(To be updated in due course with further reporting, analysis, and resource links. Meeting report to come. Download and print this poster to spread the word in your building, neighbourhood, or near a proposed rezoning in Kitsilano: Link to PDF.) Further below are excerpts of a meeting report by UKRA. Link to YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVkSfIrfYbs.
This townhall event was held at the Kitsilano Neighbourhood House on Thursday, March 14, 2024.
See the original event notice and background here: https://cityhallwatch.wordpress.com/2024/03/05/broadway-plan-kitsilano-town-hall-march-14/
Big changes are coming to Kitsilano with numerous developments applying for rezoning or already approved. Many between 18 and 30 storeys and located on residential streets where only single family homes, duplex or existing, more affordable, low rise rental apartments stand today.
What will all this do for housing affordability? How will it change the neighbourhood? What are the options? What can residents do about it? How can you have a say in the future of your community?
Speakers at this event included Larry Benge (#KitsPlan), Brian Palmquist (City Conversations), Stephen Bohus (CityHallWatch.ca), Arne Wise (developer), and Michael Geller (industry expert), followed by a townhall discussion, then capped by closing comments by UBC Prof Patrick Condon.
Event presented by CityHallWatch.ca in association with #KitsPlan. The Kitsilano Neighbourhood House was standing room only at about 120 people, and we had to turn away about 80 more. Many young families were out of town for spring break, so stay tuned for future events.
Inquiries citizenYVR@gmail.com.
Note that the transcript of the meeting is available on YouTube. To see it, click “…. more” (below the video) and then click “Show transcript” at the bottom. You can then search for key words, and jump around the actual video.
Approximate times in the video:
- 00:00 – Land acknowledgement and intro – Larry Benge (KitsPlan)
- 04:00 – Broadway Plan / Kitsilano – Brian Palmquist (City Conversations)
- 25:46 – Broadway Plan vs City of Vancouver policy – Stephen Bohus (CityHallWatch.ca)
- 27:09 – Some Issues with highrise development – Larry Benge (KitsPlan)
- 40:15 – The developer’s perspective: Case study (20-storey tower replacing and existing/affordable rental building at 2175 West 7th) – Arny Wise
- 48:27 – Changes need to be made to ‘flawed’ Broadway Plan – Michael Geller (architect, developer, planner, real estate consultant)
- 1:04:20 – Discussion/townhall section
- 1:49:45 – Closing comments – Prof. Patrick Condon (University of British Columbia – James Taylor Chair in Landscape and Liveable Environments)
- 1:55:58 – End
About the speakers
Larry Benge is convener of #KitsPlan, co-chair of West Kitsilano Residents Association, and co-chair of Coalition of Vancouver Neighbourhoods (CVN).
Brian Palmquist is a guest writer for CityHallWatch, writes his own City Conversations articles (https://brianpalmquist.substack.com/), is a Vancouver-based architect, building envelope and building code consultant and LEED Accredited Professional (the first green building system). He was the Managing Architect for the Concord Pacific Place development and the first two phases of Coal Harbour, has personally designed more than 1,000 social housing and co-op housing units, and consulted on many thousands more. He first proposed the laneway-housing concept in Vancouver, and managed the community-planning design team for the North Shore of False Creek. He is author of the Amazon best seller “An Architect’s Guide to Construction.”
Stephen Bohus, BLA, is a co-founder and director of CityHallWatch Media Foundation and a master of 3D graphics and shadow analysis. He currently works in the visual effects (vfx) industry (CGI for film).
Arny Wise is an experienced developer of large housing developments.
Michael Geller is principal at The Geller Group and adjunct professor at SFU’s Centre for Sustainable Development, School of Resource and Environmental Management. he was invited to speak on the topic of this recent opinion piece: Letter: Changes need to be made to ‘flawed’ Broadway Plan (8-Mar-2024)
“After five decades trying to create affordable housing in the public and private sectors, I have learned that while it is difficult to create affordable housing without density, higher densities do not always equate to affordable housing,” writes Michael Geller. Link: https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/opinion/letter-changes-need-to-be-made-to-flawed-broadway-plan-8414313
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This event was presented by CityHallWatch Media Foundation in association with #KitsPlan and the cooperation of the following residents associations.
- Upper Kitsilano Residents Association (UKRA) (Alma to Vine St, between 10th and 16th Ave): https://upperkitsilano.ca/
- Kits Point Residents’ Association (KPRA), which 1,100 households, 60% being rentals: https://kpra.ca/
- West Kitsilano Residents Association (WKRA): https://westkitsresidents.wordpress.com/
The Jericho Coalition was also present with a table: https://jerichocoalition.org/
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Below are excerpts of a meeting report in the Upper Kitsilano residents Association (UKRA) newsletter of 17-Mar-2024.
What began in a basement meeting among a dozen or so concerned Kitsilano residents just a fortnight ago, bloomed like a troop of mushrooms after a dewy Vancouver night into something extraordinary.
By this past Thursday that single meeting had morphed into a packed house that overflowed with a line of residents spilling onto the streets outside Kitsilano Neighbourhood House. The event’s goal: Inform Kitsilano residents about how the Broadway Plan will permanently affect their neighbourhood — and discuss alternatives.
So far, most of the new development applications under the Broadway Plan affects the eastern
portion of Kits. Ten applications for towers up to 20 storeys, depending on the exact location, have been received to date.
The group’s invitation to City Planning staff was politely declined, but a small group of community advocates, former City planners, architects, and professors were there to offer their views and answer questions from the crowd. Speakers differed on a few points, but the majority agreed that the kind of housing being pushed on the Kits neighbourhood by the Broadway Plan is too dense, too expensive, and too isolating for young people and families.
According to long-time Vancouver architect, planner, and real estate consultant Michael Geller, the density allowed for Kitsilano is now 5.5 floor space ratio, almost 10 times the density permitted prior to the Broadway Plan. “It’s wrong to put towers in duplex zones,” he said. Geller suggested that neighbourhood groups petition Vancouver City Council to impose a moratorium on towers located on streets already lined with duplexes.
Compounding the problem are three provincial bills introduced last year as part of Premier David Eby’s new housing rules for municipalities, chiefly Bill 47. The Bill, rushed through the legislature by the Premier and Housing Minister Ravi Khalon before MLAs had a chance to properly debate it, requires municipalities to designate land within 800 metres of rapid transit stations and within 400 metres of major bus exchanges as transit-oriented development areas.
If you or someone in your neighbourhood, for instance, lives within 200m of a rapid transit station and decides to sell their home, the buyer would be allowed to build a tower to a maximum of 20 storeys high; if a house is being re-developed in an area 200m or less from a bus exchange, 12 storeys would be allowed. And only street parking would be permitted.
According to retired architect Brian Palmquist, selling zoning for profit adjacent to rapid transit nodes has long been the modus operandi in many cities. Bill 47, however, potentially allows higher density pre-approval around every bus stop, not just rapid transit stations and hubs.
Many Kits residents have expressed concern over the amount and height of towers promoted under the Broadway Plan, using terms like “undemocratic” and “autocratic” to describe the City’s and the Province’s move to sharply limit public consultation on zoning and development applications. Since the latest civic election, public consultation has shrivelled to the City’s Shape Your City online surveys, which have been criticized as misleading.
One of the big points of the night was rent prices — and the inability of young families to buy a home in Vancouver. Historically, the City’s solution has been to add ever more density to neighbourhoods. Professor Patrick Condon, Chair of the UBC Landscape Architecture Program, who has studied, written, and debated Vancouver housing for many years, told the crowd that since 1960, no other North American city has added as much housing stock as Vancouver. By the prevailing logic, said Condon, “Vancouver should have the cheapest housing in North America.”
One of the event’s organizers, Larry Benge (co-director of both the Coalition of Vancouver Neighbourhoods and West Kitsilano Residents Association), who has a background in architecture and community planning, succinctly captured the messages of several of the speakers when he asked: “Why is the tower the only way to increase density?” Benge went on to say that Kitsilano can handle its expected population growth with three-to-six storey buildings without “losing the beauty, and the texture, and the character” of Kitsilano.
The current government plans, speakers agreed, are unsustainable given the use of concrete and steel, which could lead to a major loss of green space and large trees, and other environmental problems.
Now a thing of the past, community planning has been a meaningful way for Vancouver residents to shape their own neighbourhoods. Today the Broadway and Provincial housing Plans are swallowing neighbourhood plans whole.
Thursday’s meeting was held not just to share information about the coming changes, said Benge, but to find out what residents want for their growing community, because the neighbourhood’s fate will be decided imminently. Changing current plans would require a major push back from residents.
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There are over 30 active rezoning applications in the Broadway Plan for residential tower developments, these are plotted on our interactive map:
CityHallWatch: Tools to engage in Vancouver city decisions 