Vancouver View Cones - Reviews and Amendments

[GenWhy?]

Originally Posted by Vin

You will be forced to sell lower if all your competitors can sell lower than you. Might as well pack up and leave the development business if you insist on selling at "market value".

If the market price drops, that is the new market price. That's why we're waiting on the sidelines right now for condo projects so we can sell at a price that covers costs. In fact getting rid of the lower QE viewcone has allowed a fiends condo project to exits at all. I'll be keeping an eye on what they market for.

[s211]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

96 replies = "mountain of rage" The deluded world of thinking in your little echo chamber.

Also, the media is running with THE most over-used phrase in its headlines: OUTRAGE...

[Vin]

Originally Posted by GenWhy?

If the market price drops, that is the new market price. That's why we're waiting on the sidelines right now for condo projects so we can sell at a price that covers costs. In fact getting rid of the lower QE viewcone has allowed a fiends condo project to exits at all. I'll be keeping an eye on what they market for.

Our "market value" is artificially inflated with the limited developable lands and municipal height, zoning and other restrictions. Hence, with all these removed, competition can actually lower prices. Viewcones is one major obstacle.

However, like I said before, we missed the best time to build more, while suburb cities have been more successful in doing this. Construction costs post-Covid, mortgage rates and the dwindling economy make it harder now.

[Jimbo604]

Greystar Proposes Rental Towers After Buying Science World McDonald's For $80M
https://storeys.com/greystar-1527-main-street-vancouver/

For 1527 Main Street in Vancouver, Greystar is proposing a 22-storey and 18-storey rental tower with a total of 371 units.
By Howard Chai September 17, 2024 04:45 PM

"Less than a year after making the high-profile purchase, international real estate development and management firm Greystar Real Estate Partners has submitted its rezoning application to the City of Vancouver, which the City published on Monday.

The subject site of the proposal is 1527 Main Street in Vancouver, which is currently occupied by a standalone McDonald's and its surface parking lot about a block away from the Expo Line SkyTrain's Main Street-Science World Station. ...

Of note, Greystar says its proposal is in part made possible by the recent revisions and eliminations of certain view cones.

"The modernization of Main Street View Cone (22) and elimination of Queen Elizabeth Park View Cone (3.2.4A) allows the 22-story tower to be located on the eastern portion of the site, without impeding any protected views," the rezoning application notes."

Sounds like reigning in view cones is paying dividends.

[GenWhy?]

I think it gave them an extra 6-storeys for the eastern side of the site

[WarrenC12]

Would viewcones really limit things at this level? We're not talking about 40 stories here, just ~20 ish. How much taller will this be compared to Central and the VanCity building?

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Would viewcones really limit things at this level? We're not talking about 40 stories here, just ~20 ish. How much taller will this be compared to Central and the VanCity building?

They raised the viewcone to the top of the tallest CityGate tower. I think Central is 22-storeys and 195 ft? So similar to the 18/22 storey towers (200-239 feet) in this development.

You can see the cutout on Central where it faces Main Street which is slightly lower than the rest of the floating box because of the old viewcone.

https://council.vancouver.ca/20040325/ph5.htm

[GenWhy?]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

Vancity can be slightly taller because it's farther from the viewcone.

Looks like the old viewcone was to the east of the Vancity tower. The Plan said you can do 21-storeys just across the street to the south of Vancity. So 22 storeys isn't crazy.

The change was to the eastern portion of the macdonalds site

[Vin]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Would viewcones really limit things at this level? We're not talking about 40 stories here, just ~20 ish. How much taller will this be compared to Central and the VanCity building?

Now you know how damaging Viewcones can be.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by Vin

Now you know how damaging Viewcones can be.

You fail at reading comprehension. They're suggesting viewcones wouldn't have made a difference.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

You fail at reading comprehension. They're suggesting viewcones wouldn't have made a difference.

You fail in comprehending basic logic, because if there isn't any Viewcones restriction here, we can easily put in an 80-storey building here, just like what they are doing in Burnaby. 20+ storey in such a prime location is a big joke.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by Vin

- snip -

You fail in comprehending basic logic: neither the city, nor the developers building this, nor 99% of the forum want or need an 80-floor here.

Burnaby can build whatever they want - the fact that they need a tower that high just to convince people to live at Gilmore or Kingsway is pretty telling.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

You fail in comprehending basic logic: neither the city, nor the developers building this, nor 99% of the forum want or need an 80-floor here.

Burnaby can build whatever they want - the fact that they need a tower that high just to convince people to live at Gilmore or Kingsway is pretty telling.

You're very good at making uneducated baseless assumptions. I'll give you that.

Funny to think that when there is a choice to have a tower built including options that can triple or quadruple the density, we would choose the least, especially when there is a housing crisis. That's good logic all around.

[GenWhy?]

Originally Posted by Vin

You're very good at making uneducated baseless assumptions. I'll give you that.

Funny to think that when there is a choice to have a tower built including options that can triple or quadruple the density, we would choose the least, especially when there is a housing crisis. That's good logic all around.

Geotechnical, parkade depth, and viewcones aside, I think the max under a policy or area plan revision would be 40-storeys, based on the latest Rupert Renfrew Station area plan. Construction gets very tricky and expensive above that (even at that height).

Not sure what the FSR would be.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by Vin

- snip -

By all means, provide evidence that Greystar is A) capable of building up to 80 floors and B) willing to. Otherwise I’ll leave “uneducated and baseless” to you - you’re much better at that kind of thing.

They’re building on top of a single-floor drive thru and parking lots: over 20x the existing density. It’s a marathon, not a 10-metre dash.

[jollyburger]

Vancouver Magazine article on housing supply.

Brent Sawchyn, principal of developer PC Urban, has about 900 rental units under construction. Sawchyn estimates that “tens of thousands of homes” have likely been lost to policies that protect view cones, eliminate shadowing from towers or dictate floor plate size. “Policies that were established 35 years ago by planning departments of the day are coming home to haunt us,” he says.

Still, Larry Beasley, former co-director of planning for the City of Vancouver and a key figure in the original implementation of the view cone policy, says there are smarter ways to tackle supply without giving up on longstanding priorities like views, character housing and sunshine. It can be done, with ingenuity and public consultation.

“One of the chief ways that has not been explored is development of the False Creek Flats,” says Beasley. “The Creative District alone, on the south side of the Flats along Great Northern Way, can yield thousands of units of housing without sacrificing the industrial capacity. The whole Flats could yield tens of thousands of units—all rental if needed—and still keep our industrial capacity.”

Unless you move the majority of the railcar storage I don't think his grand vision for the False Creek Flats is ever happening. Great Northern Way will be densified, St Pauls will get all their associated buildings for medical use. Multi-level industrial along Clark. Mixed use/creative spaces on the city land next to Main and you assume some substantial development centered around Terminal near the Skytrain station.

If they could find new space (reclaimed land on the waterfront) for that train car storage space behind Emily Carr that would probably be the "easiest" change to the area with the most benefit in increasing the supply for mixed-use development in the area.

https://www.vanmag.com/city/real-estate/...-more-housing-why-cant-we-just-build-it/

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

Vancouver Magazine article on housing supply.

Unless you move the majority of the railcar storage I don't think his grand vision for the False Creek Flats is ever happening. Great Northern Way will be densified, St Pauls will get all their associated buildings for medical use. Multi-level industrial along Clark. Mixed use/creative spaces on the city land next to Main and you assume some substantial development centered around 1st Avenue near the Skytrain station.

If they could find new space (reclaimed land on the waterfront) for that train car storage space behind Emily Carr that would probably be the "easiest" change to the area with the most benefit in increasing the supply for mixed-use development in the area.

https://www.vanmag.com/city/real-estate/...-more-housing-why-cant-we-just-build-it/

The PC Urban developer may be correct that policies that restrict shadowing, and floorplate sizes will have reduced the number of units built in the developments that have been completed, as well as the view cones, but the net impact won't be as much as he suggests because overall market conditions and demand dictates how much can be built and absorbed at any point in time. So if bigger towers (taller, or fatter) had been built, it's likely that others wouldn't have gone ahead. There are no policies in Burnaby limiting floorplates, or heights, for example, but we're seeing projects delayed, or developed shorter than originally suggested (as in Shape's Phase 2 of Lougheed, for example).

And Larry Beasley doesn't seem to know that developments with residential uses are already allowed on the north side of Great Northern Way under the Broadway Plan. There are already schemes submitted for around 2,000 rental apartments, and there are other undeveloped sites that will no doubt see future proposals. To expand further north you would need to lose some of the rail tracks, and that doesn't look like happening. (And reclaiming land in Burrard Inlet for rail tracks seems even less likely).

[Migrant_Coconut]

Wasn't there also an argument back during the Stewart council that mixed-use residential/industrial is incompatible because the latter can't afford the higher rates? Seems like all the Nineties urbanists have been living under a rock until roughly last year.

[Alex Mackinnon]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Wasn't there also an argument back during the Stewart council that mixed-use residential/industrial is incompatible because the latter can't afford the higher rates? Seems like all the Nineties urbanists have been living under a rock until roughly last year.

There's lots of reasons not to mix those two. Much of the area north of Hastings used to be just industrial, and frequently had all sorts of works going on in the night. Now there's residential built right up against it.

I used to frequently work night shifts at those kinds of places during my summer jobs, and we'd breaking up bulk materials, and prepping equipment all night. You can't really do that with residents right next door.

Industrial/commercial is a much better combo.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by Alex Mackinnon

There's lots of reasons not to mix those two. Much of the area north of Hastings used to be just industrial, and frequently had all sorts of works going on in the night. Now there's residential built right up against it.

I used to frequently work night shifts at those kinds of places during my summer jobs, and we'd breaking up bulk materials, and prepping equipment all night. You can't really do that with residents right next door.

Industrial/commercial is a much better combo.

Not all industrial use is wrecking yards and bomb defusing. I might sound like a broken record but Japan doesn't seem to have any issues with this at all. If sound is an issue, the issue is sound. Enforce the noise bylaws instead of trying to solve the problem with zoning.