Bob Ransford
Sun

While the world is here, talking about big concepts and planning for big outcomes in rapid urbanization, we in metro Vancouver might remind ourselves we have made some big strides here toward protecting our special quality of life.

Our almost perfect city served as the stunning backdrop for the discussion of a whole bunch of weighty issues at the United Nation’s World Urban Forum. Many of the agenda items were so weighty they seemed almost lost in theory and devoid of practical action.

Much of the talk of the international policy makers, politicians and social scientists was about the special challenges of developing countries in combating poverty and providing those things we here in Vancouver so casually take for granted — access to basic shelter and services, like clean water and sanitation.

Perhaps the challenges are almost too daunting knowing that we live in a world where half of humanity lives in cities and, where in the next 50 years, that proportion is expected to reach two-thirds of the global population.

Meanwhile, as the world’s cities were put under the researcher’s microscope, some of our more parochial challenges were hoisted on what was a perfect podium from which to get some media and public attention. This was more like the urban doctors doing some basic diagnosis and prescribing real treatment than it was research and theorizing.

Canada’s cities and communities have not been immune to the consequences of rapid and relentless change that globalization has brought over the last 30 years. Former premier Mike Harcourt believes this change has created a feeling of powerlessness in Canadian cities and towns facing new challenges.

Harcourt wants to tackle this malaise. He released a long-awaited report summarizing what for many might be the long-forgotten exercise assigned to him more than two years ago by former prime minister Jean Chretien to chair the Prime Minister’s Advisory Committee on Cities and Communities. He was charged with rethinking the way Canada and its communities are shaped.

Harcourt and 14 committee members from across the country, including Vancouver’s Cheeying Ho of SmartGrowth BC fame, weren’t timid in their recommendations.

They reminded us that the challenges may be global, but the responses are all local. While many of Canada’s communities have been managing growth rather than facing decline, Harcourt’s committee warned that little can be taken for granted.

“Growth is not delivered in government offices but by the choices made where change happens … places shape the dividends from growth.”

They prescribed some strong medicine for Canada’s cities. Chief among their recommendation is a re-ordering of government structures in Canada, with what they term a “double devolution” of responsibilities from the federal government to the provinces and territories and then on down to municipalities.

They argue that government’s roles and resource bases should move to the most local levels at which they can operate effectively.

Property taxes are not an adequate funding source for municipalities to meet infrastructure challenges. They argue cities need more autonomy in raising tax revenue. In the meantime, they want the federal and provincial governments to provide increased funding for municipal infrastructure.

Meanwhile, the initiative that promises to have the quickest and most profound positive impact on preserving our unmatched quality of life in the greater Vancouver region is the EcoDensity strategy released by the current Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan last week.

Sullivan wants to see the city increase the density of housing in neighbourhoods outside the downtown while protecting the environment.

By attacking sprawl and advocating more efficient land use, Sullivan is providing the political leadership that so many of us who advocate smart growth are always bemoaning is lacking.

It takes leadership at this level to not only stand up to NIMByism that is exacerbating sprawl, but also to elevate an issue high enough that both awareness and education help to alleviate the fears that lead to opposition to higher density developments.

Local leadership. Perhaps that will be the legacy of the World Urban Forum in Vancouver.

Bob Ransford is a public affairs consultant with COUNTERPOINT Communications Inc. He is a former real estate developer who specializes in urban land use issues. E-mail: [email protected]

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

OPINION I Densification, heritage preservation get along fine, developer says

Robert Fung
Sun

Last weekend the city of Vancouver’s senior heritage planner, Gerry McGeough, and I led planners and government heritage representatives from around the world through Gastown.

Our purpose was to show how government support for heritage rehabilitation and public/private cooperation has resulted in an economic-development catalyst that is transforming some of Vancouver’s infamous eyesores into a ”sustainable urbanization” eye-opener.

Two very big words, and very hot if you’re a planner or developer, sustainable urbanization has preoccupied hundreds of learned participants in the World Planner’s Congress and the World Urban Forum in Vancouver.

Of the myriad topics for debate under this banner, one small component involves the integration of our historic fabric into densification.

What might this add to “sustainable urbanization”?

When land is at a premium, and densification is critical, why should we care to save small heritage buildings?

Further, why bother to save blocks of these derelict structures that comprise our currently most underdeveloped heritage neighbourhoods?

I believe a heritage component is fundamental to the final outcome of this torrid pace of growth and to the preservation of our sense of who we are.

Vancouver is often seen as a desirable model for urban densification, with almost 85,000 people residing in the city core.

But even as the quest for developable high-rise sites continues to consolidate in Vancouver’s traditional wholesale and light industrial areas of Downtown South and Yaletown, city hall has moved to ensure that the earliest and most often overlooked areas of our town are not lost to the voracious demands of this growth.

Last weekend, a group from the planner’s congress took some time to learn about how a city’s heritage legacy may figure into ”sustainable urbanization” equation, and what might be done to bring government and the private sector together in this pursuit.

What was discussed signifies a desire to reduce government barriers and to shift from the “heritage fundamentalist” notion that reduces heritage buildings to virtual time-capsules. What was discussed looks to engage these buildings in the future, not just the past.

Trying to make old things new, especially when faced with the enormous building code and policy shackles, is a burden. It is the reason that historically most Canadian heritage-rehabilitation projects have been institutional and were created to house government divisions of some sort.

Now there is a recognition that unless new construction and the original heritage fabric of a city can be knit together in a practical and relevant way, the blend can not succeed.

We may go through tremendous growth and change, but we know where we came from when we visit Gastown, Chinatown and Crosstown, the Victoria Square neighbourhood. The most deteriorated of all our neighbourhoods. Vancouver’s social open-sore.

One might argue that by the year 2000, the centralization of non-market housing and social services into these areas, as well as turning a blind eye to the atrocities and quality of life in slum-lord-run rooming houses, created the blight that too many of us have turned our back on.

Faced not only with social conditions hitting rock bottom, but the potential loss of a large portion of a very small inventory of buildings that represent the architectural heritage of this town, city hall launched the ”Gastown Heritage Management” plan.

It may turn out to be one of the most successful economic development programs in the city’s history: It has helped generate close to $500 million in new construction in the Downtown Eastside.

The program offers incentives to developers to rehabilitate older buildings and, further, it compensates developers for what they forego, in marketable square footage, because of the heritage encumbrance.

This process has been built on a level of trust and cooperation between city authorities and developers that is uncommon.

It relies on the creativity of both to make these projects work, and a flexibility in policy that, at times, stretches the bureaucratic blinders.

Don’t for a second think that this program is a gift to developers.

It is an “earn-in” program, with incentives created to offset the challenges of re-using century-old building stock and making the interior spaces safe, liveable and looking like they were built yesterday, not yesteryear.

The developers involved are introducing new condos, office and retail space into the same neighbourhoods that we have been avoiding for years. Our past “mistake” of concentrating social housing in these areas, to the exclusion of all else, may ultimately protect these neighbourhoods from American-style gentrification and displacement.

With the strength of an existing community, the Victorian, Edwardian and Moderne architecture of the past century, and a diversity and texture that can only be achieved through evolution and the passage of time, our heritage districts may have the potential to become, in many ways, our most sustainable.

The context and future architectural face of our city may come full circle, right back home to Gastown.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

HOUSING I The hike in dollar volume amounted to almost a 23% increase over May of last year

Gillian Shaw
Sun

May home sales in B.C. set a record for dollar volume in a single month, topping the $4-billion mark for the first time, the B.C. Real Estate Association says.

The BCREA reported Friday that 11,338 homes, worth more than $4.52 billion, were sold across the province on the Multiple Listing Service in May, with the number of homes changing hands coming a close second to a historic high set last June.

The hike in dollar volume amounted to almost a 23-per-cent increase over May of last year and it came with an almost two-per-cent hike in the number of units sold.

“They are dramatic numbers,” said BCREA president Kelly Lerigny, a realtor in Chilliwack. “We have been looking out expecting a really strong market to continue, but you always wonder how much longer and stronger.

“I was pleased to see this much optimism in the housing market.”

The gains were province-wide, with all 12 real estate boards reporting double-digit increases in dollar volume sales over May 2005 and eight of the 12 recording increases in the number of units sold.

The figures are particularly buoyant since they come on the heels of a record year in 2005 and marked the beginning of what is traditionally the busiest time of the year for buying and selling homes.

Lerigny said the real estate market is a reflection of the province’s robust economy.

“We are quite delighted to see it right across the province,” she said. “Often the Lower Mainland is experiencing great growth and economic vitality and it is nice to see throughout the province there is this optimism.

Vancouver and Victoria reported healthy double-digit gains, but they didn’t match more dramatic gains made in several other areas of the province.

Lerigny said the lower numbers in those major urban centres don’t reflect a slowing in demand, but rather a lack of inventory.

“If you looked at inventories in the areas where units are down, generally you would see their inventories are down from last year, product inventory is down,” she said. “What I’m hearing from practitioners from Vancouver and even the Fraser Valley is that there is a tightening down on inventory, they have less inventory than they had a year ago.

“There is less to buy. It’s certainly not a lack of interest.”

Greater Vancouver saw an 18- per-cent increase, putting last month’s sales at $2.3 billion, compared to $1.9 billion in May a year ago. The number of homes sold was down four per cent over the year earlier, with 4,408 units changing hands in May compared to 4,610 a year ago.

Greater Victoria saw the second-lowest dollar increase with a 13-per-cent rise to $360 million, after Powell River, which had a 10-per-cent increase in the dollar value of homes sold. Volume was up slightly in Victoria, with an almost two-per-cent increase over last year, resulting in 855 homes sold there in May.

Chilliwack saw the most dramatic increase in sales last month, up 46 per cent over May 2005, with value cracking a record $100 million. Kamloops saw a 35-per-cent hike in dollar volumes with $80 million in homes sold in May compared to $59 million in the same period last year.

Northern B.C., the Fraser Valley and the Kootenays also saw significant increases in dollar volume of around 33 per cent, with Vancouver Island not far behind with a jump of almost 29 per cent.

The South Okanagan saw a 17- per-cent rise and business was slightly brisker for Okanagan Mainline which recorded a 19-per-cent rise in dollar volumes over last year.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

THE CITY I Icon will be refurbished or replaced, but it will be back

John Mackie
Sun

The ‘W’ was lifted from its tower Friday and brought down to the ground on Abbott Street. Photograph by : Ian Lindsay, Vancouver Sun

They took the Big W sign down off the Woodward’s building Friday. The old Woodward’s is now officially gone; the new Woodward’s is on the way.

Taking the Big W down took several hours of careful preparation and a $2-million crane, fully extended to almost 100 metres. Just after 3 p.m., the crane lifted the nearly 2,000-kilogram civic icon up, swung it over, then gently lowered it down to the street. Then it was trucked to the Pattison Sign Group, which built it back in 1956.

If it’s in good enough shape, the sign will be restored and lifted in 2009 back onto the roof of the original 1903 Woodward’s building on Hastings. If it’s too far gone, it will be replaced by a replica.

“I feel like crying,” said Dee Dee Nelson, one of about 100 people who watched the Big W come down. “It looks like a spaceship. Oh golly, it’s awesome. I hope they can bring it back.”

The Big W does look a little rough up close. Five decades of exposure to the elements has bleached its red paint orange, and in some spots the paint has worn off altogether. But it still looks quite solid, and totally cool.

It also didn’t want to come off. The sign was originally slated to come down at noon, but it was too well-attached.

“When they tried to lift it the first time, it didn’t come off the way the mechanical contractor thought it was going to,” explained Bob Fairbank of Eagle West Cranes. “The pin that was holding it up there was binding the bottom section, and they had to undo the 24 bolts that were holding it on to the tower. They had to cut all the bolts off.”

It cost about $100,000 to take the five-metre-high sign down.

The removal marks the start of a $4-million demolition of most of the Woodward’s building.

The original-six storey building at the southeast corner of Hastings and Abbott is being retained, the rest is being demolished. A former owner spent $2 million restoring the brickwork on the parts of the building that are being knocked down, but no restoration work was done on the 1903 building, which is now the only part being saved.

The new Woodward’s site will cost $300 million to build. It will include four buildings: new 43- and 32-storey towers on Cordova,a new nine-storey building and the heritage building.

All 536 condos for sale in the development have already been sold, and there will be another 200 non-market rental units. Simon Fraser University’s School for Contemporary Art will move into the new Hastings building, and there will also be retail space on the main floor of some buildings, plus some offices above.

Former city councillor Jim Green was a key figure in the redevelopment. He feels its success shows how the Downtown Eastside can be renewed without displacing area residents.

“I think this is the way development must be done in the future,” Green said. “It’s no longer either/or, or ‘these win and these lose.’ It has to be reciprocal development.”

Architect Gregory Henriquez thinks the Big W remains a potent symbol for the city. The department store that built it may have closed in 1993, but when the sign returns to Hastings Street in 2009, it will signify a new life for the Woodward’s site, and its neighbourhood.

“The Big W is a civic symbol of an institution which once represented a very special part of all our lives,” said Henriquez, whose firm designed the new site. “I think what’s neat here is that we’re really trying to replace [Woodward’s department store] with a new economic anchor, a new social anchor, a new cultural anchor for this neighbourhood, which is something all of Vancouver hopefully will be able to enjoy and embrace.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2006