Login / RegisterRezoning critics to rally at Vancouver City Hall
Representatives of neighbourhoods across Vancouver plan to show up at city hall on Friday (November 16) to protest significant rezonings in their communities.
Terry Martin, who ran for council in 2011 under the banner of Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver, is helping to promote the rally, which starts at 12:30 p.m.
Martin said that Vision Vancouver councillors have ignored strong neighbourhood opposition against massive property redevelopments. These include rezoning applications like those for a 22-storey rental building at 1401 Comox Street and a 19-storey tower at East Broadway and Kingsway. Both projects were approved by council this year.
In Dunbar, a number of residents are organizing against a planned six-to-seven-storey seniors’ facility.
“What we’re hoping to do is to band neighbourhoods together so that we all support each other,” Martin told the Straight by phone.“
Residential Towers belong downtown where the infrastructure is already in place to support commercial towers that began to rise since the time of the 1930s recession (the Marine Building was completed in 1929).
However, we don't need towers to achieve density outside the downtown peninsula. There, we can achieve high density with buildings not taller than 3.5 storeys.
Yet, in order to get there, the managers and the politicians need to 'Feel The Love'. I can think of no better way to achieve that than for all the neighbourhoods to work together to define the future of our city. See you tomorrow at The Hall!
Bill Tieleman
The community is all for a maximum four story development to house seniors in line with the neighbourhood vision.
BTW, the housing proposed under the Mayor's "affordable" sham is $5,000 per month for 600 square feet. Am not sure what planet that is considered affordable.....
Sure, if the majority of homes in a neighbourhood are torn down and replaced with 3.5 story building. I suspect that will be even less popular than a few towers.
What is the difference. A four story building will seem pretty much the same as a seven story building backing up against houses. Four stories will block the view and light. Time to stop the irrational objections to taller buildings. It just makes no sense.
I believe that residential intensification should be seen as "an engine of change". Thus, the neighbourhood plans ought to be "new urban design plans" for longstanding places that target areas for retention (cottages—but be weary of those 'laneway houses' that ought not be there), and areas for repair.
Neighbours should decide which is which, and what goes where. However, among the building types for neighbourhood intensification I would count the new kid on the block, the fee-simple row houses, along with the old standards streetwall buildings, and cottages.
With just these three building types we can build a mix of options that will double the population of our city, create a new wrung on the property ladder, eliminate the need for the dread strata fee and special levee, and address the sorry state of the public realm in our neighbourhoods. This "engine of change" can revitalize all the arterials to serve local needs, bikes, and transit, carrying no more than 16,000 v.p.d. And build new 'urban rooms' and public squares.
Realist (whomever you may be)... You will be happy to know that this kind of locally driven intensification strategy will not only conserve clusters of cottage lots, but it will provide the neighbourhood economics necessary to create local jobs, build affordable housing, reduce pollution, and enhance social mixing.