Forum – Should we keep the Vancouver Park Board? June 2, 2024 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm Hybrid Event – in person and online (see link for online) Location: Vancouver Unitarians. 949 West 49th Avenue (at Oak Street)
The Vancouver Unitarians will host a one hour forum, with questions welcomed, on the future of the Vancouver Park Board with Parks chair Brennan Bastyovanszky, at the Vancouver Unitarians Sanctuary. The event will be also be live-streamed on YouTube.
Last December, Mayor Sim announced his plan to dissolve the elected Vancouver Parks Board, and a council majority endorsed it – with no public vote on the issue. Premier David Eby (whose B.C. government must approve the change) said he agreed in principle, but would wait for the results of the Oct. 19 provincial election before deciding.
The forum will discuss if we need the elected Park Board. What are the pros and cons of this move? Should it go to a public vote first? You can send your questions for Brennan to forum organizer Stanley Tromp at stromp[at]telus[dot]net.
Political cartooning has been a significant form of social and political commentary for centuries. It really took off in the 18th century when artists like James Gillray in Britain and Honoré Daumier in France used their drawings to call out political corruption, social injustices, and the ridiculousness of leaders. Their cartoons made complicated issues easy to understand and got people talking. Over the years, political cartoons became a regular feature in newspapers everywhere, using humour and sharp commentary to influence public opinion and keep folks engaged with important issues. However, in recent years they have declined due to many factors, like the shift to digital media and changes in how people engage with news.
We’re interested in reviving this important form of commentary. So, in collaboration with Spacing Vancouver, CityHallWatchis happy to launch a new syndicated cartoon series called the Urban Cartoon Syndicate.
So, how is it going to work?
Anybody interested in contributing their cartoons will give Spacing Vancouver and CityHallWatch non-exclusive rights to reproduce, distribute, and display their cartoons on our platforms, with a focus on civic themes. So, illustrators can retain copyright and ownership of their work.
As always, we want to capture a diversity of “voices” through the cartooning, so we welcome all submissions. We reserve the right to accept or reject any submission based on internal criteria for appropriateness.
If a cartoon is selected, we will not publish the illustrator’s identity unless we get permission to publish the name. If you don’t want your name to be connected to the cartoon, for whatever reason, we will put it under (c) Urban Cartoon Network.
Since strong political cartooning always gets attention, if a different media organization requests permission to reprint a cartoon, either for free or for payment, we will contact the cartoonist to mutually determine the best course of action, considering the interests of all parties involved.
Pécs is a mid-sized city with 141,031 inhabitants and has a long pedestrian street that goes through the downtown core. We previously looked at two pedestrian streets in Vienna and of course Vienna is a much larger city (see our posts for Mariahilfer Straße and Kärntner Straße). Many smaller cities have pedestrianized streets in Europe. Pécs (pronounced pay-ch) is in southwest Hungary and its history goes back to Roman times when it was known as Sopianae. The city contains Roman ruins that were declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2000. Pécs does draw some tourists, it’s a university town, and historically it’s been a relatively well-off city as a regional centre.
The slideshow includes photos of the main east-west pedestrianized spine is made up of Király (King) street and Ferencesek (Franciscans’) street.
The paving pattern goes from street wall to street wall, and there are a number of repeating elements that provide continuity of space such as planters, benches, pots, bollards and trees. Some public art and water features are sprinkled in between. There’s some provision to provide shade for hot summer days with sun screens. There are a few smaller squares along the way, around two of the churches and a national theatre.
There is the typical mix of cafes, restaurants, ice cream stores, art shops and so forth that you would find in a pedestrian zone. Occasionally off to the side of streets there are open entrances to courtyards. Paving patterns mark when there are changes (cross streets for example). The town is on a hill sloping to the south, so the topography is taken into account. Orange clay pots are placed on the street, often with oleander plantings to suggest more of a Mediterranean connection.
A recent addition to the many pedestrianized streets in Vienna is Mariahilfer Straße. The conversion of a 1.8 km section of this street to a pedestrian zone was completed in late 2019. This street always functioned as a high street with many shops and services; however, there was a lot of vehicular traffic. At one end of the pedestrian zone is a subway station and Wien Westbahnhof that was once the main railway terminus station (before Haupbahnhof). The other of the pedestrian zone is near the inner city at Museumsplatz, the Museumsquartier U-Bahn (subway) and the fine arts museum. There is also another U-Bahn station, Neubaugasse, in the middle section of this pedestrian street.
The work to pedestrianize the street stretches back to October of 2013 when there was a 7 month long pilot project. A referendum was held that passed. The work was done in stages, starting in 2014. Today there are hundreds of stores along this length including international brands. Mariahilfer Straße has a wider street right of way than the Kärntner Straße in the downtown (see our previous post for more details).
Trees play a strong organizing role in the hierarchy of the street cross section. Along with the paving pattern, the trees help delineate three zones. There are two zones with many pedestrians on either side of the street (between the trees and buildings), while cyclists and some pedestrians do use the central zone of the street. The paving is at one level for the entire surface and clearly delineated. A common vocabulary of street furniture, benches and planters help provide continuity to the space. On both sides of the street, there is outdoor seating for restaurants and cafe-konditorei (where you can order a strudel or a slice of Sacher cake to go along with a cappuccino).
Recently completed buildings in Atzgersdorf Vienna, in the vicinity of the streets Wiegelestraße and Ziedlergasse, are shown in the above slideshow. A number of these buildings were finished in the last few years on land acquired by the City of Vienna.
How much does it cost to rent or own? In one building, there’s a mixture of co-op, social housing and condos units. These types units are dispersed throughout the building. A co-op unit goes for approximately 790 Euro (maintenance fee for 2-bed equivalent) plus ~31,000 Euro payment to join co-op which can be partly refunded upon leaving, the social housing units are around 590 Euros, while a condo is around 400,000 Euros. The City of Vienna selected a housing agency to build and run this building (which is the case for some other sites). Many of the buildings in the area are around 6-storeys, and many of the units have balconies. The City of Vienna acquired a number of brownfield sites in the area (generally former industrial buildings such as a filament factory or a coffin manufacturer). The housing agencies were then chosen to build and run the facilities.
A number of the buildings have roof gardens and one of the buildings even has a pool on the rooftop. There is bike storage at grade. A train station is nearby (Wien Atzgersdorf). An extensive network of bike paths connect this part of Vienna with the rest of the city.
In a previous post, we examined Vienna’s Karl-Marx-Hof and the vicinity dating from the 1930s.
Aspern Seestadt (new community in a brownfield development for 25,000 people, partly complete and still under development)Continue reading →
(To be updated) Late on Friday afternoon last week, a Special Council meeting agenda and report was posted on the City of Vancouver website, for Council at 3 pm on Tuesday, May 14, 2024.
On May 14, 2024, at 3pm, a staff report goes to a Special Council meeting. This appears to be the first major report under Vancouver’s new chief planner, Josh White (officially, the General Manager of Planning, Urban Design & Sustainability), who started on May 1.
Several cities are scrambling to comply with provincial legislation imposed by the BC NDP, based on province-wide housing legislation that was prepared secretly, with selected municipalities included in “consultation” but forced to sign non-disclosure agreements, and under the veil of many months intensive lobbying by UDI/industry and associated activists. Even the supposed “empirical basis” for the naughty list was entirely redacted in an FOI response.
This report going to Council May 14 was foretold by then acting chief planner Doug Smith in his report to Council on April 23 in “Response to New Provincial Legislation: Bills 44, 46 and 47” (https://council.vancouver.ca/20240423/regu20240423ag.htm).
Some takeaways from the report
1) The volume of projects currently in the development pipeline (31,300 units) is more than enough to meet the Provincial 5 year housing targets (28,900).
2) Actual construction of housing has slowed due to the capacity of the construction industry – high financing costs, rising construction costs, and the availability of labour.
3) The City has woefully failed to meet provincial housing affordability targets (35% below market housing) for the first 6 months since October 2023 – achieving only 1% below market affordable housing.
4) The City will use a variety of financial enabling tools to “leverage affordable housing” with senior governments, private and non-profit housing providers to meet provincial affordable housing targets, claiming that only with significant funding by senior governments can affordability targets be met. The report does not mention the leveraging of the city’s “inclusionary housing” tool to achieve more affordability with the private sector. A Refresh Report on Affordability is coming before Council in June 2024.
5) The report claims that 426 units have been demolished in the first 6 months without any reference to demolitions of existing affordable rental stock.
The report also comments on the “Broadway Plan: Adopted in June 2022, the 30-year Plan enables more housing opportunities around future SkyTrain stations, and incentivizes delivery of market and non-profit rental housing. There are currently 39 rezoning applications under review, two already approved and one building currently under construction, with a total potential for over 8,400 units.” (CityHallWatch is actually tracking around 100 projects that appear to be in the works.)
Here are some more in-depth observations and comments about the report.
The City is surpassing the provincial targets on housing approvals. There already is enough development in the pipeline to meet the general provincial targets. However, completions will depend on the economy in general.
Currently there are almost no new large strata multifamily projects going ahead, because presales are dead, so developers cannot get financing for them. Even strata projects that were approved long ago and coming to completion are having a hard time with presales not closing. Most strata projects going ahead are smaller projects that don’t require presales.
Most large housing projects now are rentals, but it is not clear if current subsidies for rental housing are deep enough even for them to make the numbers work anymore.
Very few “affordable” below market units are being completed and this is directly related to the lack of provincial and federal subsidies.
As a result of the above, the provincially-imposed “needs” assessments will not be metin Vancouver due to lack of affordability. The City will never be able to do this on its own.
It is likely that the development industry is currently demolishing more affordable rental units than it is building.
This is also political, as the Province is trying to blame municipalities and download responsibility for producing affordable housing onto municipalities. Affordable housing is something the provincial and federal governments need to fund.
While the City of Vancouver under mayor Ken Sim and the ABC majority is entire complicit with the provincial housing bills and orders, it is clear that the City is concerned that the metrics for net new units are based on completions rather than approvals.
City Conversation #129 was first published 13-May-2024. (For a list of City Conversations by Brian Palmquist on CityHallWatch, please visit this page.) Note that in this building, studios are 393 square feet, one-bedroom units 579 sq ft, and two-bedroom units 741 sq ft.
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$2,650 to $4,200 per month—affordable?
“Dad, that is literally twice the rent I am paying now!” My 30-something son was looking over my shoulder at the website advertising one of the first “affordable rental housing” (note 1) projects nearing completion in Vancouver. It was announced with great fanfare 2-1/2 years ago, a partnership between the city of Vancouver, BC Housing, the province and a private developer.
My son rents a studio in an older, walk up three storey building that is great for his bachelor lifestyle except for the fact it is at ground zero for the Broadway Plan, a couple blocks from the Broadway/Granville SkyTrain Station. We’ve talked about the disruption that plan might mean for his block, which is currently comprised of a mix of older rental and strata buildings and one 14-storey strata high-rise, which the Broadway Plan now ironically calls “mid-rise.”
I recently attended a Jane’s Walk (note 2) event sponsored by Abundant Housing Vancouver (AHV), called Kitsilano Missing Midrise Walking Tour. The guided walk through Kits north of Broadway somehow missed all of the ten current high-rise proposals in Kits under the Broadway Plan that mostly start by demolishing existing affordable rentals. I can’t say how many rentals will be demo’d—the city has closed its renter support office and does not keep data about rental demolitions—at least not in a place accessible to ordinary citizens.
A suitable City Conversation about this walk eluded me until reality gifted me, in the form of this new rental website for the project at Larch and 2nd Avenue pictured above, which featured prominently in the AHV guided walk as a soon-to-be-completed “affordable” rental housing project.
Let’s examine what AHV’s “affordable” means in the context of this project’s rental website:
Rents for the smallest studio starting at $2599 per month. That’s the one that’s twice what my son currently pays, and his is a nicer floor plan;
One bedroom rents starting at $2,999;
Two bedroom rental starting at $3,999;
The three bedroom units touted in the project’s original BC Housing announcement are a no-show on the rental website—no idea where they went.
This project was announced in December 2021 by BC Housing as a partnership between them, the developer and the City of Vancouver. At that time, according to the announcement:
This online discussion entitled “Rethinking the Housing Crisis: Beyond the Supply-Demand Dogma,” organized by the City Club of New York on May 7, 2024. The issues they address are common across many jurisdictions, including Metro Vancouver. The implications of the presentations seriously challenge some of the underlying supply-side theory underpinning British Columbia’s latest housing legislation, “naughty lists” imposing quotas on cities and undermining local democracy. Recommended viewing for all concerned about housing affordability and urban planning.
Rethinking the Housing Crisis: Beyond the Supply-Demand Dogma.
INTRODUCTIONS: Layla Law-Gisiko (President, City Club of New York) MODERATOR: Aaron Elstein (senior reporter with Crain’s New York Business) PANELISTS: Vishaan Chakrabarti Patrick Condon Cameron Murray
The ongoing debate on how to address the housing crisis is the central focus of discussion. While some argue that the solution lies in increasing housing supply, including market-rate, others believe that the supply-demand paradigm is not the answer to this complex issue.
Pr. Patrick Condon’s forthcoming book, Broken City investigates the notion that the intertwining of global wealth with housing exacerbates the crisis, fueled by soaring land prices.
Conversely, Dr. Cameron Murray’s latest work, The Great Hijack exposes how calls for increased supply often cater to vested interests rather than genuinely addressing affordability.
Amidst these debates, NYC-based architect and author Vishaan Chakrabarti has been a tempered advocate for a supply-side solution, as he argued in a recent article published in The New York Times.
The discussion, moderated by Aaron Elstein, senior reporter with Crain’s New York Business, offers diverse perspectives rarely heard along the banks of the Hudson River.
Kärntner Straße was pedestrianized in 1974 between the Opera House (Oper) and Stephansplatz (at St. Stephen’s Basilica). There’s an underground subway (U-Bahn) stop at both ends of the pedestrian street. The downtown pedestrianized street network currently includes several adjacent streets and the Graben.
The City of Vienna undertook a renewal of Kärntner Straße back in 2009. The work included installing high quality granite pavers, wooden benches around trees and a number of other improvements. This work was budgeted at 18.6 million euros.
The paving design is very clean, it’s at one level, and there are markers at the intersection of cross streets. Virtually no sandwich boards are on the street and the signage on the storefronts are fairly modest. Outdoor seating is provided for a number of different cafes and restaurants. Benches and other street furniture is also provided. The layout is very clean and optimized for pedestrian flow. There are usually at least two routes for pedestrians. Kärntner Straße supports many local residents and tourists, provides shops and services, as well as cultural and entertainment venues.
In future posts, we’ll look at other pedestrian streets (including Mariahilfer Straße and also one pedestrianized street from a smaller scale city, so stay tuned).
CityHallWatch: Tools to engage in Vancouver city decisions 