Vancouver has a rich history of urban planning and, this spring, the City of Vancouver is launching three new Community Plan processes in Grandview-Woodland, Marpole, and the West End neighbourhoods. A fourth neighbourhood planning program, for the Downtown Eastside, is also currently underway. When completed, these plans will provide clear but flexible frameworks to guide change and development in these established neighbourhoods over the next 20-30 years. As such, it’s worth increasing our awareness of the processes currently occurring and what it means for the future of the city.
One of the most significant aspects of the Plan is that it is happening in older, settled neighbourhoods facing increased development pressures. The existing community plans for these areas were developed in the 1970s and 80s. Given the dramatic changes in Vancouver since that time, the existing plans clearly do not reflect the communities’ current challenges including issues around affordable housing, demographic changes and land-use.
A unique aspect of the new Community Plan is that it combines features of both the Community Visions process—used between 1995 and 2010—and the older Local Area Planning process—used between 1974 and 1995. This combination will facilitate addressing complex issues ranging from community-wide concerns about traffic, safety, and street level issues to sub-area plans relating to changes in land-use, commercial issues, and improvements to the public realm, as a whole.
The resulting plans are, therefore, intended to bring together a range of regional and city-wide policies into a comprehensive program that responds to the unique characteristics of each specific neighbourhood. They are not intended to be a blueprint for the future, but rather provide overall direction while remaining flexible enough to enable unique responses to the needs of each area as it adapts to future circumstances.
As any local urbanist would assume, one of the important goals of the planning process is to address the increasing development pressures within these established neighbourhoods. Towards this end, the plans are to provide clarity about the nature and scale of new development—including building forms, heights and land-use—while allowing appropriate flexibility for new ideas to emerge during the subsequent development processes. The plans will also work towards enhancing neighbourhood amenities and services in line with the 10 Year Capital Plan Strategy.
Through the experience with the Mt. Pleasant Community Plan (completed in 2010) the City saw a strong desire for more community involvement in planning. This included the importance of strengthening relationships between City Hall and neighbourhoods as well as the need to broaden participation to reflect the ethnic and demographic diversity across the city.
Perhaps the most important change, however, was the decision to conduct concurrent planning process in four neighbourhoods. Traditionally, community planning has been done on a neighbourhood by neighbourhood basis, one at a time. Under this older process neighbourhood plans could take up to five years until completion. Thus, communities would have had to wait an unacceptable amount of time before their plan was updated.
Given the high level of development and other pressures facing the city, it was evident that a new process was needed—one that would increase the number of plans that can be completed in a given time.
This new process will also allow the City to benefit from the synergies between each planning process, including looking at common approaches to issues shared by more than one community. This includes matters related to rental housing, vitality of local shopping areas and urban health issues.
City Council’s approval of the Terms of Reference (pdf) on March 28, 2012, marked the beginning of Phase I of the new Community Planning Processes. Throughout the rest of the spring, the City will be hosting a series of kick-off events – including special Jane’s Walk tours and storytelling events for each neighbourhoods. These events will raise awareness of the process and opportunities for public participation in their respective neighbourhoods. More information can be found below.
They will also provide opportunities for initial community input related to the plans. This information will be collected and digested over the summer and help inform the next steps of the process to be launched in September.
Given the above, the current Community Plans represent an important component of planning work in the City of Vancouver. The development of new community plans for Grandview-Woodland, Marpole and the West End will play an important part in shaping the future of some of Vancouver’s oldest neighbourhoods. But a process can only go so far.
The ultimate success of the Community Plan updates will be based on involvement from the communities. As Matt Shillito, the senior planner overseeing the processes noted: “The plans are richer with more public involvement.” Spacing Vancouver will be proving periodic updates as the Community Planing processes advances, including opportunities for public involvements. So stay tuned!
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• MARPOLE NEIGHBOURHOOD EVENTS
Marople Storytelling Event
Come hear the stories and experiences of your community from the historical to the hilarious.
Tuesday, May 1, 7 – 10 pm – Metro Theatre 1370 SW Marine Drive (south end of Granville Street by the on-ramp of the Arthur Laing Bridge)
Register at: http://marpoleplanlaunch.eventbrite.ca
Marpole Community Open Houses
Drop by to learn more about the community planning process and how to get involved.
Wednesday, May 2, 5 – 9 pm – Marpole-Oakridge Community Centre 990 West 59th Avenue (at Oak Street)
Saturday, May 5, 11am – 3 pm – 8138 Granville Street
Marpole Walking Tour (Jane’s Walk)
Join the City and its partners Museum of Vancouver and Spacing Vancouver for a walking tour of the community.
Sunday, May 6, 10:30 am Details and registration at janeswalk.net
• GRANDVIEW-WOODLAND NEIGHBOURHOOD EVENTS
Grandview-Woodland Walking Tour (Jane’s Walk)
Join the City and its partners Museum of Vancouver and Spacing Vancouver for a walking tour of the community.
Sunday, May 6, 10:30am – details and registration at janeswalk.net
Grandview-Woodland Storytelling Event
Come hear the stories and experiences of your community from the historical to the hilarious.
Friday, May 11, 7 – 10 pm – WISE Hall, 1882 Adanac Street
Register at: http://gwplanlaunch.eventbrite.ca
Grandview-Woodland Community Open Houses
Drop by to learn more about the community planning process and how to get involved.
Sunday, May 13, 11 am – 3 pm – Waldorf Hotel, 1489 East Hastings Street
Wednesday, May 16, 5 – 9 pm – Café Deux Soleil, 2096 Commercial Drive
• WEST END NEIGHBOURHOOD EVENTS
West End Walking Tour (Jane’s Walk)
Join the City and its partners Museum of Vancouver and Spacing Vancouver for a walking tour of the community.Sunday, May 6, 10:30am – details and registration at janeswalk.net
West End Storytelling Event
Come hear the stories and experiences of your community from the historical to the hilarious.
Thursday, May 10, 7 – 10 pm – Denman Theatre, 1737 Comox Street
Register at: http://westendplanlaunch.eventbrite.ca
West End Community Open Houses
Drop by to learn more about the community planning process and how to get involved.
Saturday, May 12, 11 am – 3 pm – Best Western Sands Hotel, 1755 Davie Street
Tuesday, May 15, 4 – 8 pm – Empire Landmark Hotel, 1400 Robson Street
Thursday, May 17, 4 – 8 pm – Central Presbyterian Church, 1155 Thurlow Street
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Yuri Artibise is a public policy analyst and social media specialist. Through his Yurbanism brand, he explores the ‘Y’ of urbanism by sharing ways to make our cities more livable, community-oriented places one block at a time. He currently works with PlaceSpeak, an online location-based community consultation platform.
