Limmud Van'15 presentations

Limmud Vancouver is a unique community event that brings together people of all ages, from all streams of Judaism and at all levels of Jewish knowledge to learn, teach and share their knowledge and experience for a weekend. Limmud activities are held around the world and organized entirely by volunteers.

This year I was both honoured and flattered to be asked to make two presentations, one tonight at a cabaret-style evening at the Jewish Community Centre, and one tomorrow at Eric Hamber School as part of the day's educational program.

Tonight I will tell the story of two trips to Odessa Ukraine (once Russia) where my forefathers once lived. Odessa is also Vancouver's sister city and when I first visited with my father in 1994, then Mayor Phillip Owen wrote to the recently elected mayor of Odessa, (who coincidentally was a Jew)  asking for a reception at City Hall. While the mayor was in Kiev, we were received by the Deputy Mayor.

At the time I joked that since every Geller who I ever met came from Odessa, I wanted to see how many Gellers there were in the Odessa telephone directory. Unfortunately we had such a busy and exciting day, we forgot to check.

However, this past spring I returned to Odessa following a business trip to Moscow. This time I did not forget and found a young lady at the Jewish Museum who helped me check out the directories!

Tomorrow I will give a presentation on the many fascinating and beautiful synagogues and museums I have toured around the world. Both presentations will be posted on-line after the event.

Reflections on Urban Design Panel decision: 555 West Cordova, Vancouver

As I sat beside Vancouver Sun journalist Jeff Lee yesterday at Vancouver City Hall listening to the Urban Design Panel deliberations on this controversial project, I was reminded of the OJ Simpson trial.

IT DOESN'T FIT!

Design fit was my primary concern with the proposal which had been privately supported by city planning staff over the past year. In an on-line interview with the Vancouver Sun, Brian Jackson, Manager of Planning and Development made it clear staff were supporting a significant office building on this site as part of a redevelopment of the lands surrounding the transit hub. I understand this objective.

Jackson also noted that staff would be seeking input from various city committees including the Gastown Heritage Committee, the Heritage Commission and Urban Design Panel. The project was then scheduled to go to the Development Permit Board on March 9th, 2015.

A key step missing in his process was a community Open House. Jackson said this was not necessary since the project was not a rezoning, but rather a Development Permit Application.
However, as each of the Urban Design Panel members noted yesterday, this is a very significant site for the city with many design constraints, and deserves special consideration.

A key question in my mind is whether the 400,000 square foot building that the developer wants to build will fit on this site, even with design refinements. I would note that this size is not related to the size of the parking lot; it's related to the size of the total property which includes the CP Station. In other words, the developer wants to transfer building area from one portion of the property to another. That's why the building seems so big.

However, given the view corridors which the city wants to protect, and the historic Station, I believe it will be difficult to successfully fit such a large building on such a small space.

While I am still astounded that the city's Heritage Commission approved this building, and was pleasantly surprised by the unanimous opposition by members of the UDP  (even though 2 ultimately supported it, it remains to be seen what happens next.

Hopefully the planning department will agree that the meeting of the Development Permit Board should be postponed so that this application can go back to the drawing board, and to also allow time for a public Open House to review the revised design.

I look forward to the next steps in the process.

City design panel rejects controversial Waterfront tower proposal: Vancouver Sun January 29, 2015

Members say 26-story design a bad fit beside heritage train station By Jeff Lee, Vancouver Sun January 28, 2015 

A striking and controversial office tower proposed for the entrance to Gastown was rejected by Vancouver’s urban design panel Wednesday.Saying Cadillac Fairview’s plan for a 26-storey glass “art wall” style tower presented too many unanswered questions and conflicted with the major heritage Waterfront Station next door, the panel voted 4-2 not to support sending the proposal on to the next stage of city consideration. It means the architects will have to redesign the building before coming back to the panel.

The panel, a city council-appointed group made up of architects, engineers, landscape architects and the development industry, unanimously said the space, a small parking lot at 555 West Cordova, deserves to have a building but the proposal as it stands was a “poor fit” for such an important site.

They said the design, a tall, bulky, angular glass tower that tapered down to a pyramid entrance and a curved art wall, had many flaws. From the city’s insistence that the building be moved closer to the heritage-listed Waterfront Station to protect a proposed road, to the loss of important public space, to a paucity of sustainability features the architects have incorporated in other projects — the panel felt the building wasn’t the right fit for the space or the city.

“There have been comments on this panel that it seems as though the connector road is being valued more than the station building,” said panel chair and architect Ryan Bragg. “The proposal almost insults the heritage around it.”

The tower was designed by renowned Chicago architects Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill, who have built many internationally-recognized buildings all over the world.

But with this one, they struck out. From the start they acknowledged it was a challenge to design. The small footprint available, the city’s insistence on protecting a road allowance to a future waterfront hub district and a view corridor that limited the height of the tower made it hard to come up with a workable design that complimented the city and the site. They ended up designing a building that towered over and even appeared to eat into Waterfront Station. But they said they felt the resulting proposal achieved the necessary goals of form, space and design.

The entire panel disagreed, even though two members, Walter Francl and Arno Matis, voted to send the proposal to the next stage.

“I am not satisfied that the work has been done,” said Phil Mondor, who represents the Vancouver Planning Commission on the panel. He also noted that with the city and the Canadian Pacific Railway on the outs over the controversial Arbutus Corridor, it might be some time before the waterfront hub district built over CPR’s tracks will come to fruition. “We might be living with this for a long time,” he said, adding the tower had to stand on its own merits and not whether it fit into the proposed district.

Panel member Matthew Soules, also an architect, said he’s a “strong advocate of bold architecture” and believes in contemporary design. But he said this proposal “has some significant deficiencies.”

Gill and Smith took the rejection in stride. Gill told reporters later he appreciated the panel’s comments, many of which offered alternative solutions that could make the project work.
“I don’t take this as a personal affront,” Gill said. “I felt the panel’s comments were very constructive and very helpful. Nothing really surprised me. I think we understand the site really well. It is a difficult site.”

jefflee@vancouversun.com

 

Opinion: ‘Awkward’ building would be bad fit: Vancouver Courier January 28, 2015

The CPR Station has long been one of my favourite Vancouver buildings. For 16 years I had my offices on the second floor and watched the waterfront transform around me. I often walked past the adjacent parking lot wondering what might one day be built there. Perhaps this is why I was so shocked a few weeks ago when I saw an illustration in the Vancouver Courier of a proposed new office tower to replace the parking lot.

It did not fit in. It looked all wrong.

Many years ago, I participated in the planning and rezoning of the property immediately north of the station. It comprised two parcels bisected by a lane. In order to create one taller building, we transferred the building mass that could have been built along Hastings Street across the lane to Cordova Street.

In return for rezoning approval, we proposed a public plaza at Seymour and Hastings Streets and raised a portion of the building on columns to minimize view blockage of the station.

Unfortunately, Narod Developments, the company for which I worked, went into receivership and another firm took over. While I never liked their shiny chrome design, I did like the concept of a public space on Hastings and the greenery that was planted on the buildings.

I mention this since, in September 2014, the city rezoned this public plaza for a 25-storey office building. The floor space ratio (FSR), which is a measure of the building size in relation to the site area, increased from .09 to 24.34, almost three times the permitted downtown zoning.

City planners recommended approval since they claimed no one was using the plaza and council wanted new office building development.

It may be noteworthy that the firm of architects that designed this building is also associated with the proposed building on the CPR station parking lot, along with Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill. The latter are world-renowned architects, having designed the tallest building in the world in Dubai and what will be a 3,300 foot building in Saudi Arabia.

So why do I find their design for the building next to the station so objectionable?

Let me begin by declaring I like modern buildings juxtaposed with historic buildings. During my travels I have seen many wonderful modern additions to heritage buildings and new buildings built beside them.

My fundamental problem with this design is that it is neither an architecturally pleasing addition to the station, nor a complementary new building beside it.

With its contrived geometric shapes at the street level and first few floors where it almost touches the heritage building, it looks and feels both awkward and disrespectful. The building also feels too big for its site and does not keep Vancouver’s tradition of respecting the pedestrian at street level. This is why former director of planning Ray Spaxman called the building “a horror. I think he’s right.

I suspect city planners know this building design is not as good as it could be. I am told one of the reasons it is so jammed up against the station is that city engineers insisted upon a greater separation from the historic Landing building for a future roadway. A second reason is the building has been squeezed by a required view corridor of the mountains from Queen Elizabeth Park. Personally, I would relax the requirement for this distant view corridor if it would result in improved views at the street level, along with a more sympathetic relationship between the new and old buildings, and a more slender building shape. Alternatively, I would encourage the city to grant the developer approval to transfer some of the building density allowed on this site to another site.

This afternoon (Jan. 28), the city’s Urban Design Panel will review the current proposal. If it supports the design, the public will have an opportunity to see the plan at an open house before it goes before the Development Permit Board. If the panel does not support the design, it will be back to the drawing board.

 

I hope it will be the latter.

The CPR Station has long been one of my favourite Vancouver buildings.
For 16 years I had my offices on the second floor and watched the waterfront transform around me. I often walked past the adjacent parking lot wondering what might one day be built there.
Perhaps this is why I was so shocked a few weeks ago when I saw an illustration in the Vancouver Courier of a proposed new office tower to replace the parking lot.
It did not fit in. It looked all wrong.
Many years ago, I participated in the planning and rezoning of the property immediately north of the station. It comprised two parcels bisected by a lane.
In order to create one taller building, we transferred the building mass that could have been built along Hastings Street across the lane to Cordova Street.
In return for rezoning approval, we proposed a public plaza at Seymour and Hastings Streets and raised a portion of the building on columns to minimize view blockage of the station.
Unfortunately, Narod Developments, the company for which I worked, went into receivership and another firm took over.
While I never liked their shiny chrome design, I did like the concept of a public space on Hastings and the greenery that was planted on the buildings.
I mention this since, in September 2014, the city rezoned this public plaza for a 25-storey office building. The floor space ratio (FSR), which is a measure of the building size in relation to the site area, increased from .09 to 24.34, almost three times the permitted downtown zoning.
City planners recommended approval since they claimed no one was using the plaza and council wanted new office building development.
It may be noteworthy that the firm of architects that designed this building is also associated with the proposed building on the CPR station parking lot, along with Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill. The latter are world-renowned architects, having designed the tallest building in the world in Dubai and what will be a 3,300 foot building in Saudi Arabia.
So why do I find their design for the building next to the station so objectionable?
Let me begin by declaring I like modern buildings juxtaposed with historic buildings. During my travels I have seen many wonderful modern additions to heritage buildings and new buildings built beside them.
My fundamental problem with this design is that it is neither an architecturally pleasing addition to the station, nor a complementary new building beside it.
With its contrived geometric shapes at the street level and first few floors where it almost touches the heritage building, it looks and feels both awkward and disrespectful.
The building also feels too big for its site and does not keep Vancouver’s tradition of respecting the pedestrian at street level. This is why former director of planning Ray Spaxman called the building “a horror.”
I think he’s right.
I suspect city planners know this building design is not as good as it could be. I am told one of the reasons it is so jammed up against the station is that city engineers insisted upon a greater separation from the historic Landing building for a future roadway.
A second reason is the building has been squeezed by a required view corridor of the mountains from Queen Elizabeth Park.
Personally, I would relax the requirement for this distant view corridor if it would result in improved views at the street level, along with a more sympathetic relationship between the new and old buildings, and a more slender building shape.
Alternatively, I would encourage the city to grant the developer approval to transfer some of the building density allowed on this site to another site.
This afternoon (Jan. 28), the city’s Urban Design Panel will review the current proposal. If it supports the design, the public will have an opportunity to see the plan at an open house before it goes before the Development Permit Board.
If the panel does not support the design, it will be back to the drawing board.
I hope it will be the latter.
- See more at: http://www.vancourier.com/opinion/opinion-awkward-building-would-be-bad-fit-1.1744222#sthash.jPsClrcY.dpuf

My letter to City of Vancouver re: 555 West Cordova Street

Architects' illustration of the new tower as viewed along West Cordova Street

By email

January 22, 2015

City of Vancouver

453 West 12^th Avenue

Attn: Brian Jackson, General Manager of Planning and Development

Dear Mr. Jackson,

Re Development Permit Application 555 West Cordova Street

I am writing to express my concerns with the proposed office building design at 555 West Cordova Street next to the CPR Station.

From 1983 to 1999 I had my offices in The Station and know the subject property and surrounding area very well.

Let me begin by declaring I like modern buildings juxtaposed with historic buildings, such as Arthur Erickson’s Bank of Canada addition in Ottawa which literally encases the old building inside a new glass block.

During my travels I have seen many modern new buildings successfully added onto or built beside heritage structures, including some literally on top of the old, and others cantilevered out over the old.

My fundamental problem with the design of this building is that it is neither an architecturally pleasing addition to the Station, nor a complementary new building beside it.

With its contrived geometric shapes at the street level and the first few floors where it appears to engulf the heritage building, it looks and feels both awkward and disrespectful.

Heritage Committee member Anthony Norfolk put it a different way. “It is as if a rodent from Jurassic Park had chewed the base at the ground level” where the old building comes up against the new.

A local urban designer wrote to me that “the new building will be jammed up against and in fact beetle over the top of the former CPR Railway Station”. He went on to say it seems like the architects have been drinking the same Kool-Aid that Daniel Libeskind imbibed when he came up with Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum extension. Anyone who has walked by or been inside this wildly unpopular building will know precisely what he means.

I have two other concerns. From the drawings and model, the building seems too big for its site, and is out of keeping with Vancouver’s tradition of respecting the pedestrian at street level. The latter is why former Director of Planning Ray Spaxman called the building “a horror”. I think he’s right.

I suspect your planning department knows this building design is not the best for the location. I am told one of the reasons it is so jammed up against the CPR Station is that city engineers insisted on a greater separation from the historic Landing building to allow a right of way for a future roadway. If so, why could the new building not be moved away from the Station with the right-of-way partially underneath the new structure?

I understand the building massing has also been constricted by the height limit imposed by the required view corridor of the mountains from Queen Elizabeth Park. Personally, I would relax this distant view corridor in order to allow greater views at the street level, a more sympathetic relationship between the old and new, and a less squat building shape.

Alternatively, I would encourage the city to grant the developer approval to transfer some of the building density allowed on this site to another site. The fact that the developer is not being required to provide the customary parking provision on site is a significant relaxation which could be traded off for a further reduction in building size.

Other design approaches might be to further cantilever the new building, raise it up on columns above the old building, or design it as a creative addition to the Station.

These approaches might be more architecturally challenging, but the architects for this building, internationally renowned Chicago-based Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture with input by local firm B+H Architecture should be up to the task. After all, Smith is responsible for designing Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, currently ranked the tallest building in the world, and Saudi Arabia’s Kingdom Tower which will be the world’s new tallest when completed in 2018.

In conclusion, I am concerned that if this development is built as currently designed, it will not create the beautiful gateway to Gastown and future Port Lands development that city planners hope to see.

I would therefore urge the City to instruct the architects to increase the separation between the new building and the CPR Station, resulting in a less contrived building shape, and better integration with the Station.

I would also urge you to require a slimmer, more elegant building form, either by allowing the building to be higher, or through a reduction in buildable area.

Finally, I would urge the city to arrange an Open House, or instruct the developer to hold an Open House well in advance of the Development Board meeting. This would allow the general public and Vancouver’s design community to review all the materials that have been prepared, and presented to staff, such as the video and new model.

Having served as an advisory member of the Development Permit Board for six years, I would respectfully suggest that this will result in a more informed and constructive discussion at the DP Board meeting.

I hope these comments are helpful.

Michael Geller

cc Mayor and Council

Opinion Vancouver Courier It's time to fix Vancouver’s broken taxi system January 21, 2015

Have you ever waited too long for a taxi, or not got one at all?

Last week, SFU’s noon-time discussion series ‘City Conversation’ examined Vancouver’s taxi industry and emerging technology-based alternatives such as Uber. Participants included Mohan Singh, President of the B.C. Taxi Association (BCTA), which represents most taxi companies in the province, and former Vancouver city councillor and writer Peter Ladner.
 
While Uber and its aggressive tactics have attracted media headlines, there are other ride-share providers wanting to serve us. This could have significant ramifications for taxi passengers, drivers, and the industry as a whole.

I attended this discussion since for many years I have believed Metro Vancouver’s taxi system is broken, especially when compared with other cities where I have lived and travelled. 

The fact that the BC Taxi Association represents all 140 taxi companies in BC except for the four companies operating in Vancouver is, to my mind, evidence that something is amiss.
While the BCTA is proud of its lobbying efforts to keep the BC taxi industry regulated, many provincial regulations are outdated, short-sighted and neither sustainable nor in the best interests of passengers.

For example, except during weekend evenings, North Shore, Surrey, or Richmond taxis bringing fares into Vancouver are not allowed to take fares back to their home municipalities. They must return empty. This is a sustainable transportation system?
At the same time, Vancouver taxis are often reluctant to take fares to distant parts of Metro since they too are restricted from bringing fares back to the city.

If you have ever waited a long time for a taxi or not found one at all, it may be because Vancouver has the lowest ratio of taxis per capita of any major Canadian city.

It is significant that not one new taxi company has been allowed to enter the Vancouver market in 25 years. Compare this with any other retail or service industry.

If you thought fares seemed expensive, Vancouver rates are approximately 15% higher than the average in major Canadian cities.

SFU graduate student Benn Proctor has written an excellent master’s thesis on the taxi industry. He concluded that the primary beneficiaries of current regulations are the taxi company shareholders who can charge $800,000 for a single taxi cab license.
Meanwhile, taxi drivers who work half their shift just to pay overhead and operating expenses and taxi passengers are the losers; especially those of us trying to get a cab during peak times or around 4pm when the customary 12 hour shifts start and end.

While deregulating the taxi industry might seem like a possible solution, it has been tried in many places around the world with limited success. Regulatory reform would seem to be a better approach.

However, without public outcry, significant regulatory reform is not likely to happen in Metro since, as I learned when I ran for City Council, taxi cab owners are very influential and highly visible at election time.

For these reasons, I and many others would like to see Uber or similar companies operating in Vancouver. 

Uber’s stated mission is “to improve city life by connecting people with safe, reliable, hassle-free rides through the use of technology”. Passengers use a smartphone app to connect with private drivers.

Uber currently operates in 253 cities in 53 countries worldwide. While it has generated concerns, as noted during the SFU discussion, including highly publicized reports of drivers raping passengers, everyone with whom I have spoken who has used Uber is full of praise.

Fares are generally lower, cars come quickly, and the smartphone application provides details on vehicle identification and arrival. Furthermore, no cash changes hands.

Today New York City has 14,000 cabs for 8.5 million people. Mexico City has 100,000 cabs for 9 million people. Metro Vancouver has 1500 cabs serving a population of nearly 2.5 million.

As more Vancouver residents chose not to own a car, and tougher drinking and driving laws are introduced, the need for more taxis and taxi alternatives will increase.

Vancouver needs to develop a ‘taxi culture’ like other major world cities. More cabs and alternative transportation choices like Uber will help make this happen.

Twitter.com/ @michaelgeller

FOLLOW UP STORY JANUARY 31, 2015

Since writing this column, I came across the following story by the Vancouver Sun's Don Cayo. I should note that I was wrong in stating that suburban cabs can pick up in Vancouver on weekends. The Vancouver taxi owners are fighting this. But Cayo's column reinforces many of my other concerns. Read on: 

Don Cayo: Vancouver confronts the Uber dilemma 

What is fair? Ending a high-priced monopoly, or maintaining high value for taxi licences?

 By Don Cayo, Vancouver Sun columnist January 30, 2015

VANCOUVER — Industry insiders are grumbling that the value of Vancouver taxi licences is being eroded by Uber-riding fear — the mere prospect of competition from the $40-billion, app-based cab company that is breaking taxi monopolies around the world.

In newspaper reports this week, Carolyn Bauer of the Vancouver Taxi Association noted the trading price for taxi licences, estimated by industry analysts to be about $800,000, has plunged, although she wouldn’t say to what level.

Even before this claim was made, however, questions were being asked about compensation for licence-holders who will lose their near-monopoly if the tight restriction on the number of taxis allowed to operate in the city is loosened.

My Vancouver Sun colleague Peter O’Neil noted in an insightful story last fall that the legal issues are far from clear. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, he reported, finds no precedent in the economies it analyzes for compensating licence-holders when an industry is deregulated.

SFU marketing professor Lindsay Meredith doesn’t see it that way. He fears the licence-holders will cite — and the courts may accept — a costly precedent set in the 1990s when Ottawa decided to pay market prices to buy out commercial salmon-fishing licences.

Certainly the players who dominate their industry both here and in other cities are not averse to using the courts to maintain their lucrative exclusivity. For example, taxi licence-holders in Chicago and Boston are suing their city halls for compensation on the grounds that allowing Uber to operate has undermined the value of their licences. Here, Vancouver cab companies have gone to court both to block a bid by 38 suburban taxi cabs to compete for weekend business, and to attempt to forestall Uber’s entry into the market.

And certainly if the fishing-licence precedent were to be followed, it would cost a lot. The 588 taxi licences in the city, each worth $800,000 if the published estimates are confirmed, would add up to almost $500 million — although they would no doubt retain some value, so a settlement could be prorated.

I won’t try to second-guess what the courts might decide. But the case could be made — and, judging from the comments on the Internet whenever the subject is written about, I think a lot of Vancouverites would agree — that licence-holders who suddenly have to compete to stay in business don’t deserve anything at all.

For one thing, all the city or the province ever got out of it is a few hundred dollars a year for cab licences — it’s the fact that such limited numbers of licences are granted that has allowed the owners to spin them into six-figure assets. Meanwhile, taxis have been able to charge a premium — to gouge passengers, many would say — so they have already extracted full value from their licences.

Meredith doesn’t dismiss this argument, but he says the taxi industry would be sure to counter with sob stories. They would no doubt showcase in the media hard-luck cases such as widows living solely on the returns from leasing the licence left to them by their late husbands, or young family men up to their ears in debt to pay for a licence that lets them put bread on the table.

To be sure, there are fairness issues at stake — both fairness for cab customers, who are disproportionately old or poor or disabled, and for workers in the industry whose livelihoods may be undercut if the rules suddenly change.

Fairness for passengers implies — nay, demands — allowing competition to get rid of inflated capital costs and monopoly pricing.

Fairness for licence-holders might involve a more nuanced kind of solution like one suggested by the Conference Board of Canada to compensate dairy and poultry farmers if/when the plug is pulled on their supply management sinecures. It’s to treat licences like any other business asset — something that depreciates over time as value is extracted from it. In other words, pay compensation amounting to what the Conference Board calls book value — the price paid, less reasonable depreciation over the time period the asset was held.
dcayo@vancouversun.com

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Opinion: Writer Sean Rossiter built a legacy covering Vancouver Vancouver Courier January 14, 2015

There was a standing room only crowd at Sean Rossiter's Celebration of Life on Thursday January 15, 2015. I just wish Sean had been there to enjoy the kind words from friends from so many different walks of life.

“The pen is mightier than the sword.”

So wrote English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton in his 1839 play Richelieu: Or the Conspiracy, although seventh century BC Assyrian sage Ahigar is reported to have written “The word is mightier than the sword.”

I have been thinking about these quotations over the past week as a result of the tragic Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris and other related events. I cannot help but admire the bravery of the journalists who were murdered and the phenomenal response by people around the world. On Sunday, the sight of world leaders marching arm in arm in front of more than a million people through the streets of Paris is something I will never forget.

We can only hope that this tragedy will lead to a better understanding of the concerns of Muslims, Christians and Jews in France and greater world harmony. However, I am not overly optimistic that this will happen in my lifetime.

Last week we lost another great journalist. Vancouver writer Sean Rossiter died after a decade-long battle with Parkinson’s disease.

As repeatedly noted in other obituaries, Sean was universally regarded as a great writer, but more importantly, a true gentleman. He authored 26 books on various topics but was best known to many of us in the architectural, planning and development community as the author of the “Twelfth and Cambie” column, which appeared monthly in Vancouver Magazine from summer 1975 until fall 1991.

 

In one of his last columns in June 1991, “City Hall Wins One For The Bureaucrats,” he wrote about the Bayshore project and my failed attempt to get permission to develop a residential tower on piers in the marina in return for extending a public pier at the end of Denman Street, linking it to the shoreline with an Amsterdam bridge.

As he wrote, “One reason the planner gave for turning thumbs-down on the tower-in-the-water was that there aren’t a lot of examples of towers on waterfront in Vancouver. No wonder! It is noteworthy that the only alderman who voted for it was the only newcomer to civic politics, the only truly open-mind on council, Tung Chan.”

Twenty four years later, I still think it is a shame Vancouver does not have a lively public pier and more places to gather along the waterfront.

During the ’70s and ’80s, Sean was the only Vancouver journalist regularly writing about architecture and urban issues. Each month, architects around the city would eagerly await the next issue of Vancouver Magazine to see what topic he was tackling. He often wrote about the importance of protecting older buildings while saluting visionary architects and planners.

Former Vancouver Mayor and BC Premier and recovering politician, Mike Harcourt was one of many who spoke about Sean's special qualities as a cartoonist, writer, hockey player, and true gentleman

In 2007, in one of his last books, Sean collaborated with Mike Harcourt and Ken Cameron on City Making in Paradise: Nine Decisions that Saved Vancouver. For those who have not yet read it, the book describes, amongst other things, the efforts to save Strathcona, the creation of the Agricultural Land Reserve, Expo ’86 and the remaking of False Creek, and the important role played by the GVRD and Regional Planning.

Sean was one of the founding directors of Vancouver’s Urbanarium Society, along with former chief planner Ray Spaxman, architects Richard Henriquez and Frank Musson, landscape architect Jane Durante and others. The goal of the society was to create a special museum similar to those found in Singapore and Shanghai, housing a large model of the city and other displays. It would be a place where one could discuss future projects and plans and important urban topics.

With Sean’s help, the Urbanarium Society launched the Builders of Vancouver series, which profiled architects, engineers and other personalities who helped create our city.

Today, former Urbanarium directors, along with Leslie Van Duzer, head of the UBC School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, are continuing to explore the feasibility of creating an Urbanarium for Vancouver.

I hope they succeed so we can one day wander through the Sean Rossiter Gallery. 

Sean Rossiter leaves behind his wife, Terri Wershler, and other family members. A memorial service is being held tomorrow (Jan. 15) at 4:30 p.m. at Dr. Sun Yat Sen Garden. Rest in peace, Sean.

- See more at: http://www.vancourier.com/opinion/opinion-writer-sean-rossiter-built-a-legacy-covering-vancouver-1.1729668#sthash.LjzwlNzQ.dpuf