The reimagination of East Vancouver’s Britannia community centre is well under way.

Opened during the 1970s as an integrated complex offering educational, recreational, and community services on a seven-hectare property west of Commercial Drive, the community centre is in the process of creating a vision that will take it into the future.

Although a master plan outlining Britannia’s future is still a long way off, the results of a recent survey provide a glimpse of what locals want for the site.

“Two questions received strong levels of support, both of which relate to broad functional concepts—Britannia serving as a community meeting place and a hub of arts, health/wellness, recreation, and education,” stated a report tabled by the volunteer planning and development committee at its first meeting of the year, on January 6.

The report also noted that the “only concept that was not generally supported by [277] respondents dealt with the expansion of site functions to include housing”.

In an interview, the executive director of the Britannia Community Services Centre said there were several suggestions for how the complex could provide better services.

According to Cynthia Low, one of these is the establishment of a single multipurpose facility that would replace the dozen or so aging buildings on the property, excluding the elementary and secondary schools.

“There were also suggestions that we add social enterprise on the site,” Low told the Georgia Straight. “For example, having a co-op–run cafeteria or food service or bicycle shop.”

Low also said that adding more green space would be a priority. She noted that only about 15 percent of the complex is devoted to greenery.

The executive director added that there is also a desire in the community to see improved accessibility.

The community centre site is owned by the City of Vancouver and the Vancouver School Board. According to the website of the Grandview-Woodland Area Council, a neighbourhood-based citizens' group, the area’s permitted uses based on its zoning include schools, a gymnasium, a swimming pool, an ice rink, a library, playing fields, and other recreational facilities, along with off-street parking. As well, the website states that any new development shall not exceed four storeys.

The group’s communications secretary, Dan Fass, was present at the January 6 meeting of the planning and development committee. He told the Straight that he has outstanding concerns about bringing housing into the complex.

In a letter last spring to the Britannia Community Services Centre, Fass claimed that private developers would likely demand a high percentage of market housing in exchange for social housing. “The result would be a predominantly privately-owned housing development on a site that is known for its publicly-owned community centre, school, and other amenities,” Fass wrote.

That concern was reflected in the survey results. “The comments suggest that residents are concerned about what housing would mean for the public spaces on the site, how relations between users and residents would be managed, and the population that would be targeted for housing,” the report stated.

The survey also found that the idea of Britannia “improving its relationship to Commercial Drive”, which may mean acquiring property on the popular street, did not receive overwhelming support from the community (49.1 percent “agreed”), even though it did from one of the committee members.

Although Britannia is accessible through the Napier Square Greenway, just west of the intersection of Commercial Drive and Napier Street, it is mostly hidden from view by commercial establishments on the Drive, according to Dan Freeman, a member of the planning and development committee.

“It’s hard to find off of Grandview Park, [off] of Commercial Drive, and [off] Venables [Street], so opportunities to make it more obvious, to create more of a front door, would be really great for the community,” Freeman told the Straight in an interview after the meeting.

The Britannia centre is preparing a submission for city planners by the end of February in a bid to include the redevelopment of the complex in Vancouver’s 10-year capital plan covering the years 2012 to 2022.

Penny Street, vice president of the board of the Britannia Community Services Centre Society, told participants in the January 6 meeting that the centre needs to come up with a good narrative about the changes it intends to make.

However, committee member Bette Murphy expressed concerns that the planning process is unfolding too fast. She told her colleagues she believes there still needs to be more community input.

According to Low, the Britannia community centre will put together more detailed concepts based on the survey results to be used in further community consultations, possibly in the spring.