Opinion: Vancouver needs the courage to let more neighbourhoods evolve | Daily Hive

Illustrative concept of what a Village area could look like. (City of Vancouver)

The anxiety surrounding the City of Vancouver’s Villages Plan says far more about the long-standing discomfort with change among some residents — and among more traditional voices in local urban planning circles accustomed to older and more conservative growth models — than it does about the proposal itself.

An early form of this concept of creating new mixed-use commercial and residential hubs with low-rise density was first outlined in the 2022-approved Vancouver Plan, and it was also outlined in the Vancouver Official Development Plan (ODP) approved earlier this year.

While there is now far greater detail, the intent and scope of the Villages Plan comes as no surprise.

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This week, Vancouver City Council is being asked to endorse the detailed technical policies of the Villages Plan — a long-term plan to create 17 existing areas across the city into more complete, walkable neighbourhood hubs. The overall goal is to create new additional retail areas — with shops, grocery stores, restaurants, cafes, pharmacies, and community spaces — along with more housing, such as low-rise apartment buildings generally up to six storeys along with townhouses and multiplexes.

Some of the city’s largest existing retail districts outside the Downtown Vancouver peninsula and Central Broadway areas include West 4th Avenue in Kitsilano, Kerrisdale, Victoria Drive, Fraser Street, East Hastings/East Village, and the length of Kingsway. Among these, West 4th Avenue and Kerrisdale are among the most successful, due in part to their geographic locations and the low- and mid-rise residential densities already surrounding them, as opposed to being surrounded by purely single-family residential density.

But the retail clusters under the Village Plan would be far smaller, spanning a length from as small as one city block to a few at the most.

The 17 new Village areas outlined by the City under the plan spread across both the east and west sides of Vancouver, including Macdonald Street and West 16th Avenue, Macdonald Street and West King Edward Avenue, Mackenzie Street and West 33rd Avenue, Mackenzie Street and West 41st Avenue, Granville Street and West 41st Avenue, Heather Street and West 33rd Avenue, Oak Street and West 49th Avenue, Angus Drive and West 57th Avenue, Oak Street and West 67th Avenue, Fraser Street and East 33rd Avenue, Knight Street and East 33rd Avenue, Commercial Street and East 20th Avenue, Nanaimo Street and East 1st Avenue, Nanaimo Street and East Broadway, Wales Street and East 41st Avenue, Victoria Drive and East 61st Avenue, and Kerr Street and East 54th Avenue.

Villages Plan. (City of Vancouver)

The argument that new villages would somehow undermine existing commercial areas misses the bigger picture. The greater threat to neighbourhood retail is not too many nearby residents — it is too few. The problem is not the possibility of new mixed-use buildings, but zoning that limits the number of customers living within walking distance of retail clusters.

Some of Vancouver’s existing retail strips are struggling not because the city has too much neighbourhood-serving commercial space, but because the municipal government has not allowed enough nearby population growth to support it — especially when certain areas see a demographic shift and population decline, and there is no reaction to change that trajectory.

The idea that urban planning should avoid “competition” between retail districts is especially troubling. Cities are not shopping malls with protected tenant exclusivity agreements. They are living places. A healthy city should not freeze its retail geography around existing commercial corridors.

More local-serving commercial uses do not automatically drain life from existing retail strips. Done properly, it can create a stronger network of walkable places, each serving daily needs at a neighbourhood scale.

We should not be trying to protect scarcity. Instead, we should be trying to create more homes and commercial units for retail and restaurants. There should be more choices.

More commercial space could also help take some pressure off commercial rents. Scarcity gives landlords leverage, and it often leaves room only for chains, established operators, or businesses with the highest margins. More storefronts would mean more competition among landlords and more openings for independent restaurants, small retailers, first-time entrepreneurs, creative local concepts, and other small businesses.

In my travels, some of the most vibrant and diverse cities I have visited are places where commercial storefront space is not treated as rare or exceptional, but is woven throughout neighbourhoods rather than being limited to a few select streets. Instead of long stretches of ground-level residential frontage, these cities often have ample shops, restaurants, cafes, and small businesses integrated into the streetscape. That diversity of space helps support a diversity of businesses, both small and large.

Vancouver does not need fewer places for businesses to take root. It needs more.

Illustrative concept of what a Village area could look like. (City of Vancouver)

There is also a deeper contradiction. Many of Vancouver’s most vocal defenders of “community character” already live in neighbourhoods that benefited from earlier generations of change, including proximity to retail areas, public amenities, and other everyday conveniences. Those residential and commercial uses did not appear by accident — they exist because past decisions allowed communities to evolve.

It is highly unreasonable to enjoy the benefits of a well-served neighbourhood, while denying other areas the chance to gain the same everyday conveniences.

Change is not what is holding Vancouver back. The fear of change is.

Major cities are complex, living organisms. When they are prevented from changing and adapting to new realities, they do not remain perfectly preserved — they begin to stagnate and decline.

West Point Grey Village, which was once the de facto retail village for the University of British Columbia (UBC), offers a clear local example. Over the past 25 years, its businesses have suffered as new commercial hubs have emerged farther west at University Village, Wesbrook Village, and increasingly within the academic campus itself. These newer hubs have allowed students, staff, and residents of UBC and the University Endowment Lands to take much shorter trips — if not entirely walkable — for their everyday needs.

Moreover, as an additional major factor, West Point Grey’s population growth has stagnated, and there are far fewer families with children living in the area compared to a generation ago.

The obvious solution is not to preserve West Point Grey in decline, but to give it more nearby residents to support its shops and services, starting with the 2025-approved redevelopment of the former Safeway site on West 10th Avenue into a high-density, mixed-use residential and retail project with a new replacement grocery store — returning the area’s anchor retailer. The nearby Jericho Lands redevelopment will also add to the demand in the area, with its own retail village supported by immense residential density and a future SkyTrain station as part of the eventual UBC extension of the Millennium Line.

The intersection of Sasamat Street and West 10th Avenue in West Point Grey Village. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

mackenzie street and west 33rd avenue vancouver

The existing small retail cluster in the vicinity of West 33rd Avenue and Mackenzie Street in Vancouver, one of the 17 Village areas under the City of Vancouver’s Village Plan. (Google Maps)

Vancouver’s future cannot be built only around the comfort of those who fear losing the city they remember.

There is also a clear inconsistency in some of the opposition. Many of the same voices that have long argued against high-rise density — often insisting that Vancouver should instead focus on gentler, low-rise growth — are now also resisting the very low-rise density they previously held up as the better alternative.

At a certain point, the objection no longer appears to be about the specific form of growth, but about growth itself.

Some of this opposition also reflects a very short-term view of the city — one that struggles to imagine what Vancouver will need 10, 15, 25, or 50 years from now. Planning cannot be based only on the comfort of the present, or on today’s weak market conditions and economic challenges, which are always cyclical. A city’s growth framework has to look far beyond the current moment.

But that growth is coming. Vancouver is expected to reach a population of about one million by 2050 — roughly a quarter million more people than today. Naturally, that will require more places where retail, restaurants, services, and jobs can be added to better support a larger population. A growing city cannot expect its existing retail streets to carry all future demand on their own.

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