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Guest post from Frank Ducote: A stunning transformation is planned for Grandview-Woodlands. Is the community really ready for this?

June 12th, 2013 · 193 Comments

For those who haven’t guessed already, I am away from the city right now and will be away until the first week of July, as part of my annual ritual of city observation elsewhere. (Known to others as “a vacation.”) I’ll be posting some stuff of my own — been riding a lot of bike-share bikes in Paris and have some tales to tell — but I am also opening up the blog to some guest posts.

The first is from Frank Ducote on what’s been happening with city planning over on Commercial Drive. I am happy to publish other guest posts on any vaguely city-related topics that have not been beaten to death already on this blog or where you have a take on a familiar issue that really hasn’t been addressed anywhere. Those with a burning desire to propose ideas should email me (firstnamelastname AT gmail.com) and I’ll put up anything that fits the criteria. You don’t need to use your real name.

In the meantime, here is Frank’s post, where your comments are invited. For those who don’t know, Frank is a former city planner, planning consultant for other cities, and, I believe, much-praised artist.

http://vancouver.ca/files/cov/g-w-community-plan-june-2013-open-house-board-5-emerging-land-use-map.pdf
Looking at this map, it is very difficult to fully grasp the implications of such a far-reaching proposal for transformation of an existing community. As a former City of Vancouver planner who worked in the Broadway/Commercial community prior to and during the Millennium Line implementation, this vision truly boggles my mind. Circa 2000 or so some then-councillors considered this area, with its abundance of transportation investment, to be ripe for densification, up to and including towers. However, It would have suicidal to try and impose those kinds of pro -development ideas then, completely against community values.
What has happened since to so embolden staff and, presumably, the public consultation process, to bring forward such a fundamentally transformative set of ideas and policy directions now? So many questions that one has a difficult time knowing where and how to begin a rational critique and conversation.
Please look closely at this map, especially at the area immediately around Commercial Drive and Broadway. This is Transportation Oriented Development (TOD) writ very large indeed. Is this a community-based vision or one being imposed from above? A TransLink wet dream?
Your comments, please. It would be particularly interesting to hear from residents and other participants directly involved in this planning process.

 

 

 

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  • Roger Kemble

    Lewis @ passim “However, unlike most writers here, we have presented concrete and verifiable numbers. We can build a consensus from that!” No you haven’t Lewis you continue to regurgitate your usual ‘for RAMP only‘ dogma: +/- a dozen readers.

    WordPress precludes multi-posting of links otherwise I would deluge you with links to good urbanism. Suffice it to say there are multi-refutations to your dogma including many of mine . . .

    http://members.shaw.ca/aguaflor/St.lawrence.center/st.lawrence.center.toronto.html

    . . . some hi! some low!

    GHG’s, we have lately discovered, are good for agriculture and, oh my, AGW has absented itself for at least seventeen years and you and I, egos now deflated, have nothing to do with it! Get up to speed Lewis or shall I continue?

    For example, a pedestrian figure ground providing access to a multi-faceted amenity, some hi, some low, including ped/bike friendly access to necessities, work, entertainment, enlightenment (nothing is more threatening to the statue quo than the enlightened prol) and just “standing on the corner watching all the girls walk by“.

    Dogma does not help stem the torrent of international speculators engulfing this city.

    “Green“, “just another word for nothing left to loose“, is just a bereft politicians well worn technique to avoid responsibility to care for the traditional neighbourhood and you are aiding and abetting: distracting the hoi polli from real issues.

    “Why is Mt. Pleasant being called a hill town?” Answer, because it is on the top of a hill.

    Don’t take planning jargon seriously, its comfort food if you’re in the loop! And you and I ain’t in the loop!

    PS According to VanCity Buzz MTP pop shakes out at 26,400, 2011, upping per decade @ 1861: certainly not an earth shattering tidal wave!

  • Roger Kemble

    http://members.shaw.ca/aguaflor/cyclists.html

    Just another attempt to get around WordPress link restrictions . . .

  • Roger Kemble

    If energy loss is the only criteria, and it is not, then the following provides a comparative analysis tower/cottage . . .

    http://www.theyorkshirelad.ca/New.Nanaimo.Center/pudpn/Comparisons.pdf

    . . . cladding is the trump card.

    There is a place for the tower, outside the downtown, and there is a place for the fee-simple cottage: more relevant to good street planning is amenity, proximity and usage.

  • Everyman

    @Brian 43
    One more question about that laneway house: where does everybody park? I assume that there are at least two families on the property (more if the main house is divided). The expectation is that there is going to be street parking to benefit that property owner’s decision to monetize his garage. Trends like this, coupled with Vision’s decision to relax parking requirements are going to signal the end of front yard greenspace. Hopefully it will not become as bad as the UK:
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/18/front-gardens-paved-parking-spaces

    Not something the “greenest city in the world” should welcome.

  • Chris Keam

    “Chris is worried about whether or not Vancouver schools provide on-site employee parking.”

    Umm, no. Let’s stick to the facts instead of fevered imaginings. I’m asking you to provide any proof of your original statement. A quick look through VSB District #39 RFQs on BC Bid doesn’t show any recent paving contracts that I could find with a cursory search. Maybe they have a different process for these particular contracts, but other construction projects for the School Board are there. Regardless, it’s not something I care to find out. Seems you are upset by it, so I say go for it. The thing is, if you actually did provide some evidence of your claim, I’d be right there with you with asking the School Board why they think it’s a good idea to encourage automobile around their schools?

    So, when you can turn your claim from hearsay into a verifiable fact, let me know.

  • Frank Ducote

    Back to the topic at hand:

    I count 11 potential sites with the 400m ped shed at Broadway and Commercial with towers ranging from (up to) 22 storeys to 37 storeys – say 400′ or about the height of Woodwards downtown. There may be some park space related to some of these sites. Shadows of the towers will fall mainly on the Grandview Cut rather than neighbourhing residences and open spaces.

    Two simple questions: 1) how many of you feel is this an appropriate scale of development in this community? 2) Why or why not?

    (Pause for a moment’s relevant consideration: under the Sam Sullivan Eco-Density era, planners fought and won a battle to NOT use the 400′ Woodwards development as a template for other sites in the DTES. One compromise outcome was the 150′ heights we now see being approved in Chinatown. This may be the “new normal” at the Hall.)

    Now, a tricky follow-up question : if you support both this number and heights of towers here, do you feel it would work as a template for future TODs along the Broadway corridor, including at Granville (where 100′-120′ is the current height limit), Arbutus (lower still) and … leafy W. 10th and Blanca?

    (If you don’t belief in templates or precedeents in the planning, development and political world of Vancouver, dream on.)

    For those who feel, as I do, that these heights are extreme beyond all ken here, please postulate a height that you think might be more fitting, given the 3-4 storey character of the existing community.

    A needed postscript: my gut feeling is that the community planners and urban designers who have worked on this area plan for the past year or more have done a remarkable job building trust and a sense of consensus in a notoriously fractious and divese community, or subsets of communities.

    But, to paraphrase Zero Mostel, something happened on the way to the forum, in this case inside the black box of city hall, to drive heights – and densities, I presume – upward. This is today’s version of Eco-Density under a different regime. Plus la change.

  • Jak King

    At our table on CarFreeDay on the Drive yesterday, I spoke with a wide range of local residents. A lot of people accept the idea of increased densification, but I didn’t find a single one who approved high rises in this neighbourhood. It is a built form that is entirely inappropriate to the area, even around the Commercial/Broadway intersection.

  • boohoo

    Is 6 storeys ok? 10? 15? When does it become offensive? Is it more offensive to have ten high density sites in a neighbourhood or to replace much larger areas of single family with row/townhouse?

    Talk to people along the Cambie Corridor and they’ll scream bloody murder about 4-6 storey towers.

    And if towers, of whatever height turns you off, aren’t appropriate at Cambie/Broadway, where an existing skytrain line runs and very likely a connecting line will come in the next 15 years, where then?

  • Frank Ducote

    For those who don’t already know, this hub is the busiest of all transit station areas in the region – WITHOUT any towers. So the people here are pretty good at using what’s available, likely without having a second car or perhaps even a first one, as their mobility choice. I imagine there is also a very high bike and walking mode split as well (data geeks: go at it).

    The second busiest transit node in the Broadway corridor, I believe (but stand to be corrected), is Broadway and Granville, again without extremely tall buildings. The key there is proximity to a lot of jobs, shopping as well as medium-density housing, none taller than 12 storeys. Which is identical upper limit to Kerrisdale, BTW, where a developer would have to be insane to suggest 37 storeys.

    Cambie and Broaddway is doing pretty well with midrise forms, none taller than 90′ -100′ where the new forms of big box, live/work and office mixed use buildings as well as VGH and City Hall are located.

    So I ask @81 and @107 and possibly others, do you believe heights need to be doubled or tripled or quadrupled in these communities to further ratchet up transit riderside, when it is already remarkably high? I think the incremental increase in ridership would be relatively small.

  • boohoo

    @108

    No, but attributing the fact that those nodes are busiest to the surrounding land use isn’t fair. They are busy, to one degree or another to the fact they are where two or more major transit links meet. I transit through Commercial/Broadway quasi-regularly so I contribute to its busyness but I don’t live there and rarely shop there.

    I wonder how insane the developers were back in the day when they proposed the 10+ story building at Main/Broadway that we now cherish.

  • Roger Kemble

    Frank, talking of nodes is helpful if you widen the debate beyond high/low.

    The famous city of Curitiba Br. and its even more famous State governor, mayor, architect, planner Jaime Lerner . . .

    http://members.shaw.ca/rogerkemblesnr/curitiba/curitiba.html

    . . . successfully describes in real terms an antedote to what you are trying to say.

    Well defined colour coded bus routes, lined with high rises, leave swaths of green open spaces for parks and recreation: flood control lakes, (it rains like hell in the fall), open green space with low/medium rise residential in between.

    I am sure you have studied Curitiba! It is world famous. So is its erstwhile mayor.

    Please visit next vacation time and tell Jaime I asked you to cal.

    There’s much more to hi/lo than tower versus bungalow!

  • Roger Kemble

    The old shibboleth . . .

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2013/05/26/to-the-horror-of-global-warming-alarmists-global-cooling-is-here/

    . . . is long past its buy date.

    If us bloggers wish to be taken seriously best get beyond the shop worn rhetoric . . .

  • boohoo

    @111

    That’s why it’s actually called climate change.

    But please, tell us more about Peter Ferrara, senior fellow for the Heartland Institute (you know, the group funded by oil companies and coal lobby groups with the objective of discrediting science). I’m sure he’s got lots of impartial things to teach us.

  • Roger Kemble

    http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/05/31/past-the-tipping-point-2014-high-school-seniors-have-seen-no-global-warming-during-their-life/

    Oh bo ho ho ho ho boooooooooho . . . are high school seniors in the pay of big oil too?

  • Bill

    @boohoo #112

    When Alarmists can’t rebut the message, all they are left with is attacking the messenger.

  • Don D

    @88

    Norman, the fact that you are not aware of the GWAC and (therefore?) don’t go to its meetings does not call into question that it was “formed in 1964 and has been in active existence ever since”

    Your position is akin to saying that we don’t live in a democracy because I don’t vote.

    The GVAC is very well known and active in the community and provides an OPPORTUNITY for your involvement. Go to a meeting.

  • Boohoo

    @113 114

    I don’t claim to be an expert in climate science, I’m quite sure you aren’t. I’ll believe the vast and overwhelming evidence and leave the tin foil to you.

    And Bill… I’ll be sure to remind you of your post the next 100 times you and others do the same.

  • L. Park

    I am a resident of the area and find this alarming.

    1. That is a LOT of people to dump into a neighbourhood. It is impossible to do this without substantially altering the character of the neighbourhood. The area is one of the more distinctive cultural areas of the city. This results, in my view, from the demographic mix being heavy with young/impecunious/alternative people living in low rent, shared or modest housing. They support the distinctive small businesses in the area, give the place the vibe that it has. Which is often trotted out in the tourist lit as one of the places that makes Vancouver Vancouver. Swamp that mix with 20,000 yaletown types, and the businesses change, the culture changes, the vibe changes. “The Drive” as we know it is at risk of disappearing. Though there may be even more sports bars and another Starbucks or 5!

    2. How on earth are all those people going to get around? The skytrain is at capacity now, the 99 is WELL beyond capacity, and I have a hard time envisioning even more cars on the road in that area.

    3. Like Lewis Villegas, I don’t see sky high towers as a livable urbanism. Take London, for example, whose vitality seems to be commerical districts with mixed use 5 storey buidlings fronting neighbourhoods of 3 storey walk up townhomes. The area could gently, organically densify (townhome zoning, lanehomes, new homes with suites, 3-4 storey mixed use) and absorb some added densification OK, as it is doing right now.

    4. For pity’s sake take the childish global warming is not / is too debate elsewhere. You won’t convince anyone of anything in this thread. It’s the environmental analog to Godwin’s.

  • jolson

    We need to start noticing the linkages between biosphere / urbanization / species extinctions / environmental deterioration / transportation systems / global economies before we propose ways to accommodate population growth.

    Intense development around existing transit stations is a good idea and it doesn’t much matter what form the building typology takes. However, this proposed community plan for urban re-development is about much more than taking advantage of existing transit stations. The scale of proposed intervention does warrant a broader discussion and more imagination than it has received so far. Is this really the best that we can do?

  • Lance B

    Frank and others, I too am increasingly disturbed by the relentless stream of very high-rise densification that is coming out of City Hall these days, in the guise of ‘neighbourhood planning’. While the Planning Department has some very good and ethical professional staff who no doubt believe in community consultation, they are being overridden and directed by the City Manager’s office (to which the new General Manager, Planning and Development – replacing the former and more autonomous Director of Planning position which has now disappeared – now directly reports) and the Vision caucus. This is all part of an unprecedented increase in centralization and top-down management of City Hall, strongly supported by elements of the development industry which back Vision, and the results are being rolled out neighbourhood by neighbourhood. Regardless of the specific neighbourhood, the proposed solution is largely the same: The dominant form of densification (which I support in principle, by the way, provided it is context-sensitive, and there are lots of ways to do that well) is the high-rise tower, as this is what most local developers know best how to build and is typically most profitable for them to do.

    I predict we will see ever more of this form of densification regardless of the specific community (pace Marine Drive/Marpole, Mount Pleasant, Grandview Woodlands, Oakridge, etc.). It is not neighbourhood sensitive urbanism. It is not smart growth either. It is not even very effective transit oriented development (TOD), as Frank has pointed out, as it is being justified based on an already oversubscribed public transit system that cannot accommodate substantially more riders without major investment, which government shows no appetite for committing to. And it is resulting in the increasing homogenization of Vancouver’s diverse neighbourhoods. This form of densification does not seem to be cracking the housing affordability nut either, which I acknowledge is complex. In fact, it tends to result in the loss of older, more affordable housing stock, as property values (and property taxes) increase. The City will need to become far more prescriptive on the requirement to include truly affordable (read subsidized, non-market) housing in new developments (i.e. inclusive zoning), if it wants to address this issue.

    To be clear, densification is a key part of the solution, but the issue is the form – and location – of such densification tied to the urgent need to invest heavily in more public transit infrastructure. I can’t wait to see what the City of Vancouver is proposing along the Broadway corridor, as it continues its battle with the province and TransLink for a subway to replace the 99B bus. 30 storeys, anyone? How about 40 storeys? 50? Coming soon to a neighbourhood near you…

  • Joe Just Joe

    Personally I think the Norquay Village plan isn’t too terrible as a template but needs tweeking and obviously each community needs to make any plan their own. I felt the density levels were about right but the heights a little higher then they should’ve been, but we were working around an exisiting tower.
    What I’d have liked to have seen is the city to allow 6 floors along all aterials(~3.5FSR), with retail on ground level(the demand isn’t there yet for retail along all aterials but it will eventually once the surrounding areas densify more). Where arterials intersect perhaps allow the 4 corners up to 10 floors (~4FSR)and the rest of that block to 8 floors. The back side of all arterials should allow for 4 story apartment blocks(~2FSR). While the remaining areas should be free to remain sfhs, do townhouses, rowhouse etc (.6-~1.2FSR).
    This would allow small players to develop themselves if they choose to and provide a system where everyone benefits more evenly then the current system with big winners on big rezonings.

  • Joe Just Joe

    Another benefit of more evenly distrubuted density is that we end up with more walkable communities instead of the current node system where we might still need to drive or take transit to the closest hub.

  • Jak King

    HGetting back to the title topic, here’s my latest take on the GW Plan: http://jaksview3.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/the-community-plan-and-me/

  • Kenji

    Just from a quick look at the plan, I don’t hate the pictures. I think it is sensible to take those high traffic streets and replace the old time houses with apartments and rowhouses – on a busy street, I don’t know how much fun it is to live in a regular house anyway – very noisy and your cats get run over.

    It’s now the what but the how that makes me apprehensive. As many posters are saying, the area is home to a sizeable number of renters. What are they going to do? It’s one thing to draw a pretty picture of this built-up urban area, but what is the time line? Who is going to provide rental units?

    I would think this proposal has the best chance of being accepted if there is a workable plan to keep the existing tenants in the area.

  • Frank Ducote

    Further to questions about additional population, courtesy of Lachlan Murray and Jak King’s website @120 above:

    “According to the city publication Grandview-Woodland Community Profile 2012, “in 2011, the population of Grandview-Woodland was 27,297.” When I asked Shillito how many additional residents the Grandview-Woodland Community Plan would eventually add to the area, he said “about 10,000.” That’s an increase of about 37%. I inquired if there would be any increase in park space and Shillito said it was unlikely because the current cost of land in the city makes it prohibitively expensive for the city to make this kind of acquisition.”

  • boohoo

    @122

    I struggle to believe that. The City collects DCC’s for park acquisition. Yes, it is expensive, but they are collecting a lot. Even if you only buy say 4 or 6 lots for a new neighbourhood park, that’s under 10 million. I’m sure they are collecting far more than that in DCC’s.

  • Frank Ducote

    JJJ@118 – a reasoned answer to my earlier questions about scale and density, based on a real-world and recent experience. Thanks.

  • Mitzi B.

    JJJ@118 makes a lot of sense. I am not a planner or planner wannabe, just a person who grew up here. I love the idea of 3 to 6 storey buildings as the bulk of densification. Isn’t that what works in dense European cities like Paris or Barcelona? The really tall towers don’t feel right here – if only because they get in the way of the view of the mountains.

  • jolson

    Let’s be frank 10,000 new people is not believable when you consider that the OV plus surrounding re-zonings is estimated at 12,000 new people. Can someone cross check this number? Lewis where are you? It is a tedious exercise, but it is important. One has the feeling that this plan is block busting at an unprecedented scale, beyond what the free way builders of the 60’s could even imagine. There are better ways and places to accommodate population growth.

  • Boohoo

    jolson,

    I assume your questions are rhetorical? You never answer others…

  • Jay

    My rough calculations using Google Earth shows the area bounded by Commercial/Lakewood/Grandview cut to be a bit larger than the original OV, with the Broadway TOD area having a higher density (only going by floor count), so in this one small area of the map you have a planned population of the Olympic Village and then some.

  • Bill Lee

    @Jay
    “the area bounded by Commercial/Lakewood/Grandview cut to be a bit larger than the original OV,”
    What is the 4th side?

    Grandview Cut is the north or south boundary of your discussion? Are you going south of Broadway along the Cut?

    As Wile E. Coyote buys all his tools from Acme, I go to Acme.com/planimeter and find that Commercial to Lakewood 3 streets east and from Grandview cut to 1st avenue is 12.75 Hectares.
    Dreadfully long Disessemination Area (smaller than Census Tracts) can show granularity of population numbers and number of households for components of your view area.

    http://geodepot.statcan.gc.ca/GeoSearch2011-GeoRecherche2011/GeoSearch2011-GeoRecherche2011.jsp?minX=4017747.12991597&minY=2001716.8107563&maxX=4024511.83579831&maxY=2005834.45781512&LastImage=http://geodepot.statcan.gc.ca/Diss/Output/GeoSearch2011_f6geoimspaz159722984126931.gif&lang=E

  • gman

    jenables#2
    Yours is the only comment that really addresses the reality of these decisions.Now you only have to understand what is behind them and where they come from.

  • Jay

    @Bill Lee

    Thanks for those links!

    I forgot 12th Ave. and a short section of Broadway.

  • lowermainlander

    The Feds increase demand through low interest rates and the CMHC, and all you Nimby’s restrict supply, driving prices up. This is why I can’t afford a home in Van.

    Can’t wait til the boomers all die off.

    In the mean time the development oligarchy, who already assembled land in non-sf areas smile happily.

  • Bill

    @lowermainlander #131

    “The Feds increase demand through low interest rates and the CMHC, and all you Nimby’s restrict supply, driving prices up. This is why I can’t afford a home in Van.”

    Higher interest rates would undoubtedly have an effect to lower house prices but you probably still couldn’t afford a house with the mortgage at the higher rates. As for supply, it is land so it is inherently fixed and there is nothing Nimby’s can do about that. As for increasing density, it people like their single family neighbourhood, that is their right. Increasing density is not making housing more affordable but offering a different product at a lower price.

    “Can’t wait til the boomers all die off.”

    Now you’ve done it. It use to be that the goal of Boomers was to spend all their wealth before they died. With attitudes like yours the new goal will be to die owing a whole bunch of money. Wait a minute, they are already doing that with government debt aren’t they.

  • babalu1

    Now here’s an example of community opposition as manifested by their elected officials in a municipality in New Jersey.
    Guess what the target is?

    http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/saggy-pants-ban-public-space-control

    Now that’s progress!!

  • jenables

    Lowermainlander, haven’t we learned yet that increasing supply doesn’t lower prices? As long as someone in the WORLD is willing to buy (with no repercussions to whether or not they inhabit, because we’re classy like that) prices do not go down. If they go down, it is not because the market is flooded with condos. It is because they were ridiculously unsustainable in the first place. Even people with money to burn have their limits. Thanks gman

  • jenables

    Babalu, your link took me to a site with discussions about the high line in new York and like projects in other cities all concerning the reuse of abandoned transportation facilities. Here in Vancouver, we talk about doing to this to heavily used infrastructure… Sigh. (driving across the viaducts, one sees few pedestrians, some bikes and lots of cars… Yet turning it into a pedestrian walkway was actually considered..) I digress…

  • lowermainlander

    @ Bill. Surprised that you think that about interest rates. I depends on how much prices fell or how much interest rates went up. If prices were 30% lower and interest rates were double what they are now, I would still be better off. If an 800k condo is worth 600k, then that is 200k less to borrow, and I could pay off in 15 years instead of 25. Even with double the current interest rates that would be around a $100k savings in interest payments. Plus the savings on the home. I guess not too many people do the math, and that is why they are sucked into the market at these cheap rates driving prices up.

    You can’t create more land, but you can create more real estate through density. Can’t deny that. You are certainly not going to lower prices by restricting supply.

    And no one has a ‘right’ to keep their neighbourhood as is. The City is for everyone, not just those that live in one neighbourhood today.It belongs to the next generations, too. The city can’t keep sprawling and it’s ridiculous that there are single family densities a 10 or 15 minute drive from a CBD of a 2million pop city.

  • teririch

    ‘Can’t wait til the boomers all die off.’

    I always enjoy reading posts with that idiotic statement included.

    It reminds me of how some people feel they are entitled simply because they exist.

    Forget the fact that those ‘boomers’ have worked a hell of a lot harder than the generations behind them and have contribtued more to society overall with many still contributing.

    And I smile at the fact that those ‘boomers’ are living longer and will be able to enjoy the lives they have worked for and created for themselves.

  • Bill

    @lowermainlander #136

    I’m not sure that your example works mathematically but, of course, we can all make up changes in interest rates and housing prices but it doesn’t mean they would actually move as assumed. Generally speaking, (unless there is a complete collapse in housing prices with homeowners equity wiped out, foreclosures etc) those who can afford to out bid you today at existing rates would still out bid you at higher rates.

    Why do you think your desire to live in Vancouver trumps someone’s desire to keep their backyard?

  • babalu1

    That’s the crux of it, Bill. Not just in Vancouver but in many other cities.
    This has evolved into a pretty good discussion, though. So far.

  • boohoo

    “And I smile at the fact that those ‘boomers’ are living longer and will be able to enjoy the lives they have worked for and created for themselves.”

    Except of course for the teachers and other public union members that have paid into theirs for decades cause they’re just sucking on the teat right?

  • brilliant

    @lowermamainlander 136-its not ridiculous there are single family homes 15 minutes from the CBD and if you look around its quite common , not just in North America.

    As to your boomer bashing, why not just get up the gumption to do what countless others have done seeking economic opportunity: Move!

  • Silly Season

    Who is going to be Vancouver’s Andrew Berman?

  • jenables

    Teri, I don’t think it’s fair to say the boomers have worked a hell of a lot harder than the generations behind them. Most boomers tend to sympathize with my generation because it wasn’t as hard for them to have a home and a job that paid decently. Let me put it this way. my class in grade twelve I think were the first to have mandatory CAPP class (career and personal planning). Here’s what we were told – the boomers won’t be ready to retire when you enter the workforce, and they’ve got most of the decent jobs. You’ll probably have five or more different careers in your life. If you really want to make money, go into geriatric care. Thanks for the advice, guess I’ll get a crappy job since the boomers have taken them all then wait until the time is right so I can spend the rest of my working life wiping their assets. I meant asses, but it seemed apt. However, I don’t harbor hostility against people simply because they grew up in a much more advantageous time than I.

    Lowermainlander, I don’t think anyone was saying it was their ‘right’. Kind of like I don’t think the fact that you have money makes all the people who don’t disappear. Where are they going to live?

  • jenables

    Although Teri of course I acknowledge they have been working longer.

  • jenables

    Oh, I forgot to mention, our teacher made sure to inform us that although we will pay into the pension plan, it will likely be gone by the time we retire. I’m thinking they don’t treat kids the same way today, mind you most of my peers have boomer parents but we still grew up in a time where kids ran free and parents didn’t spend time coddling them. I’ll always be grateful for that.

  • Roger Kemble

    GVW’s latest, and I emphasize latest, plan seem to be overkill to me.

    Essentially the plan leaves The Drive alone, envisions Lee Building type development along Hastings and TOD expansion at Broadway and Commercial.

    To my shop worn perceptions it is just more boilerplate planning wishfully building on the myth of a prosperous future.

    Growth seems to have become a mark of civic virility when, in fact, badly managed it leads to stagnation.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Vancouver#Population_growth

    2011: City @ +4.4% Metro @ 9.3%. I don’t see any evidence of exponential growth, least of all at the level of accommodation in this plan.

    Housing cost are unrelated to demand, driven by off-shore speculation as the Mayor’s task force found out. This of course is off the table in polite circles: have you noticed the loquacious Michael Geller is mute of late!

    Planning following construction has nothing to do with population growth and more to do with currency failure. See my comment #38.

    Where have all the flowers gone?
    Long time passing
    Where have all the flowers gone?
    Long time ago
    Where have all the flowers gone?
    Girls have picked them every one
    When will they ever learn?
    When will they ever learn?     Pete Seeger.

    Whatever happened to the hundreds of jobs PM Harper promised for the North Shore shipyards? That was two years ago!

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