The fate of  the The Broadway Plan could be decided as early as today (May 18) when City Council meets to discuss the  final draft plan beginning at 9:30 am. Hundreds of residents have signed up to speak to the plan as of this morning.

The Broadway Plan calls for massive new density along the Broadway corridor, from Clark Drive to Yew Street. The City says more housing is needed to accommodate Vancouver’s growing population, but the sheer enormity of the plan — the amount of density and heights of towers along 500 blocks of Broadway and nearby streets— will dramatically change the face of Vancouver.  

The illustration above (courtesy of Stephen Bohus, BLA) imagines how this density will look and feel. Approval of the Broadway Plan will nullify all official community plans in affected areas, plans that were made with neighbourhood participation and took years to create. 

The growing dissatisfaction and distrust of this Council, as well as its planners and bureaucrats, was illustrated in a protest outside City Hall last Saturday, May 7, where hundreds of protesters from all neighbourhoods rallied against the Plan, arguing that the Broadway Plan offers mass density without affordability or livability.

Resident Janice Douglas told the crowd about the disastrous consequences to her Cambie community when the Canada Line and development were approved. The newly densified transit-oriented neighbourhood now lacks significant green space, leaving children with nowhere to play but their balconies. “There is no neighbourhood here anymore,” she said.

The proposed Broadway Plan sets the scale of station-area development for Mount Pleasant, Fairview, South Granville, and Kitsilano at 40 storeys, with up to 20 storeys in low-density areas that are currently just two to four storeys.

Council will hear from speakers Wednesday followed by a vote.