Downtown Vancouver Updates

[FarmerHaight]

Originally Posted by chowhou

Yaletown has now become an inverse Brentwood: An island of 1-4 story buildings in a sea of development. These are not healthy development patterns for the city.

Yaletown is seven blocks of solid density due to the lack of setbacks and the narrow streets. Throwing a tower or two plus a podium on all of those blocks would add extra homes or office space, but I agree that Vancouver would lose a unique neighbourhood in the process. If the buildings in Gastown or Yaletown are properly maintained, and the value calculations (profits - opportunity costs) still work, I don't think those areas need to be redeveloped. It is unquestionable that thousands of SFHs blocking 100s of thousands of new residential units across Vancouver are not "highest and best use". I don't think there is nearly the opportunity cost in Yaletown or Gastown.

Originally Posted by GenWhy?

Many are adapted as multi-family or commercial. The ones left in the West End or just leftovers of orphan lot assemblies / hold-outs. The Red Accordion is a great example. Cardaro Cafe. The homes / shops at 957 Nicola. The little yellow house at The Pacific building.

I will be very sad when the Red Accordion is gone...

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by chowhou

I think you have a version of me in your mind that isn't correct.

...

Yaletown has now become an inverse Brentwood: An island of 1-4 story buildings in a sea of development. These are not healthy development patterns for the city.

...

I'm honestly not at all disgusted by their age (though to be honest I am disgusted by their lack of safety and lack of modern building codes), all I'm disgusted by is a practice to intentionally neuter the economic and social development of our city in order to save the "character". We should be working to maintain our standard of living, promote the economic growth of our city, and do our duty to future generations instead of longing sentimentally at brick and wood.

You seem to misunderstand Yaletown. There are no single storey buildings in Yaletown - the shortest is 2-storey (plus basement) and there are several that are 7-storey. (If they're 1-storey on one street face, they're 2-storey on the other side). It's a pretty dense set of buildings because they have zero-lot setbacks; The developed average density across all the warehouse district is 3.9 FSR, and there are a few unchanged warehouses that could still add floors that could increase the density in future to over 4.

It's surprisingly close in density to 'The Amazing Brentwood' which has a maximum overall density of 5.53 FAR, (but may be less as they chose to build to 53 storeys rather than the 70 that was permitted in the masterplan).

Densities can be deceptive; there are towers in Brentwood built at lower densities (Fulton House, 3.6 FAR, Tailor under construction on Alpha, 3.6 FAR) than residential projects in Yaletown, (The McMaster Building on Homer, 4.9 FSR, or the Del Pado on Mainland, for example, 5.3 FSR).

The character is what saved the buildings, and why there are so many office users looking for 'funky' space. Most buildings have been retrofitted to contemporary code. There are heavy timber woodframe warehouses in both Yaletown and Gastown that have had added bracing, and are now much more likely to perform well in an earthquake than many older residential towers both in Vancouver and other municipalities.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by FarmerHaight

It is unquestionable that thousands of SFHs blocking 100s of thousands of new residential units across Vancouver are not "highest and best use". I don't think there is nearly the opportunity cost in Yaletown or Gastown.

1000% this, don't get me wrong. I'm strongly in favour of stronger land use reform, but it's easier to point out and criticise direct bad policy in small areas, than society wide structural issues.

I will be very sad when the Red Accordion is gone...

Quick, try to force heritage status on that building! Then you can force it to stay!

Originally Posted by Changing City

You seem to misunderstand Yaletown. There are no single storey buildings in Yaletown - the shortest is 2-storey (plus basement) and there are several that are 7-storey. (If they're 1-storey on one street face, they're 2-storey on the other side). It's a pretty dense set of buildings because they have zero-lot setbacks; The developed average density across all the warehouse district is 3.9 FSR, and there are a few unchanged warehouses that could still add floors that could increase the density in future to over 4.

It's surprisingly close in density to 'The Amazing Brentwood' which has a maximum overall density of 5.53 FAR, (but may be less as they chose to build to 53 storeys rather than the 70 that was permitted in the masterplan).

Densities can be deceptive; there are towers in Brentwood built at lower densities (Fulton House, 3.6 FAR, Tailor under construction on Alpha, 3.6 FAR) than residential projects in Yaletown, (The McMaster Building on Homer, 4.9 FSR, or the Del Pado on Mainland, for example, 5.3 FSR).

The character is what saved the buildings, and why there are so many office users looking for 'funky' space. Most buildings have been retrofitted to contemporary code. There are heavy timber woodframe warehouses in both Yaletown and Gastown that have had added bracing, and are now much more likely to perform well in an earthquake than many older residential towers both in Vancouver and other municipalities.

If the argument now is "at least it's almost as dense as a suburban town centre", I feel like we've lost the plot. I used to work in Yaletown, they're not funky offices, they're very typical on the inside. The appeal to working there is the proximity to restaurants, services, and transit.

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by chowhou

If the aesthetic of the area matters so much, provide developers with an aesthetic guide to the area and let the area adapt to to the modern day.

That's exactly what the Yaletown Zoning Bylaw does, except that it restricts height shorter than you would like to see.
(plus the view cones may apply over the area)

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by chowhou

If the argument now is "at least it's almost as dense as a suburban town centre", I feel like we've lost the plot. I used to work in Yaletown, they're not funky offices, they're very typical on the inside. The appeal to working there is the proximity to restaurants, services, and transit.

I'm sorry the delights of Yaletown didn't make you value the area! You're right, the offices aren't 'funky' - that the realtor's favourite word for the residential lofts in the area. The offices are 'character' spaces. Some certainly retain the brick walls and fir beams, (as well as having contemporary seismic upgrades) like 1110 Hamilton.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by officedweller

That's exactly what the Yaletown Zoning Bylaw does, except that it restricts height shorter than you would like to see.
(plus the view cones may apply over the area)

Besides the low FSR allowed, as long as everyone in this thread is perfectly fine with any of these buildings being completely torn down and rebuilt, then I'm on board. I don't think that's the case, though.

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by chowhou

Besides the low FSR allowed, as long as everyone in this thread is perfectly fine with any of these buildings being completely torn down and rebuilt, then I'm on board. I don't think that's the case, though.

You'd end up with a tower and podium format pretty similar to Yaletown Park or the Concord buildings fronting Pacific
(which is their "Yaletown Edge" sub-area) - brick podium with tower above.
The loading docks would remain which is the main character element.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by officedweller

You'd end up with a tower and podium format pretty similar to Yaletown Park or the Concord buildings fronting Pacific
(which is their "Yaletown Edge" sub-area) - brick podium with tower above.
The loading docks would remain which is the main character element.

Absolutely fine by me. I was under the impression the loading docks i.e. the sidewalk was city land anyway.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by Changing City

They're similar, because they retain elements of history and the character of the area that created their respective cities. Yaletown, like the Exchange District in Winnipeg, or the Distillery District in Toronto (and many US and European examples exist too), is a unique collection of buildings that were almost all constructed within five years as the city became a much more important trans-shipment and manufacturing centre. The street pattern (with no lanes, using the slope to allow direct railcar access into the loading docks) isn't found anywhere else that I know of. The whole area might have been lost in the 1980s, but it's transformation to a vibrant retail and restaurant area has been very successful. It's not necessary to change its character by allowing towers. It could be made even better if the BIA could be persuaded to abandon the street parking, but that doesn't seem likely for now.

Downtown doesn't have to keep growing it's residential population by trashing a small area with a collection of interesting, historic, (by Vancouver standards) and already reasonably dense, mostly employment-related buildings. And it doesn't need office towers here because there's still decades worth of capacity within the CBD. There are plenty of older, tired office buildings that could take a building two or three times bigger, and, as you said, there are other areas near Yaletown where developers can add residential towers over old warehouses, as they are on Robson, and have proposed on Beatty.

The current plans in Yaletown and Gastown allow for residential uses already.

All I'm proposing is removing the height cap to allow redevelopments to go up to the viewcones.



OK, so the warehouses are important.
But then why is it fine to do this with the single most important warehouse in Vancouver's history (The Post) with many unique features of its own and interesting architecture and not the many other early-century warehouses in Downtown?

Also, why is it ok to build office buildings like 800 Granville despite the historic value of the buildings it's building over?

Because the blighting of Granville Street has forced us into the position of trying to gentrify it?

Then why should we wait until the homeless start to move in?

---

Vancouver City may want to preserve the 'character' of the neighborhood, but not necessarily the businesses or people there.

The Robson St. BIA wasn't too happy with the West End Plan blocking them from adding meaningful new density, and there was a time when people were worried it'd become blighted due to the area therefore being dominated by old and aging buildings:
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/robson-street-revival

Originally Posted by FarmerHaight

Yaletown is seven blocks of solid density due to the lack of setbacks and the narrow streets. Throwing a tower or two plus a podium on all of those blocks would add extra homes or office space, but I agree that Vancouver would lose a unique neighbourhood in the process. If the buildings in Gastown or Yaletown are properly maintained, and the value calculations (profits - opportunity costs) still work, I don't think those areas need to be redeveloped. It is unquestionable that thousands of SFHs blocking 100s of thousands of new residential units across Vancouver are not "highest and best use". I don't think there is nearly the opportunity cost in Yaletown or Gastown.

Why?
No one is looking 'up' when you're walking through a neighborhood.
That's a key mistake mid-century planners made during the Modernist period.

You'd lose some sunlight, but still.


As I said, Yaletown and Gastown are inside the DT core and have easy access to pretty much every service you could ask for.
If the city wasn't blocking them, developers would be tripping over themselves to build as fast as they could get approval.

While there's not a 'lack of opportunity space' in the rest of the City, there IS near Downtown. And a lot of people and businesses still want to live as close to their jobs or Downtown as possible, not a SkyTrain ride away from it.

Originally Posted by TwoFace

Some people think a City should look like this
https://www.wired.com/2016/12/aureli...-china-cities/

Hey, at least the rooms have furnishings!

Originally Posted by FarmerHaight

Just my $0.02, but I have a hard time considering any neighbourhood where you can walk to downtown in 15 minutes "suburban. Given the density and level of commercial activity in Kitsilano, and the proximity of Kits Point to downtown, your boundary should probably be extended down Broadway to Macdonald if you want to include all of Vancouver's core. And outside of that core, I would be hard pressed to paint all of the neighbourhoods as "suburban", especially east of Cambie given the commercial activity and density that cut through many of them along arterials like Main, Kingsway, Commercial/Knight, and Hastings.

So basically CoV pre-amalgamation?

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by fredinno

The current plans in Yaletown and Gastown allow for residential uses already.

All I'm proposing is removing the height cap to allow redevelopments to go up to the viewcones.

Exactly, developers can already change to residential if the commercial isn't viable, and add a bit more space to the shorter buildings (just not towers). Interestingly, nobody has suggested residential conversion in Yaletown for many years. If you can't see that allowing towers would totally alter the character of the area, then there's nothing to discuss.

Originally Posted by fredinno

OK, so the warehouses are important.
But then why is it fine to do this with the single most important warehouse in Vancouver's history (The Post) with many unique features of its own and interesting architecture and not the many other early-century warehouses in Downtown?

It wasn't really a warehouse, it was effectively an industrial building, full of heavy equipment for mail sorting and dispatching. It's most interesting features were the scale and design of the structure, and some artwork. Those are all retained. Much of the space inside the retained building is now parking, over retail. The conversion was only viable because something else was built on top. (It would have made an interesting conversion as a new VAG, but the board and director at the time it became available weren't interested. They were only interested in a starchitect new build).

Originally Posted by fredinno

Also, why is it ok to build office buildings like 800 Granville despite the historic value of the buildings it's building over?

Because the blighting of Granville Street has forced us into the position of trying to gentrify it?

Then why should we wait until the homeless start to move in?

More whataboutism. I don't believe it is necessary. That's just a developer's idea for theoretically maxing out development potential of their property. It hasn't been approved yet, and even if it is, given the developers track record and changing demand for office space, it might not get built.

Granville Street needs a rethink, but the 800 block isn't especially run-down or derelict, and the City is currently showing that they if they think it's important they can move people on if they're occupying public (or private) spaces for too long. And Yaletown has a function already, and is working ok. That's not true for a few blocks of Granville, although maybe when the Rec Room is (finally) finished, and the new building on the 900 block it will improve a bit more.

[FarmerHaight]

Originally Posted by fredinno

OK, so the warehouses are important.
But then why is it fine to do this with the single most important warehouse in Vancouver's history (The Post) with many unique features of its own and interesting architecture and not the many other early-century warehouses in Downtown?

I'm not an expert, but I imagine it has something to do with the existing building's envelope's ability to support a large addition. The Post is an entire city block, so you have a lot of options within that existing footprint without making any exterior changes. Meanwhile each block in Yaletown consists of five or six separate warehouses with small footprints. Now maybe a developer could retain all of those separate buildings and plunk a tower at the end of each block without disturbing the character of the building, but I was responding to Chow's idea that Yaletown isn't dense enough and the character isn't special enough to block a complete redevelopment of the area. I disagree.

Originally Posted by fredinno

Why?
No one is looking 'up' when you're walking through a neighborhood.
That's a key mistake mid-century planners made during the Modernist period.

You'd lose some sunlight, but still.

I'm really not concerned about the sunlight. I just think Yaletown is already fairly dense, breaks up the monotony of downtown's glass tower on a podium status quo, and so far isn't so handicapped by the buildings' age so as to need redevelopment to become financially viable.

[urbanight93]

If cities like New York can retain areas with heritage value (that as others have said, contribute intangible benefits to the City) without the need to erase their history and cram in the most amount of people possible, I don't see why we can't. I suggest you get off your computer, book a flight and explore Greenwhich Village, West Village, Soho... Successful cities and neighbourhoods are made up of more than their opportunity to provide work and housing.

Another side note, some of the densest cities are not composed of skyscrapers. The suggestion that those couple of blocks of the historic Yaletown are better redeveloped is truly asinine.

[chowhou]

I'm not sure if you're aware, but NYC is paying the price of decades of rampant anti-development NIMBYism too. I do not want Vancouver to be like New York.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Compromise: how about we build out the rest of the city and then revisit historic Yaletown? This sounds like the same Pareto principle as the viewcones - spending 80% of the effort to get 20% of the results, when it could be the other way around.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

i always thought that when they removed the centennial fountain (terrible idea), this one should have been moved back out front, where it used to be.



that is a very interesting history. thanks for telling it.

its interesting how the CoV, back in the day, had all these ambitious buildings built by private people, and then ambitious projects also by the City. people and government clearly had a lot of faith in this tiny little city on the edge of the pacific.

i think the Birks Building is the biggest loss of a heritage building we ever had. such a shame it ever got demolished. i would say its our version of NYC Penn Station, demolished in the 1960s and also led to their heritage preservation laws.

I agree with you. Even Victoria had some really glamorous buildings constructed. Somehow the latter inhabitants of these cities had lost their way and ambition of the forebears.

"Viewcones","Human Scale","Shadowing"----> Pfffttt!

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Compromise: how about we build out the rest of the city and then revisit historic Yaletown? This sounds like the same Pareto principle as the viewcones - spending 80% of the effort to get 20% of the results, when it could be the other way around.

You see that everyday outside downtown in the Vancouver's ugly suburbs. The Marpole residential neighbourhood and housing styles like "Vancouver Specials" and "walkups" are just couple of good examples what should not have been done here. Even the newer neighbourhoods like River District and Marine Gateway can never compare to what folks in the 1800s planned for, which are still the best when it comes to compact urban living today.

Yaletown's warehouses were not even meant to be beautiful, but even their facades have always been timeless and ornate by today's standard. These buildings simply survived because of their usefulness as warehouses in an industrial landscape whereas many other better designed buildings all over downtown were simply destroyed for more mundane-looking American-style structures. We are certainly regretting this today when we see how many cities around the world succeed not only in preserving their historic buildings so well, but actually bringing back some of the truly beautiful ones from the past. That's what I call a great respect to your roots and beginnings. Can't really see that here.

[whatnext]

I'm looking forward to hearing how "rampant NMBYISM" is ruining cities like Paris, Munich and Vienna.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by whatnext

I'm looking forward to hearing how "rampant NMBYISM" is ruining cities like Paris, Munich and Vienna.

How France overcame NIMBYism to create affordable housing

So you'd support this, right?

I hope you realise the Paris you love and enjoy today is the result of massive demolition and redevelopment of the "historic" city in the late 19th century.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by chowhou

How France overcame NIMBYism to create affordable housing

So you'd support this, right?

I hope you realise the Paris you love and enjoy today is the result of massive demolition and redevelopment of the "historic" city at the turn of the century.

I have no qualms about the replacement of old, but at least the new needs to match the beautiful structures around, and that the replacements are better. Paris has done this well.

Can you say the same about here? Old Birks Building and the second Hotel Vancouver were both replaced by big yawns.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Paris, pre-Haussmann. Good thing they ignored the "heritage" crowd.

Originally Posted by Vin

You see that everyday outside downtown in the Vancouver's ugly suburbs. The Marpole residential neighbourhood and housing styles like "Vancouver Specials" and "walkups" are just couple of good examples what should not have been done here. Even the newer neighbourhoods like River District and Marine Gateway can never compare to what folks in the 1800s planned for, which are still the best when it comes to compact urban living today...

And yet now most of the city insists the Specials are part of Vancouver's character and irreplaceable.

“I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”

- Douglas Adams