Softer, gentler Metro regional plan advances
By Jeff Nagel - BC Local News
A new draft Metro Vancouver regional growth strategy now going out to public comment has been watered down to answer complaints of local cities that feared losing too much control over development.
The Metro Vancouver 2040 plan is to replace the outdated Livable Region Strategic Plan (LRSP) but continue the same core goals – fighting sprawl by containing urban growth, protecting green space and agricultural land, and building more densely so homes and businesses are easier to serve by transit, cycling and walking.
But Metro officials have largely abandoned an earlier vision of a new strategy with considerably more teeth than the old one, which was unable to prevent continued sprawl and construction of office parks outside town centres.
"It's a significant softening from what we brought out in April of last year," said chief administrator Johnny Carline.
But he argues the compromises are acceptable and will still deliver a "vast improvement" over the LRSP.
The revised draft gives local cities more scope to interpret the plan, he said.
Metro has backed off on capping housing densities in rural areas, instead leaving the precise rules to local cities so long as homes aren't packed so close they require urban sewers.
In a key concession to Surrey, planners gave up on a toughly enforced industrial land reserve to prevent further redevelopment of those scarce lands.
Now cities would be left to largely decide what lands they will designate as "industrial" and in a "mixed employment" zone that can legitimize existing office parks.
Industrial can include not just old-style smokestack manufacturing industries, warehousing and the like, but more modern ones like digital media studios.
"It's a tailoring to local needs, not a complete abandoning of the principle," Carline said.
Targets for building affordable housing now won't put as much onus on municipalities to deliver, noting help from the province will be needed.
Metro also eased back on mapping out frequent transit development corridors, leaving cities to work them out with TransLink.
Carline said critical areas of the plan like agricultural and conservation/recreation zones (which together replace the old Green Zone) and the urban containment boundary containing high-density growth will have to be honoured.
Those lines, however, can be redrawn by a two-thirds majority vote of the Metro board.
Most other future adjustments to maps sought by local cities can pass with a simple majority – an even lower bar than now.
Will officials look back in 10 years and view this is where they turned back the relentless march of car-dependent office parks and agricultural land conversions?
"I don't think you ever achieve 100 per cent," Carline said.
He also cautions smarter regional development depends not just on cities and Metro policies but also on TransLink's ability to vastly expand the transit system.
"If we fall behind with that investment, then we'll regret it," said Carline.
New transit lines are needed to serve fast-growing areas like Surrey, Coquitlam and Langley, he said, or else businesses and jobs will keep locating outside of town centres in inefficient areas that doom workers to commute by car.
Metro wants TransLink to build some of the new lines before local population levels justify them to attract riders and shape land-use patterns – a build-it-and-they-will-come philosophy.
But Carline noted it's tough to ask cash-strapped TransLink to build ahead of demand without new funding mechanisms like road pricing.
Langley Township Mayor Rick Green, who voted in November against okaying the current draft, now says the latest changes may win his council's support.
"We're cautiously optimistic," he said. "We have to be very comfortable going forward that we're not going to commit future councils and tie their hands in being able to move forward."
An expected 70 per cent jump in population in Langley Township over the next 15 years could starve the municipality of tax revenue unless it got more scope to open up new land for industrial and commercial development, he said.
Green still wants the draft changed to include the old interurban corridor through Surrey and Langley as a future community rail transportation route, an idea Metro staff so far reject.
"They don't want to step on TransLink's toes," said Green, who has championed community rail.
"We know out here we won't have the population density to ever qualify for SkyTrain technology."
Langley Township's Willoughby area will be added to the list of municipal town centres in the plan, as will Lower Lynn in North Vancouver District.
The plan also designates two metro centres – Surrey Centre as well as downtown Vancouver – and a series of regional town centres most of which were in the previous plan.
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