Despite confusing signals from the City of Vancouver, planners are forging ahead with a recommendation to blanket upzone almost a third of the city for social-housing highrises of up to 20 storeys. No public hearings would be allowed.
Vancouver’s social housing initiative would
mean automatic approval of at least three types of social-housing highrises. In
addition to “mixed-income” and “cooperative” housing, there would also be
“supportive” housing highrises, where on-site services are provided to
marginalized people.
However, citizens and experts, who generally support the concept of
putting social housing in every neighbourhood, say it is a mistake to go so
tall.
Vancouver’s social housing initiative is
advancing highrises that would be a jarring 10 times more dense than homes in
low-rise neighbourhoods, says planning consultant Michael Geller. And studies
have shown, he says, that residents of most kinds of social housing, especially
children, are healthier and happier in low- to medium-rise dwellings.
Even while city planners, at the request of city council, are pushing to
get blanket upzoning for social-housing highrises, contradictory signals are
coming from the city and province.
For example, in late May, the Kitsilano Coalition and others thought
they had won a victory when the city and province abandoned plans for a
13-storey supportive housing complex at the corner of 8th and Arbutus, meant to
provide on-site service to struggling people.
At the time, Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim said, “It’s clear this location
wasn’t the right fit for the scale and type of housing that was proposed. … The
number of individuals with substantive mental health and addictions issues in
one location would have been a significant concern.”
A few months earlier, Sim and his ABC majority created headlines when
they voted to pause the building of new supportive housing, arguing other
municipalities in Metro Vancouver should first do their share.
But when Postmedia this week asked the city how it is interpreting
council’s position of no “net-new” supportive housing, staff provided a long
list of exemptions. For instance, the pause does not cover housing for seniors,
women, youth, families, or those who need health care or “occasional supports.”
In the midst of the mixed signals, it turns out the long-range
intentions of Vancouver council and the city planning department are to
automatically approve — without re-zoning or public hearings — many types of
social housing in highrises of 15 to 20 storeys in one-third of the city.
That includes, according to city planning maps, large sections of
Kitsilano, Marpole, Killarney, Champlain Heights, central Main Street, Point
Grey, Dunbar, and East Hastings Street and Commercial Drive.
The city’s plan is to add social-housing apartment blocks of up to six
storeys on another fifth of the city.
Adding to the confusion, the definition of “social housing” is very
broad in Vancouver. The city generally, but not always, uses “social housing”
as an umbrella term to refer to supportive housing and mixed-income and
cooperative housing. In addition, social housing, according to the city,
entails projects in which “all units are owned by non-profits or the
government.”
Amid the political cross-talk, Jan Pierce, of the West Kits
Neighbourhood Association, feels that while citizens may have won a small battle to
stop the government-financed 13-storey supportive housing project on Arbutus,
they are losing their larger effort to encourage supportive housing in smaller
structures.
“This seems to me to often be the case: That when residents fight back
and win on something, that the result is to remove the influence of residents
even more,” said Pierce, referring to how new social-housing highrise proposals
would be subject to scant citizen input.
Michael Geller, a former architect, says the city’s social housing
highrise initiatives have been flying below the radar, but have a lot of
momentum.
In the past couple of weeks, Geller has had lunch with Vancouver head
planner Josh White and participated in a meeting with a group of city planners.
“There was absolutely no reference made by staff to that council
decision in February (to temporarily pause new supportive housing). I think
many people just take it as a stop-gap measure.”
Geller, a one-time manager of social housing for Canada Mortgage and
Housing Corp., believes subsidized housing is important, saying, “Allowing
social housing everywhere is the right thing to do.”
However, Geller also believes the city is getting carried away with
highrises.
“Allowing 15- to 20-storey buildings along so many local neighbourhood
streets throughout the city is most inappropriate. Indeed, it is bordering on
the absurd from an urban design and planning perspective.”
In regard to housing that provides on-site services, Geller argues,
“It’s not appropriate to create highrise supportive housing buildings with
150-plus units.”
Instead, he said, “These buildings should be limited to about 60 units,
for improved management and community integration. Similarly, research
generally supports lower buildings for households with young children. A
six-storey limit would be preferable.”
Asked about his recent lunch with the head of planning, Geller said he
found White to be “forthright and responsive.”
Still, Geller said, White “somewhat dismissed my concerns about
highrises in leafy, single-family streets.”
The head planner claimed, Geller said, the highrises won’t be “massive.”
Although it may seem a relatively small thing, Geller added it was
“disingenuous and indeed misleading” for the city to use a cover photo on
its social housing initiative report that
shows an area of Vancouver “completely devoid of any towers.”
When approached by Postmedia, city staff said the aerial photo depicts
the neighbourhood south of South China Creek Park, near St. Catherines Street
and Seventh. The image was chosen, they said, because it contains several
existing social housing buildings.
The problem is the planning report image, like politicians, doesn’t
reveal the full story about what the city has in store for social housing,
including in highrises. Potentially monumental changes are set to come.
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