Experts urge Vancouver to reconsider Broadway development plan

More than 20 planning and development experts have signed an open letter urging the City of Vancouver to pause and reevaluate the Broadway development plan.

The plan was adopted in June 2022, with the goal of getting more rental towers built along the new Broadway Subway. The aim was to see 30,000 housing units built over the course of 30 years.

Over 100 towers, some as high as 32 storeys, have already been proposed within the 500-block Broadway Corridor, some on streets lined with heritage homes. Last month, the first proposed tower, a 19-storey highrise at 523 East 10th, passed unanimously at a city council meeting.

“We appreciate and support the good intentions of bringing more housing and affordability to Vancouver’s crippling housing crisis, but as experts with years of high level experience in planning, development and architecture, we write to ask that Mayor and Council pause and consider the many issues with the particulars of the Plan and how it will impact our city,” the letter stated.

The signatories say that while the plan was supposed to ensure a “measure buildout,” so far, “we are seeing a frenzy of profit speculation, land banking, flipping and land inflation into the heart of vulnerable established, mixed-use neighbourhoods.”

The letter states that by the city’s estimates, the plan will “demolish thousands of existing, affordable homes, resulting in forced resettlement to thousands of people in pursuit of what may be little if any net increase in affordable housing.”

“In a 30-year build-out, existing good, affordable housing should be protected, not demolished. Renewal of aging housing can happen later in the plan when replacement housing is there for impacted tenants to transfer directly to,” it continued.

Patrick Condon, a professor at UBC’s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, is one of the 22 experts asking Vancouver city council to rethink the project.

Condon explains that the plan allows developers to build high-density housing without attention to who already lives in the neighbourhoods and what kinds of housing are already there.

“The best improvement would be to avoid those parts of the district that already have affordable housing,” he told 1130 NewsRadio. “That would be the best thing to do. Replacing high density with another form of high density at the expense of people losing their homes doesn’t fix the problem.”

Condon says it’s a false assumption that the reason housing in the city isn’t affordable is because we’re not building enough of it.

He adds vulnerable people, including seniors and low-income individuals, will be affected by the plan. Even with tenant protections, he explains, tenants will be required to leave their already established homes.

“You have three years away from your home, and then you go into a home that is different, less all your neighbors are not there anymore. That’s very disruptive, unnecessarily so,” Condon shared.

The letter goes on to say that the Enhanced Tenant Protections do not consider other issues being experienced by tenants who are subject to eviction.

“Under the plan, many tenants are not being offered anything like equivalent replacement units when they do eventually return at some point in the future. The best ‘tenant protections’ is not to evict tenants!” the letter said.

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