Achieving Better Communications in 2023

City Conversation #94: An overarching ABC for ABC

December 18th 2022—As 2022 comes to its end, some thoughts about where Vancouver has come from in 2022, where we might go in 2023 and a hope that the new civic government led by ABC can move us in the right direction.

An end of year winter detail from “Departure” by George Lunden—photo by Brian Palmquist

I realize a year end recap is perhaps a cliché, but let’s face it. We are all of us chasing the last best present for a friend or loved one, even while we celebrate the season with friends and juggle work and other commitments. A recap allows both the writer and the reader to reflect without rancour, to listen without being forced to learn too much. Hence my contribution:

In Vancouver, 2022 was above all else the year of a civic election like none in my memory. I know I’m late to the political enlightenment party, but with barely 1/3 of Vancouverites voting, I’m in good if embarrassing company, although I plead that my 75 City Conversations this year (that’s three CCs every two weeks!) have contributed a bit to our consciousness of civic planning and urban design issues.

The percentage of citizens voting has declined for over a decade, even while direct costs (i.e., property taxes) and indirect charges (i.e., costs of most city services) have soared—and I would argue the quality of those civic services supported by taxes and fees have largely declined over the same time period. And I’m not just talking about snow non-removal, although it’s tempting. 

Equally concerning as the relationship between voter turnout and services is the inertia around civic governance. City budgets are being prepared based on a 5% tax increase in the midst of a recession. Spot rezonings continue to roll along under cover of the Broadway and Vancouver Plans as well as the endless revelations about reconciliation.

Will Vancouver in 2023 be any better? Too soon to say, as our new civic government has just started to roll up its sleeves. Their early report card is decidedly mixed: the road through Stanley Park is being reopened, but slowly; snow removal remains pathetic; street crime has not subsided much if at all; homelessness has not declined, even as city staff and the province continue to push a housing model doomed to failure.

Getting back to my 75 CCs over the past year, please indulge me while I summarize the unresolved planning and urban design events that I wrote about. The following are in the date order of their first emergence in CCs:

• Affordable rental housing (January 2022)—Positive results from a simple approach in Burnaby were tabled. Its record remains a highlight and a glaring contrast to Vancouver’s pathetic performance.

• Affordable owned housing (January 2022)—the former Mayor’s reality-light Making Home initiative withered to a well deserved end.

• Green high-rise buildings (February 2022)—city staff, management and politicians continued to ignore all of the science, including from City and BC Hydro scientists, that tells us how energy and resource consumptive are concrete high-rise buildings, not to mention social science research about their soul destroying reality.

• Ever expanding spot rezonings (February 2022)—projects that expand after community input from 5 to 40 storeys, from 8 to 18, from 16 to 28 continue. Existing high-rises built decades ago as towers in a park now propose to replace the parks with more high-rises.

• The Broadway Plan (March 2022)—We wrote 13 separate CCs about the BP: we modelled it when the city wouldn’t; we calculated its real density; we exposed its numerous sleights of hand. Not only was the Plan passed despite overwhelming community opposition, but my writing is now under investigation after a prominent Architect accused me of professional misconduct, presumably for communicating the Plan’s real extent and implications.

• Vancouver Plan (April 2022)—Even as the Broadway Plan was grinding through widespread opposition, the VP crept under the radar, replacing the city’s 22 neighbourhoods with six one-size-fits-all neighbourhood types.

• Neighbourhood destruction (June 2022)—What the Broadway Plan began by eliminating eight neighbourhood plans and policy documents, the Vancouver Plan continues—elimination of neighbourhood plans and meaningful community consultation going forward.

• Housing the homeless —the ideological approach (June 2022)—Homes for the hardest to house, using the failed congregate model that stacks single men with significant drug/alcohol addiction and mental health issues in metal bins across the street from an elementary school and a toddler park, with little or no onsite healthcare support. These continue to be forced on communities, even when they propose workable compromises.

Sadly, the subjects of some City Conversations from 2021 remain unresolved, including:

• Jericho Lands (October 2021)—As with the Broadway Plan, we actually read the JL Plan and modelled the 60+ high-rises it contemplates, once again because city staff would not. It will come back with high density vengeance in 2023.

• Streamlining rental housing (October 2021)—a flawed initiative was passed over significant community opposition. Matching the plan’s vague parameters, more than 10% of city spot rezonings are now for “Streamlining” projects which are being approved with no information about height, density, form of development, parking, etc.—the details that the community is usually concerned about.

• False Creek South (July 2021)— City staff’s attempt to demovict FCS residents and destroy one of the most successful neighbourhoods in the city was sent back after a record number of citizens spoke against it at a Council meeting—the first of many indications citizens were unhappy with their civic administration. We will need to watch closely what comes back.

• Existing Zoned Capacity (May 2021)—An unwieldy term for how much space, how many homes can be built within the city’s existing zoning. The last City Council asked staff for that foundational information early in its term; city staff have yet to advise, even as staff brought forward and Council passed 247 spot rezonings during their term, all without school, park or community service additions.

• Missing Math (March 2021)—City staff and management continue to withhold basic development data from City Council and the public. My Homes for Whom database started from staff’s refusal to provide existing zoned capacity data to Council (see above) and continues to be the only listing of spot rezonings throughout the city, and their place in the approval process. I am working on making it publicly accessible in 2023 (harder than it might seem for an individual citizen).

• Views of the water and mountains (March 2021)—I started City Conversations when I realized the 40-year old view cones that allow Vancouverites to experience the setting they are blessed with were under threat. City planning staff continued their assault on our setting throughout 2021 and 2022, both with spot rezonings and the Broadway Plan. It feels like 2023 may be the year when we forever lose our connections to water and mountains.

The 2022 and older unresolved planning and urban design issues I wrote about total 14—an unlucky number in some Asian cultures. I will restart City Conversations early in 2023 and continue to document our progress in reducing that tally in 2023. Best holiday wishes to you all!

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Today’s question: What subjects would you like City Conversations to address in 2023?

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Brian Palmquist is a Vancouver-based architect, building envelope and building code consultant and LEED Accredited Professional (the first green building system). He is semi-retired for the moment, still teaching and writing, so not beholden to any client or city hall. These conversations mix real discussion with research and observations based on a 40+ year career including the planning, design and construction of almost every type and scale of project. He is the author of the Amazon best seller “An Architect’s Guide to Construction.” and working the first 88 City Conversations into a book about how we’ve come to where we are.