Bob Ransford writes about the SFU reports on neighbourhood density in his Sun column:
City of Vancouver planners sat down a couple of months ago at a daylong session with 20 citizens who are involved in their respective neighbourhoods across the city to attempt to initiative this kind of dialogue around grappling with how to address density from a neighbour-hood perspective. I recently stumbled across the report of that dialogue, Carbon Talks: Density in a City of Neighbourhoods Dialogue Report. It makes for some interesting reading.
The “D” word is a dangerous one to even utter in these parts. It was courageous of the conveners – SFU’s Centre for Dialogue and a number of other SFU partners, together with the city – to try bring together neighbour-hood activists to talk about density. The magic seemed to come from the orientation of the dialogue: a big-picture look at the city as a whole, where participants were encouraged to take a step back from their neighbourhood viewpoints.
SFU City Program director and former Vancouver city Coun. Gordon Price wrote an extremely insightful discussion guide that provoked the participants. As only Price can do, he took participants on a Vancouver historical journey from the earliest years of land-abundant settlement to the city of 2012, a city running out of options. Price’s paper articulated clearly the dilemma I outlined earlier. He painted, era by era, how we ended up with this dilemma after a century of being able to moderate housing costs by consuming vacant land. Now very little vacant land exists.
As Price said: “The process of planning for the future must inevitably look to existing neighbourhoods, and to new forms of housing – to different ways of accommodating change without changing the fundamental character of a community.” In other words, we have no option but to accept density.
The density myth that increased housing supply is a financial threat to existing home owners and it is a very dangerous myth. The NIMBY attitude has very little to do with value and much to do with space and amenities. There is huge value in the question posed by Mr Ransford ‘What do we do when a stable community resists change because there’s nothing for residents to gain from accepting change?’ Which, to play on the acronym, how do you change NIMBY to YIMBY. Some elements in that debate include such things as expanding personal time with friends and families, reduction of the cost of the commute and access to enhanced amenities (including private sitting and walking spaces) is another.
Resistance to densification is just as much a supply side problem than a demand side one. Builders, shop/mall owners, car dealers are threatened by the pedestrian lifestyle and claim to be shocked that home and auto ownership so badly collapsed in the US. It was a total misreading of the market from suppliers. It was the abusive supply of mortgage money (read banks) and free roads for both driving and parking (read governments) which were in part responsible the problem. To absolve the suppliers and blame the consumers is a recipe for disaster.
Property owners believe that increasing density harms them in particular.
People who have no personal stake believe that not increasing density harms them in some small way.
The discussion will be a predictable conflict between the small interests of all citizens and the large interests of affected citizens.
Addressing the issue from a neighbourhood perspective, as it’s put, means not changing the zoning or at least not changing it enough to matter. If the dialogue does not address the issue from a city-wide perspective, the best outcome that can be hoped for is a zoning change that local residents believe will result in any actual change.
Within reason density may be mitigated by a well thought-out, sensitively designed figure ground . . .
http://members.shaw.ca/theyorkshirelad72/working.mount.pleasant.html
. . . unfortunately our archaic concept of private property intervenes always reducing the planning process to jargon, numbers then inevitable approval . . .
http://www.theyorkshirelad.ca/New.Nanaimo.Center/new.nanaimo.center.html
. . . rather than encouraging an artistic, humane, street level environment for all to enjoy . . .
Planning must work towards experiential art. We have forgotten that!
Good insights from David and Mike as well as Roger Kemble. However, I think the issue should be looked at from a REGIONAL perspective first and foremost. Vancouver has only 25% of the population of Metro Vancouver but is constantly under the microscope on everything from housing the homeless (Vancouver has over 75% of the shelter beds in the Region), taking the lead on lane way housing, using city land for rental housing etc…….What about the other municipalities?
A few months ago, the Mayor of Burnaby crowed in the local press that Burnaby does not want lane way housing. Burnaby is the only municipality that still does not recognize basement suites. Have you heard of any plans for affordable housing in the Brentwood area? Some other municipalities such as Delta and the District of North Vancouver are not much better.
We are all linked, to think otherwise is folly. Nimby on the ‘macro’ level is alive and well.Let’s conquer that first!
What came out of the Density in a City of Neighbourhoods dialogue is a better understanding of the demographic challenges that this city is facing over the next few decades as well as the realization that access to amenities, preserving community character, aesthetics and scale matter. As do honest, well-designed and facilitated dialogues with community members and relevant stakeholders. Densification may be inevitable – but if it is not done collaboratively and thoughtfully it will erode the character of the 22 neighbourhood communities so many Vancouverites have spent their lives building.
What if the single family residents of the West End, in the 1960s and earlier, had preserved the neighbourhood of single family homes that had been built up around them?
If an increase in the density of a typical Vancouver single-family neighbourhood is not significant enough to change its character, aesthetics or scale, it is too small a change to make any difference in the city’s overall growth potential.
If the zoning is changed in a uniformly built area to allow a few extra square feet but not enough to justify rebuilding, change will be slow and in character.
If the zoning is changed enough to make rebuilding in a more dense form profitable, each individual owner will have reason to redevelop and change will be swift and out-of-character and eventually nearly total.
We don’t have many residential neighbourhoods with forms and ages mixed together for this reason. The few that exist are the product of redevelopment initiated by a first zoning change or transportation improvement that was abruptly halted by a second zoning change or a moratorium on development or a property crash. See kits and the west end and, for the latter reason, South Granville and Mount Pleasant.
Lost in all the hoopla over Vancouver’s appearance in the annual liveability survey was this comment from the survey’s editor: “Australian cities continue to thrive in terms of liveability: Not only do they benefit from the natural advantages of low population density, but they have continued to improve with some high profile infrastructure investments,”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/9475307/London-slips-down-list-of-best-cities-despite-glorious-Olympics.html
Sorry Mr. Ransford.