REVAMPED I The Vancouver neighbourhood that embodies the city’s new 21st-century vision for utopian urban living has just undergone its most recent transformation.
   The plan for southeast False Creek — the eco-friendly community that will be designed to allow people to live, work, play, grow food, recycle waste, save energy, operate businesses and shop all in one small area — has been redesigned to create more affordable housing in a neighbourhood that differs dramatically from the tower-and-podium developments on the north side of False Creek.
   “We’re going to build this perfect thing,” said Coun. Raymond Louie, who co-chaired the city’s southeast False Creek steering committee. “It will have a more on-the-ground urban feel. The city under the NPA liked the tried-and-true formula of the tower and podium. But it’s rather sterile.”
   Instead, the planned 37-hectare, 4,000-resident neighbourhood will look more like Portland’s low-built Pearl District, a new neighbourhood being created out of former industrial land near the downtown Oregon city, or a dense European neighbourhood. That concept was something that a group of the city’s prominent architects had also pushed the city to consider.
   Next week, city councillors will vote on sending the plan, which has been eight years in the making, to a public hearing as the next step in turning it into reality.
   The new plan incorporates significant changes that the city’s Coalition of Progressive Electors council asked for in July, marking a shift from the design that had been in place under the former Non-Partisan Association councils.
   The biggest financial difference is that the new plan will take all of the anticipated $50 million that the city — which owns almost two-thirds of the land in this former industrial area — will get from selling its property and plow it back into the project.
   Normally, city staff try to make some profit on city land that is developed, with the money going to its $1-billion property endowment fund. The interest from that fund helps pay for various city projects.
   Instead, the profits from southeast False Creek will go back into the area to create a much higher proportion of affordable housing than in the other developments that have been built on former industrial land in the city core over the past 20 years.
   It will also help pay for the extra costs of creating an ecofriendly neighbourhood, which covers everything from the higher cost of building with environmentally sustainable components to more daycare and community-centre space aimed at “social sustainability.”
   That aspect is one that has NPA Coun. Peter Ladner, who was also on the steering committee, concerned.
   Although Ladner said he has no problem with the push for a more environmentally healthy design, he is concerned about the cost of creating “social sustainability.”
   The new plan now has more childcare, more park space, and a community centre three times larger than what was previously planned.
   “I believe if you do sustainability right, it’s cheaper,” said Ladner. But he said the extra costs associated with the social-sustainability pieces will deprive other neighbourhoods.
   “What we’re doing is sucking money out of other projects to pay for this,” he said, pointing out that the new neighbourhood will have a full community centre now, instead of just an annex, while the city is also building another new full community centre only a few blocks away at Seventh and Main.
   City staff have ordered a financial analysis to assess the consequences of the reconfigured plan. That will be released in mid-January, before the public hearing.
   The subsidy required to create affordable housing is expected to be the biggest component. The COPE council asked for a plan in which one-third of the units would be geared to low-income residents, one-third to middle income and one-third to high income, which means two-thirds of the units will need high- or medium-level subsidies.
   The megaprojects on the north side of False Creek were required to set aside only 20 per cent of their land for affordable housing.

City’s vision of Utopia takes shape
The community will be designed to allow people to live, work, play, grow food, recycle waste, save energy, operate businesses and shop all in one small area. Source:City of Vancouver.

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