Feliz Navidad from Dominican Republic

While I was looking forward to a home exchange in New York for Xmas, my daughters had a different idea. If they were going to have to spend a week with me, they preferred to be on a beach. Since they enjoyed Cuba last year, this year they suggested another Caribbean destination....the Dominican Republic.

Wandering around our large immaculately maintained resort, it is hard to believe that at the western end of this island is Haiti in its tragic state of chaos and disrepair. We will not attempt to cross the border, but do plan to explore some of DR and Santo Domingo, the oldest European settlement in the Americas.

Christmas in the tropics is not really Christmas, as far as I am concerned. It is hard to adjust to sand and swimming pools instead of snow; but wandering around our resort Christmas Eve, I did come across some interesting sights. While resort staff posed in a colourful nativity scene, one very handsome gentleman enjoyed being elevated to the status of angel.

Half naked Santa’s little helpers were everywhere...pouring drinks and posing for pictures, while some resort guests didn’t need any local props to let you know it was Christmas. At the buffet, Christmas was on display at the bread table next to the un-Christmas like mountain of local crab.

To celebrate the occasion, I wore a Xmas tie hand made by my daughter Claire. Following dinner, while we both expected a special Christmas pageant in the theatre, instead we found a show featuring Janet Jackson, Elvis Presley, Britney Spears and Cher.

We had been told there was a Christmas Mass service, but when we found it, we did not stay long since it did not compare with those we had enjoyed in small charming English churches. So we headed off to bed in anticipation of a busy Xmas day... on the beach and perhaps the golf course.

To all our friends and colleagues back in Vancouver....Feliz Navidad!

Holiday Greetings: Michael Geller's ABC's of Appreciation

Laneway Housing: Guest Commentary from Stephen Mikicich

Stephen Mikicich and his colleague Gerri Boyle from the West Vancouver Planning Department accompanied me on the recent Heritage Foundation Laneway Housing Tour. Here are his observations, which I think are most worthy of careful consideration by other jurisdictions considering the introduction of Laneway Housing.

Heritage Vancouver’s laneway housing tour drew approximately 500 people, which is highly indicative of public interest and curiosity in the small house concept.

Each of the six tour homes was somewhat of a design experiment. Some were better executed than others, but each offered an interesting lifestyle opportunity. I kept trying to visualize who might ultimately be living in laneway houses:

- At an average cost of $300,000, rents for these units won’t be cheap.
- The detached units seem to work well when outdoor space is shared with the main house (rather than a small private patio space), which makes them well-suited to extended family situations.
- The single-level open plan concepts provided for better space utilization, and could accommodate a broader range of people, compared to the chopped-up spaces in the two-storey models.
- The relatively spacious kitchens and full-size appliances in most of the houses seemed out of scale with the concept of down-sized living.

I do believe that parking will become a major issue as more and more of these laneway houses are built. While the City’s transportation policies are increasingly transit and cycling focussed, the reality is that most of us still own a car and have to park it somewhere. If no parking is provided on site, what does this mean for character of the streetscape and the safety of pedestrians?

A number of local municipalities are trying to address concerns over limited housing choice and affordability. In particular, there is growing public interest in coach houses, laneway houses and other similar-scaled ‘infill’ dwellings. We often refer to this housing form as ‘gentle densification’ or ‘invisible density’ – as there are no visible changes to the neighbourhood from a ‘streetscape’ perspective.

Vancouver’s foray into laneway housing is shifting our attention to an emerging residential ‘lanescape’, with homes facing onto what have traditionally been service corridors for cars, garbage trucks, and utility poles.

The character of Vancouver’s rear lanes varies from neighbourhood to neighbourhood and block to block. Some are paved; some are unpaved. A handful have been ‘countrified’ through a recent pilot program. Some are through-lanes; whereas others have T-intersections or dead-ends. Each of these conditions creates a potentially unique environment for the introduction of laneway housing. It would be very interesting to see whether these conditions could generate more unique design responses.

One of the things my colleagues and I observed on the tour was that corner sites seemed to offer greater design options – including a street-facing front door. Of course, in these situations, can a laneway house still be called a ‘laneway’ house? Or, does this become another infill variant altogether?

A Tour of Vancouver's Laneway Housing 'Experiment'

I spent Saturday afternoon on the Vancouver Heritage Foundation's Laneway Housing Tour. Why did the VHF sponsor a tour of new laneway houses? Because it hopes that zoning permission for laneway homes will help protect the older heritage housing stock around the city.

While this might be possible, I think there would be a greater likelihood if the zoning by-law had been written differently. Instead of the current approach, I would not have granted 'free density' for the laneway units. Instead, I would have set an upper limit on the permitted density for each lot, and offered the owner the choice of building a larger new home with a small laneway unit, or keeping a smaller 'heritage' home, and building a larger laneway unit.

I was fortunate to tour the homes with Geri Boyle and Steve Mikicich from the West Vancouver Planning department. Steve has had a longstanding interest in heritage buildings and both were interested in learning more about the Vancouver Laneway Housing Experience as they consider possible zoning changes one day in West Vancouver. Both had some very good observations, and hopefully they will share them....perhaps here on this blog.

I want to share three observations:

• When I first learned that the city might approve laneway housing, I formed a new company Laneway Cottages Inc. to undertake their development. My concept was to use prefabricated modules to build predominantly single level 'cottage style' units. For me, the ideal was an affordable 12' by 36' unit that would fit on a 33' by 120' lot and still allow two parking spaces. Unfortunately, this approach did not fit the zoning by-law since it would have intruded too far into the rear yard. However, having seen what has been built, I am convinced this approach would have been much less intrusive, and much more successful than many of the larger two storey (oh, I'm sorry....one and a half storey) units that have been built.

• While I am generally supportive of reduced parking requirments, in the case of the laneway housing 'experiment', I thought it would be prudent to require another parking space on any lot with a laneway unit, since there could be three units on the lot when considering the basement suite. However, Council disagreed. The result? Most of the new developments have only one garage for the three units....HOWEVER, the garage often has large windows, a patio door, and in-floor radiant heating! Hello? Do you think this is going to be used as a garage? While one homeowner on the tour tried to tell me that her garage would be used for a car, and the radiant heating was there since she cares about her car, I think we all know better. So the result may be NO ON-SITE PARKING for three units. Why do I care? Because I don't want this experiment to fail, and I fear that parking problems may ultimately kill the program in some neighbourhoods.

• I was surprised by many of the interior layouts. In particular, although the units were small, the kitchens were very large, often with full sized appliances. However, the resulting living/dining areas were much too small to be useful. I believe a smaller, compact kitchen with a proper eating and living area would be a better solution. Of course, some residents may be planning to use the garage as their dining or living areas!

Notwithstanding these criticisms I agree with Brent Toderian that laneway housing does offer the potential for 'hidden or gentle densification' around the city. I think this type of housing best works on corner lots, or lots with smaller homes that will remain. However, I truly believe that a zoning by-law could be developed that better addresses neighbourhood fit, parking, and 'heritage preservation'. Hopefully other jurisdictions will succeed where Vancouver may fail, by learning from the Vancouver experiment. Here are some more photos from the tour:
Also a few laneway houses that were not on the tour...

To those who thought it wasn't possible to lose a bicycle lane once it had been installed by a city govenment, here's a recent story from the New York Times:

December 9, 2010, 9:24 am

A Bicycle Lane Built for Few?

By JOSEPH BERGER

Andrew Burton for The New York Times An empty bike lane at the intersection of West 82nd Street and Columbus Avenue. The bike lanes stretching from 77th Street to 96th Street on the east side of Columbus Avenue have not been used as much as the city had hoped.

What if you build it and they don’t necessarily come?

Two months ago, New York City marked out lime green bike lanes along the east-side curb of Columbus Avenue from 96th Street to 77th Street. The lanes, part of a 400-mile network the city has so far demarcated, narrowed the space for cars to drive down the southbound avenue and removed at least 50 parking spots in a neighborhood where parking is a challenge.

The theory was that the inconvenience to drivers and merchants would be more than offset by the boom in bike riders who would get to their jobs safely, help reduce fossil fuel emissions in the air and exercise their bodies to boot.

But so far, few bike commuters and other cyclists seem to be using the Columbus Avenue lanes. A reporter standing Monday morning between 82nd and 83rd Streets counted just six bicycles using the lane in the half-hour period between 9:23 and 9:53, and three of those were local deliverymen.

In the same period, six cyclists preferred to use the normal traffic lanes, along with scores of cars, taxis and trucks.

Monday morning was windy and cold — 33 degrees — but the same reporter standing on the same block on a balmy day in mid-November when the temperature was in the 50s saw only a handful of bikes as well. And merchants report the same.

“I never see any bikes,” said Andrew Fisher, 48, the owner of Royal Opticians on Columbus near 82nd. “Maybe one an hour, and if you do see it, it’s a restaurant take-out delivery guy going the wrong way.”

Yasia Frangiadakis, who manages Quality Florist at Columbus Avenue near 82nd, said most bikers seemed to prefer driving on the avenue.

“How long have you been here?” she said to a reporter. “Have you seen a bike?”

Cyclists speculated that for commuting to or from home, the nearby bike paths in Central and Riverside Parks would be preferable to the one on Columbus.

One cyclist in the lane, Jean Rosenfeld, 48, an educator at the American Museum of Natural History, said she used it every day to get to work from her home in East Harlem.

“There’s no one beeping at you,” she said. “There are no cars.”

But she guesses that her fellow cyclists avoid the bike lane because they are afraid of pedestrians who step into the lane as they are about to cross the street, forcing cyclists to swerve suddenly.

“Maybe it hasn’t caught on,” she said. “There are people that wanted these as lanes, and I’m shocked they are aren’t used more.”

One online study found broad support for a new parking-protected bicycle lane along Prospect Park West in Brooklyn, where the addition of lanes has been a contentious issue. The bike lanes are set to be the focus of a City Council hearing on Thursday.

Seth Solomonow, a spokesman for the city’s Department of Transportation, said in an e-mail that “ridership tends to increase as people become familiar with the growing network and as connections to other parts of the bike network are established.”

Agency officials counted about 700 daily riders along Columbus before the lane was installed, he said, with greater numbers seen during rush hours and in warmer weather.

Kim Martineau, a spokesman for Transportation Alternatives, a nonprofit group that advocates bicycling, walking and the use of buses and subways, said that whenever a bike lane is installed, “there’s a learning curve and it takes time for cyclists to realize it’s there.”

She also said that as a network is connected, cyclists absorb these lanes into their routines.

“Over time, these bike lanes will get used,” she said, pointing to use on a lane along Ninth Avenue between 31st and 16th Streets. “It’s a matter of education.”

Meanwhile, merchants complain that they have lost spaces where their customers used to park or where wholesalers’ trucks once idled to make deliveries.

Ms. Frangiadakis said she found it difficult to get deliveries of flowers, because the entire block’s parking zone has been converted into a bike lane, except for a short area that accommodates one long truck and is nearly always full. Her own trucks or those belonging to wholesalers often cruise the street for an hour or more to find a parking space and out of desperation double-park illegally on the other side of Columbus — blocking traffic and forcing her to run across the avenue to haul in her flowers, she said.

“I lose lots of time because I can’t find parking,” she said while arranging purple and yellow flowers for a customer.

Customers who used to drive by and stop, often on a whim, to buy flowers for their spouses or lovers, no longer can.

“Who’s going to stop here to buy flowers?” she said, pointing to the street without parking. “Business is slow over all, and this is not helping.”

Before the bike lanes were installed in October and signs went up warning “No Stopping,” the block had ample parking governed by Muni-Meters. Ms. Frangiadakis said she had received four or five tickets in a month, each costing $120.

Ricardo Zingone, an owner of Zingone Brothers grocery on Columbus Avenue near 83rd Street, said he had lost one source of business entirely: taxi drivers.

“We’ve definitely lost the morning coffee,” he said.

The driver who delivers his Entenmann’s baked goods has not shown up for three weeks, afraid of getting a ticket.

“He couldn’t find a good spot,” Mr. Zingone said.

Use it or lose it?

Here's a photo that's being sent around the internet by some of my colleagues, at least one of whom organized a Gregor Robertson fundraiser during the last election. He won't be organizing a Vision fundraiser next election.

I received it since I am seen by some friends as a 'bike lane supporter'. I must confess, I am in favour of safer bike lanes, and said so in an August 2007 Vancouver Sun article that I am reprinting below.

But I must also confess that I had reservations about the appropriateness of the Dunsmuir and Hornby Street bike trials, in part since I didn't really believe they were being designed and implemented as 'trials' with a reasonable level of community input.

Now I am increasingly of the opinion that unless these lanes attract a much higher level of use by cyclists, and the congestion and traffic safety issues caused by the lanes are addressed, there could well be a new Mayor in November 2011 who will be elected, in part, on an anti-bike lane platform. The new Mayor will remove them in whole or in part after winning. Here's my earlier Vancouver Sun story:

Move on to make city more bike friendly

It is a well-known fact that where we live is directly related to how we get around. While most North Americans drive cars, people living on other continents use different forms of transportation: trains, trams, tuk-tuks, and in many places, bicycles.

I credit former Vancouver city councillor Gordon Price -- and more recently, Coun. Peter Ladner -- for making Vancouver one of the more bicycle-friendly cities in North America.

As a result of their initiatives, and those of like-minded politicians and planners, we now have bicycle lanes along many streets, required bicycle parking in multi-family projects and an emerging ''bike culture'' in our region.

But still, our bike scene is very modest when compared with that of most European cities, most notably Amsterdam, where I recently spent a few days en route to South America.

Those who have never been to the Netherlands and Amsterdam may not know that bicycles are the primary form of transportation in many towns and cities.

Cyclists have priority over cars, and even pedestrians. Bikes are everywhere, and used by everyone: young and old, rich and poor, even mothers with babies.

Of course, it is much easier to get around the Netherlands on a bike since the country is extremely flat. But I think there are lessons Vancouver can learn from the Netherlands and European cities that would make our city better and healthier for both cyclists and non-cyclists.

Let us start with bicycle lanes. Ideally, cyclists would be separated from automobiles and pedestrians, but this is not usually possible in Vancouver. Consequently, bicycle lanes are often located within a street's right-of-way, sometimes separated from cars by a white line.

But in many European cities, bicycle lanes are an extension of the sidewalk, rather than the road. When you think about it, this makes a lot of sense, since it is often easier to widen a sidewalk than a road.

Cyclists are also safer travelling next to pedestrians, rather than cars, although the same may not always be the case for pedestrians.

Bicycle lanes are painted a distinct colour or constructed from a different material in order to direct cyclists and minimize accidents. In Ljubljana, Slovenia, for instance, the bicycle lanes are painted red.

One can follow them along the sidewalks, across road intersections, and in some instances, through public plazas.

Where bicycle lanes cannot be accommodated as part of the sidewalk, they are located within the road, but clearly demarcated with paint. The colouring also makes the sidewalks and intersections safer for pedestrians.

In Gothenburg, Sweden, I was surprised to discover bicycle lanes between the parking lane and the sidewalk.

I thought this also made sense since cyclists would be less likely to be hit by cars or injured by drivers carelessly opening car doors.

Along the beachfront in Rio de Janeiro -- where I am writing this article -- cyclists are separated from both the road and sidewalk by curbs.

To save space, the two bicycle lanes are situated beside one another, in opposite directions.

This seems to work very well, although pedestrians crossing the street have to watch out for cyclists whizzing by, especially where the bike lanes' paint has worn off.

While it might be difficult to incorporate this arrangement into most existing roadways, it would be feasible in new developments and in situations where an overly wide road needs to be 'put on a diet'.

Research has shown that narrowing driving lanes can result in safer and quieter streets due to lower vehicle speeds. Separated bicycle lanes would be an added bonus.

As bicycles become more popular in Vancouver, we will have another problem to deal with: Where to park them? Bicycle parking is a major problem in Amsterdam.

Bikes can be found leaning against every conceivable vertical surface; in the early morning, they are often found lying around sidewalks or hanging off bridges.

Conventional bicycle racks have been added along the sidewalks, but often this does not solve the problem.

Therefore, Amsterdam's engineers have started to convert on-street vehicle parking spaces into bicycle parking by fixing specially-designed racks onto roads.

Near train stations and most major commercial and institutional buildings, large areas can be found devoted to bicycle racks.

Amsterdam has even built parking garages exclusively for bikes.

While I don't expect to see bicycle-only garages in Vancouver in the foreseeable future, the city does need to increase the supply of bicycle parking soon.

This may well require the conversion of on-street car parking for bikes.

While I would not have suggested this before setting off on my trip, the degree of traffic congestion in cities which are primarily car dependent has made me change my thinking.

Two final thoughts. In Amsterdam, most bikes have one or three gears, and upright handlebars. Cyclists tend to travel at lower speeds and many do not wear helmets.

I have often thought that more people in Vancouver would ride bikes if they did not have to wear helmets.

While I do not want to publicly advocate an unsafe practice, it may be worth considering that helmets might not be as necessary if it was safer to ride bikes in Vancouver.

This may also result in more cyclists -- and fewer motorists -- on the road.

In addition to the obvious benefits of bicycles -- reduced traffic congestion, fewer greenhouse gas emissions and lower transportation costs -- bicycles offer another plus. In the Netherlands, you do not see as many overweight people as you do in North America.

While I have not seen any research, I am convinced there is a correlation between bicycle use and good health.

This is why I plan to ride my bicycle much more when I return to Vancouver, especially if I can be safely separated from the cars, and have a convenient place to park.

The UniverCity project: An experiment in suburban urbanism

Since the SFU Community Trust is holding its Holiday Reception tonight, I though I would post an article I came across this morning (by accident.... it arrived in my inbox as a Google Alert for Laneway Housing!) The article appeared on a website called grist.org, and although I am somewhat biased, having spent seven years as the first President of the SFU Community Trust, I was pleased with what it had to say about the new community on Burnaby Mountain. I left the project at the end of 2006, so congratulations are in order to all those who have participated in its continuing success, led by Gordon Harris, the President & CEO

City-in-miniature on a hill

by Jonathan Hiskes

28 Oct 2010 10:40

City-in-miniature on a hill: UniverCity, Burnaby, British ColumbiaPhoto: SFU Community Trust

For the green benefits of urbanism -- walkability, transit, smaller dwellings, more efficient buildings -- to become a truly helpful climate strategy, we're going to need them in more than just cities. We need suburbia to adopt those features too, because a full 50 percent of Americans live in suburbs (compared to 30 percent in central cities), according to 2000 census data.

With that in mind, I went to check out an experiment in suburban urbanism across the border in Burnaby, British Columbia, a suburb of Vancouver. Builders there are about one-third finished with UniverCity (forgive the awkward name), a planned neighborhood next to Simon Fraser University that's borrowing some of the best traits of Vancouver's planning successes and fitting them to a challenging location -- a 1,200-foot hill.

At first approach, UniverCity looks like a medieval fortress-town. A ring of mid-rise condo towers sits atop a forested hill and you wonder why the site wasn't developed sooner -- it's the highest point in the metro area outside the mountains, and on clear days it's got stunning views of farmlands, the city, the Strait of Georgia, and the snow-capped North Shore Mountains.

Outdoor pathways link yards in UniverCity's Serenity townhouse development.Photo: Jonathan HiskesUp close, the neighborhood of 3,000 (so far) isn't fortress-like at all. The building cluster includes a variety of forms -- condo towers ranging from four stories to a planned 20-story tower at the highest point, single-family townhomes, and rental units above streetfront shops. First-floor dwellings have front doors and small yards rather than impersonal facades. Narrow streets slow down traffic. This being the Pacific Northwest, greenery sprouts from every soil patch and crevice in sight. Beautifully designed walkways and playgrounds give the sense that, rather than forgoing a suburban backyard, residents get an expansive, intricate yard to share.

The project has a slew of smart energy and water-management features (to protect nearby salmon-bearing streams), but one accomplishment jumps out: By centering the neighborhood around outdoor spaces, an elementary school, and two daycare centers, planners have attracted more families with children than the regional average. That might be the most important story UniverCity has to tell, given the pervasive belief (at least in the U.S.) that urban neighborhoods are no place to raise kids.

I visited on a rainy weekday morning and didn't get a good sense of how residents use the outdoor space in their off-time. But Sharilyn Wright, a graphic designer who runs an online store, told me it was the built design of UniverCity -- plus the prohibitive price of Vancouver real estate -- that drew her and her partner Charles to move there with their three-year-old daughter. "The lanes and pathways, for the most part, are safe and quiet, and children can play outside and ride their bikes," she said in an email. "They have access to play a lot OUTSIDE in fields and forests ... We loved that our daughter will be able to walk to school, just a few hundred meters from our door one day."

To the west lies Simon Fraser University and, in the distance, downtown Vancouver.Photo: SFU Community TrustA retail district includes a grocery, bank, and a handful of restaurants and shops, but the economic and cultural engine is the adjacent Simon Fraser University, a public school of 33,000 students and 3,300 staff. SFU's private Community Trust began planning the neighborhood in the 1990s to build a community next to the car-dependent campus, create a model sustainable development, and generate money for the university.

The Trust also worked with the province and the city of Burnaby to bring three facilities for young children to the hilltop. The first is a daycare center for 1- to 3-year-olds. Another daycare for 3- to 5-year-olds broke ground this fall, with plans to become Canada's first Living Building, meeting an ambitious green standard much more stringent than LEED. It will use the Reggio Emilia early-education model, an approach that encourages children to learn by following their own interests and by exploring the physical world.

Then there's the public elementary school, UniverCity Highlands. It opened this fall in a LEED Gold building with outdoor classrooms, a rooftop solar array, and a "litterless lunch" program. It's also got touch-screen display in the lobby that lets students explore the school's sophisticated energy and water systems.

"We're looking at the building as a teacher of sustainability," said Principal Lori Driussi.

She spoke of two factors that brought parents to the neighborhood -- a desire for their kids to learn environmental values early on, and the astronomical prices of single-family homes in the Vancouver area. (It has the least affordable housing market among 272 major cities in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, according to a study this year.)

Wright agreed: "If you're looking for more than a two-bedroom and don't have a huge down payment, forget about it! ... After almost a year or looking, out of desperation we began to look outside of the city -- something we hadn't even considered before ... Somehow we came to look at a listing out here, and discovered UniverCity. We had no idea. I remember that day, we looked at six places and thought we could live in every one of them. It was a revelation."

The project has a mixed record on addressing the affordability dilemma. The Trust has directed private developers to build in phases to induce demand, and units have sold briskly since the first project began in 2001. The Origin building, currently under construction, sold 33 of 75 condos within two months of opening its sales office in August, at prices from $298,000 to $609,000 ($292,000 to $597,000 USD), according to a sales representative.

But the Trust knows those prices are out of reach for a lot of people, according to planning manager Dale Mikkelsen. When the neighborhood reaches an eventual population of 10,000, the plan is for even division between affordable, "moderate," and market-rate units. So far, "it's not as good as we want," Mikkelsen said.

The 60 units of the Verdant building were sold to university staff at 20 percent below market rate. The Trust kept 140 units above the shops as rentals with affordability in mind -- a 600 square-foot two-bedroom goes for about $1,200, Mikkelsen said.

The Trust takes another innovative approach to affordability through "flex suites" that buyers can purchase next-door to their main dwelling and rent as mortgage-helpers. If a family grows and needs extra space, the units are designed to allow a doorway to be added and the extra kitchen removed, for about $10,000. When kids grow up and move out, families can convert the suite back into a rental unit.

"The idea was how do you build a basement suite for an apartment owner, as a mortgage helper," said Mikkelsen. It's an idea that Victoria and Kelowna, B.C., have since adopted, he said.

Residents will also save on energy costs if they live in one of the newer buildings, which are developing centralized heating and district energy systems. The first towers, built in 2001, are not especially well-sealed, Mikkelsen said, so the Trust began offering a 10 percent density bonus to developers that better insulate their buildings. It's an offer that's been well-received, he said.

Residents might also save on transportation costs, since data shows that households in dense, walkable neighborhoods typically spend much less on getting around than families in auto-centric suburbs.

But UniverCity's benefits are less clear in this regard because it sits atop Burnaby Mountain, surrounded by protected forest except for the SFU campus and two winding roads. In this way it resembles a gated subdivision more than a neighborhood woven into a metropolitan grid. While the grocery, stores, and campus provide a lot of nearby amenities, UniverCity is still too removed from the rest of the area to make car-free living practical, Wright said.

"Although I do know a (very small) handful or residents who don't own a car, and I myself do not have a driver's license, I would say that in reality most people have to have a car to live at UniverCity," she wrote.

The Trust has focused on providing other options. Residents can buy regional transit passes at a steep discount, and developers are required to buy a year-long transit pass for each unit they sell, on the theory that if residents try using them, they'll like it.

Buses run every few minutes from the SFU campus to a light-rail stations that connects to downtown Vancouver and Surrey, another employment center. Mikkelsen hopes to persuade the regional transit authority to build a gondola to run from the top of the hill to the rail station, shortening the trip from 14 minutes (by bus) to an estimated (and more scenic!) 7-minute gondola ride.

It's a lot of effort to make up for the challenge of the hilltop location, and it builds the case that "destination accessibility" -- building homes, workplaces, and services near each other in a well-connected grid -- does more good than any particular amenity.

Mikkelsen, who was previously the lead project planner for the Olympic athletes' village in Vancouver, said the Trust is willing to spend on transit because it's trying to prove that compact urban forms can work outside of cities proper. Its work with Burnaby has helped convince zoning officials to allow denser development elsewhere in the town, he said. If the transit investment helps UniverCity convince the rest of the world that it's possible to reap the benefits of urban design in a suburban setting, it could prove to be money well spent.

Jonathan Hiskes is a Grist staff writer. He reports, tweets, and wants to learn about everything.