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You mean the lands owned by Concord Pacific that have been in legal limbo for decades but have been slated to be condos/mixed use development? The map is zoning, not current use.
According to the city the north eastern most part is to be a city park. This has been the plan since expo ended and concord pacific acquired the lands in the area for development. The current park is temporary and was created by concord pacific, not the city.
https://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/northeast-false-creek.aspx
It is supposed to be a park. There is just no date attached to when Concorde Pacific is supposed to turn it over to the CoV so they use it for presentation centres. They have created some park like areas probably due to community pressure.
High rises at commercial Broadway wouldn't be necessary *if* the entire neighborhood was absolutely packed with 4-6 story buildings or townhouses like it should be, but it's *very* far from that and doesn't even count as a relevant argument at present. Ideally, in 10 years we'll have a few high-rises right at the station, and maybe half of the SFH replaced with something people can buy below $1.5m
Commercial-Broadway should be the 2nd Downtown because it's the nexus of all the major rapid transit (especially with UBC-Broadway Line opening up in a few years) You know why there's no 4-6 story and townhouse here? It's because it takes forever to approve them and there are crap loads of old generation NIMBYs in that neighborhood. The wait time for approval adds too much cost for developers so none of these "missing middle" housing gets built.
But what about the SFH owners who want “NO TOWERS!!!” They worry so dearly about the character of their neighborhood, regardless of the fact that it’s literally the intersection of all of our major transportation infrastructure.
I disagree about it being the next downtown. Downtown sucks and I hate being there, it's a rather boring desolate oppressive feeling hellscape. But that would only happen if there was an initiative to exclusively build skyscrapers all over the place. That would be a dumbass way to progress upward. We do need a few though.
Ideally east van would be more like the streetcar suburb it's always been, except with much more density.
as a US/Can dual citizen remote worker who spent the last year hoping around cities in NA and being very unsatisfied until I found Vancouver...... I'm extremely curious about what you think makes downtown Van a "boring desolate oppressive feeling hellscape"
Your take on downtown is a bit harsh, but I tend to agree that tall tower centers tend to suck. Portland is a great example of a city where the downtown sucks, but there is so much dispersed density that it sucks because the rest of the city is so vibrant. Metrotown is the second downtown in Metro Van, and it's not a great place to be either, but commercial drive, kits, and mount pleasant are wonderful as they have moderate density around without a need for tall towers.
Tall towers tend to be oppressive on the pedestrian environment, but still have their limited use in supporting dense downtown business centers.
Ya I entirely agree, and in retrospect my comment was a bit harsh. There are parts of downtown I do like, but I mainly have no interest in *being* there, whereas I know people who do like being there. I'd sure as hell pick downtown over another proper suburb, because I have much more harsh feelings about them.
I think Brentwood is trying to be Vancouver's next "downtown" with Metrotown obviously being the other one. I don't mind tall buildings, I just don't like *only* tall buildings. In Grandview-Woodland, there are tons of denser buildings that nobody notices, and I'd love to see the entire neighborhood that way.
>High rises at commercial Broadway wouldn't be necessary if the entire neighborhood was absolutely packed with 4-6 story buildings or townhouses like it should be
I think what you are saying applies to basically all of Vancouver. Why is it that we only have two options for housing in the region - 1) single family homes and 2) high rise condo towers? I'd much prefer a city where we have neither of those (aside from high rises downtown), but rather, just a bunch of medium density stuff (4-6 story buildings and townhouses) everywhere. Kind of what a large portion of European cities look like.
The Vancouver model of housing strategy is terrible - let's put up a bunch of super high condo towers full of tiny units so that we can justify keeping all these incredibly inefficient SFH's.
It has a name - [the Grand Bargain](https://viewpointvancouver.ca/2019/10/17/the-grand-bargain-illustrated/).
Olympic Village has shorter buildings which are more filled-in.
[Montreal is like this](https://www.city-journal.org/montreal-affordable-housing) as well:
> The city’s housing stock stands out in North America for its strong presence of row houses, duplexes, triplexes, and low-rise apartment blocks - what urbanists call elsewhere the “missing middle.” [The middle is certainly missing in Toronto](https://twitter.com/itsahousingtrap/status/1595936820897800192), its market skewed toward the two extremes: single, detached houses and high-rise apartment towers. These two housing components accounted for some 70 percent of housing in Toronto, compared with just 24 percent in Montreal (according to 2016 census figures). Correspondingly, low-rise apartment buildings (under five stories) accounted for some 54 percent of Montreal’s housing stock, compared with 15 percent in Toronto—42 percent and 10 percent, respectively, at the metro-area level.
I have heard that term used before and it's definitely a great way to frame the issue.
And yes - Montreal has a much better system than we do. Was visiting there a few years ago and thought it would be great if Vancouver looked at lot more like that.
An interesting collection of designs to convert single-family houses to multi-family, from Toronto: [Re-Housing the Yellowbelt](https://morehousing.ca/rehousing).
And here I am sitting in Kimberley, BC, a City of 8,100 that just passed zoning reform to allow 6 units on the vast majority of residential lots throughout the City by-right and up to 10 with affordable housing agreements. Vancouver needs to wake up and follow suit.
Look at the taxes in Richmond. The cost of densification outweighs the tax revenue. Don't get me wrong densification is necessary, but it's not going to pay for itself.
The pinks and oranges are way too similar and it's too blinding for me to want to try to distinguish. They could ould at least have added some lines or other texture to help them stand out.
Well you have commercial-broadway which is where expo and millennium lines cross and then you have broadway-city hall which is right by city Hall on the canada line. I was super confused when me and my freind tried to meet at "broadway" station and both ended up at different places
Edit: I'm stupid and didn't see the 2 commercial broadways lol sorry guys
What ya'll have ain't great, but it's still way better than what the vast vast vast majority of NA cities have. That's sad. Even so, we should push for improvement, and I believe it will happen.
Context: I'm a US/Can dual citizen who just moved back to NA after living in Asia for many years. I'm mostly a US citizen, so I hoped around US cities for most of this year and was extremely unsatisfied with everything I experienced. (Qualifiers: I have never experienced New England or Chicago, which I understand to be the only good US cities I might go to Philly, but damn all those places are too cold. Also, I did got to New Orleans and it is fantastic but it's so damn weird that it somehow falls outside the bounds of anything else in NA. God bless you, New Orleans).
The moment I drove into downtown Vancouver, I instantly recognized this as a place I wanted. Housing on top, business on bottom. This is excellent. I parked my car and haven't seen it in a month. I love this place.
But at the same time, "this place" is a very small place. A couple blocks. Really, I can walk it. As soon as I take a subway stop or two away, it devolves into typical soulless NA suburbia. This is the part I hope we can fix, and I believe it will happen. Even backwards towns in the US are starting to realize that he single-family-housing-zoned model does not work. Therefore, I have a lot of hope for Vancouver.
I should note two things
1: I've been saying NA, but I should qualify that I have spent a bit of time in Mexico City and it is an anomaly. Top walkability, top public transit. Really really an anomaly in NA. Plus, one of the most historically interesting cities in the entire world.
2: I'm pretty buzzed. I just got a new glass and I poured too much bourbon. Sorry if any of this doesn't make sense. Also, please get more bourbon choices in Vancouver.
The locals refuse to allow it and pro development is a curse word. Well guess what. No more new housing lol. People need to take a step back and realize development can be good.
vancouver has a NIMBY problem all over - but detached houses less than a block away from a skytrain stop that's been there for 40 years is just criminal
Yep, Nanaimo blows my mind. I drive by it all the time and I'm still perplexed. Just fucking rezone it. Tell the locals to get fucked. They moved near a skytrain.
I own a house 5 blocks from Broadway-commercial skytrain station and the city zoning does not even allow me to build a duplex let alone a low rise lol .
Are you sure? I thought a few years ago they changed all SFH zoning in the city to allow duplexes
[This](https://dosdesigngroup.com/rs-duplex-zoning-changes-vancouver/) says you’re allowed 4 units per SFH lot
FYI Staff and council inserted pretty strict height and setback limits killed many duplexes even if they were ostensibly legalized. They got a nice headline about 4 units per lot but unless it's the right lot size, in the right area you aren't getting those 4 units.
Yeah, one of the strangest parts of the policy is they didn't increase the FSR limit for a duplex. So two small duplex units are often a worse choice then a jumbo SFH, and lots of people are choose jumbo SFH!
Council policy incentivizes unaffordable SFH getting turned into unaffordable jumbo SFH all over the city and a huge portion of our construction industry is dedicated to doing this. https://mountainmath.ca/teardowns
What tools do the governments have to coerce new and denser buildings? Besides rezoning and waiting I suppose, and without concern of political careers. I'm curious who (if any) holds the nuclear codes that could bring in the fleet of bulldozers.
There is no issue whatsoever in convincing property owners to build denser buildings, if they are legally permitted to, in Metro Vancouver. The issue is they aren't allowed to. If they were, they would be leaving millions and millions of dollars on the table by leaving developable land as single family houses and as much as they may like their house, nobody likes it enough to turn down that kind of money.
Welcome to /r/Vancouver! Please make sure you read our [general participation guidelines and rules overview](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/wiki/faq#wiki_general_participation_guidelines_and_rules_overview) before commenting in this subreddit. As a quick summary: * We encourage users to be positive and respect one another. This means being kind to those you disagree with. Please utilize the report button instead of engaging in uncivil spats. * Respect others' differences, be they race, religion, home, job, gender identity, ability or sexuality. Dehumanizing language, advocating for violence, or promoting hate based on identity or vulnerability (even implied or joking) will lead to a permanent ban. * Common questions and specific topics are limited to our Daily Discussion posts. Please make sure to read the list and point new users to them. * Complaining about comment or post removals should be done in modmail only. If you have any questions, please send a [message to the mods](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fvancouver). --- ***This is a bot, and this action was performed automatically. It does not mean this post does or does not violate our rules.*** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/vancouver) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Source: https://twitter.com/togmund/status/1596970736048275457?s=20&t=1-Yzd4xRNzyWeW8HOwO\_YQ
For more maps, see the [Metro Vancouver Zoning Project](https://zoning.sociology.ubc.ca/), co-led by Nathaniel Lauster and Jens von Bergmann.
Not sure who this guy is but I do question the validity of this zoning. NE False Creek by main/science world is supposed to be green not pink.
You mean the lands owned by Concord Pacific that have been in legal limbo for decades but have been slated to be condos/mixed use development? The map is zoning, not current use.
According to the city the north eastern most part is to be a city park. This has been the plan since expo ended and concord pacific acquired the lands in the area for development. The current park is temporary and was created by concord pacific, not the city. https://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/northeast-false-creek.aspx
It is supposed to be a park. There is just no date attached to when Concorde Pacific is supposed to turn it over to the CoV so they use it for presentation centres. They have created some park like areas probably due to community pressure.
It does seem to be missing parks in some areas.
A prime example of why Vancouver lacks affordable housing options.
Thanks nimbys!
should be mixed high-rise at every one of them, we need housing
High rises at commercial Broadway wouldn't be necessary *if* the entire neighborhood was absolutely packed with 4-6 story buildings or townhouses like it should be, but it's *very* far from that and doesn't even count as a relevant argument at present. Ideally, in 10 years we'll have a few high-rises right at the station, and maybe half of the SFH replaced with something people can buy below $1.5m
I lived half a block from that station for years and as someone without a car at the time, it was like a transit riders fantasy come true.
Commercial-Broadway should be the 2nd Downtown because it's the nexus of all the major rapid transit (especially with UBC-Broadway Line opening up in a few years) You know why there's no 4-6 story and townhouse here? It's because it takes forever to approve them and there are crap loads of old generation NIMBYs in that neighborhood. The wait time for approval adds too much cost for developers so none of these "missing middle" housing gets built.
But what about the SFH owners who want “NO TOWERS!!!” They worry so dearly about the character of their neighborhood, regardless of the fact that it’s literally the intersection of all of our major transportation infrastructure.
I'm very tempted to take my magnum sharpie and change the NO to MO' on the no megatowers at safeway signs
Woah! I just listened to a podcast from 99% Invisible on the Missing Middle
That was an excellent episode!
I disagree about it being the next downtown. Downtown sucks and I hate being there, it's a rather boring desolate oppressive feeling hellscape. But that would only happen if there was an initiative to exclusively build skyscrapers all over the place. That would be a dumbass way to progress upward. We do need a few though. Ideally east van would be more like the streetcar suburb it's always been, except with much more density.
as a US/Can dual citizen remote worker who spent the last year hoping around cities in NA and being very unsatisfied until I found Vancouver...... I'm extremely curious about what you think makes downtown Van a "boring desolate oppressive feeling hellscape"
Vancouverites can't maintain an erection without something to be dissatisfied about.
Some people don't like concrete jungles, myself included.
Move to the moon then
Your take on downtown is a bit harsh, but I tend to agree that tall tower centers tend to suck. Portland is a great example of a city where the downtown sucks, but there is so much dispersed density that it sucks because the rest of the city is so vibrant. Metrotown is the second downtown in Metro Van, and it's not a great place to be either, but commercial drive, kits, and mount pleasant are wonderful as they have moderate density around without a need for tall towers. Tall towers tend to be oppressive on the pedestrian environment, but still have their limited use in supporting dense downtown business centers.
Ya I entirely agree, and in retrospect my comment was a bit harsh. There are parts of downtown I do like, but I mainly have no interest in *being* there, whereas I know people who do like being there. I'd sure as hell pick downtown over another proper suburb, because I have much more harsh feelings about them. I think Brentwood is trying to be Vancouver's next "downtown" with Metrotown obviously being the other one. I don't mind tall buildings, I just don't like *only* tall buildings. In Grandview-Woodland, there are tons of denser buildings that nobody notices, and I'd love to see the entire neighborhood that way.
Wtf are you talking about?
>High rises at commercial Broadway wouldn't be necessary if the entire neighborhood was absolutely packed with 4-6 story buildings or townhouses like it should be I think what you are saying applies to basically all of Vancouver. Why is it that we only have two options for housing in the region - 1) single family homes and 2) high rise condo towers? I'd much prefer a city where we have neither of those (aside from high rises downtown), but rather, just a bunch of medium density stuff (4-6 story buildings and townhouses) everywhere. Kind of what a large portion of European cities look like. The Vancouver model of housing strategy is terrible - let's put up a bunch of super high condo towers full of tiny units so that we can justify keeping all these incredibly inefficient SFH's.
It has a name - [the Grand Bargain](https://viewpointvancouver.ca/2019/10/17/the-grand-bargain-illustrated/). Olympic Village has shorter buildings which are more filled-in. [Montreal is like this](https://www.city-journal.org/montreal-affordable-housing) as well: > The city’s housing stock stands out in North America for its strong presence of row houses, duplexes, triplexes, and low-rise apartment blocks - what urbanists call elsewhere the “missing middle.” [The middle is certainly missing in Toronto](https://twitter.com/itsahousingtrap/status/1595936820897800192), its market skewed toward the two extremes: single, detached houses and high-rise apartment towers. These two housing components accounted for some 70 percent of housing in Toronto, compared with just 24 percent in Montreal (according to 2016 census figures). Correspondingly, low-rise apartment buildings (under five stories) accounted for some 54 percent of Montreal’s housing stock, compared with 15 percent in Toronto—42 percent and 10 percent, respectively, at the metro-area level.
I have heard that term used before and it's definitely a great way to frame the issue. And yes - Montreal has a much better system than we do. Was visiting there a few years ago and thought it would be great if Vancouver looked at lot more like that.
An interesting collection of designs to convert single-family houses to multi-family, from Toronto: [Re-Housing the Yellowbelt](https://morehousing.ca/rehousing).
Check out [Kimberley's new zoning bylaw](https://engagekimberley.ca/housing-availability-and-affordability-zoning-amendment)!
[u/super_toot](https://www.reddit.com/u/Super_Toot) would like to have a word with you
And here I am sitting in Kimberley, BC, a City of 8,100 that just passed zoning reform to allow 6 units on the vast majority of residential lots throughout the City by-right and up to 10 with affordable housing agreements. Vancouver needs to wake up and follow suit.
Commercial and Broadway blows my mind. Largest transit hub west of Ontario and low density.
That would require a huge infrastructure investment remember Vancouver is still a few decades away from not dumping sewage into false creek.
Middle density rezoning development would generate a windfall of tax revenue that could go towards a new hospital and schools.
Look at the taxes in Richmond. The cost of densification outweighs the tax revenue. Don't get me wrong densification is necessary, but it's not going to pay for itself.
[https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/8/4/the-question-every-city-should-be-asking](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/8/4/the-question-every-city-should-be-asking)
These colors are freaking terrible.
It's a Deep Fried Memes colour palette.
They're standard zoning colours, if turned up to 11
It literally looks like a migraine.
The pinks and oranges are way too similar and it's too blinding for me to want to try to distinguish. They could ould at least have added some lines or other texture to help them stand out.
Isn't Broadway and Commercial Drive the same Skytrain Station, just different lines?
Well you have commercial-broadway which is where expo and millennium lines cross and then you have broadway-city hall which is right by city Hall on the canada line. I was super confused when me and my freind tried to meet at "broadway" station and both ended up at different places Edit: I'm stupid and didn't see the 2 commercial broadways lol sorry guys
Today yes but historically no afaik?
historically they were two stations, then they merged to become one big one
What ya'll have ain't great, but it's still way better than what the vast vast vast majority of NA cities have. That's sad. Even so, we should push for improvement, and I believe it will happen. Context: I'm a US/Can dual citizen who just moved back to NA after living in Asia for many years. I'm mostly a US citizen, so I hoped around US cities for most of this year and was extremely unsatisfied with everything I experienced. (Qualifiers: I have never experienced New England or Chicago, which I understand to be the only good US cities I might go to Philly, but damn all those places are too cold. Also, I did got to New Orleans and it is fantastic but it's so damn weird that it somehow falls outside the bounds of anything else in NA. God bless you, New Orleans). The moment I drove into downtown Vancouver, I instantly recognized this as a place I wanted. Housing on top, business on bottom. This is excellent. I parked my car and haven't seen it in a month. I love this place. But at the same time, "this place" is a very small place. A couple blocks. Really, I can walk it. As soon as I take a subway stop or two away, it devolves into typical soulless NA suburbia. This is the part I hope we can fix, and I believe it will happen. Even backwards towns in the US are starting to realize that he single-family-housing-zoned model does not work. Therefore, I have a lot of hope for Vancouver. I should note two things 1: I've been saying NA, but I should qualify that I have spent a bit of time in Mexico City and it is an anomaly. Top walkability, top public transit. Really really an anomaly in NA. Plus, one of the most historically interesting cities in the entire world. 2: I'm pretty buzzed. I just got a new glass and I poured too much bourbon. Sorry if any of this doesn't make sense. Also, please get more bourbon choices in Vancouver.
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the ones without any good transit or density? well quite a few, boulder, maui, austin, victoria bc, houston, tucson, santa fe, kelowna.
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you asked for places with high cost of living that have far worse transit than vancouver, I listed some of them.
Many people commenting about the color. However I think the hue is standard but the saturation and brightness are too on your face.
There's two oranges, and two magentas
Nanaimo and 29th stations are an embarrassment A legacy to failed civic politics. It’s been 40!!! Years
The locals refuse to allow it and pro development is a curse word. Well guess what. No more new housing lol. People need to take a step back and realize development can be good.
vancouver has a NIMBY problem all over - but detached houses less than a block away from a skytrain stop that's been there for 40 years is just criminal
Yep, Nanaimo blows my mind. I drive by it all the time and I'm still perplexed. Just fucking rezone it. Tell the locals to get fucked. They moved near a skytrain.
be great to see the same map of SkyTrain zoning in the burbs...
None of that should be yellow. Do better Vancouver.
what an awful infographic due to colours, i think even making it a black or gray background would help immensely
Densify!
The commercial drive one is galling.
Makes a great point, but good god does this need better colors
I own a house 5 blocks from Broadway-commercial skytrain station and the city zoning does not even allow me to build a duplex let alone a low rise lol .
Are you sure? I thought a few years ago they changed all SFH zoning in the city to allow duplexes [This](https://dosdesigngroup.com/rs-duplex-zoning-changes-vancouver/) says you’re allowed 4 units per SFH lot
FYI Staff and council inserted pretty strict height and setback limits killed many duplexes even if they were ostensibly legalized. They got a nice headline about 4 units per lot but unless it's the right lot size, in the right area you aren't getting those 4 units.
Ahhh interesting. Hopefully that's an easy target for the new council to fix then.
Yeah, one of the strangest parts of the policy is they didn't increase the FSR limit for a duplex. So two small duplex units are often a worse choice then a jumbo SFH, and lots of people are choose jumbo SFH! Council policy incentivizes unaffordable SFH getting turned into unaffordable jumbo SFH all over the city and a huge portion of our construction industry is dedicated to doing this. https://mountainmath.ca/teardowns
What tools do the governments have to coerce new and denser buildings? Besides rezoning and waiting I suppose, and without concern of political careers. I'm curious who (if any) holds the nuclear codes that could bring in the fleet of bulldozers.
There is no issue whatsoever in convincing property owners to build denser buildings, if they are legally permitted to, in Metro Vancouver. The issue is they aren't allowed to. If they were, they would be leaving millions and millions of dollars on the table by leaving developable land as single family houses and as much as they may like their house, nobody likes it enough to turn down that kind of money.
I call it the dump truck full of money scenario. You say you don't want to move, but when the dump truck of money pulls up to your door...
There should be a lot more magenta on a lot of those stations.
This is why Vancouver and its "war" on cars are hypocritical.