Architect Nigel Baldwin, who was always a thoughtful and rigorous evaluator of development projects when he was on the urban-design panel has also weighed in on his concerns about the Marine Gateway project.
Besides his words, which I will include below, he has also provided visuals: what the Marine Gateway project would look like if something that size were placed at Broadway and Cambie, the entry to Vancouver on Burrard, or Kingsway.
This is one-two punch now from the French-Baldwin household. Tough blows for the Marine Gateway project to have such high-profile people coming out so strongly against the proposal.
One of the unfortunate side effects of this controversy over the height and size of the project, someone pointed out to me recently and I agree with, is that people aren’t talking much about one of the other aspects of the MG project, which is the central plaza and gathering place it provides on the main level.
At least one speaker at the recent public hearing said that a development that gives people in the neighbourhood a place to go, as opposed to big boxes lining a traffic-clogged arterial, would actually be a pleasant thing. That part of Marpole is bereft of anything that people in the community can walk to or hang around.
The central plaza in this complex has been designed not just to move people through but to be a small main street. The south end has a set of wide steps leading down to the bus-loop level that have been put in specifically to encourage sitting out in the sun with their coffees or lunches, similar to the successful steps at the central Vancouver Public Library.
It would help everyone in the neighbourhood if they could sort out what parts of the proposed development might actually be a benefit to Marpole and what they could try to encourage the developer to hang onto, no matter what else happens.
In the meantime, Nigel’s letter
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2010 13:04:57 -0700
Subject: Marine Gateway Rezoning, 8430 Cambie Street
Mayor and Council,
Re: Marine Gateway Rezoning, 8430 Cambie Street
I am a Cambie Corridor resident and long-time participant in Vancouver’s urban design discourse. I have served four stints on Vancouver’s Urban Design Advisory Panel, was a steering committee member for the first Skyline Study and a team member in the South East False Creek design charrette. In my four decade practice as an architect, I specialized in designing buildings sensitive to their Vancouver contexts. I have won a few design awards along the way.
I am writing to express my deep concerns with the Marine Gateway proposal and the process by which it is being rushed towards canonization. I urge Council to immediately suspend the rezoning process and to give planning staff the mandate and resources to complete a proper, professional, neighbourhood centre plan. If, after the plan is complete, heights and densities like those seen in this proposal are still considered suitable – heights and densities that will by precedent radically shift the shape of all our neighbourhoods – Council should complete the City-wide plan promised by the EcoDensity Charter before ratifying the neighbourhood plan.
The most important goal for the planning effort at the south end of Cambie must be to create the framework for a successful new neighbourhood centre in a location which poses significant challenges. Other notions, like the first impressions airport arrivals have of our city or the memorialization of our southern municipal boundary might be important, but should never be allowed to trump this primary task. If we create a superb neighbourhood centre here, these other issues will largely take care of themselves, anyway.
Approving the Marine Gateway project at this time removes the opportunity to explore other concepts for the centre, one or more of which will almost certainly be better than the constrained result of trying to fit a neighbourhood around a single, powerful, private development, especially one that claims itself to be entirely self-sufficient, as if that were a good thing. Fortunately, Vancouver can afford to wait and do it right.
My specific issues with the Marine Gateway proposal concern the retail/movie theatre component and the density, heights and built form of the proposal as a whole. I welcome the applicant?s inclusion of a significant amount of office space in the proposal and accept to a degree the notion that such space might require cross-subsidization by other, more profitable uses, but believe that the overall result here is not a good deal for Vancouver. I applaud the hard work put into the project proposal by the development team, but find many of the underlying principles to be wrong headed. Nothing in the design rationale justifies the proposed net density of 6 FSR. Nothing in Vancouver’s population or sustainability goals justifies 6 FSR, either.
Broader study is required to determine the quantity, location and type of retail needed to serve and support the neighbourhood. We know that the location of key anchors and their early commissioning are critical to nurturing neighbourhood vitality and creating active streets. Intuitively, would we not expect these anchors and the majority of the retail to be north of Marine like the centre of population will be (as demonstrated even in the sandbox quality ‘Draft Urban Design Concept’)? Additional retail (and theatres) should only be allowed in the neighbourhood if they do not negatively impact this and other neighbourhood centres and if they do not add more traffic to already congested streets and intersections.
While I am a strong supporter of the appropriate densification of our city (I pretty much made a career doing it), too much density in the wrong places can certainly have negative impacts. I have heard the Marine Gateway project described as ‘a little downtown’: pretty words to shore up audacious expectations for heights and densities, but actually an oxymoron. We all know successful downtowns cannot be little; you need enough mass of people and services, links and connections to make them buzz, to make us want to live there despite their inevitable downsides like noise and congestion, loss of privacy and personal space, anonymity and alienation. If you build a sliver of downtown three miles from the real thing, you get none of the benefits but all of the downsides. If we develop here to significant but more reasonable densities, perhaps around the 3 FSR needed to support district heating, a much more livable centre can be created offering greater choice of built form and a broader range of housing types; a sustainable alternative to downtown living.
In my view, the project is both too dense and too high, and has an entirely un-Vancouver lumpiness; the coarse grain you might expect to find in Mississauga or Metrotown. Since many people seem to have difficulty appreciating the true scale of the project, I have attached a study showing the Marine Gateway proposal overlaid on some recognizable Vancouver contexts, which seeks to answer the much-asked question ‘Just how big is it’?
I have great respect for the architect for this project, not just for his leadership within the profession on sustainability, but also for his design and compositional skills. His best buildings balance rational forms with elements of delight, and are executed with subtle sophistication and a light touch. The design for the Marine Gateway displays none of these qualities. Even if we accept the notion that a bold new direction is needed for architecture in Vancouver (which notion seems to have been extrapolated from an off-hand comment by a lone critic), and if we further accept that an exemplar of such brave new architecture must occur writ large in this particular location, surely this brash and overbearing piece of work in no way represents the kind of architectural future most of us would want for our city.
Regardless of which LEED standard it is targeting, the strategic decisions concerning the shape and location of the residential building made to satisfy the project?s monumental agenda leave it fundamentally flawed as an example of green development. Its complex shape and unnerving cascading cantilevers will undoubtedly cost a structural premium to resist both vertical and lateral loads; jamming so many suites so close to a noisy transit station will require a huge increase in both the weight and complexity of manufacture of the glass needed to make the interiors quiet enough to live in; and that enormous west façade, which fronts fifty percent of the suites in the building, will demand equally enormous amounts of cooling (even if almost free) and/or shading to render the building habitable.
A basic tenet of sustainable design is the need to employ an integrated design process, which ‘brings together all the key stakeholders and design professionals to work collaboratively and interactively from the early planning stages on’ (to quote Metro Vancouver?s website). Applying this process to community planning, how can we expect to plan a sustainable neighbourhood one private parcel at a time, favouring the interests of a single developer and a small but powerful group at City Hall over the needs of the neighbourhood and the values of the City as a whole?
Nigel Baldwin MAIBC FRAIC
47 responses so far ↓
1 Roger Kemble // Sep 21, 2010 at 2:35 pm
Good show Nigel . . .
A very perceptive analysis of Marine Gateway.
Council and planners must pay close attention to your considered comments and experience . . .
2 Bill Lee // Sep 21, 2010 at 2:48 pm
Ooh!
“In my view, the project is both too dense and too high, and has an entirely un-Vancouver lumpiness; the coarse grain you might expect to find in Mississauga or Metrotown”
Those are cutting remarks.
As to find things in the reference “That part of Marpole is bereft of anything that people in the community can walk to or hang around.” I presume that this was a mention from a member of the public at the forum, or a Bula sentence.
Someone there doesn’t have a bike.
There is the nice park paths around Langara golf course (Oops that’s north of their 57th Avenue cutoff)
There’s a nice riverside park where you can watch the water traffic and lounge about at the foot of Shaughnessy Street, south of Kent Road near the east side of Oak Street Bridge
http://www.google.ca/maps?f=q&sll=49.203075,-123.125496&sspn=0.013936,0.027165
Ash Park at 68th and Ash St.
Marpole curling club on 8730 Heather
Play tennis in the northeast roundabout from Oak Street Bridge. etc. ect.
Bing.com/maps would give you pigeon eyes-view, and wikimapia.org would give you (especially in the “classic” view) all the social markers that people have put in the area.
Nothing to see!? On your bikes, ladies and gentlemen.
3 Tessa // Sep 21, 2010 at 3:11 pm
I think those images bring us dangerously close to evaluating this project based on what it would look like if it were built somewhere else when it’s not being built somewhere else. I’ve never seen this sort of project done for King Edward Village or Woodwards or anything like that. Yes, this is certainly more unusual a project and more of an increase in density relative to the neighbourhood, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t consider in context of its own neighbourhood, not others.
Also, a few of the concerns make no sense to me. Thousands of people live within condo buildings that are a stone’s throw of the skytrain. If those buildings are liveable and made to be home for people, then I don’t see why the author needed to bring such close consideration to the type of glass used because of noise from the train. Obviously people are going to live next to the Canada Line anyway, regardless of whether this building gets built – if they didn’t, it wouldn’t be a very useful transit line.
As well, all the transit in the area terminates at that station, so it makes sense that the major destinations, the anchors if you will, will be located there. If you locate a movie theatre at, say, 57th and Cambie instead, who from Main Street or Granville Street would go there by transit if they had to transfer buses?
He does raise and articulate his points well, and they’re not necessarily bad points, they’re just subjective ones, just as my liking of the design is subjective. But I would hate for this design to be rejected and for the team to come back with a cookie cutter copy of any other Yaletown building for the site.
4 Bill McCreery // Sep 21, 2010 at 3:55 pm
@ 2 & 3. Words fail me! Either we live on different planets or you’re both on FD Element’s payroll. In both cases your comments indicate a complete lack of understanding of the subject area of what makes up a community & how a successful, viable one is put together & functions, leading me to think you are Vision Councillors in disguise.
I normally try to be somewhat respectful of other commenters but, in this instance I’ve lost patience. Your comments are off topic & diversionary &, should not be considered seriously within this discussion in my opinion.
5 mezzanine // Sep 21, 2010 at 4:08 pm
@Bill McC, 4:
Fair enough, but Bill and Tessa explained their arguements thoughtfully. You have a contrary opinion without explaination and yet you’ve ‘lost patience’.
I know how you feel about the current gateway project Bill. What do *you* see as a better project?
6 gmgw // Sep 21, 2010 at 4:25 pm
Nicely done. I suggested in this forum some time ago that some graphics-savvy person should produce an illustration of how this development would look from the vantage point of the Oak Street Bridge, which provides the best view in the immediate area of the South Slope and environs. It still seems to me that that would provide an excellent indicator of just how grotesquely out of scale for its setting this development is. If Mr. Baldwin were to provide such an illustration, I think it would say considerably more than the proverbial thousand words– and provide a riposte to those such as Tessa who claim it’s irrelevant to superimpose the proposed structure on a setting where it would have absolutely no chance of being built. That image from the POV of Granville Island looks like something out of Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis”, and that’s not meant as a compliment.
I can’t remember who it was– it may have been Arthur Erickson– that once observed that a far more aesthetically pleasing way for development of the West End to have proceeded would have been to situate low-rise buildings along the shorelines and gradually increase building heights toward the height of land, with the tallest structures situated along the West End’s central axis, i.e. between Robson, Burnaby, Burrard and Jervis. This would have created a far more attractive, “stepped” effect. (And yes, I am aware that Erickson came up with an outrageously science-fictiony Le Corbusier-type proposal back in 1955 to redevelop the then low-rise West End into a single enormous building. Maybe it wasn’t Arthur that made that observation…)
Unfortunately, as in too many other cities, nothing of the sort happened in Vancouver. There’s far much money to be made by putting walls of highrises along the water. One of the all-time classic examples of this is, of course, Harbourfront in Toronto, which saw a giant wall erected in the the 1970s between downtown and the waterfront, adding injury to the earlier insult that was the Gardiner Expressway. Torontonians still rue the day that Harbourfront was allowed to proceed.
We are, of course, decades past the point at which there was even a prayer of this visionary development model being achieved. Yaletown and the Coal Harbour development are merely the latest design abominations that have defaced the downtown peninsula. The sole exception to this pattern near downtown has been the south shore of False Creek, which is the primary local application of the 1970s planning aesthetic enunciated by Walter Hardwick and his fellow TEAMmates. And there are increasing rumours that developers are pressuring the city to look into ways of rezoning False Creek South to allow much greater scale of building (It’s an instructive experience to stand on the seawall on the south side around Charleson Park, look across to Yaletown, and realize just how much attitudes have changed in the planning department in only 30 years or so). Since much of the land in FCS is city-owned and leased, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that in the fullness of time ways may be found to, as usual, give the developers what they want.
Oddly enough, White Rock, hardly known for visionary planning, demonstrated a bit of sense by encouraging Bosa to build their massive Miramar development at the top of the hill,, near 16th Avenue, thereby ensuring spectacular views for a a sizable portion of the four towers’ residents. One can only imagine the controversy had Bosa proposed to build the towers along White Rock Beach instead. Unfortunately, Surrey now hopes to follow Miramar’s example with an enormous development of as many as sixteen towers where Semiahmoo Village now stands. That’s Metro Vancouver for you: Imitate, don’t innovate.
When I look at the Gateway proposal, down there at the bottom of the Cambie Street slope, I see that same old development pattern rearing its ugly head once again. If densification of that area is inevitable– and while it’s largely light-industrial now, there’s no reason to believe it will stay that way much longer with residential development pressures being what they are– why can’t it be restricted to, say, ten or twelve stories? Why does this gigantic monolith have to go in there, blocking the southerly view for a goodly portion of the area’s residents? Why couldn’t the same density be achieved horizontally, as it were, instead of vertically? Why are we still building huge towers at the bottoms of hills instead of on top? Why could a development of this size not go into the 41st and Cambie area instead, thereby still maintaining proximity to the Canada Line?
Simplistic questions, perhaps. But as of yet I’ve heard no answers.
gmgw
7 Dan Cooper // Sep 21, 2010 at 4:42 pm
@Bill M.:
Major loss of cool, man. You have seriously damaged your credibility and made yourself look foolish.
8 SV // Sep 21, 2010 at 5:40 pm
Agree with Dan. Bill you’re out of line.
9 Roger Kemble // Sep 21, 2010 at 6:17 pm
Beautiful day: I was down in the boat basin putting my little 31 year old girl friend to bed for the winter. And while gossiping with my dockside neighbours, Marine Gateway, Trish French and Nigel Baldwin kept intruding.
But let me first establish my bona fides. After practicing in Vancouver for 25 years and visiting UBC S of A as a lecturer, I changed course after guiding Mountain View Village, on Kingsway, to a successful DP before heading off to SCARP were I acquired a MA (urban planning). I wrote the definitive book on Canadian urban design (The Canadian City. From St. John’s to Victoria: a critical commentary. 1989).
1997-8, fui un maestor en escuela posgrado arquitectura de la Universidad Nacional Autonomus de Mexico.
Recently, Nanaimo awarded my 65 unit mixed-use, building: Vivo.
I know of what I speak.
As an architectural, postgraduate pedagogue my direction was always urbanism and my students always disappointed. ¡Los chilangos, tambien. lo siento!.
Watching Trish and Nigel judiciously sidle into the conversation, I now know why.
Sin embargo I am delighted to see such esteemed professionals as Trish and Nigel speak up for their neighbourhood, but why, I wonder, with their collective experience, talents and opportunities to speak out and influence they do so only when their neighbourhood is affected.
Why have they not, why do they not share their experience and expertise in other areas of the city? Why did they not share such brave insight while they were in positions of influence?
Obviously urban design is Vancouver’s poor orphan. It certainly was during my sojourn at SCARP. Urbanist creativity and courage is missing at all levels. What with some 60 or 100 planners at the Hall why the ambient deficiency?
There are many recent projects that are worth of the couple’s attention: alas The Wall Center and King Ed. Village is lost, so too VCC West. But the pending Norquay Village and Marine Gateway await.
Good that they have found their voice at last!
10 Bill Lee // Sep 21, 2010 at 6:31 pm
And would someone look at the ‘business’ park plans for the PNE to be rubber stamped in December??
Not what most people want, (and we don’t want to cross 8 lanes of road each time to get to the ‘Park’ either.)
11 Bill McCreery // Sep 21, 2010 at 6:38 pm
@ Mez 6. I’ve expressed my opinion here & elsewhere about the Gateway PROPOSAL for some months now. In the 1st instance it’s not about ‘what’s a better PROPOSAL’, it’s about what’s a better PROCESS. The question is not what detailed aspect of this or that part of the current spot rezoning proposal, submitted before the Cambie Corridor Planning Process is complete & which significantly & fundamentally over-rides the existing Community Plan & zoning for Marpole, may or may not be good or acceptable but, what & how should that particular site be developed within an overall framework that will be of maximum benefit to Marpole & to the City as a whole. That’s what Trish, Ray & Nigel are talking about.
What impact will this development have, not only with respect to it’s massive scale on the immediate neighbourhood, but, on adjacent as well as other businesses on Granville, Marine Drive, 57th, Oakridge, etc? We don’t know because the City has made no attempt to assess their effects & the developer has been unclear about the specific residential unit mix, proposed parking, retail, medical offices, etc. Can the developer rent that much retail space to ‘local’ merchants? Tinsel Town comes to mind.
What happens @ the back [east] half of the Marine grade plan which their perspective covered? The 2nd floor is apparently medical offices, @ +/-80,000 sf are these rentable? ‘Medical Offices’ is not the same zoning ‘use’ as ‘retail’ & on a rezoning application must be identified & shown differently. What’s on the 3rd level? Is it rentable? My take is there is much more retail, medical, whatever else than this market area of the City can absorb unless someone else goes under. It is also my opinion that there is not the market for condos or rental @ top rates in this part of the City for the amount of housing being proposed in this & the adjacent project. Are/is there tenant[s] for the office space? Unless there is a big tenant lined up, again, how long to full occupancy?
@ this point there are more ?s than answers. These projects could be risky ventures if I am right. Aside from the inappropriate community fit & scale, it is bad planning for the City to encourage developers to take such risks in my opinion.
12 mezzanine // Sep 21, 2010 at 7:12 pm
The process, however imperfect it is, is what we are doing now with this back and forth, iterative process. Certainly, let’s have the city (with input) decide what we want wrt to height, massing and allocation of condo/rental units in the project. If the developer thinks that it’s still worth a go, they can do the risk assessment themselves.
The olympic village provides a good contrast with trying to dictate what you want done meeting market realities.
and for the record, I agree with dan cooper and sv. blowing your stack tells me more about you than it does about bill lee or tessa’s comments.
13 Bill McCreery // Sep 21, 2010 at 10:57 pm
@ DC 7. If I’ve offended anyone who has made comments they truly believe in & I’ve taken exception to them here here, I apologize. That was off mark.
A good part of my frustration is the City ‘not getting it’ in the context of this discussion. There should be well qualified City staff who understand the importance of a proper planning & consultation process. Apparently not or, they’d take a stand. There are times in one’s professional career when you do have to put your job on the line. One of those times in Vancouver is now.
@ mez 12. ‘this back and forth, iterative process (with input)’ is not what I am talking about. This process is an after the fact attempt to patch up with the Marpole community so that an inappropriate SPOT REZONING PROPOSAL however tinkered with can be rammed through. For starters Nigel is suggesting 3.0 FSR not the proposed 6+ FSR. I agree with him.
In a proper neighbourhood planning process the City via the Planning department primarily works with community members to come to an agreement as to the neighbourhood & City-wide priorities, uses, densities, built form, open space, movement systems, etc. A Neighbourhood Plan is created & the resulting zoning by-laws to permit it’s implementation. Development Permit Applications, not spot rezoning applications, are then considered for individual sites within that Plan.
Maybe in addition to cold showers we bloggers should have regular pub nights. If we could put faces to comments trust & respect might improve. Besides the few masked names I’ve met are very interesting people.
14 Jo-Anne Pringle // Sep 21, 2010 at 11:58 pm
@Frances – I was a presenter at the Community Consultation on Wednesday night (Sept 15th). I may be the person you are referring to. I had said that what this side of Marpole lacks is a neighbourhood stroll. I had suggested that the proposal on the N.E. corner of Marine & Cambie (James Cheng adjacent to Marine Gateway) move it’s retail up to begin at W. 64th to create the beginning of the stroll which could then hook into the plaza and then eventually carry on along the south part of Cambie to the River (in hopes that one day, planning will include access to and a boardwalk along the River). I didn’t however comment that the plaza will make a good gathering place. In fact I believe that it will not. The plaza will be fully concrete, and very loud, the sound of traffic from Marine & Cambie will echo off of the towers (if you try to have a meeting under the trees on that site now, as I have, you will be constantly drowned out by passing vehicles). This plaza will be very similar to the plaza in front of Oakridge, which serves as a giant sidewalk to get in and out of the mall or to the skytrain. This plaza will also be quite shady. Both of the Marine Gateway towers will shade it, as will the towers from the James Cheng proposal and eventually the tower from the Petro Can site on the N.W. corner of Marine. I asked a PCI representative who came knocking on my door one Saturday about the shade on the plaza, and he proudly told me that their shadow studies show that the plaza will be sunny from 4pm on. When I asked him how it be will prior to 4pm he stated that he didn’t know. The folks in Marpole have been talking about what they like in the proposal – which is the idea of new shops and services over on this side – I think that message has been consistent – but the packaging of those shops and services is what is still very much of a concern. Nigel’s montages are very helpful not only to many people in this neighbourhood but for those in other areas of Vancouver – as they put this proposal in context – there isn’t anything down here to use to put it into context -to give anyone a real visual as to the overall bigness. The montages were not meant to give you an idea of what this proposal would look like anywhere else. Tessa, I’m not sure what area of the city you live in as you have never stated where your neighbourhood is – but it is possible for a project to be inappropriate for the proposed location. Most people in Marpole fully expected development and density to take place at the Marine Drive Skytrain – and even though this project is being proposed on a soon to be former industrial parcel – it is really important not only to remember that there is actually a huge amount of residential in the immediate area, but to respect that, that residential is actually already an existing neighbourhood. Development in any neighbourhood in Vancouver must be appropriate – that is not an unreasonable arguement. I have stated before that this building will cast a shadow almost 5 blocks long – this shadow will be cast over a neighbouring school that shares ground with a park – Ash Park. A slimming of the upper portion of the tower has reduced some of the shadow for a period of time, but it has not eliminated it. This is the closest park to the Marine Gateway proposal, a proposal which will not offer a speck of greenspace for its residents with children or dogs to use, so either their dogs relieve themselves on the plaza and Marine Gateway children kick balls around on the plaza – which could easily end up flying out on to Marine Drive – or they go to Ash Park – so ironcially the need for Ash Park to be sunny and bright is made even greater with the existence of Marine Gateway. This building can see a redesign without having to become a cookie cutter design – if it can’t – then we’ve got the wrong architects in our city. But I know from having worked with many architects and having friends in that industry, that there is a big talent pool here.
There are actually 8 towers planned for the intersection of Marine & Cambie – so this intersection will see a considerable amount of density, which will support the new shops and services as well as increase the ridership on the skytrain. But there’s no need to overdensify each of those towers. Which brings us right back to the continuing discussion – - density done right…
15 Michael Geller // Sep 22, 2010 at 7:08 am
I hope that the Mayor and Council and city administration carefully consider the points being raised by Trish and Nigel. In the most part, they are very valid.
I also agree with Roger Kemble, (who I used to know as Urbanismo), that Trish and Nigel and other knowledgeable city planners and architects need to speak out on other planning proposals around the city, even if they are not in their own neighbourhoods.
The fact is, many architects and planners with whom I speak are astounded by some of the recent Council decisions and proposals that are coming forward, often with political or staff support, in the name of ‘sustainability’ or ‘affordability’. Usually, they offer neither.
While Vancouver has a history of dissention when it comes to major rezonings and planning decisions, the current ‘let’s make a deal’ approach to rezonings, in the absence of comprehensive planning frameworks, is far worse than anything manyof us can remember.
I do not blame any particular council or administration. It is a process that has slowly emerged over the past two decades, since the Real Estate department first started to ask proponents to submit their purchase and sale documents so that staff could determine just how much money a developer might make, and how much the city might receive as its share.
This, in my opinion, has led to a reluctance to prepare overall plans for some neighbourhoods, with predetermined DCC’s and CAC’ss (the contributions to offset the cost of new services and amenities) since it removed the city’s ability to negotiate individual rezonings on a case by case basis.
The neighbourhood residents do not like the current situation, nor do the developers and architects. (Even the ones who readers of this blog might consider ‘the favourites’.)
I believe the Marine Gateway project should regarded as a wake up call for all of us to stop and look at just what has been happening. As I previously suggested to some of the immediate neighbours in Marpole, what we need is a city wide discussion on how best to plan for growth and development in our city, with particular regard to how high do we want to go in terms of height and density, especially away from the downtown.
UBC SCARP, SFU City Program, AIBC, PIBC, Mayor and Council and Brent Toderian…. over to you!
16 Diderottoo // Sep 22, 2010 at 7:20 am
Bill McCreery says: “There should be well qualified City staff who understand the importance of a proper planning & consultation process. Apparently not or, they’d take a stand. There are times in one’s professional career when you do have to put your job on the line.”
There are staff who are taking a stand and they are paying for it. They also have children to support and established lives in their neighbourhoods just as Marpole residents do. This administration at the top levels has no respect for diversity of opinion, and indeed, jobs are on the line. Staff make choices and reflect every day whether this and other edicts are worth moving, missing mortgage payments, taking the kids out of hockey, swimming, dance.
Staff at the professional level also value the right and the RESPONSIBILITY of the neighbourhood to speak for themselves.
All that said, you should have heard the cheering and pride in people’s voices when Trish, Ray and Nigel spoke up. They are in the position to do so and we appreciate it.
17 Dan Cooper // Sep 22, 2010 at 8:53 am
@Bill M. #13:
Wow! Well said.
18 BDS // Sep 22, 2010 at 8:58 am
Although Nigel may have some valid points, for me, he loses all credibility when he attempts to graphically illustrate the development in different locations.
An architect of all people should know that you do not take buildings from one site and “plunk” them down on another site to evaluate them. Urban design is about context and surroundings, not just massing. One might ask why he did not plunk the development down on the Shangri-La site, or the Shaw Tower site, or the Wall Centre Site and then ask “just how big is it?
Perhaps we could take one of Nigel’s projects, The Rise at 7th and Cambie, and plunk it down on the new Creekside Community Centre and ask “just how big is it?”
19 MB // Sep 22, 2010 at 10:10 am
To Mayor Robertson and Vision: Listen to the neighbourhoods. Respect and encourage the expression of the diverse opinions of professional staff. Re-examine your relationship with the development community. Realize that ideals about sustainability are not just when not applied to the entire community. Learn that sober second thought is an admirable trait.
I have only one vote, but believe me, it’s on the line in the next election.
20 Roger Kemble // Sep 22, 2010 at 10:15 am
I have forgiven Trisha for her bullying tactics while ejecting me from a CityPlan public meeting at the Planetarium, 1994+/-. Nevertheless she showed me the under belly of the Vancouver public participation process.
Not that I needed to be shown. Goon-like facilitators were always lurking ready to stone wall all effective dialogue.
But I do not forgive the sniveling belly crawlers who aided and betted her: such organisms are all too prevalent protecting elected, and otherwise, decision makers from the willful folly of their maladroit misconceptions.
21 Bill McCreery // Sep 22, 2010 at 10:47 am
@ Dit dot dit 16. I am distressed to hear staff are ‘paying for it’ for having the courage to speak their convictions! I know from 40+ years of experience that you’re only as good as those who work with you & an important part of that equation is fostering an open dialogue in the workplace. To not do so is the equivalent of censorship which is the death of any healthy organization.
There is taking a stand & taking a stand, & I appreciate people’s personal responsibilities. Perhaps the way it might play out in this case is for those members of the PD to meet & discuss the current state of planning in Vancouver come to a consensus, go to the Director & his immediate assistants & present your case. It is then up to senior management to put it on the line to Council. That responsibility @ that level goes with the territory. It’s happened in the past in the Vancouver Planning Department. I have 1st hand knowledge, I was party to it then.
22 Ron // Sep 22, 2010 at 10:54 am
I suppose the same analysis could have been done with Collingwood Village on the Expo Line. The “context” before that development was built was a series of low one storey light industrial warehouses.
What if the same analysis had been done for the first tower in Yaletown? The existing context at the time were wooden miners’ cottages and one storey garages and light industrial buildings.
A highrise would “look” sooo out of place in either of those contexts.
…. but not anymore.
Marine Gateway should be considered in the context of the future plans for the precinct - which is shown in the Staff Report for the redevelopment of the existing commercial building at the NE corner of Cambie & Marine Drive (8018-8150 Cambie Street) at the following link:
http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/rezoning/applications/8018-8150cambie/documents/emcontext.pdf
23 Roger Kemble // Sep 22, 2010 at 11:27 am
@ Ron 21 . . .
Thanqxz for the link . . . adding Jim”s lack of sensitivity to a humane figure ground quartier to Peter’s.
Jeeezlless its just throwing gasoline on an already raging fire.
Let’s get back to square one and look at the neighbourhood all the way back to Marpole where Granville segues into Marine Drive . . .
24 Roger Kemble // Sep 22, 2010 at 11:34 am
PS . . .
Now we can see what will happen to the rest of the city when we lace it with all of the other (Evergreen) proposed shiny trinkets . . . truly new brutalism . . .
25 Tessa // Sep 22, 2010 at 12:27 pm
@Bill McCreery: That’s the second time on this topic that I’ve been accused of being some sort of insider who had a vested interest in seeing this finished simply because I liked the design (the first time confused me greatly because my comment also raised concern about constructing this on industrial land). I absolutely find it offensive and off-base. I’ve commented on this blog on this project several times before and done so as a long-time resident of the Metro who is commenting in good faith, so please don’t throw out my comments simply because we disagree. I didn’t do that to Nigel.
I would second your call for a pub night as well. It would be good to have an urbanist group meeting once in a while, and maybe these sorts of frustrations would be less a problem when we reminded each other that there are people on the other side of that computer screen.
26 Tessa // Sep 22, 2010 at 12:30 pm
I should also say that I don’t oppose a community plan. If we can get a community plan up and underway quickly it would be a great help. Unfortunately, Vancouver has dragged its feet on completing such a study for the Cambie Corridor while Richmond forged ahead and did all of this before the Canada Line was finished. But in that plan, I would argue that Marine Drive Station should be a strong anchor point, considering that it is the terminus for a number of bus lines and is directly on the Canada Line.
27 Tessa // Sep 22, 2010 at 12:36 pm
Sorry for the triple posting, but I would also like to second Ron’s comment above, #22. That’s what I was trying to articulate but didn’t do quite so successfully and I’m glad he could find the area plan.
28 Gassy Jack's Ghost // Sep 22, 2010 at 2:14 pm
“Marine Gateway should be considered in the context of the future plans for the precinct.”
But Ron, did the neighbourhood have ANY say in the Marpole plans you link to, or was it generated by a silo bound staff with only one, narrow-minded goal in mind?
My guess is, what Urbie calls the New Brutalism isn’t what most residents are envisioning as highly desirable, liveable or sustainable. So, as Bill M. points out, developers and City staff may be building out these plans at their own financial peril. But at what cost to our neighbourhoods before they learn?
Increasing density should be seen as an opportunity to revitalize our neighbourhood centres, but a distinct shift in public education and the planning paradigm needs to occur before we are all on the same page. As Michael Geller says, one size doesn’t fit all. Cambie corridor, Broadway, the Historic Area, Marpole, can’t be blanketed by silo-bound staff generating edicts like the Historic Area Height Review or Cambie Corridor or Gateway. The tension, anger, uncertainty, bad press, and politics will continue until the planning process is made more open, transparent and accountable.
I think each distinct neighbourhood needs quartier-level, charrette-based planning in the nodes targeted for densification, and it sounds like Mr. Baldwin (and even Tessa) might entertain the idea of undertaking these, like the one he participated in at FC, to arrive at an appropriate neighbourhood design plan. It seems to me a charrette affords the opportunity to educate the public, gives the City and developers clear parameters to work from, and creates buy-in from all the stakeholders through their participation in an open and streamlined planning process.
Present the resident stakeholders with a clear, long-term target for the quartier’s density/ buildout, set the sustainability parameters, and provide alternative forms to achieve the target across the whole quartier.
Compared to an expensive, resource-sucking, three-year process, a charrette could be much cheaper, faster, more participatory, and produce a more focussed and useful urban code in the end.
The City could complete 4 neighbourhood charrettes by next summer for the same cost as one LAP, which would take up to 3 years to complete.
Then we’d have certainty in our neighbourhoods again, and the builders can get on with creating sustainable, vibrant, revitalized, desirable, compact communities, just like we – residents, businesses, City staff, Council – want them to, right?
29 Jo-Anne // Sep 22, 2010 at 2:17 pm
@Ron #22 – interesting point about Collingwood Village – that community saw almost 8 years of community consultation before all was said and done – it was very high on the list of priorities for Concert Properties when they were doing Collingwood – I can tell you that honestly, because I worked at Concert at that time. Re: Yaletown – the transformation of Yaletown rose quickly in part because of the level of crime happening in that area, you may recall the body of an elderly street lady that had been dumped in a dumpster in the wee hours of the night back in the times when Yaletown was the place to avoid after 5pm – it was home to gang activity and after hours bars. I also recall that vividly because I worked in an accounting firm on Mainland in the early 90′s, when the only place to get lunch was at a greasy spoon – where everything they served tasted like onion soup. There was no residential to blend towers in with, in that area. Having exposure to development and being a resident of Marpole – I feel strongly that what they are proposing is not going to make the dramatic and impressive statement that they are hoping to achieve at this gateway – and in fact run the risk of adding negatively to the green agenda by creating more traffic congestion and idiling than is already there. There are other ways to create a statement, other forms of architecture that will still be bold. There is a fabulous opportunity to create a vibrant, exciting gateway at Marine & Cambie – but without cohesive planning for that interesection and without overall planning for the Marpole neighbourhood – which is seeing development all throughout, not just at Marine & Cambie, we will be left with a disjointed, disconnected, over-dense and under-serviced community. The people of Marpole are putting their heads together and coming up with ideas – we have been working hard for months to create a process – a true process that is dynamic and interactive where we can participate and have an opportunity to provide constructive feedback. For months we have been actively suggesting and pursuing the idea of workshops and open discussion – but the muscles of resistance flex strongly in our city these days. I have said consistently in all of my correspondence to various parties since May of this year – that we are trying to help shape the project and make it better – not make it go away.
30 Bill McCreery // Sep 22, 2010 at 4:05 pm
Well said Jo-Anne.
Ron, you cannot compare 34 storey Gateway to 2 to 12 storey Collingwood. Collingwood density is probably less than 3.0 FSR [does anybody know what it is?], less than half of the proposed 6.0+ @ Gateway.
In terms of the failed process, I am reminded that planning staff recommended against using this site for the uses proposed in the present spot rezoning application. It was the Vision Council that insisted on doing so &, directed staff to accept & process the present application.
I think staff acted responsibly to that point. But, given the public & professional reaction, with more to come, it is my opinion that staff @ the most senior level have another opportunity to present their arguments to Council whereby the planning & development process across the City, not just in Marpole, can be put back on track.
31 Bill Lee // Sep 22, 2010 at 7:13 pm
@Ron Comment 22 above.
Yes, there is a whole plethora of plans for the corner and the strip.
vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/rezoning/applications/8018-8150cambie/
This one for the bookstore, 4 seas Chinese restaurant corner is “purpose of the rezoning is to allow a mixed used development comprising of at 300 ft., 31 storey tower and a 206 ft., 21 storey tower both set above a 4 storey podium containing live-work units and townhouses. Ground level commercial use is located at the corner of Cambie Street and Marine Drive. The maximum floor space ratio (FSR) proposed is 5.7 FSR, and the maximum height of the project is 91.4 metres (300 ft.) ”
The typical thin tower on podium which is the multi-tenant Vancouver Spezial.
The shadow diagrams are interesting and show how the darkness will be spread up the hill by both this north of Marine and the south of Marine lump. No reflection studies of the towers acting as mirrors for rising or setting sun on the surrounding district and roads.
The whole thing resembles a Metrotown anony-tower grouping.
32 Ron // Sep 22, 2010 at 7:18 pm
Collingwood maxes out at 26 storeys.
Here’s a link to a City webpage on it (it doesn’t express density in terms of fsr):
http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/currentplanning/urbandesign/br2pdf/collingwood.pdf
I think that the [shorter] development on the scale of Collingwood Village would work well at Marine Gateway too. It just needs to be dense – not necessarily tall – but if it’s going to be a focal point or a node, it should be more than just 4 storey walk-ups. It should be like Yonge & Eglinton in Toronto (and there are lots of objections to towers by residents there too).
I think that in this case the objections tend towards the particular built form of the project (blockish massing versus point towers), rather than the density. However, there will be a segment of the population that will oppose anything denser than a 4 storey walk-up (or even a 2 storey townhouse).
WRT floorplate/tower size, the office component mandates a relatively large floorplate – and would do much more to support the shops and services intended for the retail podium than just residents (as any Yaletown shops can attest to).
It’s interesting that the Brewery project at Sapperton Station which includes a number of towers and a bulky office block to house TransLink (recently announced) doesn’t seem to have generated as much opposition as this project (at least not in the press).
http://thebrewerydistrict.ca/
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=174746
Perhaps it’s all about height and maybe the bus loop should be located under a tower to spread the density out around the site.
33 Jo-Anne Pringle // Sep 23, 2010 at 12:33 am
@Ron – I think if the issue were only about height it would be easier to tackle, but it’s about “bigness” – Marine Gateway is big in every way. As I told Brent Toderian in a face to face meeting last week, Marine Gateway is too tall, too dense, too wide, just too big. The top portion of the tower is 127 feet from north to south and the widths gradually increase going down with the bottom being 200 feet from north to south. The finished height is 377 feet – which is twice the height of the Langara Towers up at W. 57th. Then there’s the commercial tower, not as big, but still with it’s own set of bulky dimensions. Adding to that are the two towers for the James Cheng proposal and there will be more towers, but there aren’t any other Rezoning App’s in at this time. I haven’t heard anyone reference a number of preferred stories – the discussion has always been centered around shadowing. (I have heard the residents over by Safeway state 4 to 9 stories for the redevelopment at Granville & 70th – but that’s a different proposal two major streets away). I haven’t heard anyone suggest 4 story walk-ups for Marine Gateway.
I hail from Vancouver but lived in Toronto at Yonge & Eglington from ’94 to ’96 – at that time the heights weren’t too bad, but we just visited Toronto in July and Y & E now definitely has the feeling of a concrete jungle. One of the challenges I found when living there was that often times there was a huge wind tunnel all along Yonge, right up to Eglington. I liked to walk outside as much as possible, even in the winter, but you likely know that Torontonians living in either uptown or downtown Toronto are referred to as mole people, because there is a huge network of underground corridors and malls all connecting to the TTC and other towers – the vast majority of people there never come up out of the tunnels – they travel to and from other buildings underground, to the TTC underground or even to do their banking or get lunch – all underground. I had a really hard time adjusting to never going outside – which is why I did go up. So having experienced the crazy winds whipping through the towers there, I wonder if wind tunneling will happen once all 8 towers are up – with wind coming off of the Fraser River. Definitely important things to consider. I do like your idea of spreading the density around the site, that would possibly allow for the inclusion of some greenspace and maybe even some walkways between structures -creating its own little village. There are all kinds of opportunities for this area and I really hope that full planning including community input will take place. I would really hate to see such a wasted opportunity in a really fantastic location.
34 mezzanine // Sep 23, 2010 at 12:41 am
Great point Ron, if anything, the Brewery provides very similar contexts to gateway:
-on an old industrial site by the fraser with incentive to develop due to transit.
-yet close to active industrial areas that metro is trying to preserve.
-yet close to old, established residential neighbourhoods.
-with ++ traffic, IMO brunette/columbia handles more traffic than marine drive and cambie.
And different plans aiming for TOD. The grass is greener…
35 Roger Kemble // Sep 23, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Frances,
May I pre-empt your Sept 22 “For Vancouver city hall, it’s out with the old, in with the new.” G & M article: the G & M appears to be experiencing comment dysfunction . . .
“Vancouver city hall has hired its first-ever “change manager” and is conducting its first-ever employee survey this week as part a drive to reshape its 10,000-person bureaucracy.”
Am I reading this correctly Frances? 10,000!
Losh! That’s an awful lot of people running around with a stash of paper under their arm.
I assume it does not include the people who fix the pipes and dig up the roads: they are not bureaucracy.
Ms (sic Dr.) Ballem has. . . pushed staff to write streamlined reports . . .
Despite . . .
. . . the 700 non-union staff association in which representatives stressed that the “new style of management” isn’t working . . .
Isn’t that sort of sending the dear Dr. a message?
Does she need an . . . “organizational change consultant, Susanne Matheson of Tekara Organizational Effectiveness Inc.”
and hire . . .
“a full-time change manager, Matt MacEachern.”
“Ms. (Dr) Ballem also commissioned the Hay Group to do the city’s first employee survey.
Invoking a comment from SFU Professor Gervase Bushe, “What happens when you change something, it launches many people into a grieving process . . .”
“Grieving!” Sir you godda be kiddin’! More like utter astonishment that the good doctor, hiring all those, out-side, witch doctors, is way, way out of her pay category . . .
Indeed it could well be germane to this conversation . . .
36 Bill McCreery // Sep 23, 2010 at 8:35 pm
@Ron 32. Thxs for clarification re: heights. Collingwood is worth looking more closely to compare to Gateway.
City Collingwood Stats — Gateway Stats
Gross Area: 27ac — 3.34 net ac [n.i.c. Bus loop & CL r.o.ws].
Density (upa): 104 — 333 upa @ 39.4% site area, residential only / 132 upa over total net site area – comparably somewhere in between but, closer to the 333 upa.
Housing Units: 2,800 — 440
Non-market Units: 420 — 37 [not really, STIR is retail - typically +50% over average existing rents]
Parks: 7.4 ac — 0 ac.
From the City’s web site:
Collingwood Village is also a model of community — [a community, not a single building]– based planning, in {{{which residents of the surrounding community have benefited from substantial improvements in local amenities and services by participating in a cooperative planning process with the developer and the City –[no amenities to date from developer except odour proofing the dump]–}}}.
{{{The developer and City worked closely with the surrounding community to identify their priorities, and the resulting development handsomely reflects these –[after the fact info meetings]–}}}. In addition to a zoned potential for 2,800 housing units – most of which has been completed – {{{a significant range of community amenities has been provided. These include a 930 m2 (10,000 sq. ft.) –[0 sf]– Neighbourhood House, 740 m2 (8,000 sq. ft.) –[0 sf]– community gymnasium, a childcare facility –[yes]–, and an elementary school –[no]–. In addition 3 hectares (7.4 acres) –[0 ac]– have been dedicated to public open space, comprising three separate neighbourhood parks –[0]–. The parks have been programmed for active uses –[0]–, and accommodate sports facilities such as tennis
courts –[0]–, a football field –[0]–, and a baseball diamond –[0]–}}}.
Another innovation at Collingwood Village was the {{{provision and endowment of a Community Policing Office by the developer, a first in Vancouver, in order to help address local crime and safety, a key concern for residents –[0]–}}}.
I leave you to compare what kind of a deal the City & the Marpole community are getting @ Gateway compared with Collingwood.
It comes back to if you follow an enlightened consultation & planning process you get something resembling Collingwood, if you follow the unplanned spot rezoning, let’s make a deal process of Gateway you get –[0]–, in fact you get –[-0]–.
37 East Vancouverite // Sep 24, 2010 at 3:17 pm
Of the rough images generated by Nigel Baldwin the one that stands out is the one of Broadway and Cambie where the Marine Gateway proposal is superimposed over the Crossroads development. I feel that the density of Crossroads is much too low for its location in the city, especially adjacent to a SkyTrain station and major bus transit node. Indeed, when the Millennium Line through Central Broadway is completed some time in the years ahead the Crossroads development will appear even more inadequate for its location than it already does today. Hopefully redevelopment of the remaining corners of Cambie and Broadway do not repeat this mistake. If I had my druthers the two projects would have been reversed, bearing in mind the necessary changes for the view cone on the site, and the Marine Gateway would have landed at Cambie and Broadway and Crossroads would be the project proposed from Marine Drive and Cambie.
I find the other visualizations irrelevant because they are not adjacent to SkyTrain stations, plus in all of the images the Marine Gateway project has been enlarged in scale by as much as 25% over the buildings over which it is superimposed in order to make the project appear larger.
In the Knight Street and Kingsway photo, for example, the Marine Gateway’s four-storey “block” on the residential tower occupy the same space as five storeys of the King Edward Village building in the foreground. On the 100 Beach photo the same scale discrepancy is present with the Marine Gateway’s four-story blocks occupying as much space as five storeys on the mid-rise 1000 Beach building, which also has larger floor to floor heights than we find in modern towers. In the Crossroads example the Marine Gateway’s four-storey blocks with residential floor to ceiling heights occupy as much space as four and a half storeys of office space with commercial floor to ceiling heights.
As for shadowing, since the proposed Marine Gateway building located to the southeast of the park I am uncertain how much of an impact it would really have. If the building were somewhere in the south to west sunlight arc this would be a very valid concern but that is not the case. Also, I am confused how the Marine Gateway plaza could be shadowed by the proposed buildings to its north, as Jo-Anne Pringle commented in post #14.
With all of that said, for me the real issue here is the process and I am in complete agreement with those who feel that a comprehensive neighbourhood plan should have been generated before the approvals process began in earnest for the major Cambie Corridor projects in the station precincts. The draft Cambie Corridor plan is what is generating the development proposals that the residents are pushing back against. I think Jo-Anne Pringle is correct that residents expect that there will be change along Cambie and especially around the stations, to think otherwise is simply naive, but it is the form of development and the lack of meaningful community input that has been the source of local resistance. What I think is a very valid question right now is why the Cambie Corridor planning program only began on the eve of the Canada Line’s inauguration instead of years earlier when the line was approved?
38 Bill McCreery // Sep 25, 2010 at 11:04 am
@Tessa 25. Is there any enthusiasm from others for a pub night? If so, Tessa, pls set a date & time. I’d love to meet you & others.
39 Bill McCreery // Sep 25, 2010 at 12:03 pm
@EastVanRules 37. Nigel or others more familiar with the software technique he used can comment more accurately about the relative scales of the the images. Knowing Nigel, he’s dammed good @ what he does.
One of the reasons it may appear out of scale based on your comparisons is that the 3 storey retail base has a higher floor to floor height than typical residential floors. The drawings are less than easy to read in this proposal but they do say the height of the commercial / movie theatre base is 99′. That’s equivalent to the height of the nearby 12 storey Centennial Tower building @ Marine & 70th. And, that’s just the base! It goes another 150′ [+150%] for the office tower & 250′ [+250%] for the condo tower after that. Since the 99′ height is taken from an average of the elevations on all 4 sides of the site & the site slopes south east, the height @ the north west corner will be +/- 50′ [anybody with better eyes pls clarify - only 3 storey commercial here] & @ the south east over 110′.
Two of the many problems I have with the design of this proposal is the 3 floors of retail, medical office ++?? we don’t know what else &, the theatres. The overwhelming scale of just the base would be vastly improved by removing the theaters & 1 floor of the commercial. This would bring it down to @ least something that starts to be acceptable & would also potentially actually allow more than a sliver of sunlight to occasionally grace the pedestrian ‘street of dreams’. The torturous tunnel access from the pedestrian street to the office tower elevators is also not user friendly.
In my opinion, unless the developer has signed leases on all 3 floors of his commercial space I’d be nervous. Look @ the still empty Tinsel Town & King Edward projects. In addition, the commercial floor plates are far to deep to be able to lease to small tenants & get a decent square foot rent return. Did you notice @ the last open house the east [back] half of the ground floor plan was conveniently covered by a pretty rendering showing a bright, cheerful pedestrian street apparently bathed in sunlight. I’d like to see how the back half of that floor is utilized.
Despite the statement of the developer that there will be no big boxes & no Wall Mart, based on my experience, that’s the only kind of tenant you can fit in there. He also said they were putting medical offices on one of the upper floors. @ +/-90,000 sf that’s a small hospital. There are medical offices @ Oakridge, lots of them. What doctor in his/her right mind would move from Oakridge to Marine & Cambie? What’s on the 3rd floor? We don’t know. If the developer has a strategy we don’t know about pls let us know. If it makes sense I’ll reconsider my concerns.
I have not looked up the FSR for the Cross Roads project but, it looks like it’s 2.5 to 3.0 FSR. One can argue that location could have more density but, current zoning didn’t permit it just as current zoning doesn’t permit 6.05 @ Marine & Cambie.
Another of the problems with the Gateway proposal is that there is insufficient info & clarity with respect to what this proposal is made up of. The proponent needs to be more forthright in this regard.
40 Norman // Sep 26, 2010 at 9:15 am
I don’t get it. Is the project to be made up of plain white boxes?
41 Jo-Anne Pringle // Sep 26, 2010 at 9:51 pm
@ East Vancouverite #37 – there are 8 towers proposed right at the intersection of Marine & Cambie. So the Marine Gateway towers themselves are going to shadow the plaza through the day, as the plaza will be on the north side of the MG towers. The Urban Design Framework shows a tower where the Buddhist Centre now sits – there is no indication of height or even when they think this tower might materialize – but whenever that is, that tower will be immediately west and next door to MG. A tower is also planned for where the Petro Can currently sits – which is north west of MG – this tower is not due north, it is across the street and diagnal to MG – so when the sun is shining from the west, this tower will block it from reaching the plaza. I think that I mentioned in an earlier post that a PCI representative going door to door in the neighbourhood didn’t dispute my concern about the shading on the plaza – they only stated that their studies show it will be sunny from 4pm onwards – but he didn’t state what time of the year that would be – I would imagine that study would be the best case scenario, if that’s the one he chose to address.
I know that I have metioned previously that the current design of the residential tower will cast a shadow the equivalent of 5 blocks long – this will shadow the nearby park, school and homes. This will also be the closest park for residents of MG with children and dogs to use.
42 storm // Sep 27, 2010 at 8:40 am
@ Bill 39 – FYI the FSR of Crossroads is 3.30, which reflects the C-3A maximumn (3.0), plus a 10% heritage density transfer.
43 toc tik // Sep 27, 2010 at 8:46 pm
@ Storm 42. Thxs. The density transfer adds a bit.
This heritage transfer brings up a related issue with the Vision Council. They are entertaining completely irresponsible heritage density bonuses. My understanding has been that a heritage density bonus of 10% to 15%, if justified, could be added to a project.
Vision has a spot rezoning application in from Concert Properties @ 1304 Hornby to develop a 100′x 130′ postage sized site with a 31 storey, 12.44 FSR in an 8 storey, 5.0 FSR area [that's + 150%!], 196 unit condo building with 75% parking in a block with 5 buildings, built in the ’80s when Council was also trying to discourage car use downtown [it didn't work], also 75% parking with no visitor parking & an existing parking shortage both on & off street. This PROPOSAL, if approved will be a permanent monument mocking what this Council is doing to destroy ‘livable Vancouver’.
If City of Vancouver planning standards were applied the heritage density bonus would be 0.5 to 0.75 = 5.5 to 5.75 FSR not 7.44 = 12.44.
I have been disappointed in Vision Vancouver for some time but, have had a respect for Concert over the years, in part because I thought they’ve generally had a bit of a social conscience & have done some interesting projects. But, unless they reconsider the big mistake they are about to make @ 1304 Hornby, my & many others opinion of them as responsible corporate citizens will be seriously damaged.
44 Ron // Sep 27, 2010 at 9:12 pm
Crossroads is also limited in height by the 12th & Cambie view cone (i.e. the City Hall view viewcone). I too thought that the “containers” of the tower were a bit big on the Crossroads superimposed rendering – it looked like the ceiling heights of the commercial block (the one closer to Cambie) at Crossroads was used to estiamte the 4 floors of the residential floors of the “containers” (rather than the shorter residnetial block at Crossroads to the west).
Regarding podium heights, I think that the tallest that could be expected would be equivalent to the podium of International Village along Abbott Street – which provides for very tall ceiling heights on the first and second storeys. The street wall on Abbbott is very “urban” in form and works well with the nearby streetwalls of Gastown and the DTES. Note sure if that would play well on Marine Drive – some setbacks may be better.
WRT comparisons between Collingwood Village and Marine Gateway, I think the more appropriate example would be the Brewery District @ Sapperton since both are confined single sites.
That also raises what I call “opportunistic” rezonings – building high density on previously (historically) consolidated sites (even if they aren’t near rapid transit) so developers don’t have to consolidate multiple single family houses to assemble a site large enough to build a large project. i.e. if you want to lower the density of the Marine Gateway site, and “spread the density around” – a lot of single family houses will have to be demolished to make way for higher density blocks (but not really high density highrises) – and that could be potentially more damaging to the communty than plopping a megadevelopment down the block.
45 Ron // Sep 27, 2010 at 9:28 pm
BTW – floorplans for the podium are available here:
http://www.marinegateway.ca/documents/plans.pdf
You can see that the rear part of the first floor are marked “loading”. The side facing the bus loop looks to be small drug store sized. The next floor up on the “high street” looks to have a supermarket sized space along with another space that could be small drug store sized. The next level up has two large retail spaces – i.e. Winners/Homesense sized. Future Shop, Best Buy or London Drugs could take up that space if they were divided differently.
46 Ron // Sep 27, 2010 at 9:40 pm
…and regarding the ability to lease out the space – you can’t compare it to International Village because it’s not in the DTES. I think more apt comparisons would be to the stores that have located say, in Madison Centre on the M-Line (Winners, Save-on-Foods) or salted to open at Plaza 88 in New Westminster (another development integrated with a SkyTrain Station) (Safeway, Shoppers Drug Mart, CIBC, Royal Bank, Coast Capital Savings, Milestones).
Plaza 88 info:
http://degeldergroup.com/
http://degeldergroup.com/PhotoAlbums/album_1242755481/
47 Aiden // Sep 27, 2010 at 9:40 pm
TicToc, what developer do you work for?
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