75 responses so far ↓

• 1 OM // Feb 4, 2010 at 11:49 pm

  Thanks for putting this together, Frances. I agree we definitely need to be working harder on the housing file and ridiculous arguments from some “advocates” actually make the problem worse.

• 2 Ian // Feb 5, 2010 at 7:34 am

  Frances, I don’t disagree with most of your points. But I think you miss the real point in all of this. The false stories and out-there tactics aren’t really about which narrative is true. They are about the desperate belief that once the Olympics wrap up there will be no motivation left to do anything about the problem – particularly on the part of the two senior governments.

  The record seems to support that. The BC Liberal government didn’t come back into the game until too late – the housing still needed didn’t get built, although action was taken to prevent the problem from getting intolerably worse.

  And the media has shown little desire to cover the full story outside of the Olympic connection. All those homeless counts and stats about welfare and housing programs? Essentially uncovered for years until the Olympics came into the forefront.

  Is there a bit of paranoia on the part of housing activists? Perhaps, but it seems well justified by the recent past.

• 3 Rick // Feb 5, 2010 at 7:37 am

  Your introduction is EXACTLY what any person who cares about homelessness should be talking about. I agree completely that the exaggerations and outright lies endanger the very valid and legitimate argument that you make at the start of the post: this government make life more difficult for the very poor, increased homelessness and only in Johnny-come-lately style tried to address the single biggest problem Vancouver faces. Activists need to refocus on the facts and remember that the change in government that happened at City Hall was due to the fact that the majority of people who voted see making things better in the Downtown Eastside as the number one priority for the city.

• 4 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 5, 2010 at 8:09 am

  The other facts are:

  1. We are a wealthy nation. The system is working.

  2. Poverty comes with some tags attached. Mental Illness, addiction, the leading two.

  3. Other wealthy nations who also play winter sports are coming. They have dealt with poverty. They have gone through all the thorny issues and have answers. For them, asking us questions will also be sport. They have it under control and have moved on.

  4. You are correct, Frances, relatively speaking, it is a small problem. However, it is a complex problem. The Minister has it right, it is not just housing, but housing with treatment. The Minister has it wrong, what type of housing we build does matter.

  5. No one seems to understand this one, we have to go at it in a street-by-street, neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis.

  6. The cost of having five neighbourhoods, five entire quartiers, in our city in a prime-prime-prime location underperforming the market is a drag on the economy, has caused a property crime wave, and created conditions where it is hard to call living on some streets “home”.

  7. If you are doing recovery in the DTES chances are you wont find a job there right now.

  Might help if we get a black eye. We’ve had them wide shut.

• 5 Jean Swanson // Feb 5, 2010 at 8:20 am

  Frances, I agree with your third paragraph but not the part, farther down, about a “superhuman” effort by the government to deal with homelessness. Superhuman to me would be an effort like the effort to put the Olympics on. I would say a humane effort, not necessarily super human, would include at the very minimum, spending hundreds of millions more on housing when the government had big surpluses, strenuously pushing the feds for a national housing strategy, and spending the $250 million in the Housing Endowment Fund on housing now. Taxes could also be increased on, say, the richest 10% of British Columbians, to get more for housing and other needed social programs like welfare. Welfare rates are so low now that you can’t really afford to rent a place and eat nutritiously at the same time.

  As for displacement, the Carnegie Community Action Project has done research showing that rents in hotel rooms, the last stop before homelessness, are escalating way beyond what people on welfare, disability, and seniors on basic pension can afford–over $425 a month and into the $500s and $600s and higher. One result of this, the CCAP survey found, is that the number of hotels where two people stay in one tiny room quadrupled between 2008 and 2009, usually for a horrendously high rent. Effective rent control, based on the unit, not the person, would also be part of a humane effort to deal with homelessness.

  Yes, its good that the province bought the hotels and yes, they are mostly in better shape now than when they were run privately. But, except for a couple hundred rooms, they are not additional housing, as they were fully tenanted when purchased, and they are not adequate housing. They don’t meet modern earthquake standards and don’t have private washrooms and kitchens and are mostly quite tiny. So there are some more facts for the debate with, I’ll admit it, a titch of opinion thrown in.

• 6 Wayne // Feb 5, 2010 at 10:35 am

  I’m not insensitive to the fact that an average of 33 homeless people die a year. But I’m surprised the number is so low. Considering the relentless physical abuse they endure (some of it is self-inflicted) these folks are amazingly tough. If any one of these people dies because the police or the government failed to do everything possible to offer them care, that’s criminal.

  Conditions on the DTES are not part of my daily life, others have infinitely more insight into the politics and realities of managing and trying to improve conditions. But the fact that these conditions exist is a black eye for every civic and provincial politician and every MP from BC. (and one or two senators who shall go unnamed)

  The problems have festered through neglect to the point where no one seems able to get a handle on it. The problems aren’t helped when select groups embroider the facts and sensationalize them.

  I too have doubts about any ‘kidnapping’ or ’shipping out’ program. For one thing, which municipality in BC would sit by quietly for one minute if they realized the VPD were foisting Vancouver’s problems on to their community?

  Thanks for the post Frances.

• 7 Derek Weiss // Feb 5, 2010 at 11:30 am

  Frances,

  I appreciate your frank rebuttal of rumours, and strongly agree that activists, government, and journalists should focus on the basic problems and the verified facts about the key issues: housing, addiction, and mental illness.

  The City and Province have done much, but, like all of us, they need to do more.

  This will take a special kind of stamina, however. It will take stamina on the part of the BC Gov’t to see their housing project through despite criticism and a low initial “return on investment,” particularly during a stage of economic recovery. It will take activists to hold more tightly than ever to their integrity in their messaging, and have activists continue to learn how to communicate their message in a way that is effective but not based on rumours or exaggeration. And it will take stamina from the media – to not immediately jump to the most sensational story, particularly when that story is not representative of the truth of the wider situation. Finally, it will take the people of Metro Vancouver to have long term compassion and the stamina to see this through with their votes, donations, volunteer hours, prayers, and whatever else they can contribute.

  I have seen integrity from all of these groups, so I trust they have the stamina to continue with it.

  Again, thank you for this honest post. I share your frustration, and I trust we both cling to the hope of a light at the end of this dark tunnel.

• 8 Bill Lee // Feb 5, 2010 at 11:51 am

  And in Cranbrook, Nelson, Kelowna, Prince George etc.
  Actions up there don’t get noticed in the big city. But there are relief efforts there and Fabula has contacts in the Kootenays she will bring to bear on small town homelessness compared to big city issues.

• 9 Frances Bula // Feb 5, 2010 at 12:09 pm

  Jean,

  You’re right. Superhuman is probably overstating it. I would say Coleman has done what should have been done every year since 2001, although a little bit more. Overall, I am not convinced the efforts of the last two years make up for the previous five years of abandoning the field.

  But when it comes to the rents — you’re not arguing that’s Olympics-related, is it? It seems to me that it’s all part of increasing pressure in general on that area as more people try to move downtown. I know that my son and many of his bohemian/arty friends think it’s cool to live in places in the Downtown Eastside and Strathcona that used to be strictly drug-user territory. Don’t think they’re attracted to the area because of the Olympics.

  And to Ian — You say there was only attention paid to homelessness/housing because of the Olympics. But that’s a really problematic statement. The province cancelled the social housing projects in 2001 and instituted the new welfare rules in, I think, 2002. So the impacts of all that only started showing up in around 2002/2003. Vancouver was announced as the Olympics bid winner in July 2003. So both things were happening at once. The media AND housing advocates all started banging the drum about increasing homelessness in the post-2002 years. Is that because of the Olympics? Or is that because the numbers were soaring and so it would have become a media topic anyway?

• 10 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 5, 2010 at 1:33 pm

  Fraces,

  It would help—if you can get it—to see the text in the Olympic bid re the homelessness issue.

• 11 spartikus // Feb 5, 2010 at 2:02 pm

  @Lewis

  Here is the 2010 Winter Games Inner-City Inclusive Commitment Statement

• 12 Michael Geller // Feb 5, 2010 at 2:19 pm

  It is impossible to succinctly summarize the reasons we have not successfully addressed the housing problems in the DTES over the past decades. However, here are a few ideas for consideration.

  1. The city has not enforced its maintenance and occupancy by-laws, thus allowing the deterioration of much of the housing stock. The reasons are two-fold…there was a fear that some landlords would simply close up, further reducing the stock; and the one time the city did go in and repair, it was accused of ‘gold-plating’ the repairs and sued. The result, the province decided to go in and buy up some properties, often at a high price. This is not the long term answer.

  2. The shelter component of welfare is too low. It remained at $325 a month for more than 10 years, before increasing to $375. But this is not enough to pay for a well maintained unit, even an SRO unit. Some local housing activists did not demand higher shelter allowance rates since “it would be putting money in the landlords’ pockets”. To my mind, this is precisely why they should be increased, and then the M&O by-laws can be more effectively used if properties are not maintained.

  3. The replacement housing is too expensive. Housing officials and politicians don’t like to talk about it, but the replacement units (the Pennsylvania Hotel) is a good example are too expensive and not value for money. The Pennsylvania Hotel cost in the order of $300,000 for a 325 sq.ft. self contained suite…you do the math.

  Similarly the new ‘12 projects’ are costing far too much on a per suite basis. There should be an enquiry into why these units are costing so much. The answer? build more cost effective projects and also buy or rent existing stock away from the DTES.

  4. Another thing people don’t like to talk about….the homeless keep coming here. The more people we house, the more that come. Yes many on the streets have been around for quite a while, but I have met quite a few who have arrived in the past two years….why? because the climate is better, and there’s a chance they’ll get free housing, along with easier access to cheaper drugs.

  5. So what’s the answer? We need to do some lateral thinking…not just increase the number of shelter beds and units…we also need to address the roots of the problem…some of the homeless could work, if they were offered more opportunities and guidance. Let’s help them get jobs. If they need a shave and haircut, let’s have free barbershops open up. If they need clean clothes, just tell us where to bring them.

  Let’s increase the drug rehab facilities. Yes, it is important to have a home, but we are in desperate need of more drug rehab for those who want to return to more normal lives.

  We also need to open up more facilities for the mentally ill. I often joke that I blame Jack Nicholson for many of our problems. Why Jack Nicholson? Because he made such a mockery of mental institutions, governments closed them down without adequate replacement facilities.

  We also need to help some people re-unite with families and friends…I know many don’t have families, or want to escape them. But not all.

  6. We need to better coordinate our efforts. I agree with Ric Matthews…we need a coordinating body to manage our efforts. I call it the DTES Community Trust. What we are doing now is not working. Too much money is being spent with inadequate coordination.

  7. And finally, we need to stop fighting. The more some housing activists try to embarrass the governments, the more some government officials and politicians will say, let’s go where our efforts will be appreciated. I don’t think the rent tent campaign, or Wendy’s public protests will help. How can I prove this?..I can’t, other than to share my perspective as a former federal official who built a lot of housing in the DTES.

  I would conclude by noting all the noisy, clever and creative protests haven’t really helped over the past 7 years when there was a real potential to address the problem in advance of the Olympics.

  Now that the Olympics will soon be over, I think it is time to rethink how best to proceed.

• 13 Chris Keam // Feb 5, 2010 at 2:47 pm

  “I would conclude by noting all the noisy, clever and creative protests haven’t really helped over the past 7 years when there was a real potential to address the problem in advance of the Olympics.”

  I posed this question to another person in a different forum who voiced a similar opinion…

  Name a successful attempt to deal with poverty and homelessness that didn’t have a component of protest and direct action.

  I can’t think of any and I presume anyone who wants to address the issue would gladly use whatever works. Unfortunately, embarrassing public officials seems to be the only tactic that has a track record of success, in a number of arenas, from human rights, to environmental issues, to poverty and homelessness.

  cheers,
  CK

• 14 spartikus // Feb 5, 2010 at 2:53 pm

  The more some housing activists try to embarrass the governments, the more some government officials and politicians will say, let’s go where our efforts will be appreciated.

  The strategy of many civil rights and social justice movements – from Gandhi to MLK, etc – has been to embarrass those in power into action.

  The politicians under discussion are those who, when left to their own devices, withdrew funding that compounded homelessness in Vancouver. If their reaction to a little uncomfortable scrutiny is to take their ball and go home, then I would humbly suggest we need new politicians rather than new activists.

• 15 A Civil Gal // Feb 5, 2010 at 2:57 pm

  “And finally, we need to stop fighting. The more some housing activists try to embarrass the governments, the more some government officials and politicians will say, let’s go where our efforts will be appreciated. I don’t think the rent tent campaign, or Wendy’s public protests will help.”
  Your philosophy (that of a politician) is like this:
  …Come, cheat, lie, get elected, take, what one can’t take -destroy,marginalize and abuse, and after all is pocketed …let’s not fight on it, let’s be civil. Bollocks and you know it!

  “How can I prove this?..I can’t”
  EXACTLY you can’t, so why bring it up then?
  Nobody seems to want to do anything. They can pretend, yes they mastered the art of that.
  If you are paying attention, all targets are set beyond their present “in office” terms, take our pitiful Mayor for example. Ending homelessness by 2015!? Oh, phleaseee!
  Exactly 4 years after he and his Vision cohorts are kicked out of municipal politics.
  You do the math.

• 16 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 5, 2010 at 3:00 pm

  Michael, I’ll take more time to digest your several, well argued positions. But, some initial commentary for the readers…

  I thought you were going to reference “Easy Rider” and the liberal drug culture vis a vis Jack Nicholson…

  On people keep coming in… We all have SIN numbers—good way to “charge back the federal government”.

  On the cost of housing… well, we’ve heard the Director of Planning say that he is encountering resistance for allowing the building type that can be erected relatively cheaply, put up density that will surpass the towers, and shape the urban quality of the resulting neighborhood spaces in a positive direction, while shoring up the historic values of place.

  Never mind that the fee-simple row removes the costs of land assembly. What’s your take on all that?

  On “the city has not enforced” (first point)… we’re going to go bankrupt—if we haven’t already—enforcing what is just plain ol’ civil behaviour and neighbourliness.

  It is a “roles and responsibilities” issue is it not? My numbers show that 15,000 living in 512 acres is about 30,000 people short of Mount Pleasant densities. That is a whack of neighbourhood economy that is not in place, along with all of the human and municipal “infrastructure” that goes along with it.

  On “we need to stop fighting”… We need to build consensus. I’ve never had a fight with anyone from the DTES, and I’ve had a stack of very good discussions.

  No, you’ve seen my posts, there is a dimension of municipal responsibility that has not materialized. I fear that it only reflects a wider cultural attitude in our society, on the one hand. And, a failure to recognize the need to ramp up capacity in public consultation methods, and urban methodology on the part of our civil servants, on the other.

  We need to learn from each other, is my take on it.

• 17 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 5, 2010 at 3:14 pm

  Thanks Spartikus…

  2010 Winter Games Inner-City Inclusive Commitment Statement

  Housing

  a) Protect rental housing stock

  b) Provide as many alternative forms of temporary accommodation for Winter Games visitors and workers

  c) Ensure people are not made homeless as a result of the Winter Games

  d) Ensure residents are not involuntarily displaced, evicted or face unreasonable increases in rent due to the Winter Games

  e) Provide an affordable housing legacy and start planning now

  I dunno. I can drive a truck through that language.

• 18 grumbelschmoll // Feb 5, 2010 at 7:16 pm

  $458 million for a retractable roof on bc place? that could buy a few units. maybe 2,000 of them.

  it’s not what they say, it’s where they put the money.

• 19 Monte Paulsen // Feb 5, 2010 at 10:31 pm

  What a pleasant, respectful debate. Online no less. Amazing. (How can I resist?)

  I share Frances’ frustration with some of the recent overstatements, but also think the facts presented merit a bit of context:

  1.) The 10,000 homeless in B.C. could easily be a low number. Over the past year, I’ve made a habit of running those two-year-old local estimates past local service providers whenever I spoke with them. I have yet to find anyone on the ground who thought their local estimate was too high. Many thought their local estimate was too low. Part of the confusion might stem from varying definitions of “homeless,” which is harder to agree on in rural areas.

  2.) Homelessness is expensive. An old B.C. study shows we spend $55,000 a year per homeless person. A Calgary study put the number at $125,000 a year. Here in Vancouver, we have a higher share of entrenched homeless, who tend to be heavier users of police and hospital services, and who are therefore likely costing much more than $125,000 a year. Just ask the VPD, which figured that up to a third of its calls are mental health related.

  3.) How expensive? If we have 10,000 homeless costing us $50,000 each, then B.C. taxpayers are currently paying a half-billion a year to keep the homeless on the streets. If the number of homeless is higher, or the average cost per is higher (as it likely is in Vancouver), that number could easily be a billion dollars a year. By way of comparison, that’s about what we spend on the Sea-to-Sky, the convention centre and the Canada line, combined, for the last few years.

  One way to put these facts in context is to compare them to the Olympic event. Not to disparage the Olympics, but to prod each of us into thinking about what we could do if we applied ourselves as diligently to helping the homeless as we have toward hosting the games.

  Consider:

  – We have about twice as many homeless British Columbians (10k) as we have Olympic athletes (5k).

  – Over the past few years, we B.C. taxpayers have spent a billion a year on both servicing the homeless and funding new BC Housing programs to end homelessness. A billion dollars a year. That’s a number that rivals what we spent building infrastructure in support of the Olympics.

  I cite these figures not to dredge up the old criticisms. We all know them. Was Sam Sullivan too focused on a few narrow solutions? Was Gordon Campbell too short-sighted in his first term? Has Stephen Harper been MIA? Yes. Yes. Yes.

  But can we move on? For it’s also true that Campbell and Rich Coleman have done more in two years than the province has done in a decade. Gregor Robertson has made some great first steps toward an ambitious promise.

  I cite these figures because I believe that for a billion dollars a year we can do better. Much better.

  I think for that for a billion dollars a year we could be helping many homeless individuals heal and return to productive life — while sustaining others in affordable long-term care.

  My to-do list has three categories:

  1.) We need to get everyone out of shelters and into housing-first housing, because people can’t heal in shelters. We have to find a way to build basic housing more quickly, and for less than $300K per unit. I believe there are ways to do this. The Tyee will continue bringing forward ideas about this after the games.

  2.) We need to get everyone who’s housed into treatment for whatever their medical or mental health issues may be. We need to rethink how we deliver care. If B.C. could get a health minister who’s as aggressive on this file as our housing minister has been, we’d start saving money on those ambulance and hospital calls in a fairly short period of time. The “At Home” study is a great first step. At some point, can we consider diverting money from health care programs that produce lower rates of success and apply some of it to treatment methods that show proven success?

  3.) We need to get a much broader swath of the community involved in ending homelessness. Street 2 Home is a good start. Ric Matthew’s idea for a VANOC-like project is worth studying. Mayor Robertson’s attempts to bring faith groups into the effort could pay dividends over time. Geller’s charette is a nice idea. What else can we all do?

  I believe that we can do all of this for a billion a year or less. (Maybe much less. More on that to come in The Tyee.)

  And I believe that we have a near-critical mass of political and business leaders who genuinely want to solve these problems.

  So I propose that we each celebrate or protest the Olympics as we each see fit. It will be a fun party for all, no matter which side of the barricade one is on.

  And after the games are over, I hope we can all rejoin with fresh eyes and open hearts at what we can do together to end street homelessness in B.C.

  Because we can do this.

• 20 Glissando Remmy // Feb 5, 2010 at 11:32 pm

  SEVEN,6,5,4,3,2,1…The Olympic Countdown Thought of the Day

  “One thing I don’t like is when people don’t pick up after their Olympians. I just stepped in a fresh pile of spirit today in downtown and frankly I was not amused. I am surprised they did not figure out how to properly use their red mittens by now.”

  Speaking of mittens, have you tried to count money while wearing them? It’s brutal. So I’ve heard.

  CRAZY NEWS from the Funny Bunch at City Hall.

  Anxiety is slowly growing to the realization that Meggs, the Second in command might be suffering from amnesia. First he wanted the Dunsmuir – Georgia viaducts demolished, if I’m not mistaken he moved that motion (on someone else’s older suggestion), now he wants them painted for future biking enthusiasts. Enjoy…all for the modicum price of $ 300,000!
  Can anyone spell Bloedel? Bloedee-Ell…Bloody Hell!
  Crazy! Do you know how many bicycles were crossing Burrard Bridge today @ around 4’00 PM while I was heading South, in my car? NONE!

  THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES!

  As I was about to retire for the night I made the indiscretion to read Geller’s post. Man, oh, man, why me? Human nature I guess, I simply cannot look away…I almost kicked myself. His comments are on par with Bruce’s admission of guilt during his Shark Convention (from: Finding Nemo).
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_MQdMKuY5A
  Michael, I know what you’ll say… “Fish are Friends not Food!”

  HOME IS WHERE I SLEEP LESS

  Bums are very profound people. I heard one the other day mumbling to himself “It’s a bad time to be a teacher, it’s a bad time to be a nurse, it’s a bad time to be a librarian, it’s a bad time to be a working stiff, it’s a good time to be something else.” Figure that out.

  We live in Vancouver and this keeps us busy.

• 21 Glissando Remmy // Feb 6, 2010 at 12:27 am

  Monte Paulsen meets… Monty Python

  Wow. As I was writing my post @ 20, I completely missed the Paulsen’s Chronicles of the Holly Lame Ducks.

  Monte, how on earth did you manage to put (in alphabetical order) Campbell, Coleman, Robertson and Sullivan in the same post with statements like: “have done more in two years than the province has done in a decade…great first steps toward an ambitious promise… attempts to bring faith groups into the effort could pay dividends over time… We need to get a much broader swath of the community involved in ending homelessness…”
  It must have been a very slow Friday!

  Only to end in a tirade of nonsense propaganda like: “I believe that we can do all of this for a billion a year or less… And I believe that we have a near-critical mass of political and business leaders who genuinely want to solve these problems… I propose that we each celebrate or protest the Olympics as we each see fit …after the games are over, I hope we can all rejoin with fresh eyes and open hearts at what we can do together to end street homelessness in B.C. “(huh???)

  John Cleese called me and he is shocked and appalled, my friend. And I am too!

  We live in Vancouver and this keeps us busy.

• 22 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 6, 2010 at 12:37 am

  “We have to find a way to build basic housing more quickly, and for less than $300K per unit.”

  I think you’ve identified a core issue, Monte, and I’ve asked Geller on another string to work some numbers. What size unit do you have in mind?

  If you are thinking 800 s.f., then 300K x 4 = 1.2 Million per fee-simple building. If you are thinking 400 square foot units, then 300K per unit equals 2.4 Million per fee simple building.

  I hope your numbers are too high.

• 23 tf // Feb 6, 2010 at 5:02 am

  A few comments are sticking with me – in particular referring to the work that public protesters and activists do, in particular Wendy.

  Every single one of us need to thank them for their tireless and persistent efforts in keeping this issue in the public eye.

  See what a small group of people can do? Have you been to their meetings or read their reports or listened to what they say? They engage people who live in the DTES, they don’t sit in a board room on the 30th floor looking down at the community as if it’s a board game.

  Rich Coleman was quoted saying that he would never get thanked for what he’s done – he should be thanking Wendy and all the other community activists and volunteers for doing his job for him! And they do it with limited resources! We need to push leaders into change because they aren’t going to initiate change on their own.

  To quote the late Howard Zinn – “The job of the people who are concerned in the world is to make invisible people visible. Democracy doesn’t come from the top, it comes from the bottom. Democracy is not what governments do, it’s what people do.”

  More power to the people:)

• 24 Chris Keam // Feb 6, 2010 at 7:55 am

  G.R.

  I went across the Cambie Bridge northbound at 0930 yesterday and all three lanes were ghost towns… on a day when the Dunsmuir viaduct was closed. I regularly walk down Broadway between Main and Cambie and the street will be practically empty during the day. I’ve been the only person swimming lanes at Second Beach Pool.

  Snapshots make good fodder for satire, but they aren’t so great at planning for the future of the city IMO.

• 25 michael geller // Feb 6, 2010 at 8:07 am

  For those interested in how we got to where we are today, may I suggest you check out a June 2007 Report to Council from the Housing Department http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/20070628/documents/pe7.pdf

  This document includes the report of the Inner City Inclusive Housing Table which makes very interesting reading in light of the current situation related to the homeless. I think it is significant that in a survey of 600 people, the largest number suggested that addressing homelessness would be the most important lasting legacy of the 2010 games.

  While I appreciate that many of you truly believe protests and shaming the government are the way to get results, I would suggest that it was the quiet behind the scene negotiations involving Geoff Plant, Ken Dobell, Judy Rogers, Don Fairbairn, the Premier and Coleman that resulted in what took place over the subsequent two and half years.

  And yes, the coming Olympics was the significant catalyst for these actions.

  So while we may differ on our assessments of the value of protests, I would still welcome your thoughts on some of the other initiatives I and others are proposing…especially relocating people from the SRO’s into existing apartments, with support services, similar to the Toronto StreetoHome program, freeing up SRO units for the homeless…(I understand a similar approach is being taken with respect to the allocation of the 200 social housing units in Woodwards)…

  Also more efforts to help some people get into the workforce; more reunification initiatives to connect some people with friends and family back where they came from…

  And the need for a new coordinating entity to bring together the various governments, including the federal government, key community organizations, housing and service providers…

  As for Lewis’ suggestions that we re-think how we are housing lower income people, I am in full agreement. Both in terms of building form, size and income mixing. While many people heap accolades on Woodwards and its 200 units of social housing, I would note that we spent years trying to get away from such large social housing projects.

  Instead, I would prefer to see us follow a number of different approaches…

  We should limit the size of new purpose built social housing projects to no more than 50 to 60 units, and then make them available to only those in greatest need. I suspect that many of you don’t know this, BUT MANY PEOPLE MOVING INTO EXPENSIVE NEW SOCIAL HOUSING ARE NOT NECESSARILY LOW INCOME PEOPLE….. BY DESIGN!

  That’s right, the goal as noted in the above referenced report is to mix people from different socio-economic backgrounds, with some CORE NEED, some paying LOWER END OF MARKET RENT, and some paying market rent.

  This is the approach being proposed for many of the larger, new projects including OLYMPIC VILLAGE SOCIAL HOUSING. That’s right, the proposed 250 units of social housing were not intended just for the ‘core need’ poor…a significant percentage were intended for market renters.

  LET ME REPEAT THIS….THE 250 UNITS OF SOCIAL HOUSING AT THE OLYMPIC VILLAGE WERE NEVER INTENDED JUST FOR THE HOMELESS AND ‘CORE NEED’ POOR (namely those in the lowest income quintile). A significant percentage were to be offered at market rent.

  I THINK IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT WE REMEMBER THIS WHEN WE CONSIDER THE FUTURE OF THE 250 SOCIAL HOUSING UNITS.

  And please don’t say, all 250 should be for the homeless and very low income households, because housing experts around the world can tell you that is absolutely the wrong way to go.

  I was around CMHC and BC Housing when the initial decisions were made to create mixed income non-market housing projects. This approach worked at the time, because the units were not so expensive and there was ample federal money to fund the projects.

  But now that Federal money is essentially non-existent, and provincial and municipal money is scarce, and projects are so expensive, we all need to question whether the expensive units in the proposed new tower at Broadway and Fraser, the Olympic Village and other current projects should be offered to market renters, (in addition to the lower income households) just to ensure a broader socio-economic mix in these larger projects.

  Recently, my daughter wanted to buy her first car. She started looking at used cars, but then her mother said perhaps she should get something more reliable, and before we knew it we were looking at new cars…eventually she settled on a relatively new, but used car. What’s my point?

  Why are we often putting the lowest income people in the most expensive new housing? This brings me to the StreetoHome Program. In Toronto over 2200 people were housed in a relatively short period of time by making use of existing rental housing, rather than always building new projects. While some argue this approach can’t work here since our vacancy rate is so low, I disagree. Every month there are an increasing number of rental units coming on the market and they could be leased and provided to people moving out of SRO’s, WITH THE NECESSARY SUPPORT SERVICES. Similarly, there are units for sale that could be purchased for significantly less than what it is costing us to build new. We should be buying some of these units, and not just in DTES….why not in Burnaby or Port Moody, and Langley and Coquitlam.

  Thirdly, there are many basement suites and rooms in peoples homes that are not being used. With careful placement and monitoring, I believe it is possible to house some people in this accommodation. Now, I can appreciate that one immediately starts to think about the terrible things that could go wrong….but many things could go right too. It’s worth trying, as yet another alternative.

  To conclude, Monte is right…we could spend just a billion a year and build new projects, but for whatever reasons, we collectively do not support this approach. Furthermore, from my experience, the expenditures are not always value for money. I believe that if we could be satisfied that we were getting value for money spent, there would be a greater public appetite for such expenditures. And I also believe that the Feds could be brought back into the picture (just as they have agreed to fund the demonstration program for the mentally ill across Canada.)

  OK, guys….attack!!!

• 26 Kate // Feb 6, 2010 at 9:41 am

  Have no fear!

  The powers that be have come up with an answer to the plight of the homeless.

  Wait…were you just thinking”Rent the homeless to the media”?

  ….you read their minds!

  http://douchebauchery.blogspot.com/2010/02/vancouver-wants-you-to-rent-their_06.html

  Ah, Vancouver. ..always something new and impossibly ridiculous.

• 27 jon // Feb 6, 2010 at 10:39 am

  Micro-Lofts are in the above debate today in the Sun:

  http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Small+space+residency+history/2531087/story.html

  http://www.vancouversun.com/news/International+media+sights+homeless/2530898/story.html

• 28 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 6, 2010 at 11:07 am

  I’m still asking for square-foot cost of construction for 4-storey wood frame with concrete party-walls. Let’s keep land cost, like the salad dressing, “on the side”.

  So, to your numbers:

  1. “relocating people from the SRO’s into existing apartments, with support services, similar to the Toronto StreetoHome program, freeing up SRO units for the homeless…(I understand a similar approach is being taken with respect to the allocation of the 200 social housing units in Woodwards)…”

  We had 3 units held by a local non-profit in our building, while I was chair of the strata council. Overall, a good thing. However, when there were problems, the council had to contact the NGO and the support just was not there. So, yes, support and assessment.

  However, interaction in a the group is also part of the process in some forms of recovery, and some forms of mental health treatment. If it was simply a case of finding a basement suite, we’ve heard it here already, the space is available.

  2 & 3. “Also more efforts to help some people get into the workforce; more reunification initiatives to connect some people with friends and family back where they came from…”

  Can’t comment on the second. Lack expertise. Counselling & conflict resolution?

  The first one, that i am calling the “Missing Pillar”: a functioning neighbourhood economy across the five historic “quartiers” with the greatest cultural and historical value in our city.

  Give me a functioning local economy, I’ll give you jobs!

  4. “And the need for a new coordinating entity to bring together the various governments, including the federal government, key community organizations, housing and service providers…”

  Well, this is the Paradigm Shift pure and simple.

  The “Urban Design Plan for Vancouver’s Historic Neighborhoods” is that entity. I don’t mean to sound “blue sky” or trite. I really believe that if there was a well wrought, consensus-based, fully vetted urban design plan for the intensification of the neighbourhoods, the revitalization of Hastings Street, identifying a concrete and measurable target for non-market, affordable and market units at build-out (i.e. when all the units in the plan are built), complete with a financing formula, I think we would see a veritable stampede of people of every walk of life turning up with help, money, land, materials, you name it.

  5. “We should limit the size of new purpose built social housing projects to no more than 50 to 60 units, and then make them available to only those in greatest need”

  I would like to hear from the people that are actually doing the work as to what works. I’ll read the report maybe the numbers are in there.

  I visited one addiction treatment group with houses in Surrey and Coquitlam. They had up to 11 or 12 individuals per house, but they were rooming in bunks. 7 was a better number they said; and that’s the number I’ve seen coming out of Boston as well.

  I see “no more than 50 to 60 units” and I’m thinking you’re thinking towers, which to boot Michael, are not “historically compatible”.

  We can do it for less both in height, and cost, and get a more human-scaled intimate neighbourhood environment.

  You and I can sit down over a coffee and rant about our Top 10 best housing projects, locally and world wide. We need to get to that level of understanding with the Top 10 best programs/facilities. We need to know in concrete terms what works, and why.

  6. “That’s right, the goal as noted in the above referenced report is to mix people from different socio-economic backgrounds, with some CORE NEED, some paying LOWER END OF MARKET RENT, and some paying market rent.”

  If we are talking “fee-simple, row houses” the mix happens matter-of-factly. Some units sell in one market, others are bought by co-ops, non-profits, government entities, etc. What I like about the house row is that it is “incremental” and “one-size fits all”.

  I’m a social animal just like you. Given a choice about where to practice socio-economic mixing with my neighbours, I know what I’d choose. I’d rather meet them out front gardening, or in the lane when retrieving our empty garbage cans, than in an elevator clad in mirror panels.

  In London museums, hospitals, and even the Architects association, occupy fee-simple rows proving just how flexible the building type really is. As urban space Bedford Square, where the RAIC is located, is a gem.

  7. “I THINK IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT WE REMEMBER THIS WHEN WE CONSIDER THE FUTURE OF THE 250 SOCIAL HOUSING UNITS.”

  250 units? Are we talking about just one street?

  By my count we’ll be building about 15,000 residential units in the historic neighbourhoods if we are serious about turning the tide. And, you are right to point out, there is the need to renovate a chunk of existing stock.

  8. “But now that Federal money is essentially non-existent, and provincial and municipal money is scarce, and projects are so expensive, we all need to question …”

  I don’t buy it.

  What we all need to question is how come we have let the technical issues of this thing go so wrong for so long. It’s the fundamentals that are not in place. Why haven’t the brightest talent and the deepest pockets among us come together, gone out into the streets, met the human face of the problem, and together crafted a consensus plan showing the way forward?

  The reason we have clients, Michael, is that we deliver a product. We need to deliver product to this footprint in our city, as well.

  Urban design is most certainly not rocket science, and a lot of the “money [that] is essentially non-existent” gets created in the process of building the city. It has always been thus. What gets created out of not building the city, well we have that too…

  Finally, what you do best Michael is put projects together. Let’s put some numbers on the table. And, can you shed any light on the push-back Brent is getting on the fee-simple house row. I’ve studied building technology, architecture, and planning, and I just don’t get it.

• 29 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 6, 2010 at 12:20 pm

  Okay, I’m reading the report from 2007, and will download the City’s “Homeless Action Plan” and the “Downtown Eastside Housing Plan” and study them as well.

  However, this is “old paradigm” planning. The missing component, I would argue, is an urban design plan

  (1) to give all these good ideas on housing physical form, and

  (2) coordinate the housing plans with the other six elements of good urbanism.

  The reason I am on this blog is to point out that as long as we keep at it with planning without urban design, we’re not getting where we want to go. Housing is just one facet of a complex problem.

• 30 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 6, 2010 at 1:42 pm

  Correction: the Architectural Association, at Bedford Square, London. Bookstore in the basement and pub upstairs highly recommended by none other than Trevor Boddy.

• 31 Higgins // Feb 6, 2010 at 4:28 pm

  Another long debate. Yawn.
  Lewis, good points. Hard to put in practice though with so many “interested parties”.
  Comrade Monte, how you doin’? I’m proud of you. I’ll send your congratulatory regards to all the apparatchik.
  Michael…attack? If you didn’t notice by now you are monologuing in here. Nobody is paying attention.
  The rest… is bla, bla, bla.
  Meanwhile the homeless are still on the streets.
  You guys, keep debating!

• 32 Becky // Feb 6, 2010 at 10:04 pm

  You know, I work downtown and pass several homeless folks on the street. One guy is talking french to a guy stoned on the street saying he just moved here from Quebec. I see a woman passed out on the sidewalk with her bag from a store in Ontario. Our “guest” homeless people don’t stop there either. Hello! As a taxpayer, I don’t want to provide housing for every goddamn individual in the world! What do you do with that scenario? While there are individuals who need mental help, help with their drug addictions, surely we need to remember that we are not the saviours that will end homelessness?

• 33 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 6, 2010 at 10:25 pm

  Higgins, we’re just trying to understand the problem.

• 34 landlord // Feb 7, 2010 at 10:21 am

  We live in Vancouver and this keeps us bloggy.

• 35 Paul C // Feb 7, 2010 at 11:53 am

  Thank you Frances.

  Exaggeration spurs apathy. People want to help but want accurate facts. Government spin and activist hyperbole provide neither facts nor inspired public confidence.

• 36 Frank Murphy // Feb 7, 2010 at 12:28 pm

  Bear with me as I join this conversation in progress – I don’t see a perspective offered in Jane Jacob’s Death and Life of Great American Cities reflected – that dedicated subsidized housing as opposed to rental subsidies for in need tenants is destructive to city neighbourhoods. Once economic circumstance improves the tenant quite understandably wants out from under the stigma of the housing project and out of the neighbourhood entirely as soon as possible.

• 37 Frances Bula // Feb 7, 2010 at 4:57 pm

  @ Monte: Thanks for all the input. One clarification. When I mentioned the estimate of 10,000 homeless in B.C. (which represents 1/4 or one per cent of the population), it wasn’t to say that it was a minor problem or to discount the numbers. Ten thousand is awful. And it’s actually much higher than that, as you know. Metro Vancouver’s one-night homeless count in 2008 was 2,600. And a one-night count usually means that, throughout a whole year, anywhere from three to six times as many people actually experience homelessness.

  But my point in including that number was to underscore the fact that the numbers of homeless people dying are not out of proportion to their overall numbers and the rate of death in the province.

• 38 Frances Bula // Feb 7, 2010 at 5:06 pm

  @Michael Geller @Becky
  Both of you bring up the, if you’ll excuse me, tired cliche that we only encourage the homeless to come here by building housing and that your personal experiences indicate this is so.
  I am always amazed that people say this, as though Vancouver is the only place with a homelessness problem.
  Yes, there are people among the homeless who come from elsewhere. Not surprising, considering this is a destination city for all kinds of people. When 40,000 people a year move into the region, is it surprising that some of them are from the bottom end of the economic ladder?
  But also, the argument that Vancouver attracts homeless people “because I’ve met them and they’re from other provinces” reminds me of a friend who used to work in the court system and said he got so sick and tired of the way people on parole always ended up back in court. He never seemed to realize that he didn’t hear about any of the ones who DIDN’T end up back in court because … his only experience was in court.
  Similarly, people who think Vancouver is the only city attracting homeless people speak from the perspective of those who’ve never gone and talked to homeless people anywhere else.
  It is so hard to make that case when you look at what’s going on elsewhere. Calgary actually has a big homeless population than Vancouver does. Fort McMurray’s is huge. Regina and Winnipeg also have significant problems. In the late 1990s, Toronto had 10 times as many homeless people on the streets as Vancouver (about 4,000 vs. 400) — at a time when B.C. was still building social housing but Ontario wasn’t!!
  In B.C. in recent years, homelessness has skyrocketed, not just in Vancouver, but in Surrey (where they weren’t building any shelters), in Kelowna, Fort St. John, Nanaimo, Prince George and more.
  Sure, there are always people from elsewhere among the homeless. They do tend to be somewhat more transient. And yes, some cities get more than others: San Francisco more than Cedar Rapids, Victoria more than Port Alberni.
  But it’s a function of much more than “are they getting a free ride somehow.”

• 39 david hadaway // Feb 7, 2010 at 9:44 pm

  A lot of very interesting observations above. I’d just like to support Frank Murphy. We need plenty of new housing but let’s try to make it housing without stigma. If you look at some of the social housing developments in the DTES and elsewhere they have a harsh and forbidding appearance. They tell their occupants, “You’re second class, you’ll accept what you’re given.”

  Can’t these places even try look like somewhere normal people (or even their architects and planners!) would choose to live in?

• 40 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 7, 2010 at 11:13 pm

  Becky, it’s not just that, “Hello! As a taxpayer, I don’t want to provide housing for every goddamn individual in the world!” Consider that the ratio of health workers to clients can be as high as 1 to 5 in high risk cases (8 service providers to 40 cases).

  Dealing with homelessness, mental illness, and addiction is not easy, or cheap. However, if “we are not the saviours that will end homelessness?”, then who is?

  So, if you want to end homelessness like most of us here do: (a) what’s the best way to do that; and (b) recognizing that you are reporting fact, and taking into account Frances’s shrewd analysis that ours is only a single observation point on a broad spectrum, how do we account for our region being a magnet for the marginalized from other jurisdictions? (City reports make this point too).

  Clearly, we need a direct relationship between the Federal and Municipal levels of government… Tricky since health care & municipalities are provincial jurisdiction.

  Murphy quotes a piece of “Death and Life… ” (Jacobs, 1961) that I do not remember. It’s a good point, though. The question of Land Title is an important one. Can the city “own” the land, and lease back to non-profits and coops, say up to 99-year terms? Then, three of four generations from now, a new set of Vancouverites would have a win-fall of sorts when land reverts back to municipal control.

  Finally… the facts (thank you, Michael!). Geller’s numbers suggest to me that the real issue has gone unnoticed: FSR of 5.0 in the historic neighbourhoods.

  [Primer: FSR—Floor Space Ratio, as if readers here hadn't had enough "ratios" already—is the multiple of the lot area that you are allowed to build. Vancouver bungalows were FSR 0.4, if I am not mistaken, and the Vancouver special hiked that up to FSR 0.6. At FSR 5.0 the building can have 5 times more floor area than the size of the lot (or lot assembly). However, today a building rarely occupies the entire site. Zoning by-laws impose a host of "set backs". Thus, the FSR 5.0 building may only occupy 20% of the building lot, making towers a given.]

  (1) Buildings that are in-keeping with the historic buildings in the residential streets of our five historic neighbourhoods don’t exceed FSR 2.0.

  (2) Fronting Hastings, FSR 2.5 may remain within the historic character because the street width is 50% greater than in the residential streets.

  This begs a question, Paul C—who in their right mind can hold the facts in sentences (3) and (4) below as being logically consistent:

  (3) We will allow buildings 2x larger (and many times higher) along the main spine of the neighbourhoods; and buildings 2.5x larger (and many times higher) along the residential streets; yet

  (4) We are serious about historic character and historic preservation in the cradle of our city.

  I don’t believe a word of it! Consider that FSR is like the Richter Scale for earthquakes. A small increase in the number means you get a lot more. 2x and 2.5x increases just spell D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R.

  Think about this consequence:

  (5) The “land lift” effect of raising the FSR in such gargantuan manner has priced the neighbourhood into a market where the only affordable buildings are precisely those types that are considered ill-suited for the purposes of treating homelessness, mental illness, and addiction.

  Solution? Mayor Adams of Portland reported to a session at SFU Downtown campus that his city has taken “the plunge”—Portland lowered the FSR (Yikes! Mayor Adams was shrewd enough to made the point stick that the “buildable area taken back” was unrealizable):

  (6) Bring back FSR 2.0 (FSR 2.5 along Hastings provided buildings meet specific urban design criteria).

  [Aside: In an urban design plan we do not zone by "use" (commercial, residential, institutional, etc.), we zone by building type. Thus, before we run off to charrette with Urbanismo and Geller—which could be a good thing—one would want to forge consensus on what building types we all agree are appropriate to build in the most significant historic neighbourhoods in western Canada.]

  Finally, we have shown in a previous blog string that low-rise Strathcona achieves more density than high-rise North False Creek (ouch!). No one in their right mind believes that the urban quality of North Shore False Creek surpasses the urban quality of Strathcona. So, what’s the comparison in FSR?

  I will estimate Strathcona at FSR 0.8 to 1.5. “The Vancouver Achievement” (Punter, 2003, Fig. 45) gives North Shore False Creek as FSR 2.8.

  Here, lower FSR yields more density, walkability, humans scale, and dare one say… sustainability?

  While FSR 5.0 will probably achieve more density than FSR 2.8—and “block more of the sky”—we can’t measure density outcome on a project-by-project basis. We need a neighbourhood urban design plan that shows how many of the FSR 5.0 animals there will be (trust me—it’s gonna be more than two), and how closely together these will pack. Ultimately, what determines “urban quality” in a “quartier” (DTES has 5 quartiers), is measurement at the scale of the quartier as a whole.

  It is becoming increasingly clear that whatever Council means by achieving “additional public benefits” does not include: heritage preservation, doors-on-the-street, safe streets, resulting urban quality, human-scale, walkable neighbourhoods, building types flexible enough for the full range of neighbourhood purposes, and building in a manner that is in-keeping with the local historic character.

  Our Council would appear to defining “additional public benefits” as what you can get at “public benefit contribution negotiations”—i.e. Cold-Hard-Ca$h.

• 41 Fee Simple Row ... // Feb 8, 2010 at 5:29 am

  Lewis N. Villegas,

  I’m curious as what spectrum of the housing/building/govt/planning area you work in? Or what is your background. I am just trying to put your comments in context.

  You seem to have a well thought out opinion … which I believe is planning the whole neighborhood is most important and fee simple row housing is a housing form best suited to deliver on this goal.

  If that is correct, I’m curious how you would see Vancouver implementing a transition to fee simple row housing. I think it is a great idea as row housing seems to work all over the world but I’m just not sure how we could get to that point in our existing neighborhoods without endless MYMBY protests.

  Please help me understand.

• 42 Urbanismo // Feb 8, 2010 at 10:22 am

  I am astonished at all this “polite” chatter over homelessness which, clearly, no one on this blog has experienced or has a clue how to solve.

  Perhaps a brief history of DTES may enlighten.

  My first job in Vancouver, 1951, was on Water Street: then it was not called DTES, just “skid road”. The place was alive with crowded logging agencies, over flowing beer parlors and single men come to town to blow their stake.

  The hotels were bulging with one nighters flush with money and looking pretty good: fishermen, loggers and miners.

  They all had well paying jobs!

  There were lots of drunks, discreet, invisible hookers and no, repeat no, homeless.

  So, WTF happened?

  Came the ’70’s when the Anglo economy changed from thriving to slow collapse: decoupling money from gold: fiat currency . . . and that is why all of us, to one degree or another, are on life-support today.

  Anyway the rot set-in in the early ’70’s in Gassy Jack’s town: Larry Killam, yes THAT Larry Killam, converted the building kitty corner to the Europe Hotel into lawyers offices and gentrification slowly got a strangle hold.

  Around the early ’90’s Bryce Rositch converted the first condo, shamelessly talked a lot, in my earshot, about getting rid of the untidy street people, and the push to victimize was on.

  Jim Green crafted, for himself, a very comfortable career on the backs of those left behind and the only change is the big W(hy) and here we are today sucking wind.

  Oh I forgot . . . the economy changed: thriving logging and fishing industries collapsed because of greed, mismanagement and ideology: mining followed off-shore compliant laws and cheap labour.

  And what we have left are swivel chair bandits sucking on weed that happens to be BC’s only viable cash crop export.

  BC Bud is big time, world wide, but the profits do not trickle down, kept high by faux policing.

  And because the profits do not trickle down we have chronic unemployment, under employment and starvation wages. And we wonder why the streets are filled with homeless?

  The problem is a few own everything and most of us can pay the rent if we behave ourselves . . .

  The solution, sin embargo, is not easy but its there: restore the wild fishing industry, take silviculture seriously and bring mining home.

  All this will foster appropriate, once-profitable thriving processing industries and good paying jobs and if people are homeless after that care for them in our best institutions.

  Old fashioned economics eh? Huh!

  With new found taxes, it will pay of itself!

• 43 Joe Just Joe // Feb 8, 2010 at 11:19 am

  I’ve heard lots of reasons for the decline of the DTES but the removal of the gold standard?
  Should we reinstate the gold standard to solve the problem? Because I know from reading comments on the globe and mail site that it’s removal has been the cause of all of soceities ills. It’s only reasonable to assume reinstating it would create a upotia.
  I still have the receipt somewhere for my economics degree maybe I can get my money back.

• 44 Frank Murphy // Feb 8, 2010 at 11:30 am

  Thanks for clearing that up for us urbanismo. Missing from your list though is the closing of the institutions which housed and treated the unfortunates with severe psychiatric/emotional/adiction problems and we might as well add the developments in government monetary and fiscal policy which created the longest period of prosperity in history quickly followed by something close to our ruin. Stay tuned.

  Meanwhile, back at street level… Lewis: Death and Life is worth a fresh look. Chapter 17 Subsidizing Dwellings. Under Jacob’s proposed plan if I’m in a rental suite and my neighbour has a low-income subsidy it’s none of my bleeding business. Also plans which subsidize the individual not the building are more likely to be self-renewiing. As the subsidy is no longer required by the individual it goes back into the pool available for underwriting new housing stock.

• 45 Ian // Feb 8, 2010 at 2:03 pm

  “For it’s also true that Campbell and Rich Coleman have done more in two years than the province has done in a decade….

  “I cite these figures because I believe that for a billion dollars a year we can do better. Much better. ”

  First of all Coleman and co. have not done more than anyone in a decade. The new unit numbers show the opposite, particularly when you disagregate seniors and low income housing. And especially if you add in the funded units they canceled in 2001.

  But I admit the fact that the Campbell government turned a real problem into a crisis is water under the bridge when faced with the problem of turning that around.

  My question to all the people with all the plans and ideas mentioned above is, have you read the budget?

  Monte, there isn’t any billion dollars a year coming. Between the election budget and the real budget the government cut about half a billion dollars out of the BC Housing budget over the next three years. They revised the current year downward from a provincial contribution of $499 million to $314 million, about a 35% cut. On top of that the federal contribution was cut by a similar proportion.

  It is useful to compare the BC Housing service plans pre and post election to see the significant scale of the cuts. And the cuts will be weighted to new housing because of the built-in cost of exisiting operating agreements and statutory programs such as rent aid.

  What really matters shows in the new unit projections. 10/11 was revised downward from 1458 new units to 348; 11/12 went from 1522 to 70. I reiterate, that’s 70 new units in 2012 instead of 1500, a cut that is larger than the 2001 cut.

  So all the talk about how to build all the needed new units looks more and more like wishful thinking. The money is disappearing. And the word is expect more in the March budget because the September numbers may have been a little too rosy.

  Michael Geller and others raise important issues but I’d wager not as important as the disappearing funding for new housing. I’d suggest focusing on how to convince the government that funding housing is still of critical importance.

• 46 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 8, 2010 at 4:23 pm

  @Fee Simple Row…

  My background is in building technology, architecture, and urban design roughly in that order. I cut my teeth in BC by doing “Downtown Revitalization Projects” with 50% funding for the study component provided by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs until it was disbanded. Some years later, I was commuting to Portland to work with Lennertz & Coyle, Architects and Town Planners, until their office closed on the aftermath of 9/11 and, probably just as significantly, the policies of the Bush Administration. Urbanism is not steady employment. Bill Lennertz is now the Executive Director, of the National Charrette Institute.

  In North America I see a shift in paradigm away from modernist planning, which by now is having to labour under the legacy of having brought us the suburbs on the one hand, and the Central Business Districts on the other, with all the commuting trips in between. Europe has less to contend with since urban areas there more established. However, here in Canada it is fair to say that we are lagging on all counts.

  The new paradigm doesn’t reject the automobile, but embraces the values of human scale in urbanism. As we are finding out in the DTES, there is a lot of land that can be accessed simply by foot, bicycle, or good public transportation, provided certain fundamentals are in place.

  The move to the fee-simple house row in Vancouver, the Director of Planning informed us here in this blog, is meeting with some obstacles.

  My next post will give some numbers that Michael Geller has helped me put together showing what fee-simple house rows would sell for in this market.

  However, as I understand it there is no road to implementation at the moment. Further more, the FSR 5.0 zoning (house rows are FSR 2.0) makes matters even more difficult.

  I am now reading the 2005 DTES Housing Plan. It may turn out that my last post here was presumptive in placing the blame at the feet of our Mayor and Council.

  The 2005 Housing plan is whole-cloth “old paradigm planning” and I hope to post in the next day or so an analysis of the key points where I see the need for divergence with the plan’s views and recommendations.

  I also came across “The Eight Point Solution to the Downtown Eastside Housing Crisis”, from the Carnegie Community Action Project (CCAP). That one is only two pages, and very good in many of the points it raises.

  I guess I will be re-reading Chapter 17 in D&LoGAC, too.

  But Ian—yes, keep the pressure up. However, downturns in the economy, which are responsible for the cuts you mention, have always provided great opportunities to plan…

  Ah, I meant to say “urban design”.

  Stay tuned.

• 47 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 8, 2010 at 5:56 pm

  Michael Geller provided us with the following numbers for the construction of a 4,000 square foot, fee-simple, row house on a 16.5 by 122.5 property (FSR 2.0):

  $640,000 Hard cost (construction)
  $128,000 Soft costs (professional fees, permits, insurance, property taxes, DCC’s, Financing, etc)
  $768,000 Total

  $550,000 to $750,000 price range for 33′ lots in the DTES today
  $300,000 to $400,000 for a house row lot (i.e. half the cost because the building type is meant to occupy a 16.5 foot lot, or half the standard Vancouver lot).

  $1,168,000 Total Cost including land
  $1,368,000 Including profit

  We’d be selling 800 sf condos in house rows for $275,000; and asking $684,000 for a 2,000 s.f. stacked town house (i.e. one of two units in the building).  

  My suggestion to Michael was to account for the recent rise in the real estate market, and the possibility of the downzoning to FSR 2.0, by using 2005 land prices in residential zones. That is not an apples-to-apples comparison. However, it puts the land value in the 300,000 to 500,000 price range, and it allows us to understand the effect of rising land values on unit cost:

  $640,000 Hard
  $128,000 Soft
  $200,000 Land
  $960,000 Total
  $1,152,000 Total after 20% profit

  We’d be asking $230,000 for each of 5 800 s.f. condos; 576,000 for each of two staked town houses.

  At one end of the spectrum, a 4,000 s.f. fee-simple building is yielding one 2,000 sf townhouse, with a second town house as a “mortgage helper”.

  Alternatively, the building could be divided into five 800 s.f. suites sharing a common access and exit (the exiting gets interesting).

  In the half-unit suite category (400 sf units), we might have 6 to 8 suites plus a floor of shared facilities. Mental health and addiction recovery may find this configuration a good fit. 

  If the non-profits, and maybe even the co-ops, could find help obtaining land, then that might bring the cost below $1,000,000 per house.

  How do you feel about an 800 sf suite at $200,000; and a 400 sf-unit for $100,000 in today’s market?

  There is a second set of numbers that are important to consider. These numbers show what effect incremental intensification can have in the historic neighbourhoods.

  (1) On one side of the street, on a typical neighbourhood block, we could build 19 fee-simple houses, or 220 half-unit suites.

  (2) Michael’s 250-units would impact the equivalent of a one half of typical city block.

  (3) The 2005 Housing Plan’s recommendation of 800 units per year for 10 years would impact a total of 20 city blocks, or the equivalent of two blocks per year.

  (4) In order to bring densities in the DTES neighbourhoods in line with Mount Pleasant, for example, 24,000 additional residents, and the equivalent of 3,025 new fee-simple house rows would be required. That would impact the equivalent 79.5 city blocks, or 60% of the historic neighbourhoods’ footprint.

  (5) The five historic neighbourhoods that comprise the DTES have a footprint equivalent to 133 typical city blocks.

  Of course, because there is no land assembly in the fee-simple house row, this construction would be “infill”, locating here and there filling in the missing bits.

  If you agree with me that residential intensification is necessary to return both economic and social functioning, then it becomes more clear what order of build out we should be thinking about.

  However, if the intensification is concentrated in towers, even 15-storey towers, then it will be that much more difficult to “infill” the neighbourhoods, and to obtain an even distribution of the positive effects brought by new construction, new neighbours, and social mixing.

• 48 Gassy Jack's Ghost // Feb 8, 2010 at 6:01 pm

  Hey Lewis, you seem to be plowing through the same list of reports that I went through about 2 years ago in trying to formulate an overall plan for the DTES. You appear to have isolated a couple of key issues that have eventually put us in the position of having to accept that the narrow focus of the HAHR as the only official policy determining “revitalization” and development in the DTES.

  On the one hand, to support a thriving community, one needs an economic engine that enables low income and at-risk people to transition into more stable and healthy lives. Simply put: legitimate job opportunities within their community once they are able to.

  On the other hand, to not only preserve the “scale and character” of the city’s heritage in the Historic District (which overlaps the DTES), but also to develop flexible, smaller housing options that complement the existing scale and that would enable the transition from assisted housing to market rental or, ideally, ownership.

  My re-invisioned “Cultural Precinct” (as sketched on the Chinatown towers post) was an effort to deal with both issues (this plan has a lot more detail btw). As you say, if we are to look at holistic solutions to multifaceted problems (a la Spaxman), we need creative solutions that cross multiple disciplines: housing, building regs, culture, history, health, transportation, sociology, economics, etc.. The more I watch you wind your way over this same ground, the more I see you building a consensus with what I worked out in the aforementioned plan.

  You are now arriving at the issue of FSR not matching the historic scale of the DTES heritage buildings. You cite Portland, which effectively “downzoned” their historic area to achieve a more healthy and livable balance, one which is also respectful of the scale and value of heritage preservation.

  Where this will eventually lead you, I suspect, is to an examination of the Heritage Density Transfer Program, which, as you likely know, the DoP recommended in the fall to place a moratorium on, and Council agreed. I argued this issue on a couple of occasions with Joe Just Joe here on this blog. Issues of downzoning vs. upzoning (which is essentially what the HAHR is doing), the function and management of the Density Bank, FSR, etc. were covered in a lot of detail.

  Speakers in Council like Salient’s Rober Fung, several Chinatown leaders wanting to restore old society buildings, and GAPAC’s Jim Leto all argued very passionately (and with quite evident frustration at the DoP’s position) that the Heritage Transfer Program needed its structural problems addressed, something which our DoP had absolutely no time for. Instead, he recommended a moratorium, and that’s what we have now….

  In other words, a major contributor to the City’s ability to fund and facilitate these types of projects independent of senior governments was slammed shut by the DoP and agreed to by (what I would suggest was) a poorly informed Council. Like the HAHR, this was narrowly focused on discussing the “excess density” that existed, and all the other elephants in the room were overlooked. Sound familiar?

• 49 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 8, 2010 at 9:56 pm

  Ghost, you are still ahead of me in understanding the process inside the CoV. However, what the economics may be telling us is that the value in the historic neighbourhoods is very competitive with the rest of the city.

  Why should it be otherwise? The location is very, very good, and the urbanism well worth having around.

  What we have in mind is the prospect of building out the area uniformly at FSR 2.0, and town homes selling between $1.2M and $1.5M per lot. Thus:

  (a) If we can meet the social goals;

  (b) What will it mean to the neighbourhoods to have $1 million-plus houses building instead of 15-storey, FSR 5.0 towers?

  The HAHR presentation to Council, full of “far away vistas” of the city, for example with bizarre emphasis on a peek-a-boo view of the Lions from a point on the Sea Wall that we all know too well as soon as you take 20 paces from where the shot was taken, the view is gone, is a brand of urbanism that I don’t recognize.

  http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/capacitystudy/pdf/viewshahrpresentation.pdf

  The stuff built before 1914—the Housing Plan states, for example, that all SRO’s are pre-1914—that’s urbanism that you can actually sense as you move about in it.

  No wonder nobody wants to leave it!

• 50 michael geller // Feb 9, 2010 at 10:49 am

  Frances…you are correct in pointing out that homelessness is not exclusive to Vancouver…or Canada for that matter. Somehow, people forget this when they look for politicians to blame. It is a national and international problem, although I would add that there is virtually no homelessness in Cuba.

  But Vancouver, with its milder climate, and access to drugs (which is not as universal) will continue to attract more than its fair share.

  The intent of my commentary was to emphasize that we will not build enough new housing between now and 2015 to end homelessness in Vancouver. There is not the collective political will to spend enough money to create enough make this happen. This is not to criticize or detract from the Mayor’s goal. But it is a lofty goal. And as you point out, despite the best efforts of many other cities, including some impressive actions in Calgary, the problem persists.

  So what I am saying is yes, continue to build as much housing as we can, not just in the DTES but elsewhere, but also look at other strategies to reduce homelessness…..help people find work; help people reconnect with family and friends (in some limited cases); help people get into drug rehab facilities; help people get into facilities for the mentally ill; help people get into the existing housing stock.

  This is what I am advocating. A multi-pronged approach. There are a lot of people talking about housing, but not as many talking about the other approaches…other than BOB, EMBERS, Mike Harcourt, (whose very supportive of employment programs) and a few others.

  In terms of reunification, there is the Sally Ann, and the lovely initiative Pete McMartin wrote about over Christmas, but not much else.

  In terms of detox, can anyone tell me if we have significantly increased available facilities in the past few years?

  And what additional facilities are we creating for the mentally ill? I know that Coast is doing some wonderful work, and the federal government is launching a demonstration program, but have we made strides here?

  And finally, what are we doing to coordinate all the various housing and community support initiatives? The idea of a Community Trust is not just to coordinate planning (as Lewis assumed) but the delivery of a all services.

  I hope his clarifies where I’m coming from.

  ps Frank Murphy is quite correct in raising the question of whether we should focus on supply side subsidies (to build projects) or demand side subsidies (to help people with their rent).

• 51 PlanningData // Feb 9, 2010 at 1:30 pm

  @Lewis

  You’ve repeated a couple of times that the population of Strathcona has a higher density than False Creek North. You can download Census Tract profiles directly from Statistics Canada (Strathcona roughly matches CT 9330057.01, and False Creek North is 9330059.03).

  http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2006/dp-pd/prof/92-597/index.cfm?Lang=E

  The profile says that Strathcona had 12,658 people per sq km in 2006, and False Creek North had 18,856. So False Creek North is quite a lot more dense than Strathcona – and bear in mind that the False Creek North tract includes all the waterfront parks, some undeveloped sites and Yaletown which is far more commercial than residential, while Strathcona is pretty much all built out and almost all residential.

  Since the census at least 400 more apartments have been completed in the False Creek North area as well, and there are still some undeveloped sites, so eventually it’ll be higher still. If you exclude the parks and Yaletown, I would expect the density of the residential parts of the two areas to be at least 3 times higher in False Creek North than in Strathcona.

• 52 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 9, 2010 at 2:26 pm

  PlanningData, I’m all thumbs in the StatsCanada website… still. It would be helpful to have density/sq km for Mt. Pleasant as well. Say, east of Main, north of Broadway, as far as Fraser, or Clarke. It helps to know the numbers, for the parts of the city that we can easily identify.

  Corrections welcome, our data comes from Bill Lee’s work. He reported:

  Villegas : … “The overall density in Strathcona, measured as a whole (not on a site-by-site basis), is probably higher than density in North Shore False Creek. ”

  Quick set of numbers which really should be in finer granularity on the broad City website.

  —— Will this line up?
  factor A B C D E

  Population 5990 5817 3005 5084 10571
  Dwellings 3726 3389 1474 2510 6441
  Area 1.53 km2 0.82 km2 0.24km2 1.63km2 0.56km2
  Pop/km2 3864/km2 7060/km2 12688/km2 3125/km2 18555/km2

  A (CT 9330049.01)is South False Creek, Fraserview, from Main to Granville, north of Broadway, south of Lamey’s Mill road
  B (CT 9330049.02)is South False Creek, north of Lamey’s Mill from Cambie to Burrard Bridge

  A and B might be combined to do south False Creek

  C (CT 9330057.01) is Chinatown, Main, to Dunlevy (3 blocks), south of Hastings, north of Prior/Union

  D (CT 9330057.02)is rest of Strathcona, from Dunlevy to Clark, south of Hastings and a dogleg to Main south of Prior, north of Terminal.

  C and D might be combined to claim Strathcona.

  E (CT 9330059.03)is north False Creek, Burrard west of Pacific sweeping down along Homer to Nelson to the Waterfront.

  The other Census Tract (CT 9330059.05) part of North False Creek (east of Cambie to Main, south of Pender/Keefer/Dunsmuir) incorporates a lot of downtown to Burrard and I would say that it is
  problematic usage. 10,726 in 6,674 dwellings, 1.65 km2 and density of 6,505.7/km2

  You might visit http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/index-eng.cfm
  and look at the Census Tract profiles yourself. Geosearch is a good way to narrow your search down before you click on Additional Data for the profile.

• 53 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 9, 2010 at 2:47 pm

  Checking my spread sheet, I discovered a mistake in how the columns were added. Using Bill Lee’s numbers, the correct result for population density, I believe, is:

  Strathcona: 15,813 pop/km2
  North False Creek: 18,555 pop/km2

  That makes your numbers jive a bit better. Bill Lee is including CT 9330057.02 in his footprint for Strathcona, adding 3125 pop/km2 to your number.

  In Bill’s comparison North False Creek carries some additional 17% population. In yours 50% more population.

  Both results are still remarkable since one would expect 3x or 4x more density in the towers zone than in Strathcona, a predominantly bungalow on 25′ x 122.5′ lots.

• 54 Gassy Jack's Ghost // Feb 9, 2010 at 5:10 pm

  For comparison purposes, here are the notes I posted (thanks to Bill Lee for the link) last month for the western DTES Historic Area census area: Main Street west to Richards. The southern border is Prior, but heading west it jogs down Quebec to Keefer, then jogs down Taylor to Pender (ie. International Village towers are not included, although this is technically part of historic Chinatown).

  Population density per square Kilometre: 10, 504 (vs Vancouver as whole at 735).

  Total Population: 6,205
  Number of dwelling units: 4530
  Number of dwellings owned: 430 (under 10%, vs all Vancouver at about 60%)
  Number of dwellings rented: 4120 (over 90%, vs all Vancouver at 40%)

  Median Monthly Payment for rented units: $361 (vs. 812 all Van)
  Median Monthly Payment for owned units: $1353 (vs. 1081 all Van)

  Note also these numbers will see a large shift (est. at least +20% in population and at least +150% in owned units) in the next census due to many new market buildings like Woodwards, Koret, Paris, etc.

  Perhaps the more interesting question for PlanningData or Lewis to consider (re. the Historic Area) is that the density of over 10,500 per kilometre was acheived at a time (2006) when there was a high proportion of empty lots and boarded up buildings — the maximum density is nowhere close to reached, and it also appears to extend to the shoreline, therefore includes the huge railyards, CRAB Park, helicopter pad etc.

  My question is, therefore, what is the estimated population density of the Historic Area WITHOUT increasing heights or adding towers, comparted to the estimated density WITH the height increases and approved towers?

  I suspect the difference is not so large, and, in fact, I posed this question to Jessica Chen at the HAHR open house, and she confirmed that the difference in “Intensification” upon build-out would not be that much higher with the new regulations….

  Also worth noting that the buildings in the HA have no setbacks or ground space, they are built out completely to the property lines.

• 55 Gassy Jack's Ghost // Feb 9, 2010 at 5:21 pm

  Also, the estimated population on buildout for the HA with the new heights/towers is from about 8000 today (the Historic area is a little wider than the above census tract — crosses Main) to over 17000 upon buildout (20-40 years).

  That would put the population density of the HA at well over 21,ooo per square kilometre upon buildout!

  Not sure how livable that will be?!

• 56 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 9, 2010 at 6:01 pm

  As we recover from sticker shock, Ghost, I have to agree with you. I think Brent does too. Towers are not for density. They are, apparently, to obtain Community Amenity Contributions (CAC).

  With Geller’s numbers we can also begin to understand that as the cost of land goes up, higher FSR and zoning for condos, becomes the last viable option.

  This also begs a question: to what extent can we look to the towers as driving the price of land, and setting the ground rules so that only towers will return enough profit for the industry to build.

  If you had a “total area” for the census tract you are looking at, I could comment about built form and density (what we’ve been talking about all along).

  The “quartier”, or circle with a 5 minute walking radius, measures 125.7 acres or 50.9 hectares. The fee-simple buildings at 4.5 stories deliver 60 units/acre. A quartier-full would yield 7,542 units. At 2.0 persons per unit (unit size is 800 s.f.), that would give you 15,000 people.

  So, housing 10,000 per quartier; and 50,000 in the DTES is doable with human-scale buildings (…if we can afford them).

  That kind of density would give you a pretty healthy neighborhood in terms of bustle and local economy. If, however, you were to capture the “tax increment” (property tax from new units) like Toderain did when he was DoP in Calgary, do you still need the CAC’s?

• 57 PlanningData // Feb 9, 2010 at 7:13 pm

  Looking at the Statistics Canada website again for four of the Census Tracts in the West End, they calculate densities of between 20,070 and 28,270 people per square kilometer. So, to answer Gassy Jack’s Ghost, it would seem that 21,000 people per square kilometer would be about as liveable as the West End.

• 58 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 9, 2010 at 11:26 pm

  The West End is a unique kind of place. It has beaches and English Bay on the SW; Stanley Park on the NW; Burrard Inlet on the NE; and on the SE one of the five largest cities on the North American Pacific rim.

  It is 4 “quartiers” large, and has the horse-shoe urban spine of Davie-Denman-Robson (once serviced by streetcar).

  The rumours that in the 1960’s it was the highest density neighbourhood on the globe, I’m not so sure about. Neither is it true that “it is full of towers”. The four Beach Avenue towers on English Bay were the first condos to “sell views”.

  However, as you walk inland from the edge, the neighbourhood’s built form changes rapidly. We see a lot of what Michael Geller would call “the real walk up apartments”. Two and three storey buildings without an elevator; with generously wide corridors; and suites with more than one orientation. That was the stuff that was built between the 1920’s and the 1950’s.

  Then came two decades of the stucco box and the flimsy aluminum sash. The real shame here is how these walk-ups turn a back to the rear lanes, making them little else than conduits of local traffic, and access to parking and garbage.

  In the 1970’s, or possibly in the following decade, the city did something really good. It introduced “traffic calming” to stop cars rat-running. The car was taken down a notch, and everyone has been happier for it—in this particular place—ever since.

  This is the neighbourhood that gave us Councillor Gordon Price.

  It was also Vancouver’s first “suburb”. If you see early 1900 photos, the place is virtually all single family, garden cottages, with a few mansions sprinklered in for good measure. The bandstand on Beach Avenue, if I am not mistaken, was in the rear garden of one of the richest.

  The legacy of all these gardens can still be appreciated in the lush greenery of the inner blocks. This greenness, as much as what a friend of mine recently called “a continuous perimeter”, account for a lot of what we marvel at today. The land rises to the center like an inverted saucer, and this too defines our feel of the place.

  I think. ultimately, the West End’s greatest urban joy is that we don’t have to walk far before being arrested by a street end vista. The sunsets on English Bay; the mountains on the north shore; the streets that dead end into Stanley Park—we feel the edge almost all the time.

  The endless right-of-ways of the CPR grid are not in evidence here. Even the fact that the West End was already platted by the time Hamilton received his assignment contributes in a positive way. Having two out of three streets from the West End interrupted, and not flowing into the CPRs downtown lots, helps to preserve some elements of its character.

  I doubt very much that there is another place in North America as livable as the West End. Stanley Park, certainly, is without peer. If the architecture was better, the West End would easily rival Beacon Hill, Boston.

• 59 Gassy Jack's Ghost // Feb 9, 2010 at 11:53 pm

  The land area is 0.59 sq. km.

  Looking at the map again, I confirm it includes the railyards (west to Cambie) and CRAB Park — a rough estimate is that (totally unpopulated) land is a little more than 1/3 of the total land area of the tract, so the “populated” land area is actually only about o.4 km sq. which translates to 15,500/sq km density in 2006.

  (Note: the actual census tract boundary also extends quite a ways out into Burrard Inlet, but I’m not sure if that’s included in the land area calculation?)

  Thanks PlanningData, I was wondering what the West End numbers were. If I’m not mistaken, the density in the West End is 2nd only to Manhatten in all of North America. Can anyone confirm that?

  It’s interesting that the density could get to a similar level in the Historic Area as the West End with the very different forms of buildings (low-rise, but built to the edge of property lines vs. low and high rises mixed, but set back).

  These building forms occupying the totality of properties, the current lack of public amenities, and very low ratio of parkland, might all contribute to something very different than the West End’s high level of livability, ringed as it is with glorious beaches and a huge park.

  Furthermore, if you remove the 1/3 of land north of Water St. that isn’t populated at all in this tract, and double the population to 12,500, you would end up at 31,500 per sq km in the Historic Area West of Main.

  So, it would seem the need for a well thought-out Area Plan for the Historic District is even more pressing than ever at this point in time!

• 60 Gassy Jack's Ghost // Feb 9, 2010 at 11:58 pm

  Lewis, looks like you posted while I was writing the last one, hence the overlap in what we are saying.

  Yours is a much more poetic take!

• 61 Urbanismo // Feb 10, 2010 at 2:54 am

  Ten reasons why the high rise is here to say.

  1. Contained footprint: less ground coverage.

  2. Increases density: most contained volume by least building envelope area. ¡Verdad!

  3. Light penetration and air circulation.

  4. With street level atrium a composite unit variation allows for diversified habitation.

  5. Economical: incremental costs diminish as height increases.

  6. Site organization: the Wajax provides a pivotal central distribution point: adding economies.

  7. The established construction industry is organized around 5.

  8. Views: at least until the neighbours crowd in.

  9. Does nor impede neighbouring views.

  10. Aesthetics: a slender tower is appealing: allows for a more graceful densification.

  QED

• 62 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 10, 2010 at 8:26 am

  Ghost, I was Feelin’ Groovy…

  We’ve been doing a lot of analysis, and numbers, so it is also good to look at it as what the place feels like. The Historic Neighbourhoods have a different feel. And, with a revitalization of Hastings Street, and a Streetcar, that urban spine would really animate the place.

  The Hectare is not as useful a measure as the km2. A “quartier”, a pedestrian shed, or a circle with a 5 minute walking radius (0.25 mi; 400m) covers an area equal to 0.5 km2.

  Your 0.4 km2 is a “quartier” (the french word avoids saying “neighborhood” that gets some of my buddies that are planners spinning about “complete neighborhood theory” and other esoterics).

  Yes, urbanismo, the tower is here to stay. And the shaddow that it casts over our neighbourhoods streets & parks, are also here to stay… forever.

• 63 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 10, 2010 at 12:45 pm

  Oh, what the hell…QED—I Question the Esthetics & Design:

  1. Contained footprint: less ground coverage.

  I’m imagining a slender tower on its side… and it looks exactly like human-scale, perimeter block massing, fee-simple buildings, erected side-by-side. This dog won’t hunt.

  2. Increases density: most contained volume by least building envelope area. ¡Verdad!

  We have just seen that the density increase is a mirage. The density may increase as measured in a single-lot—ad nauseam, but on a neighborhood basis Strathcona delivers the equivalent density to North Shore False Creek. And, to boot, the urban quality is far superior. This dog won’t hunt.

  3. Light penetration and air circulation.

  No light for single aspect units facing north. About 50% of the product. And no air circulation for 99% of the units, since only the penthouse is likely to be “dual aspect”, looking 2 ways, and be able to produce cross-ventilation. This dog won’t hunt.

  4. With street level atrium a composite unit variation allows for diversified habitation.

  Don’t need a tower to build a market building. The best market buildings front a public open room that is between a 1x and 2x larger. Best example, second century Pantheon with piazza fronting. This dog won’t hunt.

  5. Economical: incremental costs diminish as height increases.

  In Gellers numbers the cost for concrete tower and for wood frame were 190/160. About an 18% increase. However, the impacts in the inflation of neighborhood land values that we are seeing today, and the push to zone land at FSR 5.0, for example, these too are the “economics of tower building”. This dog won’t hunt.

  6. Site organization: the Wajax provides a pivotal central distribution point: adding economies.

  If you say so. Wajax?

  7. The established construction industry is organized around 5.

  Yep. But that is only one segment of the industry. I have raised concerns that the small construction company is being squeezed out. Big players, small city halls, bring additional friction to our democratic process. This dog won’t hunt.

  8. Views: at least until the neighbours crowd in.

  And typically on just one side of the building, and not below level No. X. This dog won’t hunt.

  9. Does nor impede neighbouring views.

  Right! And they don’t block the sky!! Are we really going to buy into the gibberish of the carpet baggers just ’cause we live way out west? Look at the lots beside your tower, urbanismo, and tell me what you see? I see small properties being put upon a “thing” that is out of scale with its neighbors in a location that will never build out to be Hong Kong. This dog won’t hunt.

  10. Aesthetics: a slender tower is appealing: allows for a more graceful densification.

  The Inverse Square Law of Tower Esthetics decrees that the slender tower will be twice as beautiful from four times the distance. This dog won’t hunt.

  Yikes! My dogs are barking. Gotta go.

• 64 Gassy Jack's Ghost // Feb 10, 2010 at 12:57 pm

  Views from towers are one thing, but most people I know living in a south facing unit in a Vancouver tower complain that it becomes unlivably HOT on sunny days. Usually, there are only a couple of small windows that open – not enough to cool the place down. The solution? They have to close their blinds during most of the daylight hours to shut out the sun (and the view)…

• 65 Gassy Jack's Ghost // Feb 10, 2010 at 1:26 pm

  Anyway, Urbanismo, I’m not arguing against towers, per se, I’m only arguing against them in the Historic Areas/ 5 original neighbourhoods, where it seems one could make a multi-pronged argument that it is totally inappropriate to put towers the HA.

  Density is simply one of the new issues we have discovered — added to a long list of elephants in the room — that all together make an ever-stronger case against the assumptions made by the DoP when they put together the HAHR recommendations that went to Council.

  So, Urbanismo, what’s your take on towers in this specific area? Leaving aside all the other arguments against the HAHR by community groups, do you think it’s an appropriate building policy to put a tower right next to the Sun Yat-Sen Garden, right in the heart of a National Historic Site, where the long-term business plan is trying to achieve status of UNESCO World Heritage Site?

• 66 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 10, 2010 at 2:01 pm

  Ghost, I think the only way to win the day (and it may be too late already) is to have a towers/no towers policy by district or neighborhood, rather than by zone. We can sharpen the definitions of neighborhood, district and zone as need arises.

  Add to the unbearable southern orientation, the even hotter western orientation, when especially in winter, the low afternoon sun cooks single-aspect dwelling units. Good points.

• 67 Urbanismo // Feb 10, 2010 at 2:05 pm

  @ GJG . . . why the confrontational approach?

  I understand the S Y-S people do not favour a tower over-look and I would respect their position.

  The HAHR study was conceived as a sky-line profile study some months back and is, in my opinion, an infantile debasement of the process (I said so at the time).

  Who cares what the sky line looks like from . . . I dunno Grouse Mountain?

  Indeed I stand by my ten points: to stigmatise the genré “High-rise” is not urban design it is obsession!

  We can do better.

  I have known Lewis for a long time and respect his talents and urban design experience but on this thread he is making an ass-hole of himself: towers do add density and can, if well designed and integrated, do so gracefully.

  Sin embargo if indeed they compliment and add density to this area, there are some sites that could work.

  Some posts back Michael suggested a charrette. If we can pull that off, I’ll be in there with both feet and after that the consensus is no towers in the HAHR I’m cool.

• 68 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 10, 2010 at 3:34 pm

  Hear, hear! Urbanismo. Oh, save for the third to last paragraph… Oh, okay! I’ll agree with you there too: Me dogs made me do it.

  I have no problem with the downtown peninsula, for example, being a “tower zone”.

  I still don’t like towers. Not because I object to them “a priori”, but because of what I see built around me… Our development industry, by necessity, dumbs down the product.

  And because of what I’ve seen towers do in two south american cities, my home town Montevideo, and the town where a whack of my cousins live, Córdoba, Argentina, over a period that dates back from the 1950’s to present day.

  I talked to Michael’s about his idea for the charrette. It is a kind of “conceptual exercise” or exploration of options. I think that could be very good. We could test alternative building products, for example, and have an industry quantity surveyor give us an idea of cost/profit.

  Would like to have a transportation engineer on board. These days, we I like to think about “Canadian Quartiers on Rails”.

• 69 Urbanismo // Feb 10, 2010 at 4:12 pm

  Lewis, if you are referring to your home town’s river front Ramblas, there are no high rise towers as we know them. There are long line-ups of very high, appalling view exterminating slabs: at least, as of February, 2006.

  On the other hand Curitiba Br. has handled its towers very well.

  Essentially the city is laid out along five bus transportations corridors . . . high rises, and they are high, line the colour coded bus routes . . . with mixed use, I did not check the functions, in the interstices: very, very clean, very, very nice!

  Puerto Madero BA has fixed up the docks, way too expensive for my pocket book, by retrofitting the old dock four level warehouses and replicating their foot print when building anew.

  But none of that has to do with HA review area!

  PS Bologna has been “Bolshi” for as long as forever. I haven’t been there since 1949 but Vanc. could learn a thing or two . . .

• 70 Gassy Jack's Ghost // Feb 10, 2010 at 10:05 pm

  Sorry, Urbanismo, didn’t mean to sound confrontational, I value your opinion and wanted to hear your take, that’s all. Could have been framed better, I suppose.

  Lewis, very heartened to hear that news!

• 71 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 10, 2010 at 11:44 pm

  In Montevideo, Uruguay, the rambla is a kind of “seaside promenade” with a near-freeway attached on one side, and the beach on the other. Uruguayans use the word “rambla”, but the concept has nothing to do with the Ramblas of Barcelona. In North American, the closest thing I’ve seen to Montevideo’s “rambla” is in Galvestone, Texas. However, the densities in Galvestone are rural compared to Montevideo.

  Our own seawall pales in comparison because it lacks the volume and speed of traffic, on the one hand, and the volume and speed of people on the other. People stroll the ramblas of Montevideo, or sit along the benches built into its sea wall, recreating the “passeggiata” that we know from Greece, Italy and Spain.

  Beginning in the 1950’s, houses along Montevideo’s rambla were bought, and hi-rise slabs went u[. Wall-to-wall stuff. In the so-called Third World, selling condo-views happened three to four decades ahead of Spaxman-Beasley. Which always made the Vancouverism a bit strange for me: why are we in Canada so eager to built that stuff given our riches?

  I grew up 2 blocks from the beach and the rambla. The view from our 1940’s, 3-storey, multi-aspect apartment was of the backs of the tall (tower) buildings “walling off” our view of the v=sea side and the beaches. It never bothered me. Our streets were safe for me and my friends could ride our bikes on the sidewalks with abandon, and play soccer on them too—a Uruguayan version of Canadian street hockey.

  Twenty years later, and holding degrees in Building Technology and Architecture, I returned to the streets of my childhood. The towers had moved inland, and the results could not have been more demoralizing.

  Sidewalks were chocking with parked cars. Views I remembered had gone missing, and shadows fell on places where none existed before. The pedestrian sheds still worked. Places were still the same distance apart. But the sense of place had been altered. The woman that had chased me with the equivalent of a wire hanger in her hand because I had run over her water hose with the rear tire of my tricycle would now be living several storeys above the street. Kids not old enough to ride bikes had better be riding their tricycles in the penned off yards of their kinder gardens or day cares.

  Was there more density? I suppose. Tour’s over, back to our own place.

  Wouldn’t we do better to intensify the suburbs, and hard-wire the town centers with fast and efficient transportation, than to unleash the land-lift, and tip the playing field to the large corporations? Are we not toying outright with the potential of corrupting our system of governance?

• 72 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 11, 2010 at 9:11 am

  I hope that if there is to be a charrette we could make it an “urbanist” charrette, where rather than pit one contesting design team against another in game-show fashion, we would:

  (1) Test urban design principles, and how they would apply to the historic neighbourhoods.

  I also hope that it would the planning paradigm. Thus, I hope that the goal of the charrette would not be to create a neighbourhood “plan” in the sense of a drawing; but a

  (2) “Vancouver Historic Neighbourhoods Intensification and Preservation Plan” an urban design plan presenting all the pieces that together make up “good” urbanism.

  You know, the stuff we can measure and the stuff that all can agree about. That way, the charrette would be the first stop on the path to building consensus.

• 73 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 11, 2010 at 9:13 am

  error (paragraph three): “I also hope that a charrette would be used to challenge the current planning paradigm.”…

• 74 Am Johal // Feb 11, 2010 at 9:44 pm

  The average age of deaths with people with no fixed address over the last three years is 45.

• 75 Norman // Feb 18, 2010 at 4:27 pm

  It troubles me that there is an open air drug market most days right in front of the Carnegie Centre. I can see drug deals taking place every time I pass Oppenheimer Park, which is often, not to mention in many doorways, etc. Why do we allow these scum to take advantage of vulnerable people? There has to be a concerted effort to create many more drug rehab facilities and to arrest (and deport) drug dealers. Saying the people living on the street are mentally ill is to deny the drug problem. People have a right to be safe from these drug dealing criminals.

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