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When people think about what’s iconic about Vancouver, they think about our mountains & water. But the fact that our mountains are visible & not blocked by towers today didn’t happen by accident. They’re protected by view cone policies established in 1989 & fiercely protected since.
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The view cones policy is possibly one of the most visionary planning policies in Vancouver. We’re one of the 1st cities in the world to have such a policy. But most people today aren’t aware of view cones & have misconceptions.
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Misconception #1: View cones were created for the wealthy b/c they’re concentrated in wealthy neighbourhoods. Clarification: View cones were created for the public for public enjoyment. All of them are publicly accessible with vantage points in parks, bridges, plazas & streets
4. Misconception #2: View cones are car-centric. Clarification: Majority of view cone optimal vantage points are located in pedestrian-friendly areas like parks, plazas, seawalls & bridges. Ones with optimal viewing points on streets are still enjoyable & photo-worthy on sidewalks.
5. Misconception #3: Cambie view cone is irrelevant because can only be viewed optimally from car . Clarification: The mountainous backdrop is most iconic on Cambie & one of the most photographed public views. Losing it will translate to character of city being irreversibly lost.
6.Misconception #4: Vancouverites will get social housing & amenities in exchange for view cone penetration & thus a worthy trade. Correction: Damage to these free public views are permanent & irreversible. It sets bad precedent for developers to pressure City for same treatment.
7.Misconception #5: The additional density offered by these tall towers will bring more affordable housing supply to millennials & families. Clarification: The density proposed will be some of the most expensive multimillion dollar condos in Vancouver unattainable by most.
8. Misconception #6: If low density zones are upzoned, then no need to pile density on towers that pierce view cones. Clarification: Upzoning low density zones =/= No view cone piercings. Concord and all don’t usually build in low density areas, so 3 towers are site-specific asks.
9. Misconception #7: Housing for people or view cones. You can only pick one. Clarification: The two can co-exist as they have been since 1989 & before.10. Misconception #8: Public views are an extravagance in an affordability crisis. Clarification: Public views are free public assets & amenities all Vancouverites can enjoy, especially if they don’t have access to private views of mountains in our unaffordable city.11. Misconception #9: Vancouver will get tall towers of high architectural excellence that’ll be iconic. Clarification: No amount of arch excellence can be more iconic than mountains created by mother nature. Truly great arch works in harmony with surroundings, not damage it.
12. Misconception #10: View cones produce bulky unattractive buildings. Clarification: Form that follows finance produces bulky unattractive buildings. Buildings can be attractive w/out penetrating view cones.
13. Misconception #11: City already approved towers that block views of mountains from my home, so why care now?.Clarification: View cones protect public views that are for all Vancouverites to access & enjoy. They’re not the same as private.
14. Misconception #12: We don’t need to be concerned about the 3 towers’ rezoning allowance to protrude thru view cones b/c we can fight them later at their rezoning application stage. Clarification: Once the plan passes, rezoning allowance in it becomes law that supersedes view cone policy.
15.. View cones protect our public views, which are important public assets that make Vancouver unique & livable. Many have fiercely defended view cones for our benefit today, we need to step up & defend them for next generations.
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If Vancouver truly cared about that view, they’d ditch the overhead traffic signal faces and keep them to the sides (like they do in Montreal). All that expensive overhead equipment (which lures drivers’ eyes up and above the street, rather than to the corners and edges where pedestrians might be starting to cross) intrudes as much into the view cone as anything…
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Reblogged this on Sandy James Planner.
Views of the mountains, views of the city. Both are important. However, the attention placed on creating policy on specific views of the mountains has not been followed up with a similar effort to first create a city where views of that city would be as treasured as those of nature. In that light, the effort to protect the view cones can be said to have caused us to lose sight of the city. This is in part due to simple geometry where prime public views extend across the downtown street grid at an angle, but also because we have not matured with enough fortitude to take on the almighty car and the almighty real estate dollar and the mediocrity they both have imposed on the city.
To her credit, Melody Ma defines the protected view cones as public assets. Where I disagree with her is in her cavalier dismissal of the potential role of architecture and urban design and their yet-to-be-realized role in creating views within the city, not just beyond the city, first and foremost by creating a better city. In that respect half the policies on protected views have yet to be written.
One aside. The Shangri-La tower was altered by a view cone that sliced it at an angle vertically. I think that resulted in a better building with a dramatic knife sharp edge pointing toward Georgia Street and the Trump Tower across the street, a far more interesting form than the bland box that would have arisen there without the slice.
There is some justification to deepen and expand the view cone policy into urban design initiatives that hopefully, and eventually, will result in a city partially redesigned to possess protected views of plazas, fine architecture and wider boulevards with the careful placing of axes, parks, pedestrian streets and significant public art. To date we’ve had lame policies such as the call for Georgia Street to be Vancouver’s “ceremonial street.” It is not. It is an engineered road designed exclusively for the movement of vehicular traffic using the cheapest, most ubiquitous materials. Our streets are a good place to start because they are the public living rooms and hallways.
The NEFC towers in question will act a “gateway,” but a gateway to what exactly? We do not encourage the best in urban design and architecture with such vast financial power sweeping up everything in its path and privatizing the mountain views and promoting building a huge mass alone right up to the lot line as a defining urban design element. We need to do better than that.
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The view up and down Hastings Street is not beautiful. It cannot be solved by architecture or urban design or views of somewhere else called “nature”. A slice off the top of a building does not matter to a guy lying on the side walk even if he is looking up.