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• Monitors what is happening in the Norquay area of East Vancouver
• Provides a forum for residents to communicate
• Documents how city officials implement CityPlan in Vancouver’s second “neighbourhood centre”
The interests of speculators, a developer-funded City Council, and compromised city planners may go against what renters and homeowners want to see happen in their neighborhood. Bad planning can contribute to damage of organic social fabric, loss of affordable rental housing, needless manufacture of unoccupied investment condos, skyrocketing property taxes, artificially accelerated rates of development, more people crowded into the same unimproved public space, aggravation of problems with parking and vehicle traffic, loss of views, poor quality in design, and severe shadow impacts. What is happening to Norquay calls for continuing independent community-based review. Please keep coming back to Eye on Norquay to stay up to date on news and to share your perspective.
→ See Resources at right to learn more about Norquay and city planning in Vancouver
[ Eye on Norquay complements the coverage of 2007-2008 provided by predecessor Norquay Neighbours ]
Avalon Open House #2
Notice has just been distributed for a second open house “on the redevelopment design of the Avalon Dairy property at East 43rd Avenue and Wales Street” sponsored by Hywel Jones Architects. The open house will be held on Monday 4 June 2012 from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm at Killarney Community Centre. The notice as distributed in pdf includes a map showing the location of the “subject site.”
CoV Norquay Update
The following City of Vancouver email was recently received by unspecified Norquay residents and/or property owners.
Compare this April 30 communication with the previous one of February 24 and ask yourself how much confidence can be placed in planning that cannot even see five weeks ahead — “two neighbourhood open houses planned for April.” This jerk-around adds one more failure to the frustrations piled onto Norquay residents, some of whom held open the entire month of April 2012 in trying to ensure the possibility of their own participation.
“Postponed … will advise you of the rescheduled date!” Place your bet as to whether even a minimum two weeks of notice will be given for this formality of “consultation.” These are the planners who (1) so urgently forced a premature Norquay “plan” to public hearing before Vancouver City Council in November 2010 (2) flipflopped in spring 2011 to disallow Norquay residents any participation in planning for their own public realm or public benefits strategy.
From: Norquay Village Neighbourhood Centre Program — norquayvillage@vancouver.ca
To:
Date: Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 4:34 PM
Subject: Norquay Implementation Program Update
Mailed-by: vancouver.ca
Hello Norquay Resident/Property Owner,
You are receiving this email because you have signed up at a previous Norquay event to be updated on work to implement the Norquay Village Neighbourhood Centre Plan. We wish to advise you that the Open House on the New Zones and Public Benefits Strategy has been postponed. Staff will advise you of the rescheduled date in the future and it will be advertised broadly via an invitation card to all residences in the neighbourhood.
Work on Kingsway has begun as you likely have noticed. Over the summer you will see the a centre landscaped median, improved pedestrian crossings, landscaped curb bulges taking shape. By the fall, new lighting, street furniture and landscaping should be almost complete. The improvements will begin to create an identity for Norquay as the future heart of the neigbourhood on Kingsway. Future major developments will add more crossings, wider sidewalks, plazas and other pedestrian amenities to further enhance comfort and convenience for pedestrians and add to the street character.
In the meantime if you have questions, please contact …
Jennifer White at 604-871-6474 or jennifer.white@vancouver.ca
Jennifer White
Community Planning
City of Vancouver
Ph. 604.871.6474
Fax. 604.873.7898
Email. jennifer.white@vancouver.ca
Flat Roofs
The Issue
Norquay residents and supporters need to resist any attempt by developers/planners to push new flat-roof design into the parts of Norquay that do not lie along Kingsway or form part of the narrow “transition zone” between Kingsway and the surrounding neighborhood.
Whenever the three new housing types (duplex, traditional rowhouse, stacked townhouse) are brought to Norquay open houses for review, there should be confirmation to the community that stacked townhouse in particular will not be permitted to alter the eclectic character of Norquay by substantially increasing the proportion of flat-roofed structures. The blight of this clearly unwanted design element must not be allowed to spread.
The table appended to this posting demonstrates that flat-roof design in Norquay is at present a minuscule component within Norquay dwelling types and comprises substantially less than 1% of existing dwellings.
It is not appropriate for “neighbourhood centre” planning to overwhelm and alter the existing organic mix of neighborhood design and character with cheap-looking and shadow-casting boxes that do not fit in and go against the clearly expressed wishes of residents.
What the Community Has Already Said
The Renfrew-Collingwood Community Vision confirms (p. 27) substantial community support for design that “reflects character houses in the area [and is] less boxy — scale and massing … to ‘fit’ … surroundings — encourage … pitched roofs, porches and entries” [all accompanying illustrations are sloped roof]. A similar level of support is shown (p. 28) for “steeped roofs.” Elsewhere (p. 53) that level of support is show for “townhouse development like Duchess Street apartments [pitched roof design] … compatible with RS-1.”
The Norquay Planning Background
Extensive community engagement with planners eventually led to city council approval of the Norquay Village Neighbourhood Centre Plan.
But not all understandings of the community received explicit statement in the Plan. Right up until the end, the Plan was in flux. Besides that, little time was provided for the community to review the many pages that had been prepared by planners working entirely on their own.
Some of the best documentation for understandings on building design can be found in the materials presented to the Norquay community at Workshop 4 on 28 April 2009. One of five parallel sessions focused on Housing Character. The graphics provided showed predominantly sloped roofs, and the planner offered the provisions of RS-5 as an improvement on design that Norquay might look to enjoy. The planner was told that Norquay did not want flat roofs. This concern was repeated multiple times to the succeeding new planning team in phase 3 (2009-2010) of the Norquay planning.
Additional Practical Rationale
At the level of practicality, in Vancouver’s rainforest climate, three construction features in particular exacerbate the neverending problem of rapid wood-frame building rot, also known as “leaky condo” disease. One of those features is flat roofs that do not shed water rapidly. The others are (1) insufficient roof overhang and (2) plastic vapor barrier that restricts breathability and promotes in-wall condensation.
It is understandable that flat roof may be unavoidable in the design of buildings for the four-storey apartment housing type — destined mainly for the Kingsway transition zone, but also due to encroach into residential neighborhood around Norquay Park and along Earles Street. Two things make flat roof more acceptable for this type alone: (1) Ownership seems more likely to be landlord-tenant rental rather than strata ownership. Consequently, single building owners should be less likely to stint on the necessary inspection and maintenance than very small strata corporations are. (2) The height and location of these buildings (except in residential areas, where this type was a last-minute community-unapproved intrusion of the Plan) should make the flat-roof design less obtrusive over time.
Same-Day Update on 30 April 2012 — 4:48 pm
The attention of Eye on Norquay has been brought to a 14 May public hearing on a “Housing Demonstration Project” nearby in East Vancouver. Sixteen strata townhouses are proposed for an assembly of two residential properties that together measure 100 x 218 at 5761-5775 St. George Street. The presentation to the Urban Design Panel described “family oriented townhouses [whose] massing and design will have a relatively steep pitched roof.” Here’s hoping that the 1900 properties in Norquay will enjoy the same respect being shown to the context surrounding this “demonstration” project.
• • •
Appendix: Street-By-Street Survey of Existing Flat-Roof Dwellings in Norquay
New Zoning Address Duplex 2470 East 29th Avenue Transition Apt 2191 East 32nd Avenue Duplex 2325 East 40th Avenue Duplex 4718 Clarendon Street Stacked Townhouse 2707 Duke Street Transition Apt 5066 Earles Street Transition Apt 2248 Galt Street Stacked Townhouse 4616 Nanaimo Street Stacked Townhouse 4632 Nanaimo Street Stacked Townhouse 4850 Slocan Street Transition Apt 5015 Wales Street Duplex 5651 Wales Street
Avalon Open House
On 2 April 2012 a developer-sponsored open house about the future of the 1.25 acre Avalon Dairy site was held at Killarney Community Centre. (See appendix for text of emailed announcement.) Time constraint limited Eye on Norquay to about one hour for review of boards, conversation, questions, and comment form completion.
Background
The Avalon Dairy site has been in play for almost a year now. Eye on Norquay reported on the May 2011 advertisement for sale. Two days before Christmas 2011 the Vancouver Sun reported that the property had been sold to Avalonna Homes for $6 million. CityHallWatch elaborated on that story a few days later. Ongoing lack of news formed the basis for a follow-up CHW story in March, followed by almost immediate update that an open house was on the near horizon.
Anxieties about the future of the Avalon Dairy site have been percolating among the development-watch community. The mystery surrounding the corporate nature and history of the unknown entity “Avalonna Homes” has caused concern.
The Event
The Avalon open house proved to be a rare pleasant surprise. The event could provide a model for how developers and city planners should approach local communities. It is difficult to separate this broader matter of process from the specifics of the individual site.
At the usual open house, Vancouver residents always seem to confront a done deal that planners and the developer have already cooked up. In other words, say what you like, there is no choice, the train has left the station, and you are nothing but a ritual passenger serving a decorative function. The comment sheet serves mainly as confetti. A prime example is the similar open house held at the beginning of the proposal to redevelop the Jeffs Residence site.
So what was different this time around?
One of the boards showed two separate flow charts: one for the process that would relate to outright development allowed under existing RS-1 zoning, one for an alternative process tied to heritage revitalization. I asked a planner where the open house fit into those two charts. The heartening answer: well ahead of everything.
The Proposal
There was not much of a proposal, and that was good. The boards were clear, apparently free of crude bias, and dealt mostly with history and description of the existing site.
The outright development alternative would see creation of 10 separate lots under RS-1, with extension of adjacent parallel street and lane, and a resulting four units per lot (house, basement suite, standard illegal second suite, laneway house), for a total of 40 dwelling units. (VanMap shows 5805 Wales as measuring 320 x 159. The adjacent lot to the west has a depth of 126. So ten lots at 32 x 126. With loss of 320 x 33 to additional right-of-way for East 43rd Avenue.)
The heritage retention alternative would, as I understand it, result in
• Up to 60 or so dwelling units if all are minimum size
• Larger units likely to bring total units well below 60
• One single strata development for the entire site
• Stacked townhouse with sloped roof as housing type
• No four-storey apartment
• No building height of four stories or greater
• A single level of underground parking
• Farmhouse retained in current position
• Many existing mature trees retained
• Separation of trees from excavation sufficient to ensure survival
• No further conversion of land to street or lane
• Increased availability of a desired new housing type
One further useful sidelight was learning that “Avalonna Homes” involves local smaller-scale builders, at least some of them resident in Killarney. Architect Hywel Jones also mentioned his own previous involvement in the demonstration project that built 24 dwelling units (8 row-houses, 2 triplexes and 2 five-plexes) on three large lots at 311 East 33rd Avenue.
Evaluation
The core of the open house questionnaire consisted of an opportunity to express approval or disapproval on three questions with a scale of 1 to 5:
1. How supportive are you of the preservation of heritage resources, like the Avalon Dairy farmhouse, across
the City?
2. How supportive are you of preserving the Avalon Dairy farmhouse in its current location?
3. How supportive are you of additional housing types (other than single family homes) on this site
to facilitate the preservation of the original farmhouse?
Support for the denser heritage retention alternative seems attractive to Eye on Norquay on multiple grounds as already listed in points above. In particular, the broad-sketch proposal appears to
• Respect the scale of the RS-1 surroundings, particularly in terms of height
• Avoid the conversion of additional surface land to automobile use
• Ensure that developed parking space will be used for parking
• Seek quality in form of construction
• Add reasonable density to achieve the economics necessary for preservation of heritage and landscape
Key to this support are (1) the already assembled nature of the land parcel, and (2) the absence of previous regular RS-1 development. This means that this singular site and its development project could in no way be taken as precedent for anything else — or provide any justification for speculative land assembly in adjacent RS-1 zoning. Beyond these considerations, the proposed amenity appears (1) to offer a clear and truly public benefit that is proportionate to what the developer would receive, and (2) to respect the role of community choice in the matter.
* * *
You are Invited to an OPEN HOUSE
Regarding: Hywel Jones Architects is seeking public input as the first step in planning the redevelopment of the Avalon Dairy property at East 43rd Avenue and Wales Street.
When: April 2nd 2012
Time: 5:00pm – 8:00pm
Where: Room 203, Killarney Community Centre, 6260 Killarney Street
Your Ideas and Comments are Welcome
Subject Site: 5808 Wales Street
For further information contact: Jasmine Kafka at 604 801 5008 or jkafka@pottingerandassociates.com
Sold the Story
A video news item from 6 March 2012 offers chilling confirmation that City of Vancouver density-dumping into residential East Vancouver already gets a fail.
A Global BC news clip features a Cedar Cottage resident complaining about how city planners sold the story on their mass rezoning by promising increased affordability. Now a strata basement suite goes for about $600,000! A transcript of that later segment of the news clip is provided below.
The first “neighbourhood centre” at Kingsway and Knight in 2005 mass rezoned about 1600 single-family properties. The second in Norquay in 2010 mass rezoned about 1900 single-family properties. The first four of nineteen envisioned neighbourhood centres were all allocated to East Vancouver as of 2007. A freedom of information request attempting to discover on what basis this NPA “planning” was done has slammed into the FOI stone wall erected by Vision Vancouver.
Ongoing Norquay resistance to forced imposition of a “neighbourhood centre” appears to have brought that particular program to a dead halt. The newer thrusts are to “implement” the Mount Pleasant plan and to fast-track four simultaneous new grabfests in the leftover piece of Downtown Eastside (Chinatown already partitioned off), West End, Grandview-Woodland, and Marpole. Alongside, the Little Mountain/Cambie Corridor sideshow remains a spectacle unto itself.
For years planners have insisted that our East Vancouver neighborhoods need to become more affordable. At the same time, the price differential between east side and west side Vancouver has expanded from around $100,000 three decades ago to multiples of $1,000,000 today.
Isn’t it strange that the “affordability” card gets played east of Main Street, while the east-west price gap has only continued to widen? Don’t forget how land speculators in 2010 sought to take over five school board properties — all of them located in East Vancouver. If affordability is a problem, planners need to start by fixing empty neighborhoods like Shaughnessy with at least equivalent densities before forcing even more no-amenity development into an already dense East Vancouver.
People who live in East Vancouver have been sold the story — and sold down the river.
* * *
Global BC on Expensive East Vancouver housing
Tue, Mar 6 — Vancouver’s bizarre housing market has home prices soaring in an unlikely location, the downtown Eastside. Ted Chernecki reports.
Transcript of 1:40 to 2:36
Chernecki:
But it’s not just the Downtown Eastside that’s weathering this real estate storm. East Vancouver’s single detached housing is suddenly hot. This house near busy and loud Kingsway and Knight Street just sold, the basement only — wait for it — just under $600,000. Yes, it’s been fixed up, but it’s still ultimately a 1200 sq ft basement suite, and nearby residents are crying, “There goes the neighborhood.”
Interviewee:
We were sold the story when they changed the zoning in the Cedar Cottage neighborhood that we would have more density here but it would mean that there would be more affordable housing for families — and I don’t know what kind of families can afford $1.2 million for the top half of a house.
Chernecki:
Offshore money is driving up single detached homes, first in Richmond, then the west side, then West Vancouver, and now that those prices have gone up, those foreign buyers have turned their attention to North and East Vancouver where property here is still relatively cheap.
* * *
Kingsway Streetscape
Introduction
After a 24 February 2012 City of Vancouver email went out to unspecified Norquay residents and/or property owners, members of the Norquay Working Group have been asking us about what input they ever had into the planning for Kingsway streetscape changes scheduled to begin in March 2012.
Three preliminary remarks are called for.
One — On 3 Feb 2011 city planners unilaterally terminated Norquay Working Group, but said that there would be opportunities to sign up for two new working groups on amenities and benefits strategy and public realm planning. At the 19/21 Feb 2011 open house there were no sign-up sheets provided, and the new lead planner said he had decided that the community would have no participation. Kingsway streetscape would fall under the heading of public realm. [ Back story at http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/story/gentrification-bombards-heart-east-vancouver/6123 ]
Two — On 26 Jan 2012 the Mount Pleasant Implementation Committee received draft terms of reference from the same planner who has just sent the email to Norquay. The Mount Pleasant group is told that it will have participation in planning under four headings. Two of those headings are Public Benefits and Amenities Strategy and Public Realm Plan. So Mount Pleasant residents get to participate, while those in Norquay are not allowed to. (Might things change for Mount Pleasant after too many residents get vocal at the public hearing now underway?)
Three — Strong Norquay representations that precious Kingsway pavement should be allocated to a bicycle lane rather than to a decorative median were persistently stonewalled and disregarded by planners. They seem to think that the row of long-dead trees (October 2010 count was 12 dead out of 21) along the King Edward Village median presage a more attractive choice. [[Update March 2012 – Replanting seems to have happened recently.]]
Jeanette Jones prepared the report that follows and has already sent it to the persons who were asking questions. Joseph Jones has reformatted this information, written the introduction, and provided links to cited documents.
Report on the History of Planning for Kingsway Streetscape Changes
I’m writing you jointly because each of you has expressed surprise/concern about the recent email from city planners giving notice of implementation of the Kingsway Streetscape Plan in the near future. You were wondering about how this plan was formed and how decisions were made.
I did some work and here is what I could find about its history.
June 2007 Draft Plan — A Kingsway Streetscape Plan was part of the (now notorious) 2007 Draft Plan. It was included in the survey of the neighbourhood — a survey that the planners later dismissed as “not valid.” The plan was developed with participants in the “Shopping” Working Group.
http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/neighcentres/norquay/pdf/newsletter3english.pdf
November 2008 Open House — A copy of the June 2007 Kingsway Streetscape Plan was displayed in the room and discussed on Boards 14 and 15. “Some of the detailed elements of the streetscape plan have not yet been confirmed. Further decisions will be made through community workshops to be held early in 2009.”
http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/neighcentres/norquay/updates.htm#08nov29openhouse
April 2009 Workshop — This workshop (the one where we chose areas of interest and met in small groups with a City staff member) included the Kingsway Streetscape Plan as one of the options. I did not choose this option, so I’m not sure what happened there.
http://eyeonnorquay.wordpress.com/documents/nwg-2009-reports/#4of11
January 2010 Open House — Board 22 mapped changes to street design for Kingsway (street lighting, landscaped medians, additional street trees, sidewalks, ramps & bulges, street furniture), as well as the signed pedestrian crossings and proposed changes to some of the intersections.
http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/neighcentres/norquay/janfeb2010panels/index.htm
June 2010 Open House — Board 19 illustrated some of the elements of proposed street design changes.
http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/neighcentres/norquay/jun2010panels/index.htm
November 2010 Norquay Plan Approval by Council — Appendix B of the Norquay Village Neighbourhood Centre Plan approved by Council is an 18-page description of all the details of the Kingsway Streetscape Plan.
http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/20101104/documents/penv2.pdf
It is true that we did not spend a lot of time in Working Group meetings talking about the plan for the Kingsway streetscape, and it got short shrift at the Open Houses. I guess it is also true that most of us were far more interested in talking about the new housing types in residential areas and new development along Kingsway, and about what the community would get in exchange. Planners will no doubt say that the community was adequately consulted and that most people favored the streetscape plan. (I looked at the comments from the June 2010 Open House related to Kingsway streetscape, and most of them were favorable. Unfavorable comments mostly addressed the problem of Kingsway as a highway rather than any specific details of the plan.)
