Quote:
Originally Posted by misher
The Urban Development Institute has written a moratorium to the city criticizing the Broadway corridor saying it doesn't make sense. I love their sarcastic criticism, pointing out that they have been urging for a plan since 2014. This is very funny to read as usually the UDI is very polite and professional.
I also love how they point out that the city is only planning on an increase of 12,500 people, when 4x that amount was planned for Cambie.
This interim plan calls for a 2.5 year halt on all permits except for "100 per cent social and supportive housing, community care facilities, 100 per cent below market rental housing or 100 per cent affordable student housing". Which is of course rare meaning there will be little to no development in the interim.
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Of course the UDI don't like waiting for a plan to be completed before their members are allowed to submit projects. They're a trade organization for developers - that's obviously the position they'll take. But without a plan, how would developers know what to submit - what density, what mix of units? And without a plan, how could the City know whether to support or recommend changes to any applications?
It makes sense that the City wouldn't start a plan until the finance was finally in place for the transit - it's been many years since the idea was supported, but the current state of the 99 B-Line shows it would be unwise to add significant new density along the corridor until the transit is close to completion. The transit is a 100+ year investment - waiting a couple of years to get a coherent picture of development, and testing the level of support or opposition from existing residents seems like a good idea.
The UDI seem to misunderstand that the 12,500 more people anticipated to add to the corridor is under current zoning - the whole point of the plan is to increase that number, just as the Cambie Corridor Plan did.
The extra two years to complete the plan might actually not add any time to the development timeline. If the new plan allowed higher density developments to be submitted under new zoning, rather than having to go through a rezoning, then it could shave a couple of years, extra expense, and a public hearing from the process. That's how the West End Plan is working - where the new zoning on Davie, for example, allows those higher density new towers like Jervis or the Safeway replacement, but only if non-market housing is part of the project, or the building is 100% market rental. That seems to have worked really well, and already created over 1,000 new rental units in a very few years.
The City of Vancouver has only 5% of Metro Vancouver's land area, but it has 26% of the Metro population. In the past 5 years (2013-2017) CMHC data show over 30,000 housing starts in the City of Vancouver, 27% of the Metro Vancouver starts,. Despite all the growth in Surrey, Burnaby etc., the City of Vancouver is contributing more than might be expected. The next highest municipality was Surrey, and there were under 20,000 starts there.