Opinion: New building shadowing policies could kill many downtown Vancouver projects | Daily Hive

Shadowing impacts of the proposed towers at 1706-1738 Alberni St. and 735 Bidwell St., Vancouver, at 4 p.m. on September 22. (Henriquez Partners Architects/Kingswood Properties/Bosa Properties)

“I don’t see too many people complaining about how the view is a crisis, or that a shadow during a one-hour period in three days of a year is a significant issue that can be labelled a crisis. But every single day, people bring up they can’t find housing,” Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim told Daily Hive Urbanized in an interview in early 2023.

“The goal is to explore all options and we don’t lose sight of the bigger prize, which is more attainable housing and achieving it faster,” he continued.

Yet this Wednesday, during the final Vancouver City Council public meeting before the summer break, city councillors will consider highly consequential policy recommendations from City staff aimed at formalizing and consolidating building shadow restrictions for designated public spaces across the downtown Vancouver peninsula — spaces they have deemed important for preserving direct sunlight exposure.

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City staff are proposing the new “Solar Access Guidelines for the Downtown Peninsula.” From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each year on September 22, the fall equinox, the form and height of new buildings cannot cast new shadows on public parks (including community and neighbourhood parks), public plazas, public school sites, and the retail strip sidewalks of Davie Street and Robson Street, as well as special restrictions for Victory Square, Robson Square, and Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Garden.

Nearly exactly one year ago, in July 2024, City Council passed sweeping changes to the protected mountain view cone policies, enabling greater density through added height not only across the downtown Vancouver peninsula, but also within the Broadway Plan, False Creek North, Downtown Eastside, and the Cambie Corridor north of Queen Elizabeth Park.

It was estimated by City staff at the time that the view cone changes would enable additional development capacity of between 108 million sq. ft. and 215 million sq. ft. of building floor area for market housing, secured rental housing, affordable housing, office space, hotel uses, retail/restaurant space, entertainment space, institutional space, and other uses.

However, if approved, the new building shadowing guidelines could effectively offset much of the progress made by the recent view cone reforms — amounting to setting the stage for meaningful change in downtown Vancouver, only to now reverse course and walk much of it back.

In practice, at development sites affected by these policies, building shadowing restrictions can be just as limiting as view cone regulations. In past cases, overall building heights have been reduced, and even the uppermost tower floor plates trimmed into partial floors — all because a proposed tower would cast a shadow on a public park located several city blocks away.

These building shadow restrictions have been enforced even when the new shadow only touches the very edge of a protected public space — representing a tiny fraction of its overall area. Sometimes these slightly shadowed areas are not even designed to be actively used by the public, but they are still protected anyway.

One prominent example of how these overlapping policies can stall development is the proposed 56-storey tower at 830–850 Thurlow St. and 1045 Haro St. That project ultimately collapsed due to a combination of view cones and Robson Street shadowing constraints, with the developer later citing these restrictions as key factors in the project’s descent into receivership.

Shadowing impacts of the planned office tower at 1166 West Pender St. on the perimeter of Harbour Green Park. (Reliance Properties)

830-850 Thurlow Street 1045 Haro Street Vancouver Intracorp

Cancelled project: Shadowing impacts of 830-850 Thurlow St. and 1045 Haro St. on its new public spaces, and on the north sidewalk of Robson Street. (Patkau Architects/Intracorp)

Added density through increased height is one of the most significant policy tools the City has to improve the economic and financial viability of many development projects. This is especially a concern with the current market challenges, financing challenges, and the growing cost of construction — mixed in with other demanding municipal policies, and the development fees imposed by the City and regional district.

With these shadowing restrictions, based on a single day in September, developers now face further uncertainty for their projects in downtown Vancouver.

For instance, this also directly contradicts City Council’s recently approved policies aimed at catalyzing much-needed new hotel developments to support tourism — one of Vancouver’s few major industries and a significant source of employment. Metro Vancouver is in need of 20,000 additional hotel rooms to meet medium- and long-term demand growth, with half of this new supply needed within Vancouver where the demand is highest. Soaring hotel room rates, now among the highest in Canada’s major urban centres, are already a symptom of this increasing hotel room shortage, which narrows further with each passing year without a meaningful major net increase in overnight accommodations.

To improve the challenging financial viability of building new hotels, the strategy encourages mixed-use hotel and residential towers, with the market residential uses essentially acting to subsidize some of the high costs associated with building and operating hotel uses. But this mixed-use option can only be achieved through added verticality.

The proposed policies include a few exemptions, such as case-by-case consideration for shadowing caused by 100 per cent social housing projects or developments that deliver major public benefits — including significant public realm improvements, heritage conservation, or a childcare facility.

But if protecting “solar access” through shadowing restrictions is considered a universal urban planning good, why are the exemptions based on selectively defined public benefits?

In addition to conflicting with the housing goals of the provincial and federal governments, it also hinders the economic revitalization urgently needed on the struggling downtown Vancouver peninsula — where creating new businesses and attractions is essential to boosting visitation, vibrancy, and long-term renewal. Revitalization is a matter of enabling more critical mass on the downtown Vancouver peninsula.

In a city struggling with affordability, living costs, and stagnating commercial growth, regulating building form to such an extreme level undermines broader aspects of what is considered a healthy city.

The livability crisis in Vancouver is less about conventional quality-of-life factors and much more fundamentally rooted in economic challenges and a lack of opportunity.

It also raises concerns about the future creation of new public spaces and retail streets if these areas are later subjected to shadowing restrictions that further limit new development in downtown Vancouver. While new public spaces should always be welcomed, developers may become hesitant to offer them as contributions to the City, under such constraints later affecting many other development sites nearby.

Furthermore, downtown Vancouver is intended to serve as the business, economic, financial, cultural, and entertainment hub — not just for Metro Vancouver, but for all of British Columbia. As a key focal point for major public transit services, it is also an obvious location for the highest densities anywhere in the region, aligning with the principles of transit-oriented development.

The “place and promise” of downtown Vancouver is increasingly being called into question as new major developments shift toward emerging urban centres such as Brentwood, Lougheed, and Metrotown in Burnaby, as well as Surrey City Centre.

There is a reason why, as of 2023, Metro Vancouver’s tallest building is now Two Gilmore Place in Brentwood — surpassing downtown Vancouver’s Living Shangri-La (now the Hyatt), a reflection of what’s possible in areas unburdened by such restrictive policies. Even taller buildings are currently under construction or planned elsewhere outside of Vancouver.

Many of the region’s most innovative and creative service businesses — including distinctive retail and restaurant experiences — are now setting up shop well beyond the downtown Vancouver peninsula for a myriad of reasons, including the cost of business, sustained foot traffic levels that are lower than before the pandemic, and ongoing crime, public safety, and public disorder concerns.

This matters because the commercial spaces that bring vibrancy to the city centre — from retail and restaurants to entertainment and cultural attractions, which bring more risk and smaller profit margins — are often the first to be downsized or entirely cut from new development proposals when height restrictions limit overall density. And that is before even considering traditional public benefits.

If implemented, these building shadowing policies could effectively derail many sites currently undergoing the rezoning process, as well as future sites targeted for redevelopment — including proposals for economically transformative city-building projects.

One of the most notable projects that could be impacted is the proposed three-tower redevelopment of the Hudson’s Bay parkade at the 500 block of West Georgia Street, which calls for Western Canada’s tallest building of 1,033-ft-tall (315 metres) with 100 per cent hotel uses — containing over 900 hotel rooms, conference and meeting space, a striking public observation deck attraction on the tower rooftop, and destination restaurants — as well as an 889-ft-tall (271 metres) tower and a 783-ft-tall (239 metres) tower with nearly 1,600 condominium and market rental homes.

As a public benefit connected to the market density, this project also calls for an off-site, 38-storey social housing tower, built next to Woodward’s and gifted to the municipal government upon completion, with a value pegged at $224 million.

Among the other benefits is a sizeable privately-owned public plaza at the northeast corner of the intersection of West Georgia Street and Seymour Street at the Hudson’s Bay parkade development site. This is made possible by distributing the project’s density vertically instead of horizontally, which would otherwise take up more of land footprint.

Preliminary conceptual artistic rendering of the Hudson’s Bay parkade city block redevelopment at 501-595 West Georgia Street, Vancouver. (Henriquez Partners Architects/Holborn Group)

But all of this could be put at risk if, for instance, protecting the “solar access” of Cathedral Square takes precedence — a public space that, in fact, has long suffered from severe maintenance neglect and persistent public disorder issues. Cathedral Square is located at the northeast corner of Dunsmuir Street and Richards Street, just kitty corner from the Hudson’s Bay parkade development site.

These building shadowing policies could also severely limit the height and form of development for the future redevelopment of the St. Paul’s Hospital campus on Burrard Street, after the hospital fully relocates its operations to the new campus at the False Creek Flats later this decade.

Considerations to protect the “solar access” of Nelson Park — located just kitty-corner from the hospital campus — could take precedence, significantly limiting the potential to redevelop the hospital site for new mixed uses, while also affecting other nearby sites along the Thurlow Street/Burrard Street corridor within the West End Community Plan.

Under the changes to the view cone policies approved in July 2024, both the Hudson’s Bay parkade and the St. Paul’s Hospital sites were effectively designated as “Exceptional Downtown Sites” due their large sizes, allowing them to intrude into several highly restrictive view cones — including the wide-spanning View Cone 3.0 from Queen Elizabeth Park. However, under the proposed building shadowing policies, these sites could no longer be “exceptional,” as shadowing considerations could override the intended view cone relaxations and force relatively short high-rise tower heights for such central and prominent sites.

In their report to City Council this week, City staff note that they will report back at a later date on future building shadowing considerations for the Central Waterfront Official Development Plan (CWODP), which is the northern area of the downtown Vancouver waterfront generally spanning between Canada Place and the eastern end of Crab Park. The Gastown waterfront railyard makes up the overwhelming majority of the CWODP’s land area.

This waterfront area immediately east of Canada Place is perhaps the most economically transformative city-building site on the downtown Vancouver peninsula.

However, if the same line of thinking around protecting “solar access” is applied here, it could significantly constrain the area’s future development potential — not just in terms of density, but also the types of uses that could be realized.

The City is currently in the early stages of a master planning process for this Central Waterfront area, in collaboration with the Government of British Columbia, Transport Canada, the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, Canadian Pacific Kansas City, and various property owners and stakeholders. Last year, these partners signed an agreement outlining a broad vision to create a master plan that supports economic growth, addresses business, trade, and supply chain needs, improves transportation and tourism infrastructure — including a potential expansion of the Vancouver Convention Centre and added hotel capacity — and explores opportunities for housing and densification.

Introducing new building shadowing restrictions for both new and existing public spaces within the Central Waterfront area — including Crab Park — could significantly undermine the flexibility needed to realize truly world-class transformative city-building, as well as staggering economically and culturally significant developments and attractions currently being pondered for this site. Such restrictions could also hinder the ability to achieve the density required to offset the very substantial costs of mitigating the active railway infrastructure — such as the potential construction of an elevated deck similar to New York’s Hudson Yards, for example — and building supporting utilities and infrastructure.

Similarly at Northeast False Creek, severe building height limitations could impact the area’s major redevelopment projects. These plans envision thousands of new homes along with substantial retail, restaurant, and commercial space to establish an entertainment district complementing the adjacent stadiums. However, the site’s proximity to major public spaces — including Andy Livingstone Park and Creekside Park — could conceivably trigger strict shadowing restrictions. This presents a significant challenge, given that much of the public benefits outlined in the City’s Northeast False Creek Plan rely heavily on the market residential components of these projects to be financially viable.

What is missing from City staff’s building shadowing policy proposal is a comprehensive analysis of the eliminated housing and job space — similar to the work it previously performed to show that the view cone relaxations could enable up 215 million sq. ft. of additional building floor area development capacity.

And even then, that may not illustrate the full potential picture.

If Vancouver were not so bound by rigid regulations and an overly cautious, in-the-box approach to planning, it might be surprised by the bold, game-changing proposals it could organically attract based on market demand and investment interest — projects that have the potential to redefine the city’s future and global profile, going beyond merely residential developments.

If the City’s building shadowing considerations were to apply to Squamish Nation’s Senakw towers now rising at the south end of the Burrard Street Bridge, they likely would not be permitted due to the new long shadows cast on Vanier Park.

Fundamentally, Vancouver’s future lies not in emulating the quaint, low-rise character of European cities, but in embracing the verticality and urban ambition seen in places like Melbourne, Sydney, and Singapore — cities that have successfully combined density, design excellence, economic vibrancy, and livability to meet the demands of a growing population and global economy.

senakw towers construction first phase july 18 2025 f

Construction progress on the first phase of the Senakw complex, as seen on July 18, 2025. (Kenneth Chan)

There is also a misguided assumption that direct sunlight is an unquestionable universal good — that it inherently equates to livability. There is perhaps a Euro-centric bias with such values.

This not only places direct sunlight exposure above more pressing functional goals like housing, job space, and economic opportunity, but also overlooks the lived realities and cultural differences of Vancouver’s highly diverse communities, many of whom actively seek shade over direct sun.

With climate change bringing hotter summers, avoiding shadows is not only outdated but can actually do more harm than good. An element of shade should also be seen as a public good — important for comfort and protecting people’s health.

And for those who want their dose of Vitamin D, they will still be able to find it in many other open spaces across the downtown Vancouver peninsula.

Just the other day, on a hot and sunny late morning, while waiting for the westbound No. 23 bus at SkyTrain’s Stadium–Chinatown Station to head to the Daily Hive office in Yaletown, I noticed more than a dozen other people also waiting. Yet not a single person was lined up at the bus stop — instead, everyone was gathered under the shade of nearby trees, clearly avoiding the harsh sunlight beating down on the sidewalk.

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