What began in a basement meeting among a dozen or so concerned Kitsilano residents just a fortnight ago, bloomed like a troop of mushrooms after a dewy Vancouver night into something extraordinary.

By this past Thursday that single meeting had morphed into a packed house that overflowed with a line of residents spilling onto the streets outside Kitsilano Neighbourhood House. The event’s goal: Inform Kitsilano residents about how the Broadway Plan will permanently affect their neighbourhood — and discuss alternatives.

So far, most of the new development applications under the Broadway Plan affects the eastern portion of Kits. Ten applications for towers up to 20 storeys, depending on the exact location,  have been received to date.

The group’s invitation to City Planning staff was politely declined, but a small group of community advocates, former City planners, architects, and professors were there to offer their views and answer questions from the crowd. Speakers differed on a few points, but the majority agreed that the kind of housing being pushed on the Kits neighbourhood by the Broadway Plan is too dense, too expensive, and too isolating for young people and families.

According to long-time Vancouver architect, planner, and real estate consultant Michael Geller, the density allowed for Kitsilano is now 5.5 floor space ratio, almost 10  times the density permitted prior to the Broadway Plan. “It’s wrong to put towers in duplex zones,” he said. Geller suggested that neighbourhood groups petition Vancouver City Council to impose a moratorium on towers located on streets already lined with duplexes.

Compounding the problem are three provincial bills introduced last year as part of Premier David Eby’s new housing rules for municipalities, chiefly Bill 47. The Bill, rushed through the legislature by the Premier and Housing Minister Ravi Khalon before MLAs had a chance to properly debate it, requires municipalities to designate land within 800 metres of rapid transit stations and within 400 metres of major bus exchanges as transit-oriented development areas.

If you or someone in your neighbourhood, for instance, lives within 200m of a rapid transit station and decides to sell their home, the buyer would be allowed to build a tower to a maximum of 20 storeys high; if a house is being re-developed in an area 200m or less from a bus exchange, 12 storeys would be allowed. And only street parking would be permitted. 

According to retired architect Brian Palmquist, selling zoning for profit adjacent to rapid transit nodes has long been the modus operandi in many cities. Bill 47, however, potentially allows higher density pre-approval around every bus stop, not just rapid transit stations and hubs.

Many Kits residents have expressed concern over the amount and height of towers promoted under the Broadway Plan, using terms like “undemocratic” and “autocratic” to describe the City’s and the Province’s move to sharply limit public consultation on zoning and development applications. Since the latest civic election, public consultation has shrivelled to the City’s Shape Your City online surveys, which have been criticized as misleading.

One of the big points of the night was rent prices — and the inability of young families to buy a home in Vancouver. Historically, the City’s solution has been to add ever more density to neighbourhoods. Professor Patrick Condon, Chair of the UBC Landscape Architecture Program, who has studied, written, and debated Vancouver housing for many years, told the crowd that since 1960, no other North American city has added as much housing stock as Vancouver. By the prevailing logic, said Condon, “Vancouver should have the cheapest housing in North America.”

One of the event’s organizers, Larry Benge (co-director of both the Coalition of Vancouver Neighbourhoods and West Kitsilano Residents Association), who has a background in architecture and community planning, succinctly captured the messages of several of the speakers when he asked: “Why is the tower the only way to increase density?” Benge went on to say that Kitsilano can handle its expected population growth with three-to-six storey buildings without “losing the beauty, and the texture, and the character” of Kitsilano.

The current government plans, speakers agreed, are unsustainable given the use of concrete and steel, which could lead to a major loss of green space and large trees, and other environmental problems.

Now a thing of the past, community planning has been a meaningful way for Vancouver residents to shape their own neighbourhoods. Today the Broadway and Provincial housing Plans are swallowing neighbourhood plans whole.

Thursday’s meeting was held not just to share information about the coming changes, said Benge, but to find out what residents want for their growing community, because the neighbourhood’s fate will be decided imminently. Changing current plans would require a major push back from residents.

Photo: Courtesy of CityHallWatch