Don’t be naive. This eight stories with no low income rental housing was their failsafe all along. The 11-story idea was a trial balloon. It’s the oldest trick in the book. I was a Draft Community Plan participant two years ago and it was clear then there was no interest in a building of 11 stories so they made that 8-story-lose-the-rentals idea as the only alternative. They had this plan from day one and even when they could have had professional input with alternative progressive ideas they were not listening. This is just blind ridiculous bullying by a PR obsessed province and homelessness lobby. This weak Vision council can’t stand up to anybody, not developers and certainly not the paint-by-numbers housing ministry .

I’m no architect, but instead of cutting out floors 9-11, maybe they could cut 6-8 to keep the market rental stock? Or 7-9, and cut some of each out?

There were 4 processes going on here.
1.The previous council (Sam Sullivan) had public hearings and agreed to 103 units of social housing and a youth centre on this site (as well as 13 other sites)
2. A planning department and architect process that determined that 8 stories was the only way to go for the 103 units
3. The Housing centre of the City wanting rental units also included which added 3 stories
4. A neighbourhood visioning process that seemed to either ignore or not be told that the 8 stories had essentially already been approved. They only wanted 4 to 6 stories.

The process was a mess and left us all with a sense that with better communication and clearer terms of reference for visioning some of this could have been avoided.

Council’s compromise satisfies no one other than council. Moderate rental will likely be lost which the community and applicant wanted, the community gets 103 units of social housing which many of them didn’t want and it’s still 8 stories high.

Seems to me its another example of city council acting first, and then asking questions later….

I have an idea, why don’t they spend $800,000 on bike lanes and then a month later decide to investigate ripping out the infrastructure (viaducts) that connect it to the rest of the city….

I was not a fan of Sam Sullivan, but this city council is making him look awfully competent by comparison.

I would like to clarify my first statement….Council was not foolish in reducing the height of the building…but it was foolish in not giving more explicit instructions to the Director of Planning, BC Housing and the design team in terms of what’s important. My concern is that if Council’s instruction results in lopping off the market housing, then the decision is foolish.

If however, direction is given to the Director of Planning to work with the applicant to accommodate the full program within the reduced height, or to reduce the amount of non-market housing, then the decision is not foolish.

Although there is of course the question of where the money will come from for the redesign.

In addition to reviewing the complete planning process for this particular project, it might be a good idea to review the planning and development process for all city sponsored residential developments.

7th and Fir is another case in point where I believe a lot of money is being wasted.

@Michael Geller–Thanks. That is all most people at Mt Pleasant Community Plan meetings or the hearing ever wanted, no 11 stories and a mix of the two kinds of housing. Professionals like yourself must be able to see that a three block long area with 13 empty storefronts all one or two stories high does not need an 11 story, or even 8, supportive housing tower sticking up there anchoring it to spur revitalization. It is just a branding, this shopping area is now destined to get worse instead of better. Now that it is 8 stories I am not surprised. Like I said previously, that was what they bargained with. Somebody decides on 11 stories-103 units, they make some scale boxes, they come to a community plan workshop, they wait until the end when most people have gone home. Then they yawn and say okay do you want these boxes laying down or one standing up 11 stories. If you want some low rental market units you have to have the box standing up. Is that what you mean by various massing models? The point is why 11 stories to start this snow job off, and why 103 units no matter what to make up the initial 1200 units. Did they have a monopoly board to work it out on, surely it wasn’t the actual city with people at street level they were considering. I can tell you the first walkabout our community plan group (probably 3 years ago) did of those blocks around Fraser, there was a guy walking around sort of at the periphery looking bored, not saying much, not saying who he was, then disappearing pretty fast. It wasn’t Frank Lloyd Wright. This was manipulation of the community. One thing I did not know was that Sam Sullivan’s council held public hearings when these sites were chosen. That would have been around the time the worst gangland slaying in Vancouver history took place at the Fortune Happiness all-night restaurant across the street from this site. Can anybody spell common sense?Further, with that many empty storefronts and abandonned businesses, why are they going to build ANY more storefronts at street level? Let’s get really edgy & put some of the housing at street level like they do in 125 other major cities across the globe.

“Vancouver . . . Failed city!”

Spend a week or two in Calgary, Urbie, and you’ll have a new appreciation for Vancouver.

@ Morven, good comments. Is there such a thing as a Best Practices Manual for public consultation at the neighbourhood level? The short answer is no, but I think CityPlan would make a good chapter or two.

why is BC Housing putting in a second floor of underground parking at 16th and Dunbar?
Aren’t the incremental costs huge when you put in another story of underground?

Should people in social housing be able to afford cars as well?

BC Housing has over 150 people in their IT dept (most making over $75k + pensions), and there’s only 500 people in the whole organization. WTF?

The human resources head (with a staff of 20!) makes almost $200k ! That’s more than the head of HR for Starbucks! (for the whole corporation!)

And try getting hold of someone there on a Friday in the summer. Good luck with that.

As one of the 70 speakers to address council regarding this project I would like to add a few things to this discussion. I will also add that I support everything about the project except the height.

I desperately want – and will continue to fight hard to make sure we get the rental housing back in the project – BC Housing needs to stand up and honour it’s commitment to the project + the neighbourhood – the rental housing makes for a better project. Dense multi-use projects at this scale make a lot of sense.

Design development of the project at this stage is possible – with more robust zoning guidelines and a different set of set backs, lane treatments etc, the architect will be able to achieve the full 3.66 FSR within the 8 storey height limit – and the building will be better for it.

The city needs to define their own ecoDensity initiative of ‘6-8 storey buildings on arterials’ – a building typology that makes total sense in neighbourhoods but it requires a more nuanced set of zoning bylaws to allow for the density we need in the city [3.5 to 5.0 FSRs are good urban densities…especially on larger sites like this one]. 2 storey podiums with towers plonked on the least offensive corner are not urban buildings – in residential neighbourhoods they are alien building typologies – they are spaceships….

The Mount Pleasant Community Planning Group tried for three years to engage BC Housing, the social housing operators and the architect to discuss the building typology at this prominent corner in the neighbourhood – we managed to have 3 meetings over three years – but we met after all of the design was finished – the building was conceived within hypothetical zoning parameters picked by planners NOT developed by the community….the resultant form has nothing to do with the community vision and reflects very little of what makes Mount Pleasant unique from an urban stand point.

Design does not require millions of dollars – it requires an inspired set of parameters and a client who is willing to think outside of the box. Public buildings need to set the bar high and allow communities opportunities to be engaged in the design process right from the start.

The fear of letting the community in is terrorizing architectural innovation in this city. Hopefully BC Housing will rise to the challenge of making their project better by going back to the drawing board.

Saw the model in the Van Courier pulled from a blue box.

Why doesn’t it fill the whole block and lower some floors?
It’s going to be a monster in the neighbourhood, shadowing the north block and blinding the south side for blocks around with sunlight reflected of the windows all day.

I know that people don’t live underground but somehow they should reduce the profile. Could they go over the street on a bridge over Fraser or the lane and use the extra footage to lower the block?

Why does this city need so many streets? Look what they have done with street ends in Strathcona, or Kits off Maple and Broadway.

@ Bill, @ Jon. Neat ideas. The alley link @ the AIBC [Architectural Institute of BC] Building @ Pender & Cambie is a beautiful if not fully functional Vancouver precedent.

I was just looking @ the St. John’s. Comox property this afternoon to confirm some earlier thoughts. There is a real potential opportunity here which needs to be seriously looked @.

If we combine the St. John’s property + the Neighbourhood House property across the lane, we eventually could have a say 6 storey [same as the apt. bldg. across the street] annex to the WE community Centre @ +/-4.0 FSR with a 2nd to 6th floor lane bridge between the 2 properties. In the short term once the City purchases the St. John’s site from the developer to allow him to recover his costs, the Park Board would have additional interim programme space in the existing church buildings until funding could be included in a 5 year plan. The Church would be a graceful, elegant & affordable transitional facility. The St. John’s purchase can come from the other WE Land Lift spot re-zonings [hotel to rental, renegotiate Maxine’s deal, Beach Towers, the others should be stopped as confirmed by Brent Toderin].

With the already over-stressed WECC + additional clientele from future WE development [we seem for starters to be stuck with @ least Maxine’s unless the developer &/or his STIR investor purchasers realize 390 SF SRO’s won’t rent @ $1,050 / mo.]. Then we’d have a much needed expansion of CC facilities rather than an unneeded, unwanted blight on the existing cohesive WE community fabric.

I am suggesting this as a potential proposal. It may or may not be what the various stakeholders may find valid. My approach, since the freeway debate of 1970 – 72 has been to not just object but, to offer better ways [for starters we have the Seabus today as a result].

I can only hope partisan politics can be put aside & Councilors, Commissioners & staff can seriously look @ a proposal such as this.

Otherwise we are @ an impasse.