Future plans for Vancouver’s False Creek South to start fresh with public planning process
Cheryl Chan
The Vancouver Sun
Starting fresh with a public planning process ensures that the process begins from a place of trust with the residents, said Councillor Christine Boyle.
A rendering showing the City of Vancouver’s proposed conceptual development plan for city-owned land in False Creek South, with the goal of being built out by 2040. Photo by City of Vancouver /PNG
Vancouver city council has voted to park a conceptual development plan on the future of False Creek South that would see the densification of the mixed-income neighbourhood.
Instead, they’ve opted to start fresh with a formal community planning process.
The False Creek South neighbourhood plan proposed increasing the number of units in the waterfront neighbourhood on the south shore of False Creek from the current 1,849 to an eventual target of 6,645. It would also change the housing mix, increasing the proportion of market stratas and rentals.
At a committee meeting Thursday, councillors opted to support an amendment by Coun. Christine Boyle to use the development plan submitted by the city’s real estate department to merely “inform but not constrain” a community planning process.
Too many residents had questions and concerns about the proposed plan, said Boyle.
“It’s rare to have so many groups across the city say that this conceptual plan wasn’t the place to start,” Boyle said after the meeting.
The decision doesn’t delay the process, she said.
“Either way we would have gone into a planning process. But this ensures that the process begins from a place of trust with the residents, so it can better engage them and better hear from them, and reflect the direction residents in False Creek South and the city and council all want to see.”
Boyle said most of the concerns she heard weren’t over the planned increase in density, but the desire to have as much co-op and non-market housing as possible, as well as how income-based housing is spread across the neighbourhood.
False Creek South, which was formerly industrial land, was developed in the 1970s and is now home to about 5,500 people.
There are about 1,800 properties on city land, which makes up about 80 per cent of the land in False Creek South. Another 1,300 units are on private land.
Non-market and co-op housing make up more than half of all housing units in the city-owned section of the neighbourhood. Another 36 per cent is market strata leasehold, while eight per cent is market rental.
The plan envisioned each of the three housing types making up roughly one-third — something many residents weren’t thrilled about.
“The concern was that the balance was shifting,” said Boyle, noting that even though all types of housing would see an increase, the targets were “too heavily skewed toward market stratas and rentals.”
Boyle also put forward an amendment, which garnered unanimous support, to maintain False Creek South’s original vision of having one-third lower income residents, one-third middle income residents, and one-third upper income residents.
Preserving that affordable mixed-income housing with co-ops and lower-income units requires funding from senior levels of government, she added.
Mayor Kennedy Stewart told council the welcoming sentiments expressed by False Creek South residents over having low-income people as their future neighbours should serve as a signal to other parts of the city.
Coun. Colleen Hardwick, who had released a statement earlier Thursday saying the proposed plan would reduce affordability in the neighbourhood, said she breathed a deep sigh of relief over Thursday’s outcome.
“False Creek South has been internationally recognized as an example of getting it right in urban design since its inception in the 1970s,” she told councillors. “I was deeply concerned we were going to be destroying that legacy.”
Council has already directed the city’s real estate department to start formal negotiation concerning residential strata leaseholds leases, most of which are set to expire in the next 15 to 25 years. The city will also begin discussions about lease extensions and redevelopment opportunities with the area’s co-ops.
The community planning process for False Creek South will include consultation with residents in the neighbourhood and across the city, First Nations, and other stakeholders. It is expected to start in the first half of 2022.
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