hm, the dynamic wasn't what i expected.
gillespie was very animated, telling stories about his development history mostly, and talking about vancouver's environmental principles. it was hard not to like him, personally, he had a very freewheeling way about him, and he really played up the canadian thing, charmingly making loads of unexplained references to things/people unknown to the non-canadian audience. he also had this interesting tendency to describe almost everything hyperbolically or straight up as 'the best in canada,' which was oddly charming as well. alas, the contours of the form and the substance of the content seemed perfectly consistent on balance: during his presentation, in direct response to the sf citywide planning director's questions, and to audience questions, he was very unclear on the details and he stuck to very broad pronouncements.
basically, this was a ceo flown into san francisco to do a presentation as part of the larger push into the sf market, rather than any real urbanism discussion. and he either didn't know or wasn't willing to discuss anything beyond his projects, how great they were, or what westbank could bring to sf.
however, we did learn a few things. first of all, westbank is huge - over 1000 employees. that's padded by the fact that they own and manage hotels, restaurants (momofuku toronto came up), and that they do all their own general contracting. next, we learned that, according to gillespie, vancouver's planning process is actually pretty free-wheeling, and that there's a LOT of room for negotiation. he said that he'd never once built a project in vancouver that fit within existing zoning - a huge laugh line for the sf audience - and he described a somewhat astonishing development process for the shangri-la, which basically consisted of a few lunches with beasley and getting height and lot coverage settled before even acquiring the land. then approaching the land owner, a reluctant seller, and finishing up a co-venture deal with him within an hour, on the back of "a tim horton's napkin" - a reference that most people didn't get, even if they understood the point, incidentally. the rest was just siccing his people on it. there were also plenty of other stories that reinforce the "discretionary" nature of discretionary planning in vancouver, but none so powerful as gillespie's flat out admission that you get what you want as long as you buy the city off with daycare space or whatever they want. he said that, after property taxes, cac (he just assumed that everyone knew what this vancouver acronym was, btw, which was charming) was the major source of financing for these things and, thus, in vancouver, there's a lot of room for negotiation, so that everyone gets what they want.
there was a sort of sideline to this discussion, and indeed throughout, that given this state of affairs, developers have a lot of room to abuse the system and put up terrible buildings, and he continually made reference to his own company's progressiveness and aesthetic awareness in this regard. in direct response to a question about why vancouver's buildings are all so similar and of similarly low architectural quality, he said flat out and unequivocally that it was the market, that development has happened so quickly that progressive forces haven't really emerged at the 'critical mass', at least, that's what i got from his somewhat muddled answer.
finally, there is a mind-blowing project at the first baptist church in the pipes, gillepsie showed us a couple images and the entire room gasped in awe and excitement. it's a full church restoration and expansion with a bing thom-designed tower rising off the back portion of the site, a very special, narrow, pointed marina city-esque wonder that will become a city icon almost immediately. gillespie called it "a done deal."
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