AM 1130 last night reported it as 4 new 15-storey buildings with room for the developers to come back for additional density (if I recall right, up to 5 storeys) in “south Chinatown”. Now, Chinatown is not big enough to have a north and a south, so this is either ringing Thorton Park, on Prior and Union Streets, on the International Village end of Keefer, or we are into the heart of it.

There are buildings well worth saving in Chinatown and plenty more that should have been replaced long ago. The obsessive desire to preserve stymied the Woodwards development for years until the demolition bullet was finally bitten. The beneficial results are already obvious.

The fact is that Chinatown is a scruffy dump that urgently needs some of the same medicine. All we need is a mechanism to ensure that some of the profit from replacing the junk goes toward repairing the jewels.

Even Peoples Daily (Beijing English edition) chimes in with comments about the Chinatown development today.

http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90778/90858/90864/6880524.html

Well I live in Strathcona and regularly walk downtown through Chinatown. Today I went down Pender Street so here is my assessment of buildings worth protecting.

200 block North, 3 or 4 buildings.
200 block South, 1 building, opposite Impark’s open air drug mart on the NE corner.

100 block North , the CIBC on Main and then nothing until the group on the corner of Columbia.
100 block South, nothing at all.

000 block North, Here Channel M is an example of the kind of lowest common denominator new building that kills streets, then you have the Sun Yat Sen, Jack Chow and the arch.
000 block South, almost all of this, classic Chinatown let down by the Beijing Trading Co. on Columbia.

It’s just a personal view of what’s worth keeping but I don’t think many people looking dispassionately at the remaining collection of mostly decrepit one and two story structures would disagree. There are also some low rise new buildings whose utter banality shows that quality of design not height is what matters.

As to ‘angry rhetoric’, well it’s better than apathetic silence and the day I don’t get angry about important things is the day they’ll be putting me in a pine box. However this isn’t one of those issues, I just have an opinion which I feel free to express, and as the Olympics are forcing me to take an involuntary holiday perhaps a little too much time to do so!

@ D. Hadaway One of many lists of historical buildings (photo icon on the right column) is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinatown,_Vancouver#List_of_historic_buildings_in_Chinatown

Beijing Trading? The old Trans-Nation Emporium, once the major tourist store, on two levels in Chinatown in the 1940s and 1950s.

See page 18 of the 53 page City study (so many studies, so little thought) http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/chinatown/pdfs/ChinatownNHS_Nomination.pdf

from the 2007 City page http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/chinatown/

gmgw / andrea c.

Very good points with which I can’t really disagree. I stand by ‘scruffy’ but ‘dump’ was unfair.

I’m restoring an old house in Strathcona at the moment and find a lot of people do not understand my determination to preserve as much as possible of the original materials where possible and to respect the original construction methods. I hate blandness, smugness and dullness Uniformity is sometimes ok, as in a Georgian terrace, but I’ll add conformity to the list.

I just don’t think we should be afraid of replacing small buildings at the end of their natural life with something bigger and more monumental. This is actually the process that created the best architecture in Chinatown. Unfortunately more recently it has also created some of the worst in Vancouver.

I’d start with strict rules on the preservation of historic structures, along with the encouragement and preservation of active street fronts in all new development. Keeping design standards above the hack commercial architect standard is also essential. Easier said than done, perhaps, but it’s why we have a planning department and why concerned citizens should make their voices heard.

@bill lee

Thank you for the link. The ‘compatible new designs’ on page 16 of the nomination were a bit dispiriting though. So heavy and crude compared to the old society buildings, they show how rule book architecture can be pretty dismal. The so called ‘vernacular’ style isn’t much better. Sticking on some glazed tiles and a couple of dragons just isn’t enough.

If the planners are satisfied with that then it’s a problem.

Thanks for making me think again.

Bill Lee:
Thanks for mentioning the Trans-Nation Emporium. It occupied the northwest corner of Pender & Columbia and was quite a large store, with frontage on both streets. Your mention of it set off a chain of memories, starting with their quart-sized bottles of Pearl River Bridge mushroom soy sauce that were a staple in what passed for my kitchen back in the day (“the day” being 35 years ago). They used to sell for a buck and a quarter, as I recall. A friend who lived in the bush in those days used to buy a case on his annual trip to town, along with a big box of Wo Fat’s almond cookies– god, how I miss Wo Fat Co.– their beancakes were the best ever. They used to be located next to the Ho Inn (where the father of one my closest friends was the manager) and that block of Pender was never the same after they moved to Hastings (next to the Only). Do you remember the tiny herbalist shop that used to be next to the Ho Ho, with the dusty tiger genitalia on semi-permanent display on a plate in the window? (How ecologically incorrect can you get!–) And its ancient proprietor– I think the only thing in the store older than him was the (possibly) 19th-century sets of wooden cabinets in which he kept his herbs (the Royal BC Museum has a near-identical cabinet on display in their “Chinatown” exhibit). I used to buy natural-bristle toothbrushes there. And then there was the Green Door, where I once took a wrong turn while going to the washroom in the back and stumbled into a smoke-filled windowless room full of Chinese guys in undershirts in the middle of several heated pai-gow games, with a lot of money on the tables– hard to say who was more startled, them or me– never felt more like a gweilo in my life. And the bookstore across from the herbalist’s, where I bought all my Christmas cards for years… and the BC Royal Cafe, which had the best gai bao in town; and the gorgeous neon of Ming’s and the Bamboo Terrace… All lost, all gone, gone, gone. Let’s try and save at least some of what’s left, sparse though it’s become.
gmgw

This discussion of Chinatown triggers much nostalgia for me as I grew up on 600 block Keefer and walked to and from the family store on the NW corner of Pender and Columbia. My memories of the Trans-Nation Emporium formerly known as Kuo Seun Company, is the store where my dad worked. He was a shareholder as were many members of my extended family of the business started by uncle Dick Gok Seto and grandfather Lee Joe. The address was 89 E Pender. The Pender storefront housed curio including Peking glass vases, dishes, mother-of-pearl panels, and incense burners. The Columbia frontage housed the food emporium and herbalist counter where many of the products Beijing Trading carries today were offered. Upstairs was the warehouse for the dry goods while the basement had 100 lb. sacks of rice and ceramic pots of duck eggs. Like my cousins, I worked there many summers and holidays packaging food like dried shrimp or mushrooms and working dusting the shelves or making sales.

I miss the neon of Chinatown with the glorious wrap around marquis lights of the Ho Ho, Bamboo Terrace, Marco Polo night club or Ming’s. I am grateful that the city is encouraging the facade improvement program for Hastings and Chinatown include new neon. Bao Bei on Keefer is already lit and the Rickshaw on Hastings is close behind.

Lewis, by perchance do you have a book in the works? I think you’ve got a unique and objective insight on urban design to at least justify a web site. The only other person I recall talking about human perception relative to height-width ratios was Sheila Lindsay, a UBC prof I had in the 80s.

There is a risk that any attempt by the city to sponsor inclusive urban design studies / charrettes on Chinatown and the distinct neighbourhoods encompassed by the DTES will invariably be hammered by some critics (a few here on Fabula’s blog) as “kowtowing to developer friends”, and one or two will likely succumb to using their standard and rather immature embellishments using sexual and bathroom references.

That would be unfortunate. Who else but the city could undertake urban design studies / charrettes in focused areas with relative neutrality and with the goal of strengthening the common good? Why shouldn’t the residents and small businesses of Chinatown and the DTES be given the chance to partcipate in making history in their own neighbourhoods?

A note on heritage. Most often the ornate design of heritage brick and stone facades do not extend into the building interiors. Therefore, sometimes all you have worth saving in the interiors is the timber and masonry frame, along with some millwork and hardware. Buildings like the Dominion Building are the exception, and their interiors are protected under heritage preservation bylaws.

In that regard, “that’s just facadism” is more often than not an overly cavalier comment thrown out by those who don’t see the many layers that heritage represents.

Moreover, when you’re talking about preserving heritage in Chinatown and Gastown you MUST address seismic loading. Some may find the interior steel reinforcement trusses and braces offensive from a heritage point of view, but they serve a vital purpose. Unreinforced masonry in a seismically active area is a disaster waiting to happen, and one big shake will wipe out block after block of heritage buildings without reinforcement.

Lastly, the sheer magnitude of the 19th Century urbanism and heritage represented in these neighbourhoods requires protection from being eroded at the edges by taller buildings. Moreover, there should be a transition zone where height is stepped down to the heritage level, and the architectural and streetscape character transitions between the centuries.

Hi Frances, and readers. This past Tuesday was the climax of two very complex exercises, the Vancouver View Corridors Review, and the Historic Area Height Review. The recommendations of staff and the decisions by Council are nuanced, so I thought I would try to summarize the process, recommendations and results. I’ll focus on the View Corridors first in this comment, and try to provide another comment on the Historica Area heights over the weekend.

Because of the overlap and inter-relationships, Staff presented both items in a joint presentation last Tuesday, and there were many very interesting and complex questions from Council (I would encourage anyone interested in these subjects to watch the presentation and Council questions, accessible on the City’s website, as the discussion covered a lot of very interesting ground). Then last Friday, Council heard from the many dozens of speakers throughout the day, mostly on the Historic Areas Heights item, and finishing around 9:30 Friday night. Council then reconvened the items this Tuesday for many more questions of staff, Council debate, and their decisions. A long and thoughtful process!

Staff’s presentation emphasized that both these exercises had very strong connections to our City’s values – the value of our roots, in the form of our heritage district, and the value of our views, and their powerful impact on our connection to nature and setting, and our “sense-of-place”. In both case, our primary recommendation (Recommendation A in both reports) was to reinforce these important values, and the policies that protect them, and to err on the side of preserving them in any changes chosen.

In the case of the Views, we recommended the addition of three new view corridors (including one from our new Olympic Plaza at the Athletes Village), as well as various techniques to strengthen existing views. These recommendations haven’t been reported on much, but they represented critical ways to expand and enhance the power of the public views. Council approved these.

We also put a question to Council that had come out of the public discussion – whether to continue to treat the view corridor policy as a “hard line”, which some thought resulted in a ‘flat-top skyline”, or to begin using more careful and strategic discretion for slight height adjustments in the right places and for the right reasons, that could help create a slightly more “varied skyline”. Staff put the two options to Council neutrally, and after considerable discussion, Council chose the former, erring I think on the side of a predictable result, and the prevention of view erosion over time through a series of “exceptions”.

The last recommendation was the most controversial, the issue of 4 taller buildings (3 on Georgia, one on Burrard). Initially in launching this process, Council had asked us to consider adjustments to the view corridors that could allow additional development capacity to achieve public benefits, and this was our most difficult consideration. This because we believe strongly that the view corridors policy has been one of the most important and successful city-shaping policies we’ve ever created as a city.

Having said that, we undertook an exercise through the public engagement, and with some special help from consultants (a group of 4 of the most respected urbanists on the continent, Ken Greenberg from Toronto, Kairos Shen from Boston, and Norm Hotson and Joe Hruda from Vancouver) to conceive a strategy option that might strike a balance between various objectives. Considering the public’s slight willingness to consider new limited taller buildings in our wider panoramic views (we heard this in Phase 1 of the consultation), we looked at where taller buildings might be located within the wider views, that might also create special moments in our skyline, and terminate views from all the key entrances to the downtown. Such visible place-markers and punctuation points within the skyline are thought to help create and read the “mental map” of our city and downtown, a long-standing concept in city-design.

These 4 sites were tested with the public in the second round of public consultation and surveying, and we found that approximately half of the surveyed respondents supported this idea – a number that we found surprising given how overwhelming the feeling of public support for view corridors had been in the first round. Many told us that they felt we had listened carefully in round one, and perhaps that why the ideas shown in round 2 were reasonably well received as being reflective of what we’d heard. We thought the approach, although it would impact the wider views, was careful and strategic, maximizing opportunity and minimizing impact on the views. Given this, and the reasonable level of support, we decided to put it forward for Council consideration, albeit still with cautious and trepidation. Support from around half, still can be interpreted many ways,and we still believed these insertions in the views didnt NEED to happen.

Thus although we put the 4 new tower idea forward to Council, I strongly reinforced in the presentation that our primary message is to err on the side of preservation – thus if Council felt a strong need to add more capacity, this is the MOST they should consider doing (and no more than 4, as had been suggested by some during the process). But we felt Council didn’t NEED to make such a change, and if they chose not to add any new buildings, it would certainly be in keeping with staff’s general perspective and the input from the public. We reinforced this many times, something Allan Garr picked up in his article on the subject, but several other media didn’t.

Ultimately Council chose to approve all of the view expansion and strengthening recommendations, and not support the 4 new towers. They asked us to continue to investigate opportunities for taller buildings that met current policy. And even though they didn’t support the 4 towers, they picked up the wording we had suggested for a much higher standard for architectural beauty and green design in the taller buildings, and applied it to ALL buildings within the current taller building policy – a very strong move for how taller buildings outside the view corridors will be designed. In general, they erred significantly on the side of the importance of public views. I think this is a wise decision, reflecting the values we had heard in our engagement with the public. This has been characterized as “vetoing” staffs suggestion, but I see it as in keeping with the tone and emphasis of our presentation to Council, and staff is very pleased with the outcome.

This decision provides significant clarity after years of pressure to randomly erode the view corridors with “special exceptions”. We now have an expanded, strengthened, preserved and confirmed view corridor policy for future generations, and that’s a very good thing.

Regards,
Brent Toderian

Thanks Brent for participating in this conversation and for your “inside view”. It helps clarify the issue for me and I’m sure others.

MB we were both at UBC in the 80s and I remember working with Sheila, but we weren’t talking that stuff. The 1 : 2: 3 ratios are from Vitruvius, written about the time of the Christian Gospels. Next I pick up the trail “Great Streets” (Alan Jacobs) is referring to Maerterns, German, late 1800’s working in the same milieu as Camillo Sitte and Stüben, but I don’t read German and have not pursued the original sources. Heggemann has it in “Civic Art”, but he seems to be reading Palladio’s Renaissance (and later) version.

However, thus stuff works. We can as sentient beings “get a feeling” from walking in our venerable historic neighbourhoods simply as a result of the combined effect of the architecture.

I call that “urban quality”. And, not I don’t get it in North Shore False Creek. I’ve gone looking for the experience, but it has eluded me. There is an urban feel of sorts on Homer, with Yaletown warehouses on one side and tower-and-podium on the other. However, the street design is so… well Un-Great, that it gets in the way. Places need time to mature, and we may be a decade or so early for a solid evaluation of NSFC.

Book…. if you know a publisher, we can get going.

However, I am totally on board with you about “Who else but the city could undertake urban design studies / charrettes”… which is how I did them with Lennertz & Coyle of Portland, but it is not how it was done in Fraser Lands where Lennertz’s old boss, Andres Duany, I expect was hired by the developer.

Yet, it is a civic responsibility of the First Order in a Great City to lead. And while “vision” is a can that has been kicked around the block some, in light of our earlier points on human perception, one can argue that the only effective and final way to cement a vision is through urban design.

That poses a serious obstacle to the modern planner and architect who knows nothing of that.

You hit the right issues on historic preservation. I would only add that the workmanship of these brick buildings, who Budd Wood was instrumental in getting us to look at in Architecture School, is something we cannot do anymore. The technology for refurbishing these structures, inside and out, on the other hand, we have advanced by leaps and bounds.

However it is “he sheer magnitude of the 19th Century urbanism and heritage represented in these neighbourhoods requires protection from being eroded at the edges by taller buildings.”

How we act, collectively as a community, is what will mark our fate.

Okay, I’m late to to take my daughter to swimming lessons. Ghost, I fully support your analysis and look forward to reading Brent’s reply. I agree, the FormShift discussions had a double edge: intensification of Vancouver’s arterial AND the DTES.

I repeat what I wrote then, we are fortunate to have a DoP that blogs! That’s a new dimension in public service.

A final quick note until I return, headway, where I come from we often call our friends by their last name. It’s a sign of respect, or a wink-and-a-nod depending on usage. I’m winking at you. I enjoyed your comments written as you experienced the city the way it’s most enjoyable to do: on foot, with a critical eye open (or bazooka) to see what does, and what does not stimulate our imaginations on that day.

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.

Also have a glance at Microsoft’s Bing.com/maps and their oblique Birds Eye View to see the locations. And google.ca/maps and their StreetView feature (also in Bing) to see street views.

The marvelous but not fully open or linked Vanmap (use the AutoDesk viewer for best results) might also be viewed.

But you really should be on your bicylce with your bike odometer, a map, a camera, and a notebook, viewing the street in person and chatting with people from their balconies and on the street.

Thanks Bill! I was hoping you were in!! I’ll hava closer look.

In defence of Chinatown, the “Night Market” is the best week-in-week-out summer event in our city, vinyl and all. Chinese New Year year-in-year-out is a spectacular celebration.

However, it’s a free market economy out there, and I bet it’s tough to make a go in a storefront in either Chinatown or Gastown right now. Never mind Commercial, Main Street, Fraser or Kingsway.

I agree with you Andrea, but I want to see a lot more common ground, and consensus.

Mr. Villegas
Thank you for responding to my little rant, r.e. “the evil of PVC in Chinatown”. The focus of my dislike is, indeed, very narrow. For example, I can totally live with the vinyl that comes and goes away, because I, too, love the Chinatown night market.
I guess my philosophical contribution towards gaining a consensus would be along the lines of, “People of Vancouver, and Chinatown, the DTES and Stathcona in particular:
Empower yourselves with knowledge. Learn the rich history of this area through reading, walking, listening. Acknowledge the many struggles of those who made their home in the neighborhood before the first waves of gentrification arrived in the early-to-mid 90s. The Strathcona I first glimpsed, with slack-jawed wonder, in June 1990, was the product of decades of stuggle , and a determination to live in dignity for its residents. There was not a thing I would have changed in my idealistic mind. It was like falling head over heels in love. City planners, architects, business interests and politicians tried their best to destroy this carefully woven urban fabric, but only succeeded partway. I have always appreciated these efforts – I see the tender care with which generations have beautified and fortified their homes, despite draconian by-laws that forbade any renovations at the pain of a crippling fine. Some readers may recall the pride taken in cultivating chysanthemums in many front yards – years of attentive pruning that yielded glorious blossoms.
A roof-to-basement restoration of a heritage home is alright, but not if it erases all traces of the past. I know of many new homeowners, who despite having been told the history of the chrysanthemums adorning their yard and nodding sympathetically, have made post-haste to rip them all up and install a Home-Depot insta-landscape on their property. Landowners rights, you know? They call it progress, but it always gives me the blues.

As promised, here is the second part of my summary of process, recommendations and Council decisions, this time for the Historic Area Height Review. This item is even more complex and nuanced than the View Corridor work, thus this overview will be longer than part 1, so my apologies in advance.

Perhaps to start, a commenter asked why we were even considering heights for “towers” in the Historic Area. The short answer – the work was based on Council direction. Followers of the EcoDensity (ED) process will recall that when staff brought our first draft ED actions to Council for permission to take them out for further public consultation, Council added several new action items, including one to study the possibility of taller buildings in the DTES to achieve additional public benefits. When we brought back the final ED actions for Council decision, we proposed a re-written version of that action based on public input that emphasized the preservation of the area’s historic scale and character in such a review, and Council agreed and approved the revised action. This was the basis of the work we’re discussing.

A comprehensive review of heights in the area did have a strategic value – at the time we were being presented with several proposals for very tall towers (350-400 ft) in the DTES, with many other properties possibly changing hands with land values that assumed such tall buildings. Such assumptions are never a good thing for the city, as over-assumed land values always makes for much more challenging discussions around proper densities, and public benefit contribution negotiations. The Woodwards project had some assuming that a 400 ft height was the “new normal” for projects in the area, rather than seeing the Woodwards height as a unique case in the community. At the time there were also rumours of proposals inside City hall to allow “ten 400 ft towers along Hastings” – whenever I was asked about this rumour, I clarified that I had never heard such a proposal. Those with smaller project aspirations made passionate arguments for more density and height to facilitate population growth in the area, for economic revitalization reasons (especially in Chinatown) and to contribute to the “body heat” in the area. As all this was creating much uncertainty, debate and speculation in the area, it made sense to look at the height and heritage question at the wider community and sub-area scales, rather than trying to deal with many individual proposals and rumours.

As one might expect, the process was extremely complex, and the public engagement very challenging. At a mid-way point in the process, staff developed various options for the public and stakeholders to comment on, based on a “pattern and punctuation” concept for the height question. Staff didn’t support the idea of significant height increases across the board, but developed ideas for slight and strategic pattern height increases in various sub-areas for the public to comment on. As tall buildings were the key question in Council’s direction, we also floated the idea of various tall tower building sites (with heights in the range of 250-300 ft) based on various approaches to “punctuation” criteria. We included for discussion all building sites that were the subject of inquiries or discussions, official or unofficial, as we felt this was the time to put everything on the table for public comment. For the record, it was never a staff-supported proposal to put a tower on the Chinese Cultural Centre site. However, this was an idea being discussed and debated in various circles in the community, and was raised with us during the early consultation, so we made the decision to include it in the public discussion so that people could comment on it as part of the bigger context.

A significant majority of the public and stakeholder input we received, including from various advisory bodies to Council such as the Urban Design Panel and the Heritage Commission, did not support the punctuation tall tower concept. Such towers, we were told clearly, were too tall, and the wrong building form for the historic area. We also heard from a significant majority that the Woodwards height was indeed unique, not the “new normal”. Staff agreed with these messages.

It was Staff’s primary recommendation that the heritage scale and character in the area should be generally respected and preserved in the context of any changes. It was noted that Gastown had recently been recognized as a National Historic District and that we had recently requested such a designation for Chinatown as well (and hopefully eventually, a Unesco World heritage designation). The heritage character of the area continues to be one of its greatest strengths.

Staff ultimately developed a series of careful and strategic recommendations that proposed slight pattern height increases in some areas (i.e. from 65 ft to 75 ft in Chinatown along Pender, and in Chinatown south a continued base height in the zoning of 90 ft but a new ability to rezone up to 120 ft). In other areas, we proposed that the height potential be left as-is, especially where the majority of heritage buildings are located (i.e. Gastown would stay at 75 ft, and Victory Square at a 75 ft base with potential for up to 100 ft through rezoning as per current policy). The strategy erred on the side of preserving or staying close to heritage scales, while adding some strategic density potential. These strategies ultimately received support and compliments from the various heritage groups that provided us advice, including the Heritage Commission.

As for tall towers, staff agreed that tall “punctuation points” of 250 ft + were the wrong height and form for the historic area. Instead, staff suggested the idea of no more than three “high points within the pattern” at about 150 ft, for Council consideration (at Pender and Abbott aka the Budget site, Pender and Carrall aka the BC Electric site, and Keefer and Columbia aka the Keefer Triangle site). As with the view corridor work, we recommended a new higher standard for exceptional architecture for such taller buildings. I know the word “tower” is subjective and that many might see these still as towers, but they certainly differ significantly in height from what had been previously discussed, and differ in building form as these would be more of a perimeter-block building form rather than Downtown-south style slim towers. This form means more density, not just more height, and most agreed it was a form more appropriate for the heritage area.

Although there were several other significant items addressed at the special council meeting on Friday January 22nd (Phase 1 of the Cambie Corridor planning, UBC Line planning principles, and View Corridors), a significant majority of speakers spoke to the Historic Area Heights Review. Many from the Carnegie Community Action Project (CCAP) and the low-income community asked Council to delay any changes until after a socio-economic study of the Woodwards project, and a comprehensive area plan for the DTES are both completed. A few speakers, representing a group calling for Chinatown economic revitalization that includes the Chinatown BIA , made the argument that the pattern height increases and the few 150ft heights were insufficient to bring about the revitalization that they felt Chinatown needed. Some suggested that the building forms being proposed would not be economically viable without greater height.

On the other hand, there were many speakers from various heritage groups, and a Coalition concerned with the conservation of Historic Chinatown made up of numerous Chinatown stakeholder groups, that commended staff for the balanced and careful approach to heritage and revitalization issues. These speakers recommended that Council support the recommended height increases, but no more. Several speakers expressed specific concern about one of the three possible 150 ft sites, the Keefer Triangle site, primarily based on shadow and view impacts related to the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Gardens. Many other concerns and comments were raised, and Council asked many questions – all in all, it was a very sophisticated discussion, appropriate for a very complex community.

Ultimately, Council made a series of thoughtful and nuanced decisions that I thought illustrated careful listening to the many voices that spoke to them. They approved the various pattern height changes, with no amendments. For the 150 ft “high points within the pattern”, Council supported 2 but rejected a third, the Keefer Triangle site, based on the concerns raised by the public. Although some had asked for the “generally 150 ft” height to be increased, Council didn’t do so. Only in the case of the South Chinatown HA1A zone though, Council chose to keep the door open for additional 150 ft sites to assist with further Chinatown economic revitalization, asking staff to report back.

Thus for the majority of the historic area, after a time of considerable uncertainty and speculation, we now have a high level of certainty – confirmed slight pattern height increases, only 2 sites that can go to about 150 ft, and no further tall towers. For South Chinatown specifically, we have partial certainty in the form of a new pattern height of up to 120 ft through rezoning, and further study for possible additional 150 ft buildings.

In addition, Council passed several related motions based on the requests of speakers. They directed staff to report back regarding approaches and budgets for three pieces of work: a social-economic study on the impacts of new developments in the DTES on the existing low-income community; a priority approach for an Economic Revitalization Strategy for Chinatown (recognizing that such revitalization is affected by much more than height and density, and is positively influenced by heritage assets); and based on much discussion over the past few years within both the community and City Hall, a comprehensive DTES strategy.

Overall, I believe that Council’s decisions were consistent with the values heard from the public and stakeholders, but also reflect the complexity of perspectives and strong differing opinions. Making clear decisions with so many differing opinions is never easy.

My sincere compliments to our DTES senior planner Jessica Chen and her team, for their great work on this challenging exercise, and to the many community leaders and citizens who showed great passion while educating us and each other on the many issues involved.

Brent Toderian