Vancouver Sun

Second draft plan stirs hope, anxiety

Grandview-Woodland proposal seen as test of citizen consultati­on

- MATT ROBINSON

A few days before the City of Vancouver’s proposed new community plan for Grandview-Woodland was made public last month, the anxiety got to Kent Munro.

“I was having sleepless nights,” the city’s assistant director of planning for midtown said in a recent interview.

Munro, knowing that the first draft plan had sparked a revolt two years ago, was wavering between thinking residents might like the new version and fearing “all hell was going to break loose again.”

The plan goes to council Tuesday. About a week ago, feedback looked largely positive and Munro and councillor­s had started to wonder whether they had got it right this time. That breathing room got a whole lot tighter a few days later when a vocal residents’ group announced they could not support the plan over concerns about a lack of new park space, rising rents, and building heights.

A lot is at stake when the plan reaches council, for the community and the city as a whole. The way the plan is received could shape the city’s future approaches to density and its depth of consultati­on.

In comparison to the firestorm over the first draft, opposition this time has been relatively muted. While the residents’ group asked for more time with the plan and a clear avenue to influence its final form, Munro said he’d heard criticism from individual residents about aspects of the plan, but not the overall approach.

The softer reception may have something to do with the fact this plan was developed with help from a 48-person volunteer citizens assembly, a move that made a lot of sense to planners like Munro.

“It was very heartening to walk in and to look at the 48 people and think: ‘This looks like the Grandview-Woodland community to me,’” Munro said.

The assembly was a microcosm of the area and included renters, homeowners, seniors, aboriginal people, young adults, those of different incomes, and others. It was the exact blend of people a planner would want to lean on to help develop a community-wide plan, and a different type of group than the type they often hear from — the “loudest people who yell the most,” as Munro put it.

“You throw open the door to an open house and who comes out? Landowners, older people, and I hate to say it, but white people. You don’t get a cross-section of the community.”

Together, the diverse members of the assembly spent about 100 hours talking through the issues and came up with 270 recommenda­tions. Almost all were incorporat­ed into the plan, according to staff.

Munro said the city will do a cost-benefit analysis on this type of consultati­on process to see if it should be used elsewhere.

When staff finished the new plan, they took it to the citizens assembly before it went public.

The plan calls for a big boost in population — 9,500 more people, an increase of nearly 30 per cent, in three decades. The added density is achieved by allowing multiunit buildings over a larger area rather than just adding height in a few places. Towers in areas like the Safeway site at Broadway and Commercial, an area of contention in the first draft, were reduced to a maximum of 24 storeys from 36, and neighbouri­ng buildings would be limited to 10.

Nanaimo Street would get less height than was first envisioned, with apartment buildings up to six storeys (down from eight) at major intersecti­ons, transition- ing to townhouses and row houses then duplexes. Areas with single detached homes would be open to duplexes and infills, and rental buildings could be redevelope­d if they are replaced with additional units. Commercial Drive would be limited to four storeys apart from its northern and southern ends and the odd additional block that could go a little higher.

Among those who offered early impression­s on the plan was Dorothy Barkley. Barkley was a member of the assembly, but she is also the head of the residents’ group that has come out against the plan.

Her initial reaction — reflected in a Sun article last month — was that the draft plan reflected the assembly’s recommenda­tions. But having spent more time with it, she said recently, she “discovered that it overrode a number of (assembly) suggestion­s,” including those around height. The residents’ group has also begun to fear that the pace of change in the neighbourh­ood would be too swift and the redevelopm­ent of rental buildings could push out lower income renters who could not afford to live in new apartments.

For Andrea Reimer, a city councillor with Vision Vancouver, further delay of the area plan is not palatable.

“We’re at a point where we either need to say yes or no to this plan,” Reimer said. “I don’t see how more time on this plan is going to get us to anything more than is on paper right now.”

If councillor­s say no to the plan, it would not mean status quo for the community, but decline, Reimer said. She pointed to statistics in the plan that support that view.

Grandview-Woodland’s population has dropped 6.5 per cent in the past 15 years. Over the past 40 years it grew just three per cent while the rest of the city jumped 42 per cent. And while the neighbourh­ood is often considered familyorie­nted, that has clearly started to change. The number of children in the neighbourh­ood plunged 35 per cent from 1996 to 2011 and there are now about 25 per cent fewer teens. In the opinion of staff, more ground-oriented housing and larg- er apartments could help turn that around.

About two-thirds of the residents in the area are renters, and most of the new residents would be as well. It may be that contingent that will hold the most sway as the plan heads to hearings this week. If renters join homeowners in a push back against density, councillor­s may find it difficult to OK the plan.

If they don’t, it will make it easier for councillor­s and staff to dismiss concerns as having come from a non-representa­tive demographi­c that yelled loudest.

 ?? RAFE ARNOTT ?? Grandview-Woodland resident Dorothy Barkley, who was one of 48 volunteer citizens to offer input on the revised plan, is among those concerned that it could spur rapid change while delivering no new parks.
RAFE ARNOTT Grandview-Woodland resident Dorothy Barkley, who was one of 48 volunteer citizens to offer input on the revised plan, is among those concerned that it could spur rapid change while delivering no new parks.
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 ?? RIC ERNST ?? Towers in areas like the Safeway site at Commercial Drive and East Broadway, above, in the Grandview-Woodland neighbourh­ood were reduced to a maximum of 24 storeys from 36 in the first community plan.
RIC ERNST Towers in areas like the Safeway site at Commercial Drive and East Broadway, above, in the Grandview-Woodland neighbourh­ood were reduced to a maximum of 24 storeys from 36 in the first community plan.

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