Plan adds 9,500 residents over three decades
Matt Robinson
The Vancouver Sun
Munro said the city will do a cost-benefit analysis on this type of consultation process to see if it should be used elsewhere.
When staff finished the new plan, they took it to the citizens assembly before it went public.
The plan calls for a big boost in population — 9,500 more people, an increase of nearly 30 per cent, in three decades. The added density is achieved by allowing multiunit buildings over a larger area rather than just adding height in a few places. Towers in areas like the Safeway site at Broadway and Commercial, an area of contention in the first draft, were reduced to a maximum of 24 storeys from 36, and neighbouring buildings would be limited to 10.
Nanaimo Street would get less height than was first envisioned, with apartment buildings up to six storeys (down from eight) at major intersections, transitioning to townhouses and row houses then duplexes. Areas with single detached homes would be open to duplexes and infills, and rental buildings could be redeveloped if they are replaced with additional units. Commercial Drive would be limited to four storeys apart from its northern and southern ends and the odd additional block that could go a little higher.
Among those who offered early impressions on the plan was Dorothy Barkley. Barkley was a member of the assembly, but she is also the head of the residents’ group that has come out against the plan.
Her initial reaction — reflected in a Sun article last month — was that the draft plan reflected the assembly’s recommendations. But having spent more time with it, she said recently, she “discovered that it overrode a number of (assembly) suggestions,” including those around height. The residents’ group has also begun to fear that the pace of change in the neighbourhood would be too swift and the redevelopment of rental buildings could push out lower income renters who could not afford to live in new apartments.
For Andrea Reimer, a city councillor with Vision Vancouver, further delay of the area plan is not palatable.
“We’re at a point where we either need to say yes or no to this plan,” Reimer said. “I don’t see how more time on this plan is going to get us to anything more than is on paper right now.”
If councillors say no to the plan, it would not mean status quo for the community, but decline, Reimer said. She pointed to statistics in the plan that support that view.
Grandview-Woodland’s population has dropped 6.5 per cent in the past 15 years. Over the past 40 years it grew just three per cent while the rest of the city jumped 42 per cent. And while the neighbourhood is often considered familyoriented, that has clearly started to change. The number of children in the neighbourhood plunged 35 per cent from 1996 to 2011 and there are now about 25 per cent fewer teens. In the opinion of staff, more ground-oriented housing and larger apartments could help turn that around.
About two-thirds of the residents in the area are renters, and most of the new residents would be as well. It may be that contingent that will hold the most sway as the plan heads to hearings this week. If renters join homeowners in a push back against density, councillors may find it difficult to OK the plan.
If they don’t, it will make it easier for councillors and staff to dismiss concerns as having come from a non-representative demographic that yelled loudest.
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