Opinion: What could go wrong with the Broadway Plan?

David Fine/Submitted

Written for Daily Hive Urbanized by David Fine, who is an award-winning local filmmaker, an outspoken housing policy critic, and a moderator of the VanPoli Facebook group.

The City of Vancouver is conducting a series of four open houses this month about the Broadway Plan to “update and review land use and built form policies”.

As the rezonings or development application boards have gone up, many residents who may have broadly supported the general notions of the Broadway Plan are very surprised to see the incursion of huge towers on quiet residential streets. Most bought into the idea of considerably more density along the corridor, especially near the new transit stations, but most did not appreciate the way the area plan extends beyond the immediate surrounds of the corridor, and dramatically so.

And now we learn that this month’s open houses have recently been revealed as a strategy to massively increase the density already planned by removing tower limits for blocks within 400 metres of SkyTrain stations and to increase allowable heights. This is meant to align with the provisions of the Government of British Columbia’s Transit-Oriented Area legislation, which exceeds the original terms of the Broadway Plan, but the municipal government seems to be going even further.

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For example, in Mt. Pleasant, what is called “Main St. Village”, the density increase is dramatic, going from up to six storeys to 20. What will this do to the nature and character of the Main Street so many of us value?

The Broadway Plan was already going full throttle, and now even more so. We are just under two years into it and the numbers are staggering. Look at the map below, compiled by CityHallWatch. The markers represent proposed new developments under the terms of the Broadway Plan.

Daily Hive Urbanized reports that according to the municipal government, as of March 2024, a total of 150 projects are in various stages of development. The mix of the types of homes in the pipeline entails 17,076 secured purpose-built market rental housing units, 3,694 secured purpose-built below-market rental housing units, 1,436 strata condominium units, and 263 social housing units. This totals over 22,000 homes.

The Broadway Plan contemplates 30,000 new homes, but over 30 years! We are less than two years in and 22,000 homes are in the works! That’s already an incredible 74% of the planned housing. What was touted as a plan for a measured build out over 30 years has become what amounts to a crazed land rush. Why?

2024 Broadway Plan amendments: Increased density and height for Main Street Village. (City of Vancouver)

broadway plan rezoning applications cityhallwatch

Map of the publicly known rezoning/development applications within the Broadway Plan, as of May 2024. (CityHallWatch)

broadway plan rental housing tower rezoning applications

Rezoning application notification signs within the Broadway Plan area. (David Fine/Submitted)

Clearly, developers are excited to exploit this new development opportunity, but investors are also rushing to grab parcels of land, or “land banking,” because those parcels are a valuable commodity.

Will housing be built on them? Not necessarily. An investor might own that land so they can flip it to someone else who may or may not build on it, resulting in a profit-motivated land rush.

If you live in a home in the Broadway Plan area, you will likely have been visited by realtors encouraging you to be part of a land assembly and promising well above assessed values. The pitch being, “There’s money to be made. Let me arrange for your home to be demolished.”

But what about the housing that will get built? That, of course, is the idea, but the greater majority of the units in the new towers will be smaller and very expensive to rent. Already we are seeing new 500 sq ft units renting for up to $3,000 per month. This will serve one segment of the housing market but will not serve most families who will require more space than the 400 and 500 sq ft units. Bigger units will be prohibitively expensive and of limited quantity.

Ah, but there is a “below market” component. What about those units? They are good, but those units will be a small percentage of the total, and will they be truly affordable? They will be less expensive than the market units but likely more expensive than the more affordable units being demolished to build the new towers, and certainly much smaller. We will get more housing, but not more affordable housing and not much suited to families. Meanwhile, land values go up, making family housing even less attainable in Vancouver.

So what will families do? Many are resigned to the fact that to get more space, they need to move further away. This means more commuting and more traffic on our roads. Kind of the opposite of the YIMBY urbanist dream of everyone living local, walking and biking to work, but this is what we are building.

And besides the housing, what are the plans for added amenities like parks, schools, and community centres? There are none. Architect Brian Palmquist writes in his blog, “If we were to apply the park provision standard that was mandated for False Creek North and Coal Harbour, we would have already made provision for more than 30 acres of new park space for the 18,000+ new residents”. In fact, there are no plans for anything like that.

The Broadway Plan also made promises about the pace and sensitivity of the development. Comforting words like “respond to evolving local context” and “neighbourhood character” are soothing sound bites, but the reality is turning out to be far from this promise.

And the development company plies a similar line. Havn Developments, who have never built anything like this tower before and have two other almost identical building proposals in the Broadway Plan area, said in The Globe & Mail, “In those areas, you need something quite sensitive.” The idea that a massive, blocky tower like this one could be considered in any way “sensitive” is no less than some kind of special marketing chutzpah.

havn developments west 14th avenue broadway plan

David Fine/Submitted

Artistic rendering of 2156-2172 West 14th Avenue, Vancouver (Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership/Havn) and the existing condition of the development site (Google Maps).

No question that densifying needs to happen, but the Broadway Plan should be an opportunity to add loads of new housing in a considered way, building out to transit routes while enhancing and respecting the character and heritage of existing neighbourhoods, as the area plan actually promised. It should be supplying far more missing middle and far more affordable housing, but it isn’t.

Vancouver was recently named the third least affordable city on the planet. This despite a tripling of housing units over the last 40 years. According to University of British Columbia professor Patrick Condon, “No other centre city in North America has come even remotely close to this heroic achievement — this tripling of housing supply — in just four decades.” And yet we are so unaffordable. That should be a clue that the simple notion of building more and more does not in itself address housing affordability. In fact, the number one least affordable city is Hong Kong, a city even more dense with towers. Could it be possible that towers are not the only answer?

Neighbours living in the area near the West 14th Avenue tower proposal were shocked to see the development board go up and have mobilized to let Vancouver City Council know how they feel. Almost none of the residents ever saw such a massive change coming and they can’t believe it. Now it looks like it’s going to another level.

So go to the Broadway Plan open houses in June 2024 and ask City staff about it. See what they say. Articulate your concerns. Fill in the comment forms. If nothing else, they will get a sense of the way residents feel. Who knows, maybe there could be a revision to the plan to make it work better, not just for developers and investors, but for everyone.

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