Quote:
Originally Posted by Metro-One
I think a compromise of something between 650 and 700 feet would have been the best solution IMO.
While I am more than happy to have more 550 feet towers in Vancouver (seeing how only a decade ago the best we ever saw was usually 400 to 450 feet) a few buildings between 650 to 700 feet would be ideal, with a single (or two) towers reaching around 750 feet in the CBD. That would really solidify downtown.
I dont think for the time being we need to build to Torontos heights.
But, in the end, the Vancouver skyline has added a lot of height over the last 10 years, and it looks to be continuing this trend with these recend 150 meter plus proposals...
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The only trend that these 150-168 metre proposals represent is the latest artificial limitation the city has arbitrarily imposed on the natural progression of Vancouver's skyline. Vancouver is a big, growing, dynamic city. Builders currently have the desire and the economic case for more ambitious architecture, and the people could certainly benefit from the greater supply and lower prices that more height and density would bring. But the city continues to needlessly stand in the way, limiting supply, raising prices and stifling the natural growth of a potentially great city's skyline.
Far from being exciting, the document posted from the open house is quite demoralizing. It reveals that, if the current city council has its way, no tower taller than 700 feet (i.e., literally just a few floors taller than Shangri-La) will ever be permitted to be built before 2035, notwithstanding the economic case for larger buildings. That current scale of architecture is already incongruous with the size, power and needs of Vancouver. It will be even more so in the coming decades. Even Edmonton, a relative backwater, is currently constructing numerous taller towers, including one that will dwarf Shangri-La by more than 180 feet upon its completion in 2018, all of which was made possible by the city's recent relaxation of longstanding height limits.
It's past time to end the artificial limitations here in Vancouver too and allow our downtown to soar and flourish naturally.