Carlito Pablo in the Georgia Straight and others are talking about the optics of a report quickly going to Vancouver Council this Tuesday which gives land that the City just purchased from the CPR (Canadian Pacific Railway) railway back to that company.
The former CPR land in question is east of Fir Street south of 5th Avenue to West 1st Avenue, land that is already zoned for housing, industrial and commercial uses and is not part of the “transportation” corridor currently being used as part of the Arbutus Greenway.
And this is just not any land~these parcels located on the old railbed that went to the Molson Brewery are in the highly sought after False Creek precinct.
You may remember a decade or two ago CPR embarked on a strange planning process where they set up a site office in Kerrisdale and solicited comments from the community about what density could be built where along the Arbutus corridor. At the time CPR was establishing a valuation of the Arbutus corridor as something more than a transportation corridor, and that has been a major sticking point in the CPR/City negotiations, which went on for a very very long time.
It is no surprise that the CPR wants a piece of the development pie, and they laid that out in their agreement penned in 2016. You can take a look at the CPR and City of Vancouver agreement here. Section 10.5 stipulates that “development lands” if sold to a developer would require the City to pony up 75 per cent of the sale to the CPR.
Section 11.1 of the agreement handily gives CPR the first option of purchasing said lands for $1.00.
Anything not deemed to be used for a transportation corridor is still on the table for CPR. Lands north of 1st Avenue will be removed in trust for the Squamish First Nations as part of their territory. The Council report states that the agreement with the CPR has been made available at public meetings. The City has also pointed out that this sale has been publicly discussed at the meetings about the Arbutus Greenway. Given that it is a municipal election year there’s not a surprise other factions are disagreeing politically with the decision. The bottom line? For 55 million dollars the city still gets its greenway and light rail transit corridor, but in order to anchor that, has had to acquiesce to CPR’s position on development rights for land not in the Arbutus transportation corridor that has signficant development potential. With an election weeks away, expect to hear more about the interpretation of this agreement from other political candidates vying for a City Hall seat.
Source: City of Vancouver
If the City transfers the Option Lands for $1..00 to the CPR and the City decides to sell or develop any other parcels- no further payments to CPR are required. There are other parcels that are part of the purchased right of way package that could sold or developed.
The City has agreed to develop Pine Street as a safe route to connect to the South Side Greenway via 1st Avenue.
Mostly correct, but CP’d still get partial revenue from selling the “excess lands” between 33rd and 37th.
How so? The contract states that if CO exercises the option under clause 11, their rights under clause 10 relating to revenue sharing are terminated.
Just going off the article: “Any shared revenue potential would only come from the “Excess Lands” between West 33rd Avenue and West 37th Avenue, which were outlined as lands that will not be used in the greenway by the City Council’s recently approved high-level concept for the permanent greenway design.”
http://dailyhive.com/vancouver/arbutus-corridor-canadian-pacific-railway-option-lands
Better to go off the contract, it has been posted for several years now.
Your quote seems to be referring to lands the City may not want for the greenway, and which would be subject to revenue sharing, but if the option is exercised the point is moot, as then there is no revenue sharing.
And isn’t Vision Vancouver’s mayoral candidate part of the Squamish Band development team and therefore tied into a portion of these lands?
Why can’t the city just put a simple gravel walking path along the part from 5th to 1st? Or is walking not transportation?
Seems a shame to get rid of the right if way for almost nothing when maintenance would also be low cost
Probably concerned about all the mid block crossings. The City identified before they bought the property that they wouldn’t be using this stretch, and even wrote that into the purchase contract. Seems a little over the top for journalists to now start protesting as if it is all a new idea.
Also, they aren’t selling it for “almost nothing” as the option was granted as part of the original purchase price, so obviously the value of the property, and the option price, were considered when the purchase price was negotiated.
“Weird”. Especially that “wedge” that they want to give back. Mostly because a developer will probably try to squeeze something in there. Currently it’s community gardens.
I also don’t get the argument about “not wide enough”. Unless I am missing something, a mixed path would fit perfectly there and make a nice connection.
Anybody who is more familiar with the City’s argument able to comment / clarify?
One of the safety issues that has been worked through by the City is the crossing of existing roads. With the rest of the Greenway, the new crossings are generally right next to an existing crosswalk, so there is either a short jog to the side to parallel the crosswalk, or there is an extended intersection crossing zone (such as at Broadway) with set back stop lines.
Neither of those solutions work for the option lands north of 6th. The crossings, including one of 4th, would not be next to existing street crossings. It may be possible to close some of the east-west streets to through traffic to accommodate crossings, but not 4th. And if they use Pine, only one block west, those issues disappear.
Once the Greenway reaches north to 1st along Pine, 1st Ave (which is very wide) can have an improved walking and cycling area built to reach Granville Island to the east, and Burrard and Cypress to the west. And Pine to 1st, which is intended for the cycling connection, isn’t planned to be the primary walking connection. That goes under the Fir offramp from the Bridge to Granville Island. The Fir connection just doesn’t add anything.
See the planned connections in the Design Vision document, here (Page 38):
https://vancouver.ca/files/cov/arbutus-greenway-design-vision-july-2018.pdf