Vancouver City Council engaged in "Easter egg hunt:" former city planning directors

[mr.x]

Former Vancouver planning directors say city ill-prepared to deal with growth

By Jeff Lee, Vancouver Sun July 16, 2012

VANCOUVER -- Three former Vancouver planning directors say the Metro region, and Vancouver in particular, are ill-prepared to deal with the inevitable growth expected over the next 40 years.

With as many as seven million people expected to be living in Metro Vancouver by 2050, Larry Beasley, Ray Spaxman and Brent Toderian say city politicians are not doing a good enough job planning for future growth, and instead are engaged in "Easter egg hunts" and "ad-hockery and crisis management" by focusing on single issues such as bike lanes and laneway houses....



Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/Former+V...#ixzz20quXriDM




Again, amalgamation of the region into several cities is one way of going about it. Politicians simply don't really see the big picture, or the importance of it.

[huenthar]

......isn't Beasley directly involved in the biggest ad-hoc, single-issue, short-sighted Easter egg of them all, the Viaduct teardown campaign?

[easy as pie]

i think, at a certain point, the planning world becomes almost cult-like. beasley, there, with his saucer-spinning eyes, arms straight in front walking toward a maquette of a 2 story podium with a 22 story point tower above, a balcony for all! look into my eyes! you are becoming verrry verrrrrry sleepy!

the anti-burnham, "always make small plans," weird walk-up 'townhomes' in yaletown, yeah, because they have them in brooklyn and harlem.

[Alex Mackinnon]

That story is such vindication of my attitude on where this city is going, but I think we're already past the tipping point. I'm pretty skeptical of the economics and benefits of actually living in Vancouver on the long term.

I've got 4 generations of my family which have been here, and 3 generations of which are kicking around still, but as far as I can tell, my prospects of living relatively well relative to my income are generally the worst among my generation, my parents or my grandparents.

The massive run up in value of this city will be the noose around it's neck, stifling people's ability house themselves while saving for a retirement, and driving plenty of capable people away in search of lower costs of living.

Through overly restrictive zoning bylaws we've choked the supply of property for development to the point where otherwise worthless properties on the Cambie Corridor are trading for way over their reasonable value and the most boring and ill-located of suburban houses still will trade for many times the average wage of it's occupants.

We've redeveloped economically productive industrial in to car dealerships, low paying service jobs and condos on a giant scale.

We've spent so much time, energy and money micromanaging the most inane details of city creation that we've doubled and tripled the cost of ownership for marginal and some times immeasurable gains.

This city needs to stop trying to make every little section special, and in accordance with every NIMBYs idea of the perfect neighbourhood, with every view protected, every tree preserved, with every shadow cast far far away from their 2500 sq. ft. of post war blah. We need to make substantial plans for development and infrastructure which will still work well in 2030 and 2050, and damn all the dissent. The plans need to be bigger, bolder and more economically accessible than any of our current design mentalities.

A couple block radius around desirable density corridors should be rezoned to enable developers to pick up properties at less inflated prices, and in tern allow faster and cheaper redevelopment of housing stock. Having easier pickings in existing residential areas would put less pressure on commerical and industrial properties.

I think we're already hooped though, as such substantial voter power is overly invested in housing. Until people stop target fixating on their house, the regional economy is likely to suffer.

/rant

[WarrenC12]

7 million by 2050? I'll believe that when I see it.

Property values are not driven by anything city hall is doing. It's pure speculation, and it's going to unwind over the next few years.

[djmk]

7 million is not going to happen and if immigration and birth rates continue, it would be much wiser to plan the opposite.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by mr.x

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/Former+V...#ixzz20quXriDM


Again, amalgamation of the region into several cities is one way of going about it. Politicians simply don't really see the big picture, or the importance of it.

That's exactly it. Vancouver is becoming a big city without the big city mentality, and that's a recipe for disaster.

[Alex Mackinnon]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

7 million by 2050? I'll believe that when I see it.

Property values are not driven by anything city hall is doing. It's pure speculation, and it's going to unwind over the next few years.

It's driven by a lot of things. Speculation on densifcation is only one of the problems. 7 Mil may be on the high side, but I expect at least 4 mil by 2040 which is still quite a large amount of people to add in 28 years.

I think changing zoning would help of the speculation front though. It's a lot harder to speculate when the supply of developable property is large.

[WarrenC12]

Toderian is on CKNW now and his criticism is much much milder than what comes across in that article.

[Klazu]

Where did they take that 7 million from? It is completely nonsense. According to projections I have see, by 2040 there should be 1 million more living in Metro Vancouver and with my math that makes around 3.5 million.

I am not even expecting that to realize as coming decades will see major changes around the world.

[jlousa]

I think 4M by 2050 might happen but even that will take a lot of smart growth, 7M isn't happening in that time frame, not with our physical constraints and prices. These former planners are to be commended on the work they've done in the past but I think they are overstepping themselves with their vision of city building. That's not their jobs that's the job of the politicians at the end of the day.

Michael Geller once said that he wanted to design buildings so he went into architecture, he quickly realized that architects don't design buildings developers do, so he became a developer.

City planners do not build cities, they follow the directions of council. So if a city planner really wants to redesign a city they should run for council. Good luck to them.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Klazu

Where did they take that 7 million from? It is completely nonsense. According to projections I have see, by 2040 there should be 1 million more living in Metro Vancouver and with my math that makes around 3.5 million.

I am not even expecting that to realize as coming decades will see major changes around the world.

Yep, 7 million sounds ridiculous. Especially since, lost in a lot of other noise, people seemed to have missed the fact that the Conservatives have effectively put the brakes on immigration by forcing everybody in the queue to re-apply and putting more emphasis on needed employment skills and language skills.

As to running out of buildable land, that's not true. Instead of the ridiculous practise of allowing modest postwar SFH's to replaced with SF monster homes (often unoccupied) the city should be zoning to encourage splitting of larger lots into smaller ones. And they need to ignore things like the outcry from a small handful of people when they suggest selling off some of the city's golf course lands. Seriously, why does a city the size of Vancouver need THREE municipally operated golf courses? How many does Richmond have (hint: none)