An interesting read
How former Vancouver city planners would have done things differently
From funding the missing middle to asking more of developers, former city planners address affordability
Bethany Lindsay · CBC News · Posted: May 08, 2018
Ann McAfee grew up in the 50s and 60s, when Vancouver was an entirely different place from what it is today. It was "an unspectacular city in a spectacular setting," she says.
"I can remember in the 50s, when False Creek was all industry and pollution everywhere, and my dad had to walk home in front of the car with my mom driving because you couldn't see — it was a London pea soup," McAfee told CBC News.
And so it's no surprise that in her 32 years working at city hall, first as senior housing planner and then as co-director of planning, a major focus was making Vancouver a nicer place to live. McAfee helped catapult Vancouver to the top of global "livability" lists, but in the meantime, rents and real estate prices were creeping ever higher.
"We were so busy patting ourselves on the back, we probably should have been much more serious about what senior government programs, investor programs" meant for the city, she said.
McAfee is one of three former Vancouver planning directors who spoke with CBC about how they would have done things differently if they'd known how unaffordable housing would become.
Each has different ideas, from better long-range planning to a stronger focus on housing for middle-income families, but they all share a sense of dismay about the current crisis in Vancouver.
An aerial photograph shows downtown Vancouver in the 1970s. (Gordon Sayle/City of Vancouver Archives COV-S167---: CVA 515-7)
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http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-co...d-have-done-things-differently-1.4651705
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