Broadway Corridor Development Plan

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by misher

So isn't that still speculation? How does stopping development under the old rules stop speculation?

There's also the DCE.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

That was Metro Vancouver in general; Broadway has the same 90s towers. Yaletown et al seem to have triggered a bust, because most of what we got after that was opportunistic piece-by-piece spot rezonings.



Oddly enough, the new Cambie plan is denser than what the market's been doing with it. Urban planning and the private sector don't mix too well.

Yaletown went bust because it ran out of land. Concord slowed its developments in Yaletown down and focused its efforts elsewhere, and other developers started building out Downtown South and East.

Other areas will eventually go bust when the development land runs out. It's pretty logical. Though, most are much larger than Yaletown once you remove the historical district (including Broadway).

Most of the developments before the Cambie plan had to go under rezoning, so it may be city tends to look at rezonings more under the microscope. 8 stories looks more scary when there's one 8 story building, than it does when there are 10 other nearby (or are supposed to be built).

Originally Posted by misher

So isn't that still speculation? How does stopping development under the old rules stop speculation?

You can't stop speculation entirely, since the city can't tell people to stop buying land in an area. It's to reduce it as much as possible.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Perhaps it's best to define "large" and "along." It's the Broadway CORRIDOR, and it runs from Cambie to Arbutus; if projects within a three-block radius don't count, then neither does three-quarters of Metrotown and Brentwood and Whalley; within a ten-block radius, the suburbs are still suburbs.

Crosstown and the Arbutus Pinnacle are as dense as three of Richmond Centre's condos put together; if either is "small," then so is all of Richmond. Width is as important as length, sometimes moreso.

How many rapid transit lines between Granville and Cambie have been built over the last twenty years? One, and it took ten years for an Oakridge-sized project to get off the ground; Burnaby sat on Metrotown for twenty years after the SkyTrain station opened before they decided to build highrises. Broadway outside of VGH (you'll note that the "large" projects are mostly hotels and medical buildings) didn't kick off until the the last ten to fifteen years, and then talks of a SkyTrain prompted all the developers to wait for a land value increase before building. There's more to density than click-dragging to rezone, switching to Cheetah Speed and magically getting a bunch of towers.

Downtown Vancouver had been a dense neighbourhood for 100 years before the Expo line was built. What is the rationale that skytrain must come in before all? The reality is that West Broadway and the surrounding Fairview slopes have been underbuilt for decades.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

That was Metro Vancouver in general; Broadway has the same 90s towers. Yaletown et al seem to have triggered a bust, because most of what we got after that was opportunistic piece-by-piece spot rezonings.

Suddenly you are agreeing that nothing much has happened on W. Broadway?

Metro Vancouver isn't slow: development is pretty fast in the suburb cities. Vancouver, however, IS, slow, especially for a city with so much residential and commercial demand.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by Vin

Suddenly you are agreeing that nothing much has happened on W. Broadway?

Metro Vancouver isn't slow: development is pretty fast in the suburb cities. Vancouver, however, IS, slow, especially for a city with so much residential and commercial demand.

So which municipality do you think had the most housing starts, according to CMHC data, last year? Or in the past 5 years, or the past 10 years, or the past 20? The City of Vancouver has consistently built between 26% and 28% of new housing starts over two decades. The suburbs, despite having more immediately available undeveloped land and 95% of all Metro's land aren't slow either - but even Surrey doesn't build more new dwellings.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Changing City

So which municipality do you think had the most housing starts, according to CMHC data, last year? Or in the past 5 years, or the past 10 years, or the past 20? The City of Vancouver has consistently built between 26% and 28% of new housing starts over two decades. The suburbs, despite having more immediately available undeveloped land and 95% of all Metro's land aren't slow either - but even Surrey doesn't build more new dwellings.

26% to 28%?? That's it? That really cracks me up: was expecting more being the financial, commercial, retail, cultural, tourism, food, and everything hub of Metro-Vancouver.

I will only start gloating for my city when that reaches at least 65%.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by Vin

26% to 28%?? That's it? That really cracks me up: was expecting more being the financial, commercial, retail, cultural, tourism, food, and everything hub of Metro-Vancouver.

I will only start gloating for my city when that reaches at least 65%.

No wonder you post so many negative comments. Your understanding of how Metro Vancouver is, and is likely to develop in the future seems to be totally at odds with reality.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by Vin

Downtown Vancouver had been a dense neighbourhood for 100 years before the Expo line was built. What is the rationale that skytrain must come in before all? The reality is that West Broadway and the surrounding Fairview slopes have been underbuilt for decades.

Downtown Vancouver has also been a downtown for a hundred years, and has only now filled out the whole peninsula. Metrotown wasn't even officially a town centre until the SkyTrain came in - it's currently the size of Gastown, and will not fill out to Marine Drive or Moscrop until 2050 at the earliest.

Originally Posted by Vin

Suddenly you are agreeing that nothing much has happened on W. Broadway?

Metro Vancouver isn't slow: development is pretty fast in the suburb cities. Vancouver, however, IS, slow, especially for a city with so much residential and commercial demand.

I'm saying nothing much happened anywhere outside of the city centres. How many towers got built in Burnaby between Y2K and the Olympics? About as many as all of downtown Vancouver did.

Originally Posted by Vin

26% to 28%?? That's it? That really cracks me up: was expecting more being the financial, commercial, retail, cultural, tourism, food, and everything hub of Metro-Vancouver.

I will only start gloating for my city when that reaches at least 65%.

65% over the last two decades means that two-thirds of Vancouver had been demovicted for condos and would've moved elsewhere. It's probably best that that idea is confined to an internet forum and not somewhere important.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by fredinno

Yaletown went bust because it ran out of land. Concord slowed its developments in Yaletown down and focused its efforts elsewhere, and other developers started building out Downtown South and East.

Other areas will eventually go bust when the development land runs out. It's pretty logical. Though, most are much larger than Yaletown once you remove the historical district (including Broadway).

Most of the developments before the Cambie plan had to go under rezoning, so it may be city tends to look at rezonings more under the microscope. 8 stories looks more scary when there's one 8 story building, than it does when there are 10 other nearby (or are supposed to be built).

And most of what they got after Yaletown was spot rezonings. Come to think of it, Pacific Boulevard was also ex-industrial, like most of the other large parcels; redeveloping a residential/commercial hub like Broadway is definitely going to go much slower. Look at how long it took to make NEFC work.

True - maybe the Broadway developers should all get together and make a 20-storey district somewhere?

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Downtown Vancouver has also been a downtown for a hundred years, and has only now filled out the whole peninsula. Metrotown wasn't even officially a town centre until the SkyTrain came in - it's currently the size of Gastown, and will not fill out to Marine Drive or Moscrop until 2050 at the earliest.



I'm saying nothing much happened anywhere outside of the city centres. How many towers got built in Burnaby between Y2K and the Olympics? About as many as all of downtown Vancouver did.



65% over the last two decades means that two-thirds of Vancouver had been demovicted for condos and would've moved elsewhere. It's probably best that that idea is confined to an internet forum and not somewhere important.

Metrotown doesn't even extend that far out.

Yeah, it would have probably required building much of the West End out to the viewcones. This was a different era for rentals, so they wouldn't have been preserved (so they would be demoed until a crisis started).

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

And most of what they got after Yaletown was spot rezonings. Come to think of it, Pacific Boulevard was also ex-industrial, like most of the other large parcels; redeveloping a residential/commercial hub like Broadway is definitely going to go much slower. Look at how long it took to make NEFC work.

True - maybe the Broadway developers should all get together and make a 20-storey district somewhere?

Make the entire thing a 20-story district. There's not really any part of it that isn't fairly close to a major anchor, even on the suburban East Side of the corridor.

The push is also greater, however, so it might end up going about as fast overall.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

(1) Downtown Vancouver has also been a downtown for a hundred years, and has only now filled out the whole peninsula. Metrotown wasn't even officially a town centre until the SkyTrain came in - it's currently the size of Gastown, and will not fill out to Marine Drive or Moscrop until 2050 at the earliest.



(2) I'm saying nothing much happened anywhere outside of the city centres. How many towers got built in Burnaby between Y2K and the Olympics? About as many as all of downtown Vancouver did.



(3) 65% over the last two decades means that two-thirds of Vancouver had been demovicted for condos and would've moved elsewhere. It's probably best that that idea is confined to an internet forum and not somewhere important.

(1) That's what I'm saying. Vancouver would never expand that far out if more areas within Vancouver were developed better and denser in the first place. We would probably already see a line serving all the way to UBC with major transit stations at Granville/Broadway, 4th Ave/Burrard, Kerrisdale, etc, way before the Canada Line was even conceived. West Broadway with all its development restrictions looks pretty much the same in the 90s as it is now, which is unheard of in a place with such high commercial and residential demand.

(2) What about between 2010 till now? Does your claim still hold true? Don't think so. The suburbs have seen unprecedented growths across the board in almost every municipality, when at the same time Vancouver area outside downtown only see tumble weeds rolling through the streets. Suburb municipalities are seeing many of their previous industrial and low-density neighbourhoods emerging as new town centres that did not exist previously. Examples are Sea Island Way neighbourhood in Richmond, Brentwood Town Centre, Burquitlam neighbourhood, Kingsgate/Edmonds neighbourhood, Brewery district in New West, UBC's Westbrook Village, etc etc..

(3) That, my friend, is again the failure of the local and provincial governments for not ensuring that enough affordable housing is built: the rush to put in higher condos resulted in sidelining the middle class when it comes to housing provision. Large scale rental and market lower-cost housing could've been built along and near major commercial streets like West Broadway, West 4th, Commercial/Broadway, etc. all these decades, but nothing seemed to be happening. Zoning restrictions and all the redtape only serve to drive developers further away. Slow gentrification measures and loose attitudes towards drug and crime in the DTES also stagnate the growth of downtown eastwards.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Changing City

No wonder you post so many negative comments. Your understanding of how Metro Vancouver is, and is likely to develop in the future seems to be totally at odds with reality.

Not me: you are the one in denial with reality and keep defending an obsolete system that is failing to attract a lot more businesses into this city, and keep those who want to work close by to live here.


Perhaps you should read this:


Toronto and Vancouver have plenty of room to grow up and more affordable

https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/toro...re-affordable/

Headlines about housing affordability in Canada mainly concern two cities—Toronto and Vancouver. In both cities and their surrounding areas, rental vacancies hover at or below one per cent, and home prices remain historically high. In short, Canada’s most desirable markets face tremendous pressure to grow.

Cities facing high housing demand can respond by growing in two ways—outward, through the construction of new communities at the urban fringe, or upward, by accommodating more residents in existing urban areas. When the outward option butts up against mountains, oceans and rivers, or protected lands, cities looking to accommodate newcomers must grow upward, resulting in what city planners call “higher density.”

Which raises an important question—if growing upward is the most realistic option for Toronto and Vancouver (or any other Canadian city starved for housing supply), how do population densities in these cities compare to other wealthy growing cities around the world?

A new Fraser Institute study tackles this question, by comparing five of Canada’s largest cities with 25 peers from other developed countries. It turns out that, relatively speaking, Canadian cities aren’t all that dense.

Let’s start with Vancouver. At 5,493 inhabitants per square kilometre, it’s easily Canada’s densest large city. However, San Francisco—another West Coast city covering a similar land area—is 30 per cent denser. Beyond North America, the popular port city of Barcelona is geographically the same size as Vancouver and San Francisco but accommodates a staggering 15,873 inhabitants per square kilometre. While many Canadians may or may not prefer this level of urban density, the Barcelona example illustrates just how much room there is to grow. Indeed, despite the well-known images of sleek glass residential towers, Vancouver’s relatively dense downtown core is surrounded by a sea of single-detached homes.

Toronto—Canada’s most populous city—also has a lot of room to grow. As a major centre of finance, media and industry, its peers include New York, London and Chicago. Both New York and London are more than twice as dense as Toronto. And Chicago, which has shrunk in population since the mid-20th century, remains 3.1 per cent more dense than Toronto.

Even the former City of Toronto—Toronto before amalgamation in 1998—had just shy of 7,000 inhabitants per square kilometre at last count in 2001, which would make it Canada’s densest city (if it hadn’t amalgamated). By comparison, the New York borough of Brooklyn has more than 14,500 inhabitants per square kilometre.

Knowing that Canadian cities have far lower population densities than peer cities abroad, a reasonable follow-up question is: How would more density impact living standards, either positively or negatively? Of course, what different people value in a city is subjective, but even so, it’s unclear that more density has any meaningful influence on city living.

After comparing city densities with consulting firm Mercer’s annual Quality of Living Rankings, no clear-cut conclusions appear. For example, Amsterdam and Philadelphia both have between 4,500 and 5,000 inhabitants per square kilometre, but are 44 ranks apart on Mercer’s ranking. Similarly, Montreal and Singapore rank 23rd and 25th on the ranking, even though Singapore is more than twice as dense.

So, not only are Canada’s cities not all that dense, but more density need not come at the expense of living standards.

With high home prices and almost non-existent rental vacancies in Toronto and Vancouver, these findings are important for many Canadians and their families. A growing housing supply goes a long way in addressing housing shortages, and facilitating more dense housing development can clearly boost
housing supply.

The good news is, there’s lots of room for Toronto and Vancouver to grow up.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by Vin

(1) That's what I'm saying. Vancouver would never expand that far out if more areas within Vancouver were developed better and denser in the first place. We would probably already see a line serving all the way to UBC with major transit stations at Granville/Broadway, 4th Ave/Burrard, Kerrisdale, etc, way before the Canada Line was even conceived. West Broadway with all its development restrictions looks pretty much the same in the 90s as it is now, which is unheard of in a place with such high commercial and residential demand.

(2) What about between 2010 till now? Does your claim still hold true? Don't think so. The suburbs have seen unprecedented growths across the board in almost every municipality, when at the same time Vancouver area outside downtown only see tumble weeds rolling through the streets. Suburb municipalities are seeing many of their previous industrial and low-density neighbourhoods emerging as new town centres that did not exist previously. Examples are Sea Island Way neighbourhood in Richmond, Brentwood Town Centre, Burquitlam neighbourhood, Kingsgate/Edmonds neighbourhood, Brewery district in New West, UBC's Westbrook Village, etc etc..

(3) That, my friend, is again the failure of the local and provincial governments for not ensuring that enough affordable housing is built: the rush to put in higher condos resulted in sidelining the middle class when it comes to housing provision. Large scale rental and market lower-cost housing could've been built along and near major commercial streets like West Broadway, West 4th, Commercial/Broadway, etc. all these decades, but nothing seemed to be happening. Zoning restrictions and all the redtape only serve to drive developers further away. Slow gentrification measures and loose attitudes towards drug and crime in the DTES also stagnate the growth of downtown eastwards.

So with higher zoning, Vancouver would never have filled out the downtown peninsula... but somehow would've filled out Broadway? And Christy's Liberals would've seen that growth and just given us the SkyTrain money without a referendum? The first is contradictory, the second is just ridiculous. Rather, what's happened is that Broadway has been growing as if it were a town centre, in spite of not having SkyTrain access.

The Olympics came along, Vancouver started getting tons of condo money, Burnaby and Surrey got envious and wanted in on the action; once Coquitlam got SkyTrain, so did they. Why does Vancouver need to join the race? We've already made it, we can grow at our own pace.
Same reason the developing world grows faster than the developed world. North America and Europe/Russia and East Asia have absolutely no reason to catch up to themselves.

Once again, you sound like 6 year old me playing SimCity 4: plopping down landmark towers and high-density zones until the money ran out, and then wondering why the "city" was rotting away. Unsustainable growth is how you get a Chinese ghost city.... or worse, Dubai.
- Without rental-only zoning and a government that gives a damn, high density in a free market means more condos and more demovictions.
- Without an adequate population size, retail either leeches customers from successful retail somewhere else, or just never takes off.
- Without a metro line (and a Premier that doesn't have a grudge against the city), the street doesn't support large amounts of people.
We only got all of those arranged in recent years. Now we can zone for towers on Broadway.

As for gentrification, Chinatown and the DTES has plenty. What we need is more housing, more facilities, and a crackdown on the PRC gangs propagating fentanyl. A purely "tough on crime" approach was tried last century - all we ended up with was gangsta rap.

Originally Posted by Vin

Not me: you are the one in denial with reality and keep defending an obsolete system that is failing to attract a lot more businesses into this city, and keep those who want to work close by to live here.

---

Perhaps you should read this:


Toronto and Vancouver have plenty of room to grow up and more affordable

https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/toro...re-affordable/

Er, we just landed an Amazon and Apple office. The ones finding it difficult are small businesses, and denser zoning hurts them even more.

---

That's the Fraser Institute. BC's Heritage Foundation. The same kind of Victorian crony capitalism that got us into demovictions, foreign-owned condos and the housing crisis in the first place.

Once we reach Paris' population (or at least Los Angeles') then we can start comparing ourselves to the big boys. Our league is Seattle and Chicago and Toronto, and in that regard we're already ahead of the curve.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by fredinno

Yeah, it would have probably required building much of the West End out to the viewcones. This was a different era for rentals, so they wouldn't have been preserved (so they would be demoed until a crisis started).

----

Make the entire thing a 20-story district. There's not really any part of it that isn't fairly close to a major anchor, even on the suburban East Side of the corridor.

The push is also greater, however, so it might end up going about as fast overall.

Agreed. I can understand why it'd look slow, but that's because the planners want to get this one right. Heck, Obamacare took five years, and they're still fighting over it.

Sounds good to me. NIMBYs want five, misher wants forty, we'll compromise at twenty five.

[misher]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Agreed. I can understand why it'd look slow, but that's because the planners want to get this one right. Heck, Obamacare took five years, and they're still fighting over it.

Sounds good to me. NIMBYs want five, misher wants forty, we'll compromise at twenty five.

I'm cool with that although the FSR numbers also need to be good. No point getting a 25 floor tower on a lot zoned for 4.5 FSR. I'd suggest a nice 8.0.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by misher

I'm cool with that although the FSR numbers also need to be good. No point getting a 25 floor tower on a lot zoned for 4.5 FSR. I'd suggest a nice 8.0.

Well yeah, that goes without saying.

[trofirhen]

The technicalities of renewing and redoing Central Broadway, I leave to the architcts and engineers. I have only one request; that of Samuel Goldwyn {MGM} ::
DO IT BIG, DO IT RIGHT, AND GIVE IT CLASS !!

[Vin]

Originally Posted by misher

I'm cool with that although the FSR numbers also need to be good. No point getting a 25 floor tower on a lot zoned for 4.5 FSR. I'd suggest a nice 8.0.

Better still, have the lot FSR upzoned to 8.0? Plunk in a few 40++ storeys there.

[misher]

Originally Posted by Vin

Better still, have the lot FSR upzoned to 8.0? Plunk in a few 40++ storeys there.

Perhaps North of Broadway on the slope 40+ may be viable to match downtown. As downtown has two entrance towers on the Granville Bridge, two matching ones on the South side would make sense. I don't expect it along Broadway itself though. Broadway is generally higher than most of the surrounding land so you'll get complaints as the 40 storey towers will look massive.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

So with higher zoning, Vancouver would never have filled out the downtown peninsula... but somehow would've filled out Broadway? And Christy's Liberals would've seen that growth and just given us the SkyTrain money without a referendum? The first is contradictory, the second is just ridiculous. Rather, what's happened is that Broadway has been growing as if it were a town centre, in spite of not having SkyTrain access.

The Olympics came along, Vancouver started getting tons of condo money, Burnaby and Surrey got envious and wanted in on the action; once Coquitlam got SkyTrain, so did they. Why does Vancouver need to join the race? We've already made it, we can grow at our own pace.
Same reason the developing world grows faster than the developed world. North America and Europe/Russia and East Asia have absolutely no reason to catch up to themselves.

Once again, you sound like 6 year old me playing SimCity 4: plopping down landmark towers and high-density zones until the money ran out, and then wondering why the "city" was rotting away. Unsustainable growth is how you get a Chinese ghost city.... or worse, Dubai.
- Without rental-only zoning and a government that gives a damn, high density in a free market means more condos and more demovictions.
- Without an adequate population size, retail either leeches customers from successful retail somewhere else, or just never takes off.
- Without a metro line (and a Premier that doesn't have a grudge against the city), the street doesn't support large amounts of people.
We only got all of those arranged in recent years. Now we can zone for towers on Broadway.

As for gentrification, Chinatown and the DTES has plenty. What we need is more housing, more facilities, and a crackdown on the PRC gangs propagating fentanyl. A purely "tough on crime" approach was tried last century - all we ended up with was gangsta rap.



Er, we just landed an Amazon and Apple office. The ones finding it difficult are small businesses, and denser zoning hurts them even more.

---

That's the Fraser Institute. BC's Heritage Foundation. The same kind of Victorian crony capitalism that got us into demovictions, foreign-owned condos and the housing crisis in the first place.

Once we reach Paris' population (or at least Los Angeles') then we can start comparing ourselves to the big boys. Our league is Seattle and Chicago and Toronto, and in that regard we're already ahead of the curve.

Downtown Vancouver and West Broadway would easily have been filled out already if not for all the stupid mumbo jumbos like viewcones, shadowing, setbacks, and other nimby policies in the first place.

If landing one Amazon is a big deal for you, then I digress. Go to a major city around the world and see what types of companies or corporations are headquartered there, or at least hold significant real estate there to function as regional headquarters, research/training centres, etc., and when you realize how small we really are, then we will resume our conversation regarding this.

We've already made it, LOL *face palm*

I guess you rather the "Sim City" be built far from downtown Vancouver, which is happening this instance. Again, wonderful! Well, get ready for more commute time, traffic congestion, packed trains/buses, and way more transit related costs in the future. Don't give me the sustainable city BS when what you are suggesting is only causing more urban sprawl.

Please explain how the Fraser Institute "got us into demovictions, foreign-owned condos and the housing crisis in the first place". Your statement doesn't make any sense. The article pointed out the fact that Canadian cities are not in the least dense like many here like to think, so what does that have to do with what you just said?