Vancouver's Plan to die and what we can do to save it—#9 Delay or defeat the Vancouver Official Destruction Plan

CC# 206—My remarks about the Plan at a recent community meeting

As more and more Vancouver residents—who the current Director of Planning refers to pejoratively as “incumbents”¹— become aware and concerned about the Vancouver Official Development Plan (VODP)—or what I call Vancouver’s Official Destruction Plan, it becomes increasingly essential that residents understand in plain terms what the 249-page VODP holds in store for them. Hence this post.

Some key starting points:

• The VODP is an interim plan until 2030, which can be amended or repealed by a simple majority of Council at any time before or after that date.²

• The VODP covers the entire city, but includes in its details all of the existing and proposed area plans such as False Creek South, Jericho, False Creek North, etc.

• The VODP replaces more than 70 neighbourhoood plans, design guidelines, City Plan conclusions, etc.—all of the work of thousands of citizens over many years has been repealed and discarded.

• Every municipality in BC with more thsn 5,000 population is mandated by the provincial government to produce an Official Community Plan (OCP) this year—same as the VODP. So far 16 municipalities have joined together to demand a judicial review of the legislation mandating OCPs/VODP—Vancouver has not joined this effort so far.

What’s out?

The VODP includes virtually no references to existing neighbourhoods. Here’s the number of references to a sample of neighbourhoods a simple search of the 249-page VODP reveals:³

What’s the replacement for our 22 neighbourhoods, whose historic boundaries are not shown anywhere in the VODP? Why, seven neighbourhood “types” strewn around the city with no apparent or published logic other than spot rezonings.

The Vancouver ODP’s seven neighbourhood types⁴

These seven fuzzy-edged Neighbourhood Types are suitably illustrated as our Urban Structure Strategy:⁵

Fuzzy edges for fuzzy thinking?

Fortunately for those of us still scratching our heads, the VODP includes a description of what the Urban Structure Strategy is:⁶

If that’s not clear enough, there are illustrations of what’s in store. In each case, please look at the city map to the right of the illustrations—the lighter coloured areas are where this form of development can occur:⁷

Includes the rest of Kits and West Point Grey from 1st to 16th Avenues, most of Cambie, all of 41st Ave, Hastings and most of the rest of Kingsway

Includes many of the same areas as the Rapid Transit Areas with their 26 storeys—confused?

Includes 27 areas mostly outside of existing, sometimes struggling neighbourhood shopping areas, as well as some overlaps with more dense areas. Villages have never been defined or explained by city staff—they just magically appeared!

Multiplexes can now be built almost anywhere in the city.

There are huge differences in the data around just how many more folks the VODP wants the citizens of Vancouver to host over the next 30 year. The most conservative number I’ve found is 250,000⁸ more folks by 2050 than the 700,000+ we already have—too bad the current onslaught of development proposals will get to those additional 250,000 folks by 2034.

Where will those extra 250,000 or more folks recreate?⁹

The VODP shows 22 new parks, or slightly less than one per 1,000 new residents. Unfortunately these new parks are mostly tiny and, ironically, distributed to the areas already deemed park rich. The red boxes above show concentrations of “new” parks: Jericho Lands; Riverview district; False Creek; Marpole/Langara.

Of greater significance is the miniscule area of these parks. When False Creek South and North and Coal Harbour were developed, they offered the city 2.75 acres of new park per 1,000 population—their legacy is enjoyed by all citizens. If we assume these parks have absorbed all of the city’s growth for the past 40 years or so, and we need to provide new parks at the same ratio, then we need ten Langara golf courses to accommodate the conservative numbers for growth—not 22 micro dots.

What about community facilities?

Pages 142-143 of the VODP “address” community facilities. The paragraph above is notable for what it excludes: any spatial or budgetary provisions for community facilities.

What about schools?

As we enter the election period, we need to remember what Vancouver’s School Board proposes for its existing schools:

The report that proposes to sell off up to 40 schools or parts has been removed from the school board website, but the plan itself remains in place, redactions and all.

What you can do about Vancouver’s Official Destruction Plan?

What you can do before the next election?

In the lead up to next October’s civic elections, let’s keep it simple. Every time you meet a candidate for Council or Mayor, you need only ask one question:

Then vote according to the clarity of their answers—yes or no are clear enough. You cannot assume that any incumbents will act in your interests. After all, every Councillor, representing ABC, COPE, OneCity and the Greens voted in favour of Vancouver’s Official Destruction Plan. None of these parties, nor the newly created Vancouver Liberals, have indicated any interest in revisiting the VODP.

1. This in contrast to those who might someday like to live in the city but are not here yet…if they even exist.

2. Vancouver Charter clause 562.02

3. One need only download the 80+ megabyte document, then search the words.

4. City of Vancouver Official Development Plan – RTS 18341, page 9

5. City of Vancouver Official Development Plan – RTS 18341, page 61

6. City of Vancouver Official Development Plan – RTS 18341, page 53

7. City of Vancouver Official Development Plan – RTS 18341, pages 66-73

8. 250,000 is the share Metro Vancouver’s regional growth strategy assigns to Vancouver. The city’s own guesstimates are up to 925,000—quite a range.

9. City of Vancouver Official Development Plan – RTS 18341, page 159, annotated by me to try to find the hollow dot parks and indicate what’s really needed.