Villages Plan Draws Angry Overflow Crowd

The city’s lead planner on the villages plan Kirsten Behler (left) and Dunbar Neighbourhood Cafe organizer Carmen Smith in a meeting room of the Dunbar Community Centre on June 17. When the crowd got too big for the 60-seat room, the meeting was moved to the gym.

Audience waits for the meeting to resume after the move to the Dunbar Community Centre gym.

By Carol Volkart

The city’s plan to create 17 villages, four in the Dunbar area, got a rough ride from an overflow crowd at a Dunbar Neighbourhood Cafe on Wednesday.

Clapping and cheering each other on, residents attacked the plan for what they fear it will do to the environment, to already-struggling retail streets, to their taxes, and to their neighbourhoods.

But overriding it all was a deep sense of betrayal – residents made it clear they feel the massive changes they’re now facing have been developed without their input. When one speaker asked, “Does anyone feel they have been truly consulted?” the room exploded with calls of “No!” and “Ignored, totally ignored!”

The hottest anger was about another perceived betrayal many are just learning about. Certain properties in the villages will essentially be frozen at their current use until they can be redeveloped into four-to-six-storey mixed-use buildings with ground-floor retail. In some cases, as audience members pointed out, these are long-time family homes that suddenly face a very uncertain future.

“This is my home, this is my space. Where do you envision I should go?” one speaker said, noting that multiplexes in the area are small and very expensive.

The  June 17 meeting was intended to inform Dunbar-area residents about the villages plan, with the city’s lead planner on the project, Kirsten Behler, first explaining what it was about, then answering questions. Although the question period turned intensely emotional, Behler calmly answered questions to the end, earning kudos from one audience member who said, “it takes courage for you to be here and I appreciate it.”

But the size of the crowd meant that for the second time in a week, a meeting on a hot topic at the Dunbar Community Centre had to be shifted to another location. In this case, the nearly 100 people who poured into a room with a capacity of 60 were moved to the centre’s gymnasium.

Just a week earlier, a meeting on multiplexes organized by Smart Density Vancouver drew triple the size of the expected crowd for another 60-person room. That June 10 meeting was moved outside to the grounds of the Dunbar Community Centre.

The goal of the villages, Behler explained, is to create vibrant, walkable communities in low-density areas. These areas will be rezoned to allow various kinds of housing, including up to six-storey apartment buildings, to increase housing choice. The city will also encourage more retail in these areas to serve the daily needs of the bigger population. The 17 villages cover about 13,000 properties over 550-600 blocks.

The four west side villages near Dunbar are in purple.

Although Dunbar Street and the few blocks closest to it are not included in any village, four new villages are proposed for the Dunbar area. Called the “west side villages,” they’ll have centres at Macdonald and 16^th, Macdonald and 25^th, Mackenzie and 33^rd and Mackenzie and 41^st.

The plan to add retail so close to already-struggling commercial areas like Dunbar sparked questions from former senior city planner Christina DeMarco, who was in the audience. She said the west side villages will add about 250,000 square feet of commercial space to the area. This would “disproportionately” affect Dunbar, more than any other neighbourhood centre in the city, she said, “when it is already is struggling with a 15 percent storefront vacancy, about three times the vacancy rate considered ‘healthy.’”

Behler said the city did look at the impact of villages on existing retail streets, and it is working with business improvement associations to address problems like the ones being seen on Dunbar.

Several audience members, including one man who became tearful as he spoke, questioned the environmental impact of adding so much new density to the 13,000 properties covered by the villages plan. But Behler said the plan is in line with the city’s environmental goals. Getting more people closer to more amenities, especially if they can access them by walking, biking or rolling “is definitely a positive contribution toward our climate change goals.”

She had less definite answers for audience member Elaine Stevens, who pointed to the loss of trees as lots are redeveloped.  “What’s happening with multiplexes and with what’s happening with new construction is that every lot is being clearcut,” said Stevens, noting that 100 mature trees were cut down for a development at 41st and Blenheim.

Pointing to the city’s goal of raising the city’s tree canopy to 30 percent from 25 percent by 2030, she said: “By destroying trees throughout the city, you are moving in the opposite direction of the city’s stated goal of a 30 percent tree canopy when we’re in the middle of a climate crisis.”

Stevens said she did a mature-tree count in one quadrant of the 33rd and Mackenzie village where she lives to get an idea of the numbers involved. Multiplying the result by four and considering that 10 new trees are needed to replace one mature one, she concluded 12,900 new trees would have to be planted in her village alone to make up for those that could be lost through new development.

Behler said she understands some trees will be lost because of change, but efforts are always made to retain trees where possible. She said she would talk to city hall staff and the landscaping team about some of the points raised by Stevens.

The tax implications of rezoning properties to allow six-storey buildings on them also raised audience concerns. But Behler said if assessments go up significantly, “there are ways for the land owners to mitigate that.” One of them is that anyone who’s owned a property for 10 years or more can apply to have the property assessed at current use.

But most of the meeting dealt with various aspects of the audience’s sense that the city has gone ahead with a major plan without their involvement or agreement.

Audience members questioned the validity of the city’s surveys  on the villages plan, the amount of participation in the meetings held on it, the likelihood of people throwing out postcard-style city notices with the assumption they were junk, the speed at which decisions are made and then changed, and whether the city really listens to what residents say at all. One questioner asked why so many important public decisions are made at difficult times for people, such as in the Christmas period or during the summer.

Another speaker earned a loud round of applause by asking why the city was doing 17 villages all at once, noting that each is very different. He said the process “seemed designed to make it hard to actually look at the details of each and make rational decisions rather than top down.”

Several speakers said they doubt most people even know about the villages plan, and one suggested a referendum should be held on a change this big. Another said he has “significant concerns about public engagement, especially in light of the significance of this change,” which he called the single largest upzoning to low-rise apartments in the history of Vancouver.

Behler said the city had tried to reach out in many different ways, recounting some of the public-engagement processes that had been done,  and urged people to make their feelings known to council and at the July 14 public hearing on the villages plan. As for the timing of council decision-making, Behler said she couldn’t speak to council agendas, as she has no control over that.

Regarding the properties that are restricted to being redeveloped into mixed-used building with ground-floor retail, one speaker said it would create “winners and losers,” with owners of certain single-family homes the losers. “People in these homes are stuck,” another audience member said.

There was an almost audible gasp in the room when Behler said it would only apply to 560 properties out of 13,000 and that 96 percent of village properties could be developed for everything from multiplexes to six-storey apartment buildings.

“I’m one of those 560 properties,” an audience member said, adding that every home on her block has families and as far as she’s concerned, they already have a village.

Behler hinted the city may be rethinking the issue. “We have heard the concerns and we’re currently looking at whether there should be changes there.”

Behler emphasized the importance of residents letting council members know what they think, as well as writing or speaking to the July 14 public hearing.

More about the villages plan is at  https://www.shapeyourcity.ca/villages

To reach the mayor or individual councillors, please use the following:

Mayor:ken.sim@vancouver.ca, Lisa Dominato: lisa.dominato@vancouver.ca; Pete Fry:  CLRfry@vancouver.ca, Mike Klassen:  Mike.Klassen@vancouver.ca, Sarah Kirby-Young:  CLRkirby-yung@vancouver.ca Lucy Maloney: lucy.maloney@vancouver.ca, Peter Meiszner:  peter.meiszner@vancouver.ca, Brian Montague:  brian.montague@vancouver.ca, Sean Orr:  sean.orr@vancouver.ca, Lenny Zhou:  lenny.zhou@vancouver.ca

To submit comments to the mayor and council,  the online form is <http://vancouver.ca/your-government/contact-council.aspx>

To sign up to speak by phone or in person at the July 14 public hearing on the villages plan, you can register  here  once the meeting agenda is officially posted, usually about 10 days before the hearing.