Quote:
Originally Posted by logan5
I don’t think there will be any development there. I just think it’s a poor use of the land considering how many golf course there are in the west side, and how immense pacific spirit park is, which is more of a forest reserve.
UBC needs a dense neighbourhood to supplement it. Students should be able to live in a neighborhood where they can bike or transit to school in a timely fashion. A dense neighbourhood there would see the same walk/bike/transit rates that you see in the west end. A very successful neighbourhood. And there would still be huge amounts of park space to enjoy.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chowhou
I used to live off Dunbar and went to UBC so a pretty large chunk of my life was in and around the park. It has never even come close to busy compared to Stanley Park or Queen E, especially proportional to its size. This is especially true for the portion of the park around and north of University Boulevard. It's not a good place to socialize with friends, it's not a good place to sit and relax, it's not a good place to soak up some sun, it has no flexibility, it has no options for exercise beyond walking and cycling. It's really not a good city park. Urban forest, sure, but parkspace no.
I actually agree that more park space is needed as density increases, but the usable space within these parks is miniscule compared to the massive size of them. If we want this to be a city park make it a city park. In the meantime it's a lot of deadspace.
Since I'm being strawmanned in this thread, I feel like I have to say that obviously SFHs need to be densified in the CoV and in a perfect world we'd legalise housing options across the regional district. However, in a perfect world the best place for density is also along high capacity transit corridors with nearby services like parks and schools. It's a lot harder to justify the cost of the UBCx line without any activation along this corridor too. Given the Musqueam Development Corp is in full swing with lelem and the University Golf Course will be developed by the end of the century, it's already not as though this area will always remain a forest.
As a further note, the idea that you can't turn residential properties into parkland is plainly wrong. Burnaby and North Vancouver have been doing this for years. It's a bit of a slog because you have to wait out property owners, but it happens.
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Here's the visualization of my idea of moving the recreational and agri-educational facilities in UBC to Pac Spirit and developing the stuff in between:
Current recreational and agri-educational facilities in UBC (minus the UBC Botanical Garden, I guess):
Lands to be removed from Pac Spirit (Options A/B):
Note that less land can be removed from the park if we move the UBC agri-educational facilities to Richmond or whatever other place inside the ALR.
The 1.10km2 freed-up is half the size of Metrotown Town Center (minus Central Park.)
This is way too much for student housing, so these would just be opened for general development.
Add this to the 1.29 km2 of the UEL lands on the west side of Pac Spirit:
And this is literally larger than Metrotown.
More than enough land to develop.
Hell, you could probably make a 2nd Downtown here, and fill it with 6+ FSR towers (which is much higher than most of UBC's current planned residential developments or Block F).
No chance Pac Spirit remains underused with this sort of plan.
You could probably even just give it to Musqueam and Squamish as reserve land and complete the Treaty Process that way, and create a Senkaw 60x the size.
No need to reduce the size of Pac Spirit (technically).
Still a lot of trees cut, though.
Turning the University Golf Course into forest and putting it in the Pac Spirit Park
does recover half of the lost forest, though, so if you do that, this may be more of an ecological wash, if anything.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mcj
Not really sure how they're legally separate, but UBC is distinct from the UEL (weird right?), so even if the UEL joined Vancouver, UBC would still be governmentally distinct. So the College High Road area is outside of UBC's jurisdiction, and well let's be honest only a very privileged type of student is living in a ~$10M SFH adjacent to campus. Hopefully that redevelopment does happen and some trees are indeed saved, but it hasn't happened so far.
The Osoyoos Crescent area is currently planned by UBC to build more housing on, so that's happening regardless of a multi-billion dollar public transit investment.
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/ubc-...expansion-2050 |
Quote:
Originally Posted by whatnext
A couple things that other have already pointed out: Once that forest and its carbon sequestration abilities are gone, it is gone forever. Second, there's a slew of multimillion dollar single family homes on the UEL between NW Marine and University Blvd. (10th) that can be redeveloped to meet housing needs. It is doubtful any of those current owners work or study at UBC so there's no need for them to be housed there.
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I doubt that Metro Vancouver Forests make any meaningful contribution to slowing climate change.
The problem with the UEL SFHs right now is their status in Electoral Area A.
Block F has renewed the discussion to incorporate it, which is why we are here.
There's no way UEL would be incorporated or merged into CoV without adding the UBC's lands into the package.
Merging UBC and UEL into a single incorporated municipality would give UBC the privilege of buying up the SFHs and turning them into general rental (the residential lands in UBC itself are designed for student housing- aside from (kind of, sort of, not really) Acadia Park.
Incorporating just the UEL into the CoV or its own municipality sans UBC gives little potential for redevelopment of the SFHs, as they have the power to dictate planning in the area.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mcj
The Burke Mountain sprawl is such a disaster on so many levels, the province got ripped off financially and ecologically by it, not to mention the needless urban sprawl so far from the core contributing to more vehicle dependent traffic.
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Well, it at allows you to extend David Ave all the way across to Quarry and beyond, forming a single 'spine' that can be easily serviced by buses.
The development has also probably ironically been sped up by the opening of the Evergreen Line, which there's actually OK access for in terms of sprawl (<15 min driving to the Coquitlam Park + Rides).
Pinecone Burke overall isn't really much of a public park.
IMO, I have no problem with the province selling everything on Burke Mtn. and Pinecone Burke below the 1200 ft contour (other than the waterfalls on the east side of the Coquitlam River, and the marshes near the Pitt River, which would be kept as park).
Quote:
Originally Posted by trofirhen
Exactly.  And that's the overarching principle that is foremost in, as you say, "regardless of what happens." |
Is it?
Do we really need, say Deas Island park?
It's not really a great experience dealing with the George Massey nearby, and it's not particularly ecologically important.
Same thing with Port Mann 'Park', or Delta North 40 Park Reserve.
Neither will ever realistically be developed to anything useful unless they're sold off, and are basically just vacant lots the municipalities pretend is a park on otherwise extremely marginal lots.
One of them is a former landfill at the intersection of 2 expressways, and the other is former residential land that is in limbo because you can't build golf courses on ALR anymore.
Or the aforementioned Terminus Park.
I also have a deep hatred for Brae Island.
If you spend more than 2 hours there, you will be covered from head to toe with mosquitos.
I don't care about the environmental importance- Brae Island is a mosquito hellhole.
Cover the entire thing on concrete and asphalt so that no one will ever have to deal with that nightmare of an 'island' ever again.
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