Burnaby Updates

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by FarmerHaight

IF they build on the Civic Square, I sure hope they leave the area bounded by the flower gardens (the space in front of the mini amphitheater) alone. That space is especially well used in the summer with live music, movie nights, etc. Although Central Park is very close, the Civic Square and Maywood Park are very well used and will be needed to serve the demands of 000s of additional residents in the near future.

Perhaps, as you suggested, city hall could be built on top of the library (with all the water damage and subsequent renovations in the past year, I am not sure if the library is set to be replaced anytime soon?). But I think another option would be building along Kingsborough and perhaps along McKay (although the sunbathers will be annoyed if the entire east lawn is built on).


Yes, graveyards do get moved and built on and it's happened in other North American cities with geographic constraints.

The library IS being renovated, and building on top of it would make the renovation a bit of a waste... but if we're building a new town hall, it's probably best to put it as close to the heart of Metrotown as possible next to all the other (existing and planned) civic buildings rather than some other outlying lot.

Originally Posted by Spr0ckets

To be fair (and a bit more accurate) Vancouver, for all it's housing crisis issues and affordability problems, isn't suffering the same dearth of land or prime real estate to build on, that would necessitate evicting the dead in graveyards, that those examples and other cities were suffering at the time.

It just happens to have...or have had....terrible zoning policies for the longest time that haven't helped in the past, and which more recent OCP's have began addressing in more substantive ways to allow more efficient use of the land that's available for development and could be available in the future.

In this discussion for instance, two of the graveyards and cemeteries being talked about as candidates for relocation or removal don't even sit on the type of land that would be able to be developed into high density multi-family residential or high-rise condos.
They sit on SFH zoned areas, so what exactly would be gained by moving them?
More SFH lots for single homes?

Unless the city changed the zoning and OCP designation (which isn't going to happen without a ton of justifiable pushback in a lot of those cases) then it's a moot thing to even consider.

Even the idea or notion of turning them into parklands, public parks and instead using parks in other areas for development in exchange still doesn't fly.
One of the cemeteries sits right adjacent to the one of the biggest forested suburban parks in the region, so it's not exactly like there's anything (more) to be gained from making that park area even bigger, and for the other pockets of parks that one would then "substitute" to allow development, aren't you then not hurting the surrounding communities that are served by those parks just so they have to drive halfway across the city to get to a new park (formerly graveyard)?

That doesn't make sense,....to me anyway.


It's also worth noting that a lot of the cases and examples of graveyards being moved for developments come from anywhere from 50 to 100 years ago or more.
It would be a much more difficult proposition today with the way public discourse gets shaped by local politics, optics, messaging and perceptions.

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

um.... that was 111yrs ago...

i wonder what you would say if i brought up 1950s/60s arguments to support freeway and suburban sprawl growth. those arguments would STILL be 50yrs more modern than yours.

but in the end, we have more than enough land around all these existing SkyTrain stations to develop. we even have land for park space that can be dedicated. this is such a ridiculous conversation. like holy crap.

Here is a pretty in-depth discussion about modern cemetery relocation:
https://eweb.irwaonline.org/eweb/upload/web_julAug_2013_Cemetery.pdf


It's not as common nowadays, but it still happens.


Is Vancouver is suffering from a dearth of land to build on in comparison to 1900s San Fran? I'd say yes.

Vancouver house prices are actually less affordable than modern San Fran (adjusting for local income.)

They're not on SFH areas isn't true. 'Cemetery' is an entirely different zoning.
Also, the Brentwood cemeteries are part of Brentwood T. Center, while Central Park is part of Metrotown T. Center.


And to an extent, yeah, some people are going to be mad you're moving the park further away from the center.
But you usually don't put SkyTrain Stations on parkland (Patterson).

Because of this, half of Patterson Station is surrounded by Central Park within walking distance of it, which means it's one of the lower performing stations on the SkyTrain network (36/53).
Royal Oak has more riders.

It would also allow MetroTown to expand east into Joyce-Collingwood, especially if the Kingsway-Boundary 'ghost station' is built (assuming the provisions for it actually exist.)

You can build the housing further away, but most of the land within 10 min of a SkyTrain Station is already zoned 3.5 FSR+.
MetroTown still has a lot of space, so it's not necessary now, but still.
It's best to plan 30 years ahead for this sort of thing.

You could expand Central Park into SFHs east instead to achieve the same thing, but those lands are more useful for TOD from the Kingsway, 41st Ave, and 49th Ave buses, as well as any future 41st Ave SkyTrain that wants to terminate at Metrotown instead of Joyce-Collingwood (which would have to go through the same area, as well as Central Park, even if it's underground.)

Ocean View is more 'out of the way', and has very limited TOD potential unless you're building a line to River District.
Central Park is prime TOD land.


Meanwhile, Brentwood just lacks any good nearby urban parks.
The Concord Brentwood Park and Willingdon Heights Park will be overflowing with people, and the graveyards are the only obvious place to put a larger park in.
(Maybe building on Burnaby Lake Park south of Holdom would help, but that area's pretty environmentally sensitive.)

This is an unfortunate problem with the Brentwood Plan.

Going into the SFHs is less convenient because they're on a hill further up than the graveyards, so that's not a great option either.
This is also why the Brentwood Plan does not extend far north of Lougheed.