For those who couldn’t attend, here’s two nights of recording combined into an eight minute clip:
Little Mountain Open House Jan 26 & 28 2012 from David Vaisbord on Vimeo.
Don’t forget to send your feedback to the city on line until FEBRUARY 10, 2012.
Check the Little Mountain site at Vancouver Planning for images of information boards presented at the Open Houses. Click on THIS LINK to got to ONLINE SURVEY.
Canal St East side - Little Mountain models
Canal St West side - Little Mountain models
A Tower Concentration in proposed development
Note: Click on the images to enlarge; then, click on “Full Size is 1440×1080” caption to go to maximum dimensions.
Little Mountain development at 37th and Ontario
Little Mountain development at 33rd and Ontario
Important to remember that an estimated 700 cars per hour will exit and enter from the site at rush hours, the traffic you see in this photo is the average flow at approx. 2am Sunday nights. A neighbour who works in childcare asked me yesterday, if the amenities, such as daycare, for preschool and after-school care especially, are in place for a development of this size? As a member of the Advisory Committee who has been to every meeting, I answered no. She has promised to attend a meeting.
Here’s a brief quote, as we contemplate the future of Vancouver, from a sociologist, named Robert Park:
“The city is man’s most consistent and, on the whole, his most successful
attempt to remake the world he lives in, more after his heart’s desire. The
city is the world which man created; it is the world in which he is
therefore condemned to live. Thus indirectly, without a clear sense of the
nature of his task, in remaking the city, man has remade himself.”
If you want to know more about cities and neoliberalism here’s a link to an interesting talk given by economist David Harvey in 2007 titled:
Neoliberalism and the City.
The Little Mountain Project
Thanks again David for all your documentary work here- great compilation and timeline of this entire process.
I attended the Jan 28th open house (and previous ones), and managed to talk with James Cheng for about 10 minutes. He told me a few interesting things:
-The much higher density and building heights have nothing to do with profit.
-The community input/process to date indicated we all wanted these densities/heights.
-Arbutus Walk type of densities and heights were never feasible or in the picture.
So just a few things that we get mis- or disinformed about regularly, in my opinion.
There seems to be a common comment from those who attended these and previous open houses. Yes- go higher than 4 storeys if it helps. Yes- put in 4-6 or even 8 storey buildings. If all the density increases helps pay for more social housing (here and elsewhere) and the developer gets their profit then go ahead.
The previous open houses, with multiple proposal models from 1.45FSR to 3.25FSR, seemed to indicate they would go down the middle at something like 2.5FSR and 4-8 storeys. In fact, the feedback compiled on the City’s website shows that most were in favor of 4 storeys only, some 4-6, some 6-8, but little above that. Also, most respondents indicated that, beyond FSR of 2.5, many of the Principles for building variety, neighbourhood transition, views, and sun/shadowing are not met. In spite of this, Holborn comes with an even more dense proposal and claims this is what the people asked for.
City of Vancouver feedback source:
http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/littlemountain/public/Little%20Mountain%20-%20Open%20House%20Feedback%20Summary%20-%20data%20graphs%20-%20July%202011.pdf
Well, the first point about this not being about profit should be a red flag. On that note, the sale price of this transaction (yet to be completed) should be made public, since it will involve major rezoning, and, is the only way to check the figures, which is what Ned Jacobs’ group is tasked with doing.
I ask that people follow this site (http://vaisbord.com/blog), and check out Ned Jacobs’ and Michael Gellar’s blogs/updates from time to time. I think these 3 sources will be the only open and objective sources of information.
Thanks- and keep up the great work!
PS: And thanks for showing video of the architect trying to blame this community process on delaying the social housing tenants’ return to their homes. That delay was created by tearing down the buildings prematurely, not by the review process. And the community adamantly wanted this tear down stopped- again documented by your site.