Australian urban designer Greg Vann and planner Warren Rowe were visiting Vancouver this week and spent a good part of a day out in Port Moody which we had previously toured in 2006. (I always try to take visitors out to municipalities well beyond the downtown core.)
Here’s Greg’s write-up of this week’s visit:
.
As part of our current Buckley Vann International tour, we recently visited Port Moody, a small city of 35000 people on the fringe of the Vancouver metro area.
Originally established for port and then industry purposes, the city has a great small city form with a traditional grid street pattern, and some surrounding post war car based areas. Amongst all this, over the last decade or two, it has overseen some great pieces of new urbanism development on the edge of its traditional core, ahead of any major transit investment, in part to link with possible planned future transit, and partly to help advocate for transit coming to the city.
Originally established for port and then industry purposes, the city has a great small city form with a traditional grid street pattern, and some surrounding post war car based areas. Amongst all this, over the last decade or two, it has overseen some great pieces of new urbanism development on the edge of its traditional core, ahead of any major transit investment, in part to link with possible planned future transit, and partly to help advocate for transit coming to the city.
.
The first step
The first major piece was Newport Village, which I first saw in 2006. On a largish triangular site, it features an internal modified grid road system, pedestrian friendly streets which cars use but are tamed, mainly low-mid rise built to the street mixed use, with car parking behind/beneath, a handful of tall residential towers (26-28 storeys!) all organised around a central village scale retail and eating area, including a town pub; with integrated open space including a children’s playground etc.
.
There are I think some 400-500 dwellings here, at a significant intensity. The streets and the whole village are at a comfortable human scale, with the tall building at the edges and framing the development. It is a great piece of urban design which works well.
.
Taking it up a notch
Not content with its fine effort at Newport, the city has worked with another developer to deliver the Suter Brook Village across the road. This is a step up in urban design quality, intensity and finish, learning from the experience at Newport to make it a great piece of contemporary urbanism, all the more impressive given its setting. It is well advanced but still under development.
It has a “Portland scale” activated small grid street pattern, with most parking underground. It features a mix of built to the street mixed use, incorporating retail, commercial, and residential development in a range of styles and scale, generally lower scale, but of high quality design and integration. It has a supermarket (or as they say in north America, a grocery store) built into one block, in what former Port Moody General Manager, Gaetan Royer, (who was closely involved in both developments) calls hidden box, as opposed to big box, retailing. It has two small scale pedestrian places, one flanked by another village pub, and featuring some great public art. It’s as good a piece of new urbanism as you will see just about anywhere.
.
And it worked!
While all this was going on, the city was actively engaged in securing line haul transit. Initially, the business case was done for a light rail option, which would have run down St Johns Street, the main street of the city, and on to link up with these newer precincts and beyond. That wasn’t to be, and the Vancouver trademark Skytrain system won the day, with a commitment to build the new Evergreen line through the city.
The good news is that this is to be operational by 2016, and will have a station immediately adjoining Suter Brook Village, allowing its integration into this precinct.
The city has done lots of other good things, like its fantastic city building, recreation centre, the Boathouse Restaurant, and many more. For me, what separates Port Moody from the crowd are its efforts in delivering density in a high quality form in a small city on the fringe.
The transit is a just reward for the little city that could.
I would actually take exception to the idea that Suter Brook is a step up from Newport Village.
Newport very, very successfully deployed lower scale building heights near the street, and avoided large heights “landing” directly at the street. So the street edge is typically between 4-6 stories, with towers behind. The quality of materials is very high, lots of brick, no cheap concrete facing. Good street furniture. Good paving. Fantastic retail spaces that are well-oriented. A really interesting central “pavilion” style retail space that has a produce market (perfect circular shape for display of outdoor produce tables around the building).
Suter Brook, on the other hand, is cheaply finished. Apart from the single detailed brick building which houses Thrifty’s and BC Liquor, the rest of it is cheap concrete thinly painted. The whole development is extremely shadowy, with most of the 20+ storey towers “landing” directly on sidewalk without any step-back at all. Combine the very shadowy streets with very “cold” materials like charcoal pavers, dark stone facing on buildings, commercial steel window frames, et al and the end result is a very windblown, chilly, dark kind of place that makes one want to leave as soon as they arrive. (And yes, I’ve visited in all seasons).
Suter Brook is a step backwards from Newport Village as far as urban design is concerned.
I would add that part of the cause is undoubtedly the escalation in real estate valuation, which would have been the impetus for Onni having to cram more units into Suter Brook than was necessary in Newport Village. But one would have hoped those additional units could have bought some nicer architecture and human-level finishing (so much painted concrete).