the 'uglification' of metro vancouver quickens with mass upzoning
douglas todd: politicians are asking tower developers for fewer aesthetic features and community amenities. but residents lose, and prices still don’t go down.
5 minute read
four decades ago vancouver councillors required residential towers like this, at 5815 yew in kerrisdale, to include expansive gardens, courtyards, open entry ways and trees. those days are gone.
advocates of higher density housing in metro vancouver often challenge opponents by demanding they look at how the west end, with its scores of residential highrises, has turned out pretty well. and, at first glance, they seem to have a point. the west end is livable not only because it borders on the beaches of english bay, the promenades of burrard harbour and the wonders of stanley park, one of the world’s greatest urban forests.
the west end is also a pretty attractive place because most of the towers there fit into the neighbourhood. tens of thousands of west end renters and condo owners are the beneficiaries of enlightened city policies that go back 20 to 50 years — when politicians were far more demanding of property developers.
back then, when city councillors granted builders the profitable right to construct towers higher than permitted under existing zoning, they were legally required to include amenities such as expansive gardens, courtyards, open entryways, trees and parking spots.
through a negotiating process called “conditional zoning,” vancouver politicians up until the mid-2000s also made sure highrises didn’t replace all the character homes and older apartment buildings in the west end. such progressive density policies applied as well to kerrisdale, south granville, grandview, kitsilano and elsewhere.
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in addition, vancouver politicians of decades ago demanded that companies that built major highrise developments had to significantly finance new parks, playing fields, seaside promenades and community centres. residents today get to enjoy them.
author and illustrator michael kluckner, who has made a career of drawing vancouver’s changing streetscapes, isn’t exactly enamoured with the towers, old and new, that pepper many neighbourhoods. but at least, he says, older highrises “usually blend in with their surroundings quite well. when i look at the west end and kerrisdale, i see ensembles, not jumbles.”
over the past half century metro, an international gateway, has grown into the fourth most dense region in north america. but proponents of even higher density fail to acknowledge that the city-enhancing policies that guided the relatively esthetic development of the west end and elsewhere are largely gone.
and it’s not just nostalgia to miss them. there are lessons to be drawn from how, compared with the past, there is precious little open ground left on tower sites, while sidewalks grow tighter.
this residential tower, proposed under vancouver’s upzoned broadway plan for leafy 14th avenue, comes with no green space at ground level. that’s unlike earlier highrises. it’s typical of 22 other towers slated for east kitsilano.
even though the “conditional zoning” schemes of the past haven’t been entirely abandoned in vancouver, they have weakened so much that now many 45-storey-plus glass and steel residential towers are being crammed with smaller units onto tinier lots.
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and that’s because of an unintended consequence of politicians’ ostensibly well-meaning efforts to reduce housing prices, which are among the most expensive in the world.
politicians have been convinced developers will be able to charge cheaper home prices and rents if they’re given the green light to build more units on less land — and provide fewer amenities.
the idea seems to make sense on the surface. but, tragically, it’s incorrect.
“it is counterintuitive. that’s part of the political and policy problem,” said patrick condon, a professor in the department of architecture at the university of b.c.
what many don’t realize is that when the city slashes its requirement for green space and other benefits on property that has been drastically upzoned, it simply increases the cost developers have to pay for the land. they then have to pass that on to homebuyers.
the upzoning therefore mostly makes landowners and speculators richer. it doesn’t lead to lower housing prices.
it’s worth taking a few minutes to absorb this lesson in housing economics, which especially impacts residents dealing with the sweeping upzoning the city has rammed through with the broadway plan and the province has imposed within 800 metres of transit-oriented developments.
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as condon puts it slightly more technically, legislating mandatory upzoning without asking for major amenities from developers “merely increases the ‘land price residual,’ which is the amount the developer can afford to pay for the land after all other projected costs are calculated.”
when the city and province reduce expectations that highrise developers have to contribute to the public good through such things as attractive design and green spaces, condon said, “you sadly increase the market cost of the ‘land price residual.’ that puts money that would have gone to public benefit into the pocket of the land speculator.”
in other words, the price of the land wouldn’t be as high if everyone knew beforehand that politicians were going to be requiring developers to provide green space and other amenities.
with the incredible rise in global and domestic property speculation in metro, condon says vancouver councillors and the b.c. government “have forgotten the time when development more than ‘paid its way’ — and no one was hurt, not the home purchaser, nor the taxpayer.”
the escalating uglification dynamic, which in vancouver has led to fast-rising property taxes, is explained well in condon’s important new book, broken city: land speculation, inequality and urban crisis.
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that’s where he eloquently describes how the city of vancouver once led the way in north america in “capitalizing on the engine of its rapid development in order to deliver social benefits.” but that golden goose, of creative conditional zoning is now largely cooked.
this typical vancouver rental apartment highrise, built several decades ago, comes with far more green space than new taller towers. it rises 14 storeys at 5815 yew st. in kerrisdale.
douglas todd
community planner michael geller, a lecturer in simon fraser university’s environmental department, puts the problem of today’s “overbearing” residential towers in the language of square footage.
in the 1990s, geller says, developers in vancouver were often getting approvals to build highrises, like in kerrisdale, with a floor-to-space ratio (fsr) of two-to-one. that meant the buildings could have two times more floorspace than the lot area.
“but now the 20-storey towers set to be automatically approved along even the quiet residential streets of the broadway corridor come with a ratio of up to six-to-one.” that will make them appear far more massive.
while some suggest not getting hung up on floor-to-space ratios, geller says they matter: “look at a person’s weight. at six feet tall, i would look quite different at 150 pounds compared to 300 pounds.”
indeed.
no matter which way you describe it, as the requirements diminish for appealing buildings, green spaces and social benefits, so does the city.
