Embrace, Enhance and Evolve Jericho
City Conversation #122: A fictional account of how the Jericho community’s future evolved
One alternate concept for the Jericho Lands[1]
In the end the land and the water prevailed, as they have always done—but not in the ways that had been predicted. People, politics and money were overwhelmed by nature and climate, as they have been throughout history. Nature reasserted herself in some ways predictable and others unexpected. But in the end there was a clear path to the evolution of Jericho. This is a fictional account of how it came about.
There were competing concepts for Jericho almost from the beginning: some arising from public consultation and surveys; others created in parallel behind the landowner’s closed doors. After extensive communication with the neighbours, the landowners brought forth their hidden visions, completely estranged from the public process, and, as it happened, estranged from the lands and waters themselves, although nature remained silent for a time.
One of the landowner proposals for Jericho[1], including building heights in storeys
The landowners insisted they had listened to the community, but each time they brought forward another new vision, it was denser and higher than its predecessors, buoyed by excessive federal immigration targets and provincial laws and regulations that curtailed public engagement and neighbourhood planning. Vancouver planners helped by discarding decades of city planning history.
Eventually, the landowner’s ultra dense plan was defeated not by legislation or regulation, rather by nature. For reasons not made public, no hydrogeological study had been commissioned to inform the landowner proposals[2].
A hydrogeological study examines what’s going on below the land’s surface. In Jericho’s case, what was below the surface included numerous areas of poor soil conditions, flowing streams and major aquifers under pressure—think artesian wells becoming geysers when pierced by excavation. The salty water under the lands closest to the ocean ebbed and flowed with the tides.
What this meant in simple terms:
• Soils were unable to support the proposed high-rises of up to 49 storeys;
• A few areas were able to support lower high-rises;
• Some areas were incapable of supporting virtually any imposed building loads, many others had modest bearing capacity unsuitable for high-rise construction;
• Many areas were such that below grade parking would be either impossible or limited and expensive due to flowing water, requiring expensive tanking during construction, thereafter continuously running sumps and extensive waterproofing to try to keep the water and tides at bay.
City regulations around rezonings allowed the delay of subsurface studies until each separate area rezoning application was proposed. Two weeks before the first rezoning was to have been revealed, the landowner announced that the scheme was being retooled due to changing market conditions. But rumour and social media suggested that ground conditions were to blame, making high-rise construction in most areas prohibitively expensive.
Faced with ruinous construction and ongoing maintenance costs, the landowners decided to aim instead for a public relations victory by embracing the given land and water conditions and engaging with the same concerned citizens who they had previously ignored. Those citizens refrained from saying “I told you so,” instead tabled their extensive research and planning concepts, once again participating in an enhanced planning process.
Once the true nature of the land and water interplay was embraced by the landowners and city staff, new plans evolved with these characteristics:
• Building heights, hence costs, were lowered to embrace the supporting land and water—a few lower residential high-rises remained but most were replaced by four, six or eight storey buildings determined as much by the land and water as by real estate proformas:
• As an added bonus, the lower buildings were cheaper to build, hence more affordable to own or rent, and their quantity made mass timber construction feasible—the landowner even developed a new mass timber fabrication and construction business for its members;
• Areas unsuited to construction became parks, open spaces and school playgrounds;
• Schools, daycare and other “light” construction was placed on areas with marginal soils capacity;
• Below grade development for cars, bicycles and storage was determined by soils and water, resulting in dramatically fewer cars and further major cost savings;
• Rapid transit was planned at grade, as tunnelling through aquifers and shifting sandy soils was deemed prohibitively expensive. The need for rapid transit became more feasible in order to service new residents with limited parking and car storage options. But the impossibility of heavy SkyTrain concrete elements and point columns on poor soils led to development of much cheaper light rapid transit (LRT). Even if Jericho’s soils had been suitable for SkyTrain, the much reduced costs of LRT allowed for earlier, more cost effective completion of a network through Jericho, West Point Grey, out to UBC and beyond.
And so it was that the new Jericho came into being, including many more affordable rental and strata homes for families and seniors and ultimately, a home for many informed by a renewed respect for and relationship to the land and water.
And the land and the water were once again in harmony with the people.
The Jericho Lands Policy Statement is currently scheduled for presentation to Council’s Standing Committee for Policy and Strategic Priorities on Wednesday, January 24, 2024. You can sign up to receive notification when the meeting agenda is posted here[3].
The Jericho Lands Coalition[4] has asked this policy statement be held back from release until the proponent has completed a comprehensive hydrogeological study.
This is my first fictional account of the good and the bad that could await Vancouver’s neighbourhoods. If you appreciated this post and wish to follow the series, consider becoming a free subscriber to City Conversations at https://brianpalmquist.substack.com/ . Also send me your thoughts about how Vancouver’s neighbourhoods might embrace, enhance and evolve their future, or discard, degrade and ultimately destroy it.
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, still teaching, writing and consulting a bit, but not beholden to any client or city hall. These conversations mix real discussion with research and observations based on a 45+ 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 and AIBC Construction Administration course text, “An Architect’s Guide to Construction.” and hoping to start in 2024 a book about how we can accommodate a growing population in the cities we love.

[1] The latest landowner proposal; the numbers on buildings indicate the (proposed building height in the) number of storeys.
[2] Hydrogeological studies were commissioned for the Coal Harbour and False Creek North developments that the author was involved in. In both cases initial planning concepts were significantly modified as a result of study findings. As of the publication of this post, it appears no such comprehensive studies have been undertaken for the Jericho lands.
[3] https://vancouver.ca/your-government/city-council-meetings-and-decisions.aspx#subscribe
[4] https://jerichocoalition.org/

[1] Image of midrise alternative courtesy of https://jerichocoalition.org/
Ahhh. I thought this was real and I was excited that Jericho plans had changed.
A technical note, LRT is light rail transit, not light rapid transit, which is a bastardization of the name to confuse the public ans it does not refer to transit mode, just like rapid transit.
What light rail is simply, a tram operating on a dedicated of "reserved rights-of-way" (the Arbutus corridor is a very good example of a reserved rights-of-way), thus giving the tram the operating characteristics of a heavy rail metro at a fraction of the cost.
What is important to remember a tram is a transit vehicle, which can operate as a:
1) a streetcar operating on-street in mixed traffic,
2) light rail operating on a reserved rights-of-way,
3) a light metro, operating on a segregated rights-ofway,
4) a subway
5) a passenger train (TramTrain) operating on the mainline and the tram can do this on one transit.
route!
A tram can be so designed to carry freight (cargotram) such as containers, or garbage.
The modern tram has made our SkyTrain light metro system obsolete because the modern tram can carry more passengers, cheaper and farther. Cities which operates modern trams as light-metro are Ottawa and Seattle.
Thus the tram has inherent flexibility in operation unlike the rigid SkyTrain light metro and for the 21st century public transit, flexibility is the key to a transit systems success.
it is also worth noting that the modern tram is the only rail transit mode with a proven record of modal change and there is a reason for this, it reduces road space for cars..
Those today advocating for SkyTrain and subways are yesterday's people as light metro has become obsolete and our proprietary light metro system gives a good example; only seven built in 45 years, with now only 6 in operation and not one sale for almost 20 years.
In Metro Vancouver we are spending billions of dollars on a museum piece!