agree to “consider.”

Planners could help too, by spelling out exactly what the community plan can and can’t do when future rezonings and developments arise.

One of Vision Vancouver’s first acts in council was to convene a large group of developers, planners, architects, and housing advocates to come up with a program to create new rental projects in the city.

It was a good time for it, as the recession had hit and development companies were open to new proposals that could keep them going.

The Short Term Incentives for Rental program aimed to encourage developers to build rentals, which had to remain rental for 60 years or the life of the building, whichever was longer, by giving them breaks on parking, giving up the usual development-cost levies, and, in some cases, giving bonus density.

Some critics of the program don’t believe it, but there were some cheap rentals created through the program, mostly on cheaper east-side land where builders stuck to four-storey woodframe buildings. The program also created a huge amount of controversy on some prominent sites — the West End, Marine Gateway, Rize — because the density given as an incentive seemed to produce buildings out of scale with the neighbourhood.

Council voted this week to continue the program (as per my story here), but changed it so that the incentives now only apply to buildings that are rental only.

Some critics are still saying it will lead to the destruction of existing affordable housing or that they don’t understand why developers need the incentives. (That was a point that Councillor George Affleck kept making during the council debate.)

But it seems like this is exactly the kind of incentive that developers got during the 1960s and ’70s, which led to the creation of tens of thousands of four-storey walk-ups all over the Lower Mainland, which are now the precious cheapo housing of the region — so precious that Vancouver council and I believe a couple of others have declared them off limits for development unless a developer offers to build replacements.

Those incentives in the ’60s and ’70s were also criticized by some in their day, by the way, as wasteful giveaways to developers who were profiting by building high-end market rentals that weren’t really providing affordable housing.

And hard to argue that the incentives are not needed. You’d think if developers thought they could make a profit on building rentals, they would have done it long ago. But the city was seeing only about 150 units a year built until the STIR program came in. Then it jumped to what will average 500 a year.

[Read more →]

Another week, another conference about how to create new cities and improve old ones.

Today, Mayor Gregor Robertson opened the New Cities Foundation conference in Paris, with top-rankedVancouver imaginer Doug Coupland also on board, to talk about the city as a frontier for new-tech solutions that will solve all kinds of urban problems, from conserving energy to making information free.

My story on same is here and the site on a new Coupland invention for the digital-sustainable age of cities is here.

This just out from UBC

University of British Columbia researchers are making bikeability research easily accessible to consumers and city planners by introducing bikeability “heat maps” in partnership with Seattle-based Walk Score® at www.walkscore.com/bike.

Combining data on availability of cycling infrastructure (bike lanes and trails), topography (hilliness), desirable destinations (attractions, shops and restaurants) and road connectivity, researchers from UBC’s School of Population and Public Health and Simon Fraser University worked with web developers from Walk Score® to develop algorithms to make the information easily accessible online.

Heat maps of Bike Score™ for 10 Canadian and 10 U.S. cities were launched today during National Bike Month in the U.S. and in advance of Bike Month in Canada. Victoria, Vancouver and Montreal rate highest in bikeability for Canadian cities; while Minneapolis, Portland and San Francisco lead in the U.S.

For a sample of a heat map, visit http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/?p=47739. For more information on bikeability research, visit http://cyclingincities.spph.ubc.ca/mapping-cycling-trips/tools-training/.

“‘Walkability’ has become part of the popular vocabulary as more emphasis is placed on physical activity, community interaction and healthy living,” says Meghan Winters, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University, who conducted the research while a PhD student at UBC. “Bike Score™ and the heat maps will help cities measure and improve their cycling infrastructure – a key to increasing ridership.”

Cycling rates in Canada and the U.S. are low in comparison to many European cities. This disparity is explained, in part, by differences in urban form and cycling infrastructure, says Mike Brauer, Professor, UBC School of Population and Public Health. With rising gas prices, however, more North Americans are looking for more affordable ways to get around, particularly in neighborhoods with limited access to public transportation and where distances are too far to walk to work or shopping.

“Bicycling is a form of healthy, active transportation,” Brauer says. “We wanted to provide a user-friendly tool to gauge the bikeability of cities and neighbourhoods that would help planners identify areas that would benefit from additional infrastructure, while encouraging people to hop on a bike.”

“Walk Score® helps people find places to live where they can drive less and live more,” says Josh Herst, CEO of Walk Score®. “With the launch of Bike Score™ we’re excited to provide the only quantitative measure of bikeability in the U.S. and Canada to help people find bikeable neighborhoods and commutes.”

The partnership with Walk Score® was enabled by a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.