Downtown Vancouver Updates

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Good news - Covid has both increased supply and reduced demand!

And the Cambie Corridor alone is supposed to bring over 30k new homes online; the Broadway Corridor should be much the same. If all that plus Toronto-level construction can't fix affordability, nothing will.

Doubling the rate of development Downtown, or in the City of Vancouver wouldn't necessarily make housing more affordable. The economics of development aren't as straightforward as 'building more makes it cheaper'. Building higher costs more, for one thing (as it takes longer), but it's much more about what buyers are able and willing to pay, and how much land trades for as a result that makes it very difficult to 'make' prices come down.

Nobody knows what effect, if any Covid will have on prices, either short term or longer - although there are plenty of opinions, and some realtor's statements that 'really, the market will be even stronger once we get back to normal'.

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

1.5x, actually; downtown's population density is 16,764/km² to their 25,846/km²... and we're running out of lowrises and empty lots. It's not like I compared us to HK; like Manhattan, there's only so much blood in the turnip. Gotta start building into the suburbs.

And while City Hall's regs should definitely be relaxed for aesthetic reasons, they're only costing the city around 10-15 units per tower, and each tower is only ~220 units each to begin with.

Densifiying the West End is a good move. It's not the final solution. That would be building more West Ends near rapid transit, all over the metro. Also, more rapid transit, lest we get thousands of new drivers bringing CO2 rates back up.

Around them, not on them (as suggested). Replace a cafe in Vancouver, it doesn't become another cafe - it becomes a Starbucks or an Arc'teryx. That goes far beyond tax or rent rates.

The West End - even before the current West End Plan towers, had a density of 23,838 people/km² in 2016. Since then 400 more units have been completed, and 1,800+ more are under construction. There are applications for over 4,000 more units, so it's very likely that even with a slowdown in the next few years the residential density of the West End really will be greater than in Manhattan.

Downtown there have been nearly 4,000 more units completed since the census, including some large towers like Tate, the Wall and Onni towers on Richards, The Arc and Vancouver House. There are over 1,800 under construction at the moment, so by the next census in just over a year the Downtown could be close to 20,000 people/km² (especially if the Airbnb apartments have real renters in 2021).

[scryer]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

A) The SFHs need to go, yes, but we both agree that many neighbourhoods only need to be replaced with Missing Middle lowrises or midrises, not 30-40 floor towers. The latter would be both unnecessary and detrimental to Vancouver.

The only place where I mentioned there should be 30+fl towers is in the downtown peninsula in my last post. Not sure why you are thinking I want towers everywhere...but I will throw you a bone: I definitely think that its time that downtown Vancouver moves off of the peninsula.

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

B) While containing sprawl is laudable, eventually you do run out of space within the city proper. Manhattan - as mentioned above - has reached the point where most starts are preservations and new builds mean demolishing mid/high-rises and building higher-rises. Secondary downtowns also help reduce cross-metro traffic.

We are not at Manhattan level yet and there is already plenty of space within the COV already.

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

C) If we can figure out a way to keep businesses while upzoning the street, by all means. What's been happening is that they all get kicked out and replaced with big brands, which if applied to Davie on a wider scale would effectively kill it.

You're not going to like this response ...to speak quite frankly, and I do hope that I am wrong; the longer the COVID-19 situation goes on, the more small businesses get lost in the global economic upheaval. We're going to have to see who's still standing after this since a lot of small businesses are going to have to change in order to survive. This will bring about opportunities to revisit commercial sites.

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

...and we're running out of lowrises and empty lots. It's not like I compared us to HK; like Manhattan, there's only so much blood in the turnip. Gotta start building into the suburbs.

Any lowrises and empty lots in the downtown peninsula get developed with a 20-25 fl tower these days because of city policies. That is under-building. There is plenty of blood in the turnip, it's just that there is a common misconception that the downtown COV can't get any denser. Now before someone jumps down my throat claiming that building more supply isn't the sole solution: I know that; my point is that the land use is under-used especially in comparison to what we are building out in our suburbs. And a great deal of that comes from the city policies in place; policies that push people (and development) into the suburbs and these policies can be changed if people come together and speak on it.

Originally Posted by Anorak

There are certainly ways to keep businesses, and building up around them would likely actually allow them to keep operating when so many are closing down. This is because they're being taxed and rent is being set at prices that reflect the property's central location, without the corresponding density, so with all the new customers brought in by increased density they would be able to succeed. New York has a thriving small business scene.

I hate to keep on a comparison to NYC but you have a point there. Does anyone have any insights as to how NYC was able to keep their small business scene thriving? Or should I ask the SSPer's there?

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by scryer

The only place where I mentioned there should be 30+fl towers is in the downtown peninsula in my last post. Not sure why you are thinking I want towers everywhere...but I will throw you a bone: I definitely think that its time that downtown Vancouver moves off of the peninsula...

You're not going to like this response ...to speak quite frankly, and I do hope that I am wrong; the longer the COVID-19 situation goes on, the more small businesses get lost in the global economic upheaval. We're going to have to see who's still standing after this since a lot of small businesses are going to have to change in order to survive. This will bring about opportunities to revisit commercial sites...

... I hate to keep on a comparison to NYC but you have a point there. Does anyone have any insights as to how NYC was able to keep their small business scene thriving? Or should I ask the SSPer's there?

I stand corrected. Mea culpa.

Fair point. But that's a reason to rezone those and keep the ones that remain.

Luck, business associations, and possibly legislation, from the looks of it. Though asking NY-ers can't hurt.

Originally Posted by scryer

We are not at Manhattan level yet and there is already plenty of space within the COV already.

Any lowrises and empty lots in the downtown peninsula get developed with a 20-25 fl tower these days because of city policies. That is under-building. There is plenty of blood in the turnip, it's just that there is a common misconception that the downtown COV can't get any denser. Now before someone jumps down my throat claiming that building more supply isn't the sole solution: I know that; my point is that the land use is under-used especially in comparison to what we are building out in our suburbs. And a great deal of that comes from the city policies in place; policies that push people (and development) into the suburbs and these policies can be changed if people come together and speak on it.

I'm looking at the long game here. Scroll back to FF's post which started this entire argument: the negotiations shrank the development from 276 units to 263. The Jenga tower a few years ago got cut from 235 units to 218.
13 units here, 17 units there... it's going to take sixteen of those to make a whole new tower. City regulations suck artistically, but in terms of housing and housing space, they're a drop in the bucket.

Don't believe me? Let's do the math: I count about 40 blocks on the streets you mentioned, plus Yaletown, and you can get about 3 highrises per block. I'll assume that a completely blank slate tomorrow, no viewcones, no regs, get you 250 units average. That's 30,000 units, which is admittedly a lot of blood in the turnip... but then you're out of room in downtown proper (there's still the West End TBF), and now the whole place looks like Hong Kong, with little to no variety.

Cambie's plan alone is also going to introduce 30,000 units - Broadway should be much the same, and NEFC is supposed to add 12,000. Don't forget Hastings, Main, the Flats, and all the others that don't even have a plan yet. That's hundreds of thousands of more units.

(tl;dr - We can upgrade Granville/Robson/Denman/Davie/etc on a case-by-case basis AND keep some of the old buildings/businesses AND keep a small amount of height limits and regs AND still keep adding whole metric sh*tloads of supply. None of those are mutually exclusive right now.)

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

I
I'm looking at the long game here. Scroll back to FF's post which started this entire argument: the negotiations shrank the development from 276 units to 263. The Jenga tower a few years ago got cut from 235 units to 218.
13 units here, 17 units there... it's going to take sixteen of those to make a whole new tower. City regulations suck artistically, but in terms of housing and housing space, they're a drop in the bucket.

Don't believe me? Let's do the math: I count about 40 blocks on the streets you mentioned, plus Yaletown, and you can get about 3 highrises per block. I'll assume that a completely blank slate tomorrow, no viewcones, no regs, get you 250 units average. That's 30,000 units, which is admittedly a lot of blood in the turnip... but then you're out of room in downtown proper (there's still the West End TBF), and now the whole place looks like Hong Kong, with little to no variety.

Cambie's plan alone is also going to introduce 30,000 units - Broadway should be much the same, and NEFC is supposed to add 12,000. Don't forget Hastings, Main, the Flats, and all the others that don't even have a plan yet. That's hundreds of thousands of more units.

(tl;dr - We can upgrade Granville/Robson/Denman/Davie/etc on a case-by-case basis AND keep some of the old buildings/businesses AND keep a small amount of height limits and regs AND still keep adding whole metric sh*tloads of supply. None of those are mutually exclusive right now.)

The Downtown and West End obviously have a capacity limit, but it isn't the planning limitations, (viewcones, shadowing, the time to rezone or the requirement to pay CACs on some projects) that limits development at any one time. Some of the factors that mean the pace of development isn't faster are financing, demand, and the capacity of the construction industry.

Most Downtown developers have no interest in delivering cheaper housing if they can make a reasonable return on (relatively) fewer units. They compete with each other for sales, but not to the extent of offering something cheaper. They generally aim to get a 15% profit out of a project. That's a lot more cash if they can sell units at $1,000 per square foot, than if they sell at $700. If buyers will pay $1,000 then that's what developers will sell for. There have been attempts to sell 'affordable' units at less, but there hasn't been a legal mechanism to keep them affordable - it just becomes a windfall profit for the initial owner. That's why rental, and a few co-ops have been the preferred approach in Vancouver to ensure affordability - or some measure of affordability, compared to the purchase option.

There are thousands, and probably over 10,000 units, that have already been approved as rezonings, where developers are only slowly getting round to building. For example, the 7 storey residential building on Granville Street at Davie isn't apparently being built. The two rental buildings on West Pender were approved years ago; one is finally happening. Holborn's rental building on West Pender was approved over four years ago. The last two are examples of rental buildings that would seem to be a slam dunk in a sub 1% rental market. Outside Downtown, how long has Little Mountain taken to build? There are valid reasons and explanations why developments don't happen, and obviously they are the 'pipeline' for future construction, but the idea that there would be much more construction if only there were more approvals doesn't really hold up.

[Hooknose]

Originally Posted by Changing City

My comment is that this isn't a thread about drug policy, it's about Updates on Downtown developments. Somehow, it keeps getting hijacked.

Good point

apologies

[truenorth44]

Originally Posted by truenorth44

It's been quiet again since last week sometime. I don't see that they did a whole lot in the few weeks they were working.

There were a few workers on site at Terrace House on Friday - I asked one of them if it was starting up or closing down. Closing down. Looked like they were putting up barriers around floor openings and generally making the site more secure. Sad to see.

[scryer]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

I'm looking at the long game here. Scroll back to FF's post which started this entire argument: the negotiations shrank the development from 276 units to 263. The Jenga tower a few years ago got cut from 235 units to 218.
13 units here, 17 units there... it's going to take sixteen of those to make a whole new tower. City regulations suck artistically, but in terms of housing and housing space, they're a drop in the bucket.

Don't believe me? Let's do the math: I count about 40 blocks on the streets you mentioned, plus Yaletown, and you can get about 3 highrises per block. I'll assume that a completely blank slate tomorrow, no viewcones, no regs, get you 250 units average. That's 30,000 units, which is admittedly a lot of blood in the turnip...

*sigh* I missed this one.

I, too, am also looking at the long game specifically with future generations in mind. I am fairly certain that I can pinpoint our difference in perspective at the fact that you are limiting your view of the downtown peninsula as a place for preservation. The downtown peninsula is the economic centre of the city and I would argue the province; and we need to develop it like one. To be clear: I have only been speaking about function, not artistics. So I am not sure where you are getting that from.

The market will forever dictate what can be built, and with relaxed view cones, parking requirements, etc the downtown peninsula can be built denser and more economically. The market would have favoured these kinds of denser developments pre-COVID-19 as we have both a housing and an office shortage.

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

...and we're running out of lowrises and empty lots. It's not like I compared us to HK; like Manhattan, there's only so much blood in the turnip. Gotta start building into the suburbs.

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

...but then you're out of room in downtown proper (there's still the West End TBF), and now the whole place looks like Hong Kong, with little to no variety.

Yikes, that didn't age well .

We need a downtown that functions like an economic centre for future generations.

I am also being misunderstood here. I never said to stop building in the suburbs. I am again saying that we need to build more densely in the downtown peninsula than what we have been doing. The reason behind that is because downtown Vancouver will be the number one job centre in Metro Vancouver for the next 25-50 years. We need to build with future generations in mind and part of that is balancing development out in the suburbs with even more density in the downtown peninsula.

Building taller doesn't mean that we are tearing down parks, and we don't have to kick out every Mom-and-Pop shop to do it since there are plenty of opportunities on the peninsula itself to build more efficiently for future generations. But by imposing building restrictions and zoning limitations, we are only stifling economic developments in the metro area's number one job centre. The B6 is a good example; they are demolishing a heritage building for a 32fl office building. However they are unable to build taller because of the view cones and yet we are losing a heritage building for a tower that was chopped due to the arbitrary view cones. Now I know the argument "that depends on the developer, and the financing blah, blah, blah" and that's great but the COV is not doing itself any favours by having these city policies limiting developments in the first place nor is it inviting other development companies that can finance taller structures.

This is going to sound juvenile but as much as people want to demonize developers, they don't realize that the COV has very limiting policies to begin with. We can't control development companies but we can control city policies and we can make them more inviting to developers.

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Cambie's plan alone is also going to introduce 30,000 units - Broadway should be much the same, and NEFC is supposed to add 12,000. Don't forget Hastings, Main, the Flats, and all the others that don't even have a plan yet. That's hundreds of thousands of more units.

I think that I may not have made myself clear that I wasn't talking specifically about housing development in the downtown core - I was talking about development in general being underwhelming in the downtown peninsula. When talking about relaxing city policies to allow denser developments, I kind of had it in my head that it would be more likely done for Office type buildings and maybe for some residential towers. Sorry for the obscurity!

This metric sh*tloads supply is still not solving the housing crisis for this generation or for future generations. The Cambie corridor could afford to go 8+floors inbetween stations yet what we are seeing most of them only being developed as 4floors midrises due to zoning - yet another example of under-building along a transit corridor during a housing crisis that we have been experiencing for the last 15 years. And you can't tell me that the demand isn't there. And please don't get me started on the underwhelming densities of Commercial-Broadway/Nanaimo station.

My point all this time has simply been that with the building restrictions combined with our limited zoning plans has been a key factor that has caused the downtown peninsula to continue to under-build up until 2019. Building restrictions CAN be changed and I would personally like to see the downtown peninsula use the space it has more efficiently while we develop areas outside of the peninsula at the same time.

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

(tl;dr - We can upgrade Granville/Robson/Denman/Davie/etc on a case-by-case basis AND keep some of the old buildings/businesses AND keep a small amount of height limits and regs AND still keep adding whole metric sh*tloads of supply. None of those are mutually exclusive right now.)

Let's talk 2020 for a quick second here since no one else is going to say it... I will be thoroughly shocked if 75%+ of the storefront small businesses pull through the COVID-19 shutdown if things don't return back to normal by June. This case-by-case basis that you want to employ may very well be outdated as well as all current projects in the "pipeline". We shall see how this all plays out though...

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Changing City

The Downtown and West End obviously have a capacity limit, but it isn't the planning limitations, (viewcones, shadowing, the time to rezone or the requirement to pay CACs on some projects) that limits development at any one time. Some of the factors that mean the pace of development isn't faster are financing, demand, and the capacity of the construction industry.

Most Downtown developers have no interest in delivering cheaper housing if they can make a reasonable return on (relatively) fewer units. They compete with each other for sales, but not to the extent of offering something cheaper. They generally aim to get a 15% profit out of a project. That's a lot more cash if they can sell units at $1,000 per square foot, than if they sell at $700. If buyers will pay $1,000 then that's what developers will sell for. There have been attempts to sell 'affordable' units at less, but there hasn't been a legal mechanism to keep them affordable - it just becomes a windfall profit for the initial owner. That's why rental, and a few co-ops have been the preferred approach in Vancouver to ensure affordability - or some measure of affordability, compared to the purchase option.

There are thousands, and probably over 10,000 units, that have already been approved as rezonings, where developers are only slowly getting round to building. For example, the 7 storey residential building on Granville Street at Davie isn't apparently being built. The two rental buildings on West Pender were approved years ago; one is finally happening. Holborn's rental building on West Pender was approved over four years ago. The last two are examples of rental buildings that would seem to be a slam dunk in a sub 1% rental market. Outside Downtown, how long has Little Mountain taken to build? There are valid reasons and explanations why developments don't happen, and obviously they are the 'pipeline' for future construction, but the idea that there would be much more construction if only there were more approvals doesn't really hold up.

Developers are only really expensive units downtown mostly because of the limited number of lots that they can build with high density, which cause the cost of these lots to spiral out of control. So you are right they are competing with each other, but the City policies and limited amount of land force them to build really expensive units. If large swaths of land can go high density around downtown, the prices are bound to come down. Sometimes competition also means offering products with better deals, which Vancouver sorely lack.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by Vin

Developers are only really expensive units downtown mostly because of the limited number of lots that they can build with high density, which cause the cost of these lots to spiral out of control. So you are right they are competing with each other, but the City policies and limited amount of land force them to build really expensive units. If large swaths of land can go high density around downtown, the prices are bound to come down. Sometimes competition also means offering products with better deals, which Vancouver sorely lack.

I think you have your development economics backwards. The market - what buyers will pay - determines the price that developers charge. The last few successfully sold projects tells the developers what they can ask. Taller buildings with great views can get higher prices for upper floors. They work out how much money they should get back by calculting the price per square foot they expect to sell at, multiplied by the total square feet they expect to sell. (The total they'll actually build will be more, as there are comon areas, amenities, and maybe other elements like a church hall, or rental units to be given to the city as part of a CAC.)

The cost of the site is calculated as a residual. A developer works out what they can afford to pay by estimating how much they can build in terms of total construction, and how much that should cost to construct. They add on soft costs - fees, holding costs for finance, lawyers, taxes, sales etc. They add any other site specific costs like CACs, if they apply. Then they add the profit they expect to make - generally around 15%, although some developers like a bit more. Then if they've got any sense, they add a generous contingency for all the things that might go wrong.

The difference between the cost estimate, and the anticipated income, tells them what they should pay for the site. The more density they can build; the more the land is worth. If the policy says there's a height limit, or they have to build 20% social housing, it's worth less. It's not complicated, although inexperienced developers can get the numbers wrong. Once an over optimistic land value has been paid, it can create a problem if a landowner thinks their site is worth more than developers are willing to pay. That almost always gets sorted out, but it can take years.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by scryer

snip

Looks like I missed one number: without viewcones and regs, you get 30,000 units. With viewcones and regs, 28,000 - that's maybe 70k new residents adding to downtown's economy. The height reductions keep coming to about 15 units less than the original plan, and that is a drop in the bucket.

We're definitely not on the same page here. I fully understand the need to densify the West End and downtown, and that many of the lower-density parts have to go; some already are. Plenty of walkups or rowhouses we can do that on, and some of the commercial buildings are empty, and then maybe you can move onto some of the active ones, but sooner or later you do run out of lowrises and have to start replacing midrises. Deregulating won't make a developer go "hey, the viewcones are gone, why don't we do a 350-unit project" or "you know, we've reached our 30k unit quota for 2050, we can ignore that heritage building."

I don't see devs as evil either, but evidently downtown is already inviting to them no matter how many hoops they need to jump through, so staying competitive is probably the least of the planners' concerns.

Thanks for the clarification. Without reopening the can of worms that was the office space argument, the lack of supply is apparently less about height limits and more about approval speed and project financing. As it is, we're about to see a lot more offices come online in the next few years.
I believe that specific viewcone on Cambie & Broadway is the one between City Hall and False Creek. And that I've spoken at length about the need to ditch it, and to simplify the viewcones in general. That doesn't mean we need to ditch all of them, or that it'd result in a sudden abundance of extra housing. As for the Corridor, it's 4 floors if strata, 6 floors if rental, and that still gets us around 30k+ units; not as much as we could have, no, but chances are that by the time we need more, we'll have a Cambie 2120 Plan for knocking down those apartments and replacing them with 10-20 floors, as per Broadway. Such is capitalism.
Commercial-Broadway and Nanaimo... yeah, no arguments there. Screw the CAVE elements and have it upzoned yesterday. Thirty floors will hardly be anomalous.

Originally Posted by scryer

Let's talk 2020 for a quick second here since no one else is going to say it... I will be thoroughly shocked if 75%+ of the storefront small businesses pull through the COVID-19 shutdown if things don't return back to normal by June. This case-by-case basis that you want to employ may very well be outdated as well as all current projects in the "pipeline". We shall see how this all plays out though...

No need to save businesses that're no longer in business, that's for sure. The ones that are, OTOH, will be treated like that baby in Children of Men.

[officedweller]

Portable surveillance cameras have appeared.
Pic by me today.

[SpongeG]

what are they for?

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by spongeg

what are they for?

CCTV

Did they move the one from Granville or is this a new one?

[SeymourDrake]

these portable cctv units are just for the optics. I'm sure they can do what they are designed to do. But there are cameras all over the downtown we just don't see them.

For cctv monitoring to be effective you need them in series like in london. Otherwise you may or may not catch them using 1 to 4 cameras.

I believe there was talk about putting cctv all along granville at one point but got rejected.

They should just invest in Hires Drones flying back and forth Hot Areas.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Depends on what they're trying to catch - would camera arrays or drones be worth the cost & intrusiveness?

[jollyburger]

There were 52 cameras installed for the Olympics with 11 still in place as of 2018:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/b...-install-cctv-in-downtown-entertainment/

The mobile trailer costs $58K and were originally purchased for the organized crime unit. Abbotsford has ~3 of them as well.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by SeymourDrake

these portable cctv units are just for the optics. I'm sure they can do what they are designed to do. But there are cameras all over the downtown we just don't see them.

For cctv monitoring to be effective you need them in series like in london. Otherwise you may or may not catch them using 1 to 4 cameras.

I believe there was talk about putting cctv all along granville at one point but got rejected.

They should just invest in Hires Drones flying back and forth Hot Areas.

"But there are cameras all over the downtown we just don't see them."

Sigh, if only that's true.

London has really high surveillance and you actually see boots on the ground, unlike what we have here. Hence the city centres are spic and span.


I saw this one portable CCTV unit first appearing at the intersection of Robson & Thurlow in front of Aritzia after the first spate of break-ins, then got moved to Granville/Robson, and I suppose now transferred to W. Georgia/Richard. Not really seeing how all this moving-around is going to be effective to deter all the break-ins and vandalism happening in this city. Way too many yahoos roaming around town now.

[SeymourDrake]

Originally Posted by Vin

"But there are cameras all over the downtown we just don't see them."

Sigh, if only that's true.

London has really high surveillance and you actually see boots on the ground, unlike what we have here. Hence the city centres are spic and span.


I saw this one portable CCTV unit first appearing at the intersection of Robson & Thurlow in front of Aritzia after the first spate of break-ins, then got moved to Granville/Robson, and I suppose now transferred to W. Georgia/Richard. Not really seeing how all this moving-around is going to be effective to deter all the break-ins and vandalism happening in this city. Way too many yahoos roaming around town now.

There are more cameras believe me. enough? Absolutely not.

They need a permanent central hub bringing all camera resources together plus new strategically placed cams to get blanket coverage of the city.

I don't think it's a money issue, it's politically driven by certain unions and politicians.

[WarrenC12]

Private businesses, stratas, etc. all have tons of cameras. But I'm pretty sure there are privacy laws saying they can't be pointed at "public" areas. You can record your store entrance, but not the whole street, as I understand it, legally speaking.

[cairnstone]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Private businesses, stratas, etc. all have tons of cameras. But I'm pretty sure there are privacy laws saying they can't be pointed at "public" areas. You can record your store entrance, but not the whole street, as I understand it, legally speaking.

I believe it is a very gray area. I have aided installing cameras a few times on the exterior of luxury brands. They did not always point at the front door but gave overall views. And I believe all that is needed is posting of CCTV cameras in use. Construction sites use the same cameras that were in the photo and depending on the site will have several multi camera poles that show the streets and into the site