Colleen Hardwick's TEAM promises to repeal Broadway Plan and Vancouver Plan

Artistic rendering of a higher density area next to a subway station under the Vancouver Plan. (City of Vancouver)

Major city planning strategies reviewed and approved over the final months of the current Vancouver City Council will be repealed if TEAM For A Livable Vancouver gains a majority governing foothold after this week’s civic election.

If elected, TEAM city councillor mayoral candidate Colleen Hardwick says her party would revoke both the Broadway Plan and the Vancouver Plan.

The Broadway Plan was approved on June 20 following a marathon, multi-date public meeting process, and a four-year-long planning and public consultation process that cost $3 million. It was approved in a 7-4 vote, with Hardwick joined by Green Party councillor Michael Wiebe, COPE councillor Jean Swanson, and NPA councillor Melissa De Genova in opposition.

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In exchange for the major public transit investment from the provincial government and TransLink, the municipal government was required to conduct a planning process for densifying the areas around the future six subway stations of SkyTrain’s Millennium Line Broadway Extension reaching Arbutus, which will open in 2025.

As approved, the Broadway Plan allows for densification to accommodate an additional 50,000 residents and 40,000 jobs within a six sq km area framed by Vine Street to the west, 1st Avenue to the north, Clark Drive to the east, and 16th Avenue to the south.

Land uses and building heights of the Broadway Plan. (City of Vancouver)

Concept sketch of the future Central Broadway skyline as the result of the Broadway Plan. (City of Vancouver)

The Vancouver Plan is a city-wide growth plan approved by City Council on July 22, with Hardwick and De Genova against. But unlike the Broadway Plan, this city-wide plan is a high-level vision, not a legal land use plan; it serves as a framework and foundation for the future creation of legal land use plans like the Broadway Plan, Cambie Plan, Grandview-Woodland Plan, and West End, but in areas that do not have an updated or recent area plan.

The high-level vision of the Vancouver Plan densifies much of the city, including low-density single-family neighbourhoods, and introduces greater densities in areas where it can be expected — within central areas of the city, near transit hubs, and along arterial roads and retail districts. It is a guide for growing Vancouver’s population by 260,000 people to about 920,000 residents, and by 200,000 jobs to 640,000 employees by 2050.

The municipal government spent 3.5 years performing planning and public consultation for the Vancouver Plan at a cost of about $10 million. The direction to conduct a city-wide planning exercise was one of the first major policies approved by the current City Council following the 2018 election, which was a move supported by Hardwick at the time.

Land use and density under the Vancouver Plan. (City of Vancouver)

Artistic rendering of a concept of a retail street under the Vancouver Plan. (City of Vancouver)

But Hardwick asserts the separate journeys toward creating the Broadway Plan and Vancouver Plan were highly flawed and lacked a neighbourhood-based approach to planning and consultation.

Hardwick’s TEAM is concerned with “out-of-scale cookie-cutter buildings lacking local context” and impacting upheld unique neighbourhood characters.

She has also been critical of tower-based development, with the Broadway Plan alone permitting dozens of towers within close proximity to each future subway station along Broadway. The Broadway Plan permits towers as high as 40 storeys around the future South Granville Station.

“These autocratic, top-down plans came out of City Hall, and are now being plunked down on residents whether they like it or not,” said Hardwick.

“The city developed these plans with selected ‘stakeholders’ rather than actually talking to people who live in the neighbourhoods and know them best. The result will be a concrete jungle of generic neighbourhoods that have lost the qualities that make Vancouver unique, beautiful and livable.”

vancouver plan mixed-use residential park 1

Artistic rendering of a concept of a mixed-use residential area with a public park under the Vancouver Plan. (City of Vancouver)

After repealing the plans, they would be reconsidered under TEAM’s new neighbourhood-based system that provides local residents and businesses with a greater influence over their areas.

TEAM states each neighbourhood will have the ability to plan for its own population growth within the “scale and context of the area,” considering local services, public transit, schools, parks, and amenities.

Earlier in her term as a city councillor, Hardwick launched a “50 Neighbourhoods” project of public consultation by touring 50 neighbourhoods to discuss how local residents desire to accommodate growth in their area, but the onset of the pandemic put a wrench in her approach.

Related to repealing the two plans, TEAM has also vowed to cancel the SkyTrain Millennium Line extension between Arbutus Station and the University of British Columbia, and advocate to replace this investment with 58 km of street-level LRT across Vancouver, including the route for the remaining rapid transit leg to UBC from Arbutus Station. Hardwick believes the network size of LRT is a better investment and enables more distributed gentler densification.

In response to TEAM’s plan to rewind on the Broadway Plan and Vancouver Plan, Forward Together says they will maintain both city planning strategies, and address neighbourhood consultation concerns by transitioning the City of Vancouver into a ward system of city councillors who are elected based on ridings.

“The Broadway Plan and Vancouver Plan have already been approved by Council after considerable community consultation. We fully support the implementation of both plans,” reads a statement by Forward Together to Daily Hive Urbanized.

“They will go a long way to helping us create the additional housing that our city needs while also protecting renters — and with Mayor Kennedy Stewart’s commitment to moving to a ward system with electoral constituencies, neighbourhoods will have councillors who are elected to represent their interests.”

Peter Meiszner, a city councillor candidate for ABC Vancouver, warned there would be “consequences” with the provincial government if the City of Vancouver were to backtrack on the Broadway Plan, in particular.

“The City of Vancouver is contractually obligated to densify the Broadway corridor in accordance with the funding agreement for the Millennium Line extension. Densification on the Broadway corridor cannot be prevented without consequences to the City of Vancouver,” Meiszner told Daily Hive Urbanized.

David Eby, the presumptive next Premier of BC, has also hinted he will be tough on municipal governments that do not fulfill their growth demands, with provincial intervention in municipal affairs a possibility.

The civic election is scheduled for this Saturday, October 15.

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