The Sun highlights a region-shaping plan by Larry Frank: UBC planning professor warns of suburban sprawl, ‘horrific’ congestion.
… transit needs to be located near people’s work and homes, something that is difficult in outlying areas. …
Frank envisions doing that by levying fees on low density or remote development projects that are far from transit corridors.
Part of Frank’s plan is a report card of sorts that would tie transit funding to a city’s performance on development according to Metro Vancouver’s Regional Growth Strategy.
In other words, mechanisms for both the outlying and inner-city municipalities to encourage development around transit – or discourage the opposite.
[To get some sense of where the debate on the referendum will go – hostility to taxes and transit or futile arguments over technology – check out the comments in the online version.]
Another goofy idea from an academic. They swan into the discussion from the periphery and it gets used as media filler for slow days (like Monday). As Berra said, “In Theory, there’s no difference between theory and practice. In Practice, there is.” These teachers of adolescents are doing more harm than good. Frank needs to google “integrated collaboration” and waddle over to Sauder’s Urban Economics to get some reality spanked into his armchair ideas.
Taxing low density/transit distanced gives a new and sizeable incentive in the form of a revenue generator that will be welcomed by local gov’t staff, as they have maxxed out many other sources. Loc gov’t is one of the last places that unions can run amok. For some owners of those lands, the overtaxation will simply cause them to sell to higher bidders with more capital (and reason) who resign themselves to the tax grab as just a way business copes with bureaucracy, and be forced to pass that along buyers. Which, has been happening for the last decade, with no signs of abate, even if the last five years were the Great Recession.
Forget the comments in the Vancouver Sun, even the comments in Pricetags posts are acrid and dumb.
Where do these people come from? They are so loudly wrong.
I do not doubt the many benefits of additional subways, especially to UBC !
I think though we have to show MORE economic benefits of a $3B to $5B investment besides “livability”. I think we have to advance better ECONOMIC arguments such as an ROI on the $s invested through more research, higher property taxes, more investment, more JOBS, higher GDP !!
Left leaning politicians / socialists always have great ideas how others fund their own better life.
The issue is taxation and the degree of how much government is “enough”. BC has pretty high taxes compared to other parts of Canada. The NDP ruined this province in the 90′s. Animosity to that runs deep. I think the BC Liberals need to see more ECONOMIC arguments, and better MetroVan governance. It seems to me that 26 municipalities, many with left-leaning councilors or mayors, is too many. How about: 1 ?
Maybe that is the core issue of why the BC Liberals balk at the required funding ? They don’t trust the local politicians ?
The economic benefits of infrastructure spending is well documented and well known… It’s not exactly like some kind of mystery whether transit expansion is good for the economy.
Who knew overtaxation spurred development? That’s news to me. Here I was thinking that businesses would prefer to set up shop where taxes are lower.
exactly.
But if this could be shown to actually spur investment and create a good ROI on the $s invested, with resulting lower taxes, or at least not increasing ones, then that would be another story !
“It’s the conomy, stupid” .. and that argument has not been well enough documented !
Who knew? Well, you did until you read this. Please pay attention. No one said tax spurred growth. What was said was that muni’s would not complain – and would do nothing else – if low dens/trans dist kept rolling in dollars. Overtaxation will certainly not |stop| development.
If a loc gov’t really wanted to stop exurban growth, all they need to do is a small (text) zoning bylaw change; min size of lots to be subdivided 20 acres, instead of 0.5 acre. But no Councillor – in there 36-month electoral shelf life – would dare do that because of the press (and loss of votes) that would occur.
Frank’s idea is bunk; “If you want to develop the rural, you must pay higher for it.” That hasn’t stop inappropriate development anywhere else in the region.
We need to show how a $1B or likely $3B investment into metro Van transit infrastructure yields higher BC GDP growth, more provincial tax revenue and more voters for the Liberals ( as opposed to NDP). Can we do this or point to results elsewhere ? As the previous commenter pointed out correctly, more money for left leaning bureaucrats with heavy union ties will not convince a fiscally conservative provincial government to hand over more $s.
Hi Gord- I need your help: 1 new car capacity creates new traffic and congestion. 2. New car capacity is waste of $ because of declining car traffic.
Which is it? Cars will grow or decline?
P
Sent from my iPhone
Low and behold, Larry Frank has found the magic formula – ensure that transportation and land use decisions are tied together and hold municipalities accountable for development to pay its own way. OH, let me see – I think this is called the Livable Region Strategic Plan adopted in 1994 which Gordon Price correctly identifies is a culmination of +30 years of prior sustainable development policies. And does dr. frank understand no local land use decision can be made that contravenes the LRSP, which is administered by Metro Vancouver and enforced by Provincial law. So, the current development form in this region is perfectly in keeping with this multi-decade set of goals that has achieved remarkable outcomes, including some of the highest inter-modal transportation use on the continent.
maybe dr. frank should do his homework, as tonight at the UBC Dialogue he stated (video available) that City of Vancouver has some of the highest densities in North America. This may be true for the City core, but get beyond Main and Broadway corridors, the densities are remarkably low. Look to Burnaby, Coquitlam, Surrey Centre, New Westminster for much higher densities around transit centers. We can all see what has NOT happened at the Commercial/Broadway station, which is the biggest transit interchange west of Toronto. Instead, Burnaby is pushing for remarkable levels of density at Brentwood, with towers approved up to 75 stories. Coquitlam has opened up Burke Mountain with remarkable levels of density that is still waiting for the first bus that would be a given in the City of Vancouver. Even in Langley, densities in new developments are running at levels to achieve high transit ridership if service could be provided.
Maybe dr. frank should also do his homework on the massive changes in commuting patterns that no longer make the core-periphery model relevant – the outdated centrally focussed transportation network poorly serves the intra-regional activity, with many of the region’s residents having few and fewer reasons to visit City of Vancouver, other than for speciality services or entertainment activities. So dr. frank should define what he means by remote – does this mean “far” from the diminishing City of Vancouver core? Or what about “low-density” – so this would then translate into a diminishment of transit services in Vancouver with a switch of resources to higher density areas in the region.
And if we are really serious about reducing carbon footprint, then the biggest source of carbon in most cities comes from domestic use in homes, thus studies have identified that older parts of cities are actually less carbon efficient than newer homes with high efficiency heating and insulation practices. so studies have shown that although transportation emissions are higher for non-core areas, this is offset by lower energy consumption in homes.
finally, dr. frank has openly criticized Gordon and others that have worked very hard to get LRSP into place and the many politicians who have put sustainability principles ahead of local community interests with his slashing statement about the need for fundamental land use plan changes.
dr. frank, an apology on your part is in order to all of us who work hard to actually deliver sustainable development practices and advise politicians on how to make this happen and balance more than just transportation services.
Big Bend Crossing (Burnaby), Riverport (Richmond), Tynehead, Campbell height (Surrey),… Burke Mountain (Coquitlam)….all illustrates a faulure of the LRSP.
What Larry Frank says, is those development should pay more levies than other development such as Oakridge (Vancouver), Crystal square (Burnaby), Aberdeen (Richmond) and even may be Guilford (Surrey), since the later are much cheaper to serve by transit. Today, it is exactly the opposite which is happening…
On the density argment:
1/ First the height of tower is a very poor indicator of density
2/ The density argument is a fallacy when using average density (you could prove that Los Angeles is denser than New york, so what?)
At the end, not only noone talked about “reducing carbon footprint” as a goal, but it has rather been mentioned that this argument could have no traction in a referendum (since doesn’t gonna change our life!)
Bottom line:
building so called “TOD devlopment” in the middle of transit desert and then expecting someone else to pay for the transit is simply neither a mature, neither a sustainable approach.
it is always interesting when commentary comes from those unwilling to identify themselves – what do you have to hide in this public debate? strikes me your comments are worth nothing and thus completely discounting so no comment.
when you don’t like the message: attack the messenger.
From Voltaire to Bansky, I am guesssing it must be a hard work to ignore all production/comment by “those unwilling to identify themselves “…so I understand we don’t see he world the same.