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#VanPoli | False Creek South | The Heart of Our City Preserved

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REJECTED | City of Vancouver Real Estate Department Plan for False Creek South

In early October, when the City of Vancouver’s Real Estate Department presented a sordid, mercenary plan for the redevelopment of False Creek South —  that parcel of land on the south side of False Creek stretching from the Cambie Street bridge to the Granville Street bridge — Mayor Kennedy Stewart the very next day came out in full-throated support of The Plan, writing in an overly solicitous column published in The Straight that averred …

“Great cities like ours can never stand still. We must always examine whether our city is meeting our needs, both for today and tomorrow.”

The Real Estate Department’s Plan called for a greedy financial return to the City, that sought to more than triple the existing density of homes in the False Creek South neighbourhood, from 2450 units to a reconfigured 6600 units.

The real cost of the Plan?

The absolute, utter destruction of the False Creek South neighbourhood, a decimation of the heart and demographic integrity of one of Vancouver’s most sustainable and livable districts — the ‘close-fisted’ Plan laying waste to existing housing co-operatives dotted throughout the neighbourhood, moving residents from their current locations to a ghettoized, ‘poor door’ stretch of land situated along the bustling, carbon emitting 6th Avenue traffic corridor.

Community outrage soon ensued.

As founding chair of the UBC urban design programme, Patrick Condon, wrote in an article in The Tyee , the City’s Real Estate Department’s Plan would …

  • Increase market condos nearly fourfold, from 688 to 2,350 units;
  • Increase by more than 13x market rental units, from 150 to 2020 units;
  • See all new buildings constructed at least six storeys tall, ranging up to 50 storeys tall at the Granville Street bridgehead. Today, most buildings on the district’s city-owned land are three to four storeys in height;
  • Shift the tenure mix on city-owned land from the current 36% market strata, 8% market rental & 56% non-market co-op / affordable rental units, to 35% market strata, 30% market rental, and 34% non-market co-op and affordable rental;
  • Eventually demolish most of the existing co-ops, with these sites reused for market rentals and market condos, or to expand Charleson Park.

As Robert Renger, a retired senior planner who worked with the City of Burnaby, wrote in a response article in The Straight to the column written by Mayor Stewart — as well as to supporters of the City of Vancouver’s Real Estate Department’s Plan for False Creek South, which accused False Creek South residents of both nimbyism and elitism …

  • 15% of FCS residents are children, with 11% freehold and 16% citywide;
  • 17.5% of False Creek South family households are single-parent, compared to 10.9% of False Creek South freehold and 15.9% citywide;
  • The income mix on FCS lands closely parallels that of the city as a whole.
  • The residents of False Creek South had long ago published a document they called RePlan , a thorough and critical vetting of the City’s proposed Plan for the False Creek South neighbourhood, writing that …

    “False Creek South offers a housing model that is affordable, resilient and community-focused, with a variety of affordable, mixed-income housing options that span a spectrum of housing tenures. We are calling on Vancouver City Council to protect the existing variety of affordable, mixed-income housing options in False Creek South, to eliminate the threat of housing insecurity on leased City land, to kick start community growth, and to create right-sized housing in the False Creek South neighbourhood.

    Let’s expand affordable, resilient, mixed-income, mixed-tenure housing communities. Vancouver needs to protect and create more housing that is community centred, diverse, equitable, inclusive and secure that spans all leasehold housing tenures, including permanent housing for people who have experienced or are at risk of homelessness.”

    On October 5th in a motion presented to her colleagues on Vancouver City Council, Councillor Colleen Hardwick did just that in calling for security of tenure for the beleaguered residents of False Creek South, whose ongoing residency in the neighbourhood would be jeopardized by the redevelopment Plan published by the City’s Real Estate Department. Before that motion could be discussed around the Council table, the members of Council sought to hear feedback from the residents of False Creek South, as well as citizens from right across the city.

    Councillor Colleen Hardwick + retired CoV planner / RePlan co-author , Nathan Edelson

    Long story short, after hearing from some 171 residents of the City of Vancouver — many of them children, now adults, who had grown up in the False Creek South neighbourhood — in, perhaps, the most moving series of addresses this or any other Council has ever heard, in an amendment motion presented by Councillor Christine Boyle, all 10 Vancouver City Councillors, with an about face by Mayor Kennedy Stewart, unanimously rejected the City Real Estate Department’s Plan for False Creek South, instead opting to turn the process of the redevelopment of False Creek South to the City’s Planning Department, which planning process will include respectful and extensive consultation not only with False Creek South residents, but engaged residents across the city at-large.