Debate about Vancouver's density and affordability should move beyond traditional venues, says Geller
"What the hell is going on in this city?"
This is the question asked of me earlier this week by someone looking at the developer's illustration in the Vancouver Courier of the proposed Rize Development at Broadway and Kingsway "It just looks too big!" she said.
Two weeks earlier I had a call from someone concerned about a proposed new development in the 900 Block East Hastings Street across from the Ray-Cam Community Centre. He had just seen a rezoning sign proposing a 6 FSR development along a portion of a street presently populated by one and two level industrial buildings. "I like the idea of housing in this area", he said," but why would a developer or the City even consider 6 FSR in an area like this?" (As an aside, I'm told the density is necessary to support the city demands for additional light industrial space and social housing to be donated by the developer to the City.)
I must say I understood my friends' concerns. Especially since I too have recently been disturbed about the significant increases in height and density for a number of approved and proposed developments scattered around the city. It was not that long ago that 6 FSR was the highest residential density permitted in the city, generally restricted to the Georgia Street Corridor. Recently the City has approved projects at almost three times this density. And now there is a proposal for 6 FSR on East Hastings! If it's acceptable in the 900 Block, is it acceptable for the adjacent ten blocks?
The recently sold-out Marine Gateway development will be more than twice as tall as the Langara Gardens towers at 57th and Cambie, which have always been considered out of scale with that part of the city. (In the interest of full disclosure, I managed the successful rezoning for the fourth rental tower at Langara Gardens in the 80's, arguing at the time that yes, the buildings were out of scale, but does it really matter whether there are three or four towers, noting the need for more rental housing in the area and a resulting FSR of only 1.15.)
The STIR project at 1401 Comox proposed a 7.5 FSR on a site zoned for 1.5. While I support the idea of density bonuses to achieve new rental housing, even new market rental housing, I could not endorse a project at 5 times the permitted FSR, regardless of the merits of the design, talent of the architect, or community spirit and capability of the developer.
On Main Street, the proposed redevelopment of the Little Mountain property is at an overall 'gross' density that in my opinion is too high for the area. It's higher than what the City approved for the Bayshore development in 1993. The late Jim Green, who worked as a community advocate for the project felt the same way, but argued the higher density was necessary to support the new social housing and other community benefits being expected by the City and community. He also pointed out that the Province was expecting a substantial payment for the land although he always stressed that neither I nor the public knew just how much the developer had offered to pay for the property. This was correct.
In each of these cases, the justification for heights and densities significantly higher than what would have been considered acceptable by architects, planners, and the general public a decade ago include:
- the City is demanding community amenities (rental housing, social housing, commercial space, artists' live work space, daycare, etc.) or financial contributions in cash, which is pushing the higher densities;
- higher densities are more 'sustainable'…and sustainability is an important goal for the city;
- the higher densities are necessary to achieve more affordable housing;
- all but Little Mountain had the unanimous, or almost unanimous approval of the Urban Design Panel.
Now, I happen to agree that increased amenities are essential if we are to accommodate increased growth. I also agree that 'sustainable development' especially close to transit is a good thing. And as a longstanding advocate for achieving more affordable housing choices through higher densities, I cannot disagree with the third bullet. So what's my problem?
Ironically, what prompted me to write this post was not just those people questioning the Rize, Hasting Street, Comox Street or Little Mountain developments. It was a conversation I had this past week at City Hall with City planners who asked what I thought of allowing higher densities and larger highrise floorplates than have historically been approved in Vancouver.
The floorplate of a building is the area of each floor. For decades the maximum for a highrise building has been around 570 square meters, which has resulted in Vancouver's 'skinny point-block towers' so often admired by visiting architects and planners. This was the size established for Downtown South, most of Coal Harbour and the North Shore of False Creek.
In a typical Vancouver building, approximately 70 square meters of the floorplate is taken up by elevators, stairs, corridors and mechanical shafts. The remaining area can then be divided up into suites. The ratio of the saleable or leasable area to the total building area is referred to as the building efficiency. In Vancouver, the efficiency of most buildings when factoring in the area of enclosed balconies and in-suite storage space is around 85%. This is less than larger buildings found in most other locales. Also, the point-block building form with extensive exterior wall relative to the building area is more expensive to build.
In recent years we have seen some notable exceptions to the smaller floorplate guideline. For example, the Woodwards Tower is much larger. (Fortunately the decorative metal designs that were to be a framework for greenery climbing up the building offset some of the bulk of this building.) The Shangri-la Tower is bigger, but its triangulated shape and overall height help minimize its bulk. Other recently approved buildings such as Telus Garden are also larger.
If you travel outside of Vancouver you can find many much larger, or may I say fatter buildings. eg: the towers in New Westminster above the SkyTrain station just north of Westminster Quay. While providing more affordable housing next to transit and an array of commercial facilities, these buildings are big…very big.
What prompted the question from the City planners is that they are now being asked to approve increasingly larger floor plates in order to improve building efficiency and affordability. The Planning Department is not just looking at fattening the towers; it is also being asked to consider alternative building forms such as larger double loaded slab buildings that are so common around Toronto and other cities. Unlike Vancouver's slender pointblocks, these buildings can easily be twice or three times the floorplate size and much more efficient and cost effective.
In principle, I support double loader corridor slab buildings up to say ten storeys. However, I don't really want to see the huge slab buildings that one sees driving into downtown Toronto from the airport.
One of the planners responded how ironic it was that I, once considered the developer terrible around City Hall for decades for proposing highrises and various rezonings for higher density four storey apartments along Vancouver arterials, now shared their concerns!
I think the time has come for a full public discussion on just how far Vancouver should deviate from its past practices when it comes to building form and density. Should we forego the slender point blocks? Should we permit Toronto sized slab buildings around the city in the name of affordability ? At what point do we trade off the form, massing and appearance of buildings in order to achieve greater 'sustainability? When is too much density too much?
This is a discussion that needs to take place not just on the pages of the Vancouver Sun and other community newspapers, or at politically charged Public Hearings. These discussions need to occur in the corridors of UDI, the Architectural and Planning Institutes, and our universities.
I hope that people like Gordon Price, Brent Toderian, Larry Beasley, Bob Ransford, Sam Sullivan and others will join into conversations about how much our city should change in the decades to come and what building forms and densities are appropriate in the name of affordability and sustainability. I would also like to see more on-line discussions at Fabula, City Caucus, the Vancouver Observer, The Tyee, and other similar venues.
Looking at plans for some of the new developments in the pipeline, I personally think my friends are right in asking what is going on in our city. I hope this post may help keep the conversation going.
- post by Michael Geller. Michael is currently participating in Vancouver's Housing Affordability Task Force.
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The major concern is that why should we believe the developers about any sort of affordable housing – it hasn’t happened yet anywhere else and why do we keep relying on the dollars of developers for affordable housing.
From someone who grew up in the UK in the 70′s taller is not better and not the solution for affordable housing. You try living in soulless concrete jungles. Developers build towers because it is cheaper for them and more money in a small space for them.
Can this city get some real city planners before we end up looking like Toronto or Hong Kong?
Yeah, it’s difficult to see things change and grow and expand. However, 100 years from now, Downtown Vancouver is going to look like Manhattan (and be about as expensive).
I always put it in these terms: Don’t live by the airport if you don’t want to hear airplanes. Anybody who thinks the problem won’t get bigger isn’t thinking at all.
If you don’t want density, don’t live in an urban centre. Anybody who thinks it won’t get more dense, isn’t thinking at all.
Downtown Vancouver… Manhattan… that’s exactly what we DON”T WANT TO HAVE HERE!
Let the chosen ones, speculate that piece of crap!
Buy it low, sell it high. Then rent it out for times the real price. Nope, they can keep that in NY. 100 years from now, maybe “we” are not even going to speak English in Vancouver!
This is a classic example of the fallacy of the excluded middle. Just because citizens are opposed this particular poposal does not mean that they are opposed to density in any form, that is not the case. Mount Pleasant has welcomed more new density in the past decade that probably any other Vancouver neighbourhood except False Creek. You only need to walk in a three block radius of this site to see numerous examples. This proposal is wrong for this location, that is what this discussion is about.
Manhattan? Are we talking about New York with all their transportation structure, millions on people living there as well as being home of a lot of industry and the same New York that has a lot of culture and art?
I think Vancouver is way to far from that…
Only one question; I want to know, is this April Fools Day, or not?
“I hope that people like Gordon Price, Brent Toderian, Larry Beasley, Bob Ransford, Sam Sullivan and others will join into conversations about how much our city should change in the decades to come and what building forms and densities are appropriate in the name of affordability and sustainability.”
I don’t have any hope. What do these people really know? All of them been there, done… not so much!
Truth be told, no one knows, if we knew we’d all be multimillionaires and the Lottery would have gone bankrupt. IMO.
Toronto has become one of the more ugly cities – thankfully only to visit. It is a sea of concrete and glass towers, banged up on every free space available.
I truly hope that Vancouver will not go the same way.
At the end of the day developers only see the $$ in their pockets. They leave and the people that actually live in the city have to deal with the aftermath.
Here is a curious question – the Kwok brothers, the developers who were recently arrested in Hong Kong for bribery – any chance they were practicing the same tactics here?
Kwok brothers – they’ve built a good portion of Vancouver (with particular focus on Coal Harbor) through subsidiaries and have a done a great job at doing so…
Concrete Jungles – ohhhh lord and here the “it’s our childrens god given right to be able to afford a 3+ bedroom house with a white picket fence, two garage and 1.5 hour commute into town argument. Your comment was an Aprils fools joke right??? otherwise I say we elect Fred Flinstone following Gregor’s rain. Oh yahhhhhhhhh!
Where did anyone state ‘ a god given right, yada yada yada?
Nice stretch, but you missed the mark, and the point.
And it is ‘reign’ not ‘rain’
Let me just throw this into the mix before April 1, 2012 is lost forever; we’re not Manhattan, we’re not Hong Kong, we’re not Singapore, we’re not Sydney, we’re not Copenhagen, we’re not Melbourne and we’re not Toronto. But if we were rest assured we’d have:
1 – Urban centres with density serving infrastructure, not the other way around
2 – Affordable WORKFORCE housing for those that actually run (ie. work) in a vibrant City
3 – an established head office market that won’t collapse with three new office towers under construction
4 – transit that works which means financially sustainable on a per capita basis in the City core
5 – culture
6 – a night life
7 – safety for its residents
8 – jobs where people work, one of the pillars of sustainability
9 – elected leaders with Chutz-pah….
10 – and most of all relative environmental sustainability per capita
Michael…
The other title could have been:
“What Aufoch’s going on at the City Hall?”
Self explanatory and no need for an expletive.
@Andrew Hudson-When ate you arranging the Manhattan quality jobs?
To all the ecoweenies trying to force everybody into glass towers: there is absolutely nothing in Vancouver’s economy that justifies such a horrendous outcome. If we kept Vancouver for Vancouverites, everybody could have that house with a white picket fence. You think you’re being green, but in reality you’re just developers’ patsies.
But Brilliant where will the 50 million climate refugees live that were projected to arrive in 2010…oops its 2012 now….never mind.Seems they moved the goalposts again this time to 2020.LOL http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/15/the-un-disappears-50-million-climate-refugees-then-botches-the-disappearing-attempt/
Brilliant,
Hey great idea, maybe we should just build a big wall around Vancouver, tear down the bridges and fill them with alligators–our personal moat to keep out the riff raff.
Let us know when you are going to be out of town.
ROTFL!
Sorry Bill, I’d wager my family has been in and shaping Vancouver for longer than yours so I’m here to stay.
If you expect to be taken seriously don’t make such foolish remarks.
Careful boohoo, you are starting to sound like those ‘cycling advocates’….
How so Max?
The Rize image at the top of the page, borrowed from the Courier by Geller, should not be presented to the uninformed public, it’s a minimizing distortion.
The Rize proposal is significantly more monstrous than is shown in the Rize image. That image was challenged over a month ago. A City report showed the image to be misleading. The continued circulation by Rize of a discredited image speaks loudly of Rize’s lack of commitment to truth and integrity. For the City report on Rize’s image http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/20120227/documents/phea6memoFeb20.pdf
See last page, Fig 1 for a quick understanding.
I think City Caucus, having published a misleading image, has a duty to correct itself and publish the City’s official virtual model of the Rize proposal.
Public hearing on the Rize proposal continues Wednesday, circa 150 speakers heard from out of circa 250 speakers signed up — the largest sign up I think for any public hearing in the last five years. You can still sign up to speak — see “Add your name” at http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/mayorcouncil/publichearings.htm
I don’t personally love the paint job on my neighbour’s house, but I don’t own that house. It’s *someone else’s property* so I don’t get to decide what the owners do with it.
If the 250 people who signed up for the communal moaning wanted to decide what would be built on that hunk of land, they should have bought it and built a one bedroom log cabin timeshare powered by a hemp oil lubricated windmill made of old bicycle tires.
Specific example, the facade of the Rize building shown on the left of the image is 118 feet tall, while the four story building beside it is 48 feet, yet they look almost the same. How can commentators use these deceptions without pointing them out, or are they that stupid?
The real question is “what’s the plan?”
Vancouver has no plan, no planning, no official community plan, no respect for public process, no open or honest governance, and no acknowledgement of green* building typology.
What the City of Vancouver is doing is desperately selling air rights on the cheap to keep the Ponzi scheme of city finance from collapsing. View corridors and views, energy-efficient building forms, and community-building be damned! It’s a race for the bottom down a street paved with fool’s gold.
Some few lucky ones will be able to hang onto their mountain views while gun battles erupt on the streets below, and floods from both the Fraser and Pacific start to remove large chunks of the Lower Mainland.
Welcome to our version of Blade Runner, a film that could easily have been shot in Vancouver (but wasn’t).
There is a better way, a more resilient future more closely tied to the patterns and flux of our natural surroundings, where people living in neighbourhoods know each other well enough to maintain a high level of social order, where we have enough productive food infrastructure to last more than three days before starvation hits, and where crippling debt loads don’t leave Vancouver individuals and families a few months rent from bankruptcy.
This spiral of debt–infecting both the City’s finances as well as most residents, owners and renters alike–is largely the result of land speculation brought on by endless rezonings to unheard-of FSRs. Five to 62 storeys of airspace is quickly being priced into every Vancouver lot, and with good reason. The only zoning rules are those papered over with money, placed into the hands of politicians shilling for a vote, in exchange for…air. Air means views, and views are easily monetized.
Just hope the other shoe doesn’t drop as hard as it could. Remember Icarus.
Fly low. Living high is for monkeys.
Randy Chatterjee
*A “green building” has a low carbon footprint of construction (aka very little, if any, concrete), renewable and recyclable building materials with no toxic signature, ready adaptability for different configurations and uses, and a very low total energy use per square metre per year, circa 120 kWhs. Vancouver has built nothing that even starts to meet these criteria since the day that white men arrived.
Interesting you bring up ‘green buildings’ . I was speaking with someone who is and isn’t living in the socials at the Oly Village – he referred to them and their supposed ‘green’ technology as ‘Frankenstein’ buildings.
He has been ‘granted’ a unit in the Village via BC Housing but is couch surfing with friends as he is currently going through chemo and cannot, by doctors orders – stay there. The building is making him sicker.
Birdy, Birdy, Birdy, its complacent, apathetic people like you that are leading Vancouver down this road of allowing Devlopers to dictate as the Puppet Masters and Mayor and City Council the Puppets.
How can you even chose the topic of the color of your neighbour’s house in defence of this proposal. Their house color does not effect the viability of small business’s in the neighbourhood, nor has an effect on traffie, pollution, and decreasing the lack of affordability in the area.
Communal moaning is what you call concerned citizens that take an educated and informed offence to someone who wants to develop on a piece of land that is not zoned for such height and density, will shadow neighbouring business’s, will increase vehicular traffic two fold and which will push up not only the house prices in Mt Pleasant but the Commercial and Residental rents?
Obviously you do not love where you live, respect it for its own characteristics nor appreciate that concerned citizens are merely expressing their democratic right.
Maybe you are one little Birdy that should just fly away and leave our neighbourhood free of your disrespectful and uneducated comments.
re: “How can you even chose the topic of the color of your neighbour’s house in defence of this proposal.”
I’m not defending this proposal, I’m defending basic respect for property rights.
I used to be all offended like you that Vancouver is changing, but eventually you have to accept that this isn’t a stagnant mountain village, and respect for property rights includes not begging bureaucrats to use force against people trying to build homes.
What kind of justification do you use to convince yourself that it’s ethical to demand a 1960′s picket fence fantasy at the cost of everyone else’s freedom?
Obviously a lot of people want to live here. Plus, interest rates are artificially low. So prices will go up regardless of what’s built. That’s what happens when a lot of people want something that’s in short supply. The solution isn’t stamping your feet and demanding the government ban growth, immigration or foreign ownership. The solution is to stop trying to control people, and accept that things change. Maybe after a few more years of name-calling and temper tantrums you’ll come around.
Ask City Council and they will tell you, they value public input. They spent three years and a truckload of taxpayers money hosting a group of citizens who voluteered hundreds of hours creating a Community Plan The only problem was, at the same time a group of City Planners was meeting with this developer and coming up with a proposal that bore no resemblance to anything those citizens wanted. Yes we hate this proposal, and the manipulation and hypocrisy just adds insult to injury.
The newly adopted Mount Pleasant Community Plan says, page 25:
The IGA & Kingsgate Mall sites are to: “pursue addition density & height beyond that permitted under the current C2A and C3A zoning”.
But at the Rize site the Plan says: “Support the design of an ‘iconic’ (landmark) building when granting permission for higher buildings”. It does NOT say pursue additional density and height beyond that permitted under the current C3A zoning. The current C3A zoning by-law for this site allows 30 feet and the guidelines permit an increase to 70 feet, this is what the Rize site should receive.
And there are many, many more places in the Plan where this site is restricted in height and density. The City needs to follow its own rules. What the Hell is going on at City Hall!
There are no rules at City hall. They do whatever City Council tells them to do – after privately meeting and discussing the plan with the developer. That’s why the developers make big donations to Vision and the NPA. – for access to the Mayor and Councillors and guaranteed success of any rezoning proposal.
In this City, neighbourhoods no longer matter, nor do the businesses or the people who helped build these neighbourhoods or live in them.
The public hearings that this and recent City Councils have held are nothing but an elaborate charade – a show for the public. They don’t give a damn what the community thinks since they’ve already decided to approve whatever rezoning is in front of them.
This City has lost its soul – and now it’s losing its long-term residents as well as young families all because of the greed which has now become institutionalized at City Hall.
I agree 100% with your post. It is breaking my heart that so many people who have so much to offer their communities must pack up and leave. It is wrong that the people who make the city run are being chased out. Heart, soul and innovation go with them. My beloved hometown is being hollowed out from the inside. The only people left owning property are the ones who have absolutely no emotional investment in Vancouver whatsoever.
Here, here GNR! what the HELL is going on when the City cannot even follow their own legislation?
Furthermore why does the Community Plan diagrams clearly show more buildings with greater height and density then currently exisits, in fact if you look closely these buildings look to be about the same in height as the Rize project and this is on 11th and Sophia and along Kingsway?
Another tell is at the Rize Alliance ‘Pop Up Shop’ where there block model clearly shows much more higher buildings around the Rize site.
Upon inquiry I was told that these buildings “do not currently exisit but are what will possibly be developed in the future” really? when we are told over and over again by the City that only 3 areas are to be developed, yet I am looking at about 1/2 a dozen or more of new developments.
Where do the lies end and the truth begin?
@Boohoo-your auto-hatin’ buddies are already trying to build that moat and wall around Vancouver.
Brilliant,
I wonder if you actually think about the inane garbage that comes out of your mouth before you type?
@Boohoo-Gee, probably about the amount of thought you put out before jumping onto every leftie bandwagon that pedals by.
Well, I guess you’ve never actual read or understood what I write. But feel free to continue throwing out those mindless, simplistic, child like insults if it makes you feel good.
Birdy, please, educate yourself about this particular issue at hand…..this is not about disrespecting people’s property rights.
“People trying to build homes” sorry if you believe the hype you are telling yourself but this is not about building homes….this is about a Developer who is trying to exploit the exisiting zoning laws, who has not listened to the public that wanted to work with them to design a Development that works in the neighbourhood and greated ‘DENSITY’ in the form of affordable housing.
“Accept that things change” well if you are okay with letting the Mayor and certain members of City Council continue to drive Vancouver into a Dictatorship designed for the wealthy I am happy for you….for me and a large number of citizens that are fed up with the disaster that is City Planning we are having our educated and informed say and if that seems to be a “temper tantrum” in your eyes, then yes, I am having one and will continue to do so until this becomes a city we can be proud of that takes care of its citizens and fixes its issues before seeing to the needs of people who don’t even live here yet!
I know you see my view as apathetic and that’s reasonable given my lack of explanation. So here it goes:
You may think this project is an anomaly, but unfortunately, planning departments all over North America use the same handbook. Notice ground floor retail with ~5 stories of residential above popping up all over the continent? The continuity of agenda is hard to miss.
You can complain to council but they are essentially owned by “ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability” which used to be called “International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives” and is controlled by the UN. If they’re not already, they will soon be using methods like the delphi technique to suppress dissent at “public” meetings. In other words they don’t care about what citizens say. Like all politicians. So sure, go to the meeting if it makes you feel better, I enjoy ranting at bureaucrats too, but know that this project is just a taste of the “future according to ICLIE..” If they get their way we will be part of the “Cascadia Megaregion” not BC or Canada.
To push back, all you can effectively do is apply the Non-Aggression Principle universally in your personal day-to-day life, defend property rights, and help dispel the myth that a Mayor, whom you correctly identify as a dictator, is necessary.
Freeing Yourself from Politics
(Political action as an addiction and a voluntary tax)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kB6uQcGo60I
The Death of Reason
(The scientific evidence underlying the near-universal resistance to reason and evidence. If you want to change the world, you first must understand the unconscious barriers to thinking)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S16EHfKRLfc
“planning departments all over North America use the same handbook”
Yes, and where are they all educated? Reforming the corrupt and corporatized educational system is the only way to break the strangehold that corporate whores have over the development of cities.
Birdy your right on the mark with that.People will spend countless hours shadow boxing at city hall and not understand what really is driving the agenda.It all started right here in Vancouver back in the seventies with this http://www.unhabitat.org/downloads/docs/3566_45413_HS-733.pdf and then morphed into Agenda 21 from which ICLEI was developed to implement their agenda.If people would only take an hour to research it they might just wake up before its to late. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GykzQWlXJs&feature=channel Stack em and pack em,that’s the plan.
BOOHOO stop your whining and let us get the job done! I have lived in Mt. Pleasant for 25 years and I will fight for the neighbourhood I live in. The City is nothing but a dictatorship and they are destroying every neighbourhood . If you would take the time to read the Mt. Pleasant plan that we spent years of volunteer time to implement then maybe you might understand what is going on.
Ier,
Dictatorship destroying every neighbourhood? That’s a rational starting point, good luck with that.
I know all about this City and its plans–my family has lived in the Cambie Corridor for 100 years but that didn’t make a lick of difference when the Cambie Plan was shoved through, so again, good luck with that.
And stop with the stupid assumptions, all of you.
Michael, your title could have been: “Your bought and paid for, now deliver the goods”.
boohoo… Boo! Vision Vancouver led City Hall is the most destructive local government ever. Period! Incompetents, nepotistic, corrupt… want more?
“…the City is demanding community amenities (rental housing, social housing, commercial space, artists’ live work space, daycare, etc.) or financial contributions in cash, which is pushing the higher densities…”
Here’s my question: What role have the CACs played in fuelling speculation, and heating up the housing market? After 30 years in place, it’s fair to assume that the market has priced CACs into the sell price of the condo.
“…higher densities are more ‘sustainable’…and sustainability is an important goal for the city; the higher densities are necessary to achieve more affordable housing…”
Here’s a word that is coming to the foreground: Greenwash.
Towers are not sustainable; the only sustainability the City appears to be thinking about is recovery from the hard times brought on by the Olympic Village (I like the square & the island, but the rest is very greenwash); higher densities built of luxury condo towers are having the opposite effect from achieving affordable housing by helping to drive up property prices… What did I leave out? Oh:
“…all but Little Mountain had the unanimous, or almost unanimous approval of the Urban Design Panel.”
To be fair to the urban design panel, a couple of former members spoke against the Rize on the last two nights of Public Hearings.
However, discussing of building height; FSR; and view cones is not “urban design”. Or, it is urban design, but of the most pedestrian and simplistic kind.
We now have built proof of that right here in our city.
PS
I note the date of the post, Michael