Broadway Corridor Development Plan

[scryer]

Instead of having grown men lose their 🞵🞵🞵🞵 over petty metrics, why don't we focus on what we would like to see? You know, be focused on solutions and opportunities?

Regardless of how we compare to other cities, the Broadway corridor is a great opportunity to densify and really grow downtown off the peninsula (which I think is a great thing).

Coming from the average tax paying citizen that is facing a housing crisis:


1. Broadway needs to be dense and tall(er). And these are not necessarily the same thing. Broadway needs to be have a minimum height of the average height in OV (if that makes any sense lol). Personally I think that it would be totally acceptable to see a significantly taller tower clusters at Broadway-City Hall station, Commercial-Broadway, and at Main Street-Kingsway stations for obvious reasons.

2. Broadway needs to have a significant amount of rental housing stock added to it. In my fictional world, the government would subsidize construction costs and tax breaks to developers to encourage the construction of rental units alongside condos.

3. We all know that I have this very romantic idea of placing a couple of Burj-Khalifas in downtown but I am willing to compromise: we can totally do mountain-style townhouse complexes (google-image it, I think it's suiting for Vancouver) for more sensitive neighbourhoods nearby transit. I honestly do think that there is something to be learned from Europe and how they achieve density without the height. And these complexes could also be mixed use with ground-level retail. Hell these mid-rise (6+ floors) complexes could be condo/rental mix if we really wanted. This would be where the rezoning city-wide plan that our newly elected city council would help bring in these denser developments without overwhelming a neighbourhood.

That's my thoughts on the Broadway corridor.

Now can we move on from these damn metrics and start focusing on the future we want to create for Vancouver? Hell if we did the Skytrain on our own then this is nothing.