Neighbourhood Horrors Checklist

The Neighbourhood Horrors Checklist

*

The proposed new tower development at Broadway and Kingsway:

Fails to incorporate or follow most of the guidelines set out in Mt. Pleasant’s Local Area Plan (still unpublished).

Check.

Fails to adequately inform local residents of planning workshops, design meetings, consultation, etc. Project seems to appear out of nowhere.

Check.

Grossly out of scale and character with the surrounding neighbourhood.

Check.

Disregard for historical plat and heritage, including the demolition of historic buildings.

Check.

Includes tower and podium design.

Check.

Tower has maximum glass exposure on all sides, requiring extra energy to heat and cool.

Check.

Tower blocks existing views and physically fragments neighbourhood.

Check.

Tower has lone obligatory tree planted on roof, enabling the project to market itself as “green”.

Check.

Building density increases developer’s margins without providing meaningful community amenities or civic infrastructure.

Check.

Rezoning establishes a precedent for more over-height buildings on nearby blocks (Main and Broadway fire site, Kingsgate, etc.).

Check.

Project demonstrates that “land-lift” CAC’s = Easy Money for Planning Department, reaffirming the Money is God mantra that eclipses all neighbourhood visioning.

Check.

Inflates surrounding real estate values, residential and commercial rents (having the opposite effect to that which is intended with STIR).

Check.

Exceeds 1 parking space/1 unit, encouraging continued proliferation of automobile use in urban environment and multi-car households. Full parking inclusion uniformly raises unit costs, which compromises the stated STIR goal of greater affordability.

Check and Check Again.

*

In conclusion, this development scores very high on the Neighbourhood Horror Meter, and will result in another new monstrosity looming on the skyline that will haunt local residents for decades.

Needless to say, the project will recieve the full and ringing endorsement from Dr. Frankentower, our City’s quack DoP.

Scaaaary kids!

*

Another Public Consultation (Sham)

Trooped with family to an open house regarding the old Mount Pleasant Community Centre site this week. A thoroughly dismal and pathetic attempt at consultation — the Parks Board should be ashamed. There was a surprising amount of outrage directed at Vision in the groups of parents that clustered about in the gym and outside on the school playground. They all feel betrayed by pre-election promises and lip service paid by our elected officials that they would all help fight to keep the community pool, one of the last outdoor pools in the city.

This public consultation sham follows several others I’ve participated in recently — a Gastown nightclub expansion, the Historic Area Height Review — where the community spoke loud and clear against a proposal, yet the City went ahead and rammed it through anyway. These are neighbourhood values being trampled, those which make our city liveable and bring us together as a community. The definition of environmental accountability is economic, environmental, AND social. The current “greening” efforts appear to include only the first two.

Sad to see the hope and optimism in these communities when Vision got elected turned so quickly into anger and cynicism…

*  *  *

The Daily Walk to School Past the Rubble of Childhood Memories

There Goes the Neighbourhood…

Mount Pleasant Community Centre: Prepare for Battle!

The old Mount Pleasant Community Centre is going to close in the fall, much to the chagrin of folks like me whose kiddo goes to school nearby and who has religiously played floor hockey in the gym after school almost every day for 3 years now. The Canucks even donated goalie equipment, which was a huge thrill for the kids!

The old Centennial Pool, built back in 1967 as one of many built across the country on Canada’s 100th birthday, is one of the last outdoor pools in Vancouver, and it will also soon be demolished. I won’t get into the politics of this as it finally appears to be a done deal after a long battle (oh Parks Board…). Suffice to say there are a lot of unhappy families in the area who depend on this Community Centre and whose memorable summers at the pool will soon be a thing of the past. Anyway, we decided to have my son’s birthday party there last week to celebrate the end of the era. Had a blast… sniff.

The boys watch eagerly as another one of the kids takes “The Man Test”: jumping off the high dive backwards.

He shoots, he scores! My son is a bruising winger with a scorer’s touch — kinda reminds me of Milan Lucic or Phil Esposito.