Former Planning Head Concerned Over Current Planning Process

[whatnext]

Former Chief Planner Roy Spaxman expresses grave concerns on Price Tags about the way the current administration is approving projects. Given that it takes swipes at Telus Tower and Vancouevr House I'm sure the fanboys won't be happy:

Yesterday I visited a professional office on Seymour Street and one of the partners took me to an office on the east side of his building and said something like,
“You used to be the Director of Planning and Chair of the Development Permit Board so you can probably answer this questions. How is it that the new Telus building is projecting out over the street so that it seems that an enormous lump of it is now just a few feet from our windows? “

Of course I had seen the projection occurring from the street and as it grew bigger and bigger I got more and more concerned about it, wondering what the rationale could be. What had happened to the numerous urban design guidelines that we had prepared over all those years that have contributed to the overall quality of urban design on Vancouver; where the public realm was valued and the private sector contributed its share of the public good? Is anyone else concerned? ...

More at: http://pricetags.wordpress.com/2014/...lse-concerned/

[WarrenC12]

Whoa the comments on that thread are NIMBY HQ.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Whoa the comments on that thread are NIMBY HQ.

So anyone who questions handing over the public realm to developers is a NIMBY?

[dreambrother808]

As for the Telus projection being "a few feet" from the offices on the other side, that's quite an exaggeration. The comments take that tone and extend it further into all the development hot-button issues in the city.

I'm all for a discussion about the details, like say the window-washing crane atop Shangri-La, and perhaps the city has made some missteps in these areas. But overall, this reeks of seeing a bogeyman where in fact there is complex decision-making, balancing a variety of needs. Transforming subjective matters of opinion into black and white, good vs. evil polarities makes me question maturity and intelligence. I would rather just tune it all out at that point.

[quobobo]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Whoa the comments on that thread are NIMBY HQ.

Yep - and Spaxman has a weirdly expansive definition of the public realm (wealthy Jameson House residents' condos?). I tried to comment with some mild criticism but my comments haven't been published for some reason.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by whatnext

So anyone who questions handing over the public realm to developers is a NIMBY?

Certainly not, but the crackpots posting their comments on that site are NIMBYs as they take everything to the extreme. The tower-hating crowd is out in full force on that thread.

[spm2013]

Maybe his partner friend has an office on the 2nd floor?

[spm2013]

I like the comment talking about walkways.. I wonder how they feel about the existing walkways in the city.

[SFUVancouver]

"Back in the 60s and 70s an average family could buy a house in the City of Vancouver with an average wage." [angry mob with signs and torches: YEAH!]
"Today Vancouver real estate is too expensive; nobody can buy houses." [angry mob: YEAH!]
"We are the beating heart of the third largest metro area in the country and there are jobs and opportunity here and it's nice, too." [angry mob: YEAH!]
"Land is more expensive today because we live in a desirable city and people are coming from other places [grumbling and muffled racist epithets] and competing to buy land and houses." [angry mob: YEAH!]
"Nearly all of our residential land and neighbourhoods are single family houses..." [angry mob: YEAH!]
"...and both the houses and the land are too expensive for the average household to buy." [angry mob is cautious: Yeah...]
"So we need to find a way to have more people share the cost the land, share the cost of building new homes, and live in dwellings with less square footage, which lowers the purchase price, and they should be close enough to parks and public and commercial amenities to offset not having a large house and private outdoor space." [very suspicious mob: ...yeah]
"So we need to rezone-" [FURIOUS MOB: "BOOOOOOO. DEVELOPER LOVER. SCUM! YOUR SOLUTION WILL RUIN OUR QUAINT VILLAGE BY THE SEA!"

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by SFUVancouver

"Back in the 60s and 70s an average family could buy a house in the City of Vancouver with an average wage." [angry mob with signs and torches: YEAH!]
"Today Vancouver real estate is too expensive; nobody can buy houses." [angry mob: YEAH!]
"We are the beating heart of the third largest metro area in the country and there are jobs and opportunity here and it's nice, too." [angry mob: YEAH!]
"Land is more expensive today because we live in a desirable city and there are more people from other places [grumbling and muffled racist epithets] who are competing to buy land and houses." [angry mob: YEAH!]
"Nearly all of our residential land and neighbourhoods are single family houses..." [angry mob: YEAH!]
"...and both the houses and the land are too expensive for the average household to buy." [angry mob is cautious: Yeah...]
"So we need to find a way to have more people share the cost the land, share the cost of building new homes, and live in dwellings with less square footage, which lowers the purchase price, and they should be close enough to parks and public and commercial amenities to offset not having a large house and private outdoor space." [very suspicious mob: ...yeah]
"So we need to rezone-" [FURIOUS MOB: "BOOOOOOO. DEVELOPER LOVER. SCUM! YOUR SOLUTION WILL RUIN OUR QUAINT VILLAGE BY THE SEA!"

The notion that we can build our way to affordability has been thoroughly discredited over the past decade.

[quobobo]

Originally Posted by whatnext

The notion that we can build our way to affordability has been thoroughly discredited over the past decade.

You're showing a really fundamental misunderstanding of economics.

If supply increases but prices remain constant or increase, that implies that demand has increased as well. This is entirely plausible in Vancouver and it is consistent with bog-standard microeconomic theory.

P.S. Housing is an interesting case because supply can have large externalities (positive or negative) that also shift the demand curve.

The thousands of new housing units in Yaletown over the last 30 years put downward pressure on prices through supply, but they also put upward pressure on prices through demand by making Yaletown and all of Vancouver a better place to live.

Long story short, if additional housing has been built but prices keep going up, it's either due to unrelated changes in demand OR it's possible that the additional housing has made it a significantly more desirable place to be.

[officedweller]

My optometrist is on the 6th floor of Scotia Tower overlooking the Seymour intersection
- I'm overdue for an exam - I'll take a pic when I get over there.

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by whatnext

The notion that we can build our way to affordability has been thoroughly discredited over the past decade.

So we can build less and all of a sudden affordability will arrive?

Oh yeah, I forgot, it's all the fault of foreign investors in your world, rather than being the sum of many factors that are pretty much irreversible unless we undergo some kind of economic collapse.

[whatnext]

Posters seem to be wilfully ignoring the actual contents of the article, and focusing on the comments. The article is about tossing out long held planning standards that helped make Vancouver one of the world's most liveable cities.

[dreambrother808]

Not "willfully ignoring" but rather disagreeing with the alarmist examples presented in both the article and comments.

[quobobo]

Originally Posted by dreambrother808

So we can build less and all of a sudden affordability will arrive?

Yeah, this drives me crazy. I've tried really hard to understand these people's worldview (know your enemy!) and this is the best summary I can come up with:

1) A lot of wealthy people are bidding up the price of housing in Vancouver, often for investment/speculation purposes
2) Many of them buy condos because they're easier than houses to invest in
3) If we allow fewer new condos, many of these wealthy investors will give up and take their money out of the Vancouver real estate market

whatnext, is that an accurate summary of your views?

[WBC]

Originally Posted by quobobo

Yeah, this drives me crazy. I've tried really hard to understand these people's worldview (know your enemy!) and this is the best summary I can come up with:

1) A lot of wealthy people are bidding up the price of housing in Vancouver, often for investment/speculation purposes
2) Many of them buy condos because they're easier than houses to invest in
3) If we allow fewer new condos, many of these wealthy investors will give up and take their money out of the Vancouver real estate market

whatnext, is that an accurate summary of your views?

The accurate assessment of the situation is that this city has been, is and will be (like many other places) run be wealthy development mafia who would sell graveyards of their grandparents to whoever has brought enough money while being helped by all levels of government as the said governments are completely dependent on endless expansion to balance their books. The only difference is that in the last 10 years this has been served to the masses as "environmentalism" that developers have wholeheartedly embraced as it lowers their costs and increases the profits (smaller units, no parking, same price).

Now, I am not saying that all the initiatives are bad (bike lanes, parks, transit, increased density) but they are just lip service for people making some serous money.

Can anybody do something about this? No...After all this is what capitalism is all about, and it is far better then alternative...

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by quobobo

Yeah, this drives me crazy. I've tried really hard to understand these people's worldview (know your enemy!) and this is the best summary I can come up with:

1) A lot of wealthy people are bidding up the price of housing in Vancouver, often for investment/speculation purposes
2) Many of them buy condos because they're easier than houses to invest in
3) If we allow fewer new condos, many of these wealthy investors will give up and take their money out of the Vancouver real estate market

whatnext, is that an accurate summary of your views?

Only point 1 is valid. The politician-developer axis mutually feeds off each other to supply an inflated demand. The fact that many of the investors are from a country with one of the most rampant cases of speculative overbuilding only make sit easier to peddle units that remain empty, a place to park shadowy money. 15-20% units emprty downtown, that would satisfy al lot of the whatever demand there is from inmigration of genuine workers.

And your views? Is it "Ooh, bright & shiney, it must be good"?

[quobobo]

Wow, you're an unpleasant person - you know that's not how I would describe my views. I tried, back to the ignore list...

[Hourglass]

Interesting article. It's not a bad thing to be questioning the process. However, one person's "landmark" building is another's eyesore (witness the recent debate in the Vancouver House thread). And it seems to me that's a flaw in the current process; while most 'bad' projects get weeded out, there's generally little incentive to push the envelope with daring designs.