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Originally Posted by rickvug
Do all of these areas have historic district status or is this list somewhat arbitrary? There are other areas with strong character housing stock such as around City Hall, Grandview Woodlands, parts of Kitsilano and others.
Personally I would like to see some of the areas listed in this post get official Heritage Conservation Area protection. A neighbourhood like Strathcona has significant historic importance and provides a wonderful low density "escape" from the surrounding higher density. I think this will become increasingly appreciated as the surrounding area increasingly develops into towers. The core of the neighbouhood isn't that large and there's still plenty of development possible on the western edge.
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They are either officially 'historic' or are treated the same way for the same reasons in their zoning plans.
Is there anything in Stathcona that's not replicated in other lower-density neighborhoods (say south of Broadway, or Granville-Woodlands?)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Changing City
Gastown is a National Historic Site. Chinatown is also a National Historic Site. (That's the same as Fort Langley)
Senakw’s FSR is 8.75 (4m sq ft on 10.5 acres).
That's a lower density than most current Vancouver and West End projects. The Landmark is 9.5 FSR, Burrard Place 2 is 15.3 FSR (and Burrard Place 1 was 18.4). The social housing Ismaili Centre on Richards is 13.9 FSR. Bosa's 1040 and 1080 Barclay rental towers will be 15.4 FSR, and the Kengo Kuma tower on Alberni is 14.2 FSR. Curv, next to The Butterfly is approved at 24.7 FSR.
Comparing Vancouver's Downtown to others is irrelevent to how much will be built in Vancouver. Toronto's downtown is much bigger. Edmonton's is hardly growing at all.
The development capacity I listed are all current projects, or where developers have acquired the site and indicated an intention to develop. There are many others beyond that - The Bay Parkade - the parking lots on either side of The Penthouse Club - the notorious vacant site on Robson for example.
As Migrant says, you don't need to mess with the heritage areas, the character areas, or the shopping villages yet. There's many years capacity in Downtown and the West End, and we're seeing higher density nodes now around the city at Marine, Oakridge, Joyce, along Broadway , etc. etc. so decisions to preserve the heritage areas (or not) can be revisited in decades to come.
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You may notice all those towers you mentioned are West End towers, which has fewer restraints on viewcones.
As a result, they're abnormally dense vs most of the rest of Downtown.
And TBF, Senkaw is 11 when you remove the space taken up by the Burrard Bridge...
Yes- about 10-20 years on the Peninsula itself, especially as growth rates slow down as you develop more and more of the remaining 'easy' lots.
That's comparable to the amount of vacant land available for industrial purposes remaining in Metro Vancouver (discounting the massive industrial lots in Maple Ridge, which currently are of limited usefulness without a freeway to the area.) And that's a 'crisis'.
Unless you're going to push all future development near downtown onto the Broadway area (which DOES allow spot rezonings above the existing zoned density, unlike the West End Plan, thankfully) or change the West End Plan, you're still limiting the growth of Downtown.
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Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut
FSR: Floor/Space Ratio; in order to get twelve floors on Broadway, you need to reduce the first four through setbacks, greenspace or other means. Yaletown’s warehouses apparently take up the entire site, and are four floors on average, so 4 FSR.
Royal Oak isn’t a town centre, but is starting to get redeveloped en masse; Imperial’s got one of the city’s busiest, most frequent buses, but isn’t. Compared with Broadway and Cambie - where everything within a 700-900m radius of SkyTrain was bulk-rezoned no matter what it was - Metrotown, Brentwood, Royal Oak, Edmonds et al have grabbed all the lowrise apartments and warehouses within 500-600m of the station/malls... and stopped. So Burnaby’s growth is less about density and affordability, and more about redevelopment money while protecting NIMBY homeowners. That's not a model Vancouver should follow.
Is there a rush? There’s no shortage of glass towers in the CoV, but if you gut a indie/hipster business district and the buildings and workspaces that attracted them there, you’re probably not getting them back - ditto Gastown.
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I know. I'm using the Broadway Plan's FSR guidelines as a baseline. They add extra setbacks, but I don't think it's
that big.
OK, fair enough. I would argue that the Flats and other industrial areas near town centers play that role to an extent, but I guess Yaletown is still 'working', unlike the Gastown, Granville, and Chinatown.
It kind of bothers me still that you have a completely artificial 'wall' of towers surrounding a bunch of old warehouses.
It's a very strange and surreal place in some ways walking around there.
Also, eventually, the hipsters/artists will end up being priced out (if they haven't already). A lot have been moving to Railtown for that reason (though, not sure if it's still the case with the increase in crime in the area.)
Well, that's because there was a lot of short-sighted cost-cutting with the original Expo and Millennium Lines- especially to avoid putting stations on curved areas or avoid demolishing properties (I'm glad to say this is less of an issue with the newer line segments.)
Two of those places where putting Royal Oak where it is today (Imperial Station would be on a curved site, and would be more expensive to place a station at) and Edmonds (same thing- it was originally placed closer to Middlegate.)
And I don't think Royal Oak's getting redeveloped that much. The zoning is mostly just medium density residential and commercial (and don't worry, the FARs for the different plans are similar
https://burnaby.widen.net/s/6j8kqqjwdc/lum---royal-oak
This is comparable to the Lochdale Plan (Burnaby East Hastings) (TBF, it's also a very new plan):
https://burnaby.widen.net/s/7cgdbdxr...d-use-map-2022
They're updating Royal Oak now, but I doubt they'll add much extra density (the industrial zoning kind of makes that impossible.)
The main place I think you can make the criticism that "Burnaby’s growth is less about density and affordability, and more about redevelopment money while protecting NIMBY homeowners" is Edmonds, which is now little more than a bunch of condo towers spaced around a SkyTrain Station with little nearby services.
But then again, that 'Town Centre' was probably doomed the day it was designated...it has a very poor location due to the aforementioned cost-cutting.