Chinatown, East Pender Street. Photo by Caitriana Nicholson.
The Vancouver City Planning Commission (VCPC) has released it’s 2018 Emerging Milestones: a list of events, policies and decisions that it considers relevant in the shaping of Vancouver as a unique, urban settlement. Compiled by urban planners, architects, historians, and residents of Vancouver, these milestones are related to land-use or social, cultural, and economic events of the last year.
The list of thirteen emerging milestones bridge four overarching themes of significance: Indigenous Reconciliation, Community Planning, A City For All, and Housing. Falling under these themes, the VCPC have specified such watershed moments in Vancouver in 2018 as:
- the repatriation of city-owned land in Marpole to the Musqueam First Nation
- the development of the Northeast False Creek ODP
- the adoption of Vancouver’s Women’s Equity Strategy
- the creation of the Vancouver Affordable Housing Endowment Fund
With 2018 being a year of change by way of a civic election, these events are on track to transform our urban fabric into a more inclusive and affordable weave of cloth. However, these important shifts in policy must first stand the test of time before we can have a clear understanding of the direction our city is moving in.
Will 2019 see a continuation of social equity and justice reflected in policy decisions? Will new funding structures help alleviate Vancouver’s housing woes? Will the ambitious citywide plan protect communities from development while defending the need to build more housing? And, of the thirteen emerging milestones identified by the VCPC in 2018, which will prove to have the most positive influence on Vancouver’s future?
You can review VCPC’s complete list of Emerging Milestones of innovative and transformative events of 2018 here.
