This should be fun: a debate via email between myself and UBC urban design professor Patrick Condon in The Tyee. The subject: Should Vancouver Change How It Zones Big Projects?
Here’s the set-up
(Patrick proposed) that Vancouver’s way of “spot zoning” for new projects was playing havoc with the character of neighbourhoods and principles of democracy and transparency. Condon argued that Vancouver would do better to include citizens in a process leading to a one-time zoning of the entire city. His critique, which branded city hall’s project-by-project approval process a path to “soft corruption,” produced buzz for and against.
Many experienced voices argued that Vancouver’s approach — trading permission to build for public amenities and other city input — was key to the city’s success at evolving to accommodate changing pressures and needs. One of the most knowledgeable and experienced of those defenders of the current approach is former Vancouver NPA city councillor Gordon Price, now Director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University.
Here’s the link to The Tyee piece. You can add your comments to what should be an animated string.
An OCP does not simply appear out of thin air to the satisfaction of all concerned. City Staff produce the first draft through mysterious means hardly transparent to the general public, but certainly with the interests of insiders in mind. It is only later, much later that citizens realize the implications of a newly minted OCP. It is the ultimate ambush tool owing to its abstract nature.
Kitsalano is historical, dense, vibrant and built under the current zoning and development bylaw. It cannot be improved with an OCP, but it certainly can be destroyed by one.
So called “spot zonings” are always based on real proposals which can and ought to be debated vigorously and openly. Yes democracy is noisy and messy, that’s the way we like it.
The rule against arbitrary and capricious government is ancient. From the Magna Carta:
NO Freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of his Freehold, or Liberties, or free Customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other wise destroyed; nor will We not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his Peers, or by the Law of the land.
The trouble with spot rezoning is that it is capricious. The rezoning at the north end of Granville to 9.5 FSR for no particular reason, at least no reason that couldn’t apply to any other property, is capricious. If the property is suitable for 9.5 FSR, then it ought to be rezoned for 9.5 along with all the other properties that are suitable for that zoning. That is basic to the rule of law.
Now realistically, you can never create a code that would apply to all pieces of property, all being individual. So realistically, some of these codes will have to be flexible. And there needs to be exceptions for new ideas. But none of the exceptions in the last decade and a half has heralded a new idea, and there is nothing in the recent rounds of upzoning that cannot have been done as part of a broader plan.
The reliance on spot zoning also obviates the possibility of any broader vision. There is an urban form that benefits from individual haphazardness and the absence of a unifying authority. Medieval towns have this charm. But their haphazardness was strongly limited by local building materials and building technology. It wasn’t possible to build an 80-story zinc and glass clad tower. But we have much fewer technological limits, so the ad hocery of spot rezoning doesn’t result in charm and often results in a mess. And there are certainly urban forms that do benefit from a broader vision. Everyone finds Karlsruhe beautiful, even if it cannot be directly replaced in a democracy, it is silly to assume that its era is over.
I believe that “the broader vision” notion is a problematic idea. The Vancouver we “see” today fits with-in the physical constraints outlined in the zoning and development by-law (density/height limits/setbacks/uses/etc.). The zoning map sets boundaries for lands which have become neighbourhoods each with a distinctive character. We might think of this as the “vision” but we don’t usually speak that way.
Re-zoning proposals stretch the underlining zoning in some manner. CD-1 zones are unique in that the proposed form of development requires a convincing urban design rationale. Both processes are sometimes called “spot zoning” and they both require Public Hearings and offer the citizen an opportunity to state opinions. It is hard to understand how capriciousness enters this process.
The “broader vision” is an idea that cannot be realized because not everyone has the same “broader vision idea”. Attempts to rationalize a broader vision as a means to accommodate population growth are also suspect as one might very well suggest that growth should be accommodated in new cities not by constantly demolishing and reconstructing the existing city. In any case existing zoning in Vancouver has considerable remaining volume to be filled even with out re-zonings.