STORY about HousingEnvironment posted on January 31, 2011 by Joseph Jones
Downtown Height Scam Heads West
Council Set to Vote on February 1
Robertson Does a Double Check on His Orders
Also posted by Joseph Jones:
Also in Environment:
The Vancouver Views report before City Council is all about profiteering from condos – those often unoccupied aerial concrete-and-steel safe deposit boxes designed for offshore money that dislikes "real" banks. A risible report from city planning proposes that a few people enjoy magnificent views from cocoons in the sky, while tens of thousands of others grope their way through ground-level shadows.
Implementation of “Vancouver Views” and Opportunities for Higher Buildings in the Downtown now occupies the number one slot on Vancouver City Council's agenda for Tuesday 1 February 2011 at 2:00 pm. This Downtown/West End item is the flip side of the Downtown Eastside Historic Area Height Review that severe criticism just cracked apart.
On that already infamous day of 20 January 2011, councillors listened to about thirty speakers on Vancouver views. The endurance contest ran from 4:45 pm to 11:00 pm, with one brief stop for supper. Councillors then cut and ran, not wanting to let the already assembled crowd witness their "debate" and vote.
The tide of speaker opinion ran strong against altering current downtown height restrictions on super skyscrapers – except of course for a tight little squadron representing the commercial interests of Jim Pattison, a scattering of individuals boosting unspecified developer agendas, and one Downtown Vancouver Association figurehead spouting smarmy rhetoric.
This exercise over Vancouver Views adds up to anything but considered and balanced planning for Vancouver's best possible future. The obtrusive immediate motivation is to pave the way for a concurrent Pattison proposal for Burrard Gateway. Planners are falling all over themselves to rationalize what this B.C. tycoon has already decided he would like to do.
Planner attempts to provide justifications look out-and-out concocted. Two speakers to Council on January 20 have followed up with open letters that challenge planner data and presentation. Rand Chatterjee has asked for the data that supports Director of Planning Brent Toderian's bald assertion that super skyscrapers can pass for green building. The City of Vancouver managed – after six working days – to exude an FAQ late last Friday afternoon (January 28). But Chatterjee's crucial questioning still goes unanswered, despite Councillor Andrea Reimer directing Toderian to open up the data. (Likely reason: no real data exists.) Stephen Bohus has produced detailed criticisms of the manipulation and misinformation that pervade the city planning report on Views. Bohus's criticisms likewise remain mostly unanswered by the FAQ.
According to the lead Pattison speaker at Council, an extra tall building means that commercial space will provide downtown jobs at the same time that the billionaire reaps windfall profits on a protuberant residential component. Another real arm-twister is the prospect of using Pattison's Downtown Toyota site to soak up 8% of the Heritage Density Bank (that sick "bank" which the planners of Vancouver allowed to run out of control). The next Pattison speaker threatened Vancouver with losing commerce to another municipality like Richmond.
Among the many opponents of the report on Vancouver Views, two stood out for the extent to which they engaged and even captivated the councillors. Richard Hankin, himself a veteran planner, castigated the obfuscating Views report for its lack of alternatives, its failure to assess risk, and its paucity of quantitative data. Hankin's summation: "Get a great city, but don't do it in a way that compromises the setting." Amos Michelson, a high-tech paragon of the green economy that Vancouver professes to want, told Council that he moved to Vancouver from San Francisco in 1991 and does not want his adopted city spoiled by yahoos in love with nothing beyond their own pockets. He assured Council that Vancouver can never achieve relative advantage in tall buildings. (This Stanford MBA should know whereof he speaks.) He pointed out that the Pattison argument about needing to expand on tight commercial space was pure fallacy: the proffered 0.16% increase in density will have no appreciable impact on market forces. Michelson closed by stating that legitimate business wants rule, order, and stability – not the constantly shifting ground that city planning has brought before a complicit Council.
Watch the outcome of this upcoming vote on Vancouver Views. Think about how much confidence you place in a City Council that would set aside the seasoned and perceptive advice of people like Hankin and Michelson – and wreck our special corner of the world just so Jim Pattison can squeeze out a few more dollars.
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Comments
Politicians are so cheap these days!
You can buy them wholesale at Costco it seems.