<font style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" size="2"><b>Please Redistribute Widely</b></font><br><br><b><font size="4"><font size="4">A "Neighbourhood Centre" Is About to<br>Eat the Heart Out of East Vancouver . . .</font><br>
<br>What will you do when the City of Vancouver<br>comes to take out your neighbourhood?<br>
<br>Will </font><font size="4"><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">then</span></font></b><b><font size="4"> be too late?</font><br style="font-family: georgia,serif;">
</b><font style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" size="2"><br><br>More Information: Joseph Jones / <a href="mailto:jjones2340@gmail.com" target="_blank">jjones2340@gmail.com</a> / 604-433-2764<br><br><br><b>Introduction</b><br>
<br>City planning seems boring – until it happens to you and the neighbourhood you live in.</font><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">When Vancouver's first neighbourhood centre got going at <a href="http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/neighcentres/kingswayknight/index.htm" target="_blank">Kingsway and Knight</a>,
back in 2002-2005, I said to myself, that is a ways down the road, and
whatever happens there shouldn’t impact me much. Besides, Vancouver is
an excellent city, and planners know what they are doing. How naive I
was. How much I have learned since.<br>
<br>Even the people who lived right in that first neighbourhood must
have thought the same way. They barely responded to the City survey, and
their 1600 single-family properties got flipped over into two brand-new
experimental zoning categories. </span>(Word has it that 6800 survey forms were
distributed to the Kensington Cedar Cottage neighbourhood and 205 were
returned, with 105 favoring the mass rezoning and 100 opposing it.) Then they got hit with serious property tax increases (<a href="http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/20070724/documents/a20.pdf" target="_blank">temporarily mitigated after the fact</a>).<br>
<br>Take a walk around King Edward Village and decide for yourself
about how improved that neighbourhood is now, and how much extra you'd
want to pay to live in the area. Especially notice<br>
<div><ul><li>Service-lane traffic running through and parking in the "courtyard"<br></li><li>TD Bank turning its back to Kingsway</li><li>Large retail spaces still unoccupied</li><li>The amenity payback to the community already half-expired<br>
(ten years of free lease on the space for the relocated library)</li>
</ul></div><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><div><br><b>Backstory</b><br><br>The idea of neighbourhood centres in Vancouver goes back to <a href="http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/cityplan/cityplan.htm" target="_blank">CityPlan</a>. After CityPlan was adopted in 1995, local committees in nine large residential areas of Vancouver produced <a href="http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/cityplan/Visions/index.htm" target="_blank">community visions</a>.
Naive local-area residents told city planners what they thought could
improve their neighbourhoods and trusted that the future would bring
something better.<br>
<br>City planners amalgamated those results into a project of <a href="http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/neighcentres/pdf/localarea.pdf" target="_blank">nineteen neighbourhood centres</a> to blanket Vancouver.<br><br>
</div><font style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" color="#ff0000">Each community vision included directions to "</font><font style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" color="#ff0000">create
or strengthen" one or more neighbourhood centres. In total, nineteen
neighbourhood centres with loose boundaries were proposed. </font><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">If the boundaries that have outlined Norquay for most of the planning
get overlaid onto the seventeen future neighbourhood centres, </span><a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" href="http://www.vcn.bc.ca/norquay/nrqx19.pdf" target="_blank">this is what Vancouver would look like</a><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">.</span><div>
<br></div><font style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" color="#ff0000">Planners have been using the Neighbourhood Centres Program to "implement" all housing
directions from community visions. Distorted by brand-new or
unrevealed planner and developer agendas and interpretations, the
proposed Norquay Village Neighbourhood Centre intends:</font><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></span><div><ul><li><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">To eliminate huge areas of zoning for single-family residence</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">To replace
the affordable rentals enjoyed by 32% low-income families with
market-affordable new construction for people who can afford
half-a-million or so<br></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">To feed developer appetite for condo and strata construction<br></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">To increase population without coordinated upgrades to livability infrastructure</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">To expand tax base with minimal investment in the neighbourhood<br></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">To facilitate and accelerate gentrification through new housing types<br>
</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">To impose maximum possible height and density on arterials</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">To dump heritage density transfers across neighbourhood boundaries</span></li>
</ul><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span>
<br><b>Anguish Is Spreading across Vancouver about Visions and Plans</b><br><br>Neighbourhoods outside of the original nine community vision areas (notably the <a href="http://ccapvancouver.wordpress.com/ccap-reports/" target="_blank">Downtown Eastside</a> and the <a href="http://www.westendneighbours.ca/" target="_blank">West End</a>)
have shown recent interest in having a vision or plan to spell out what
city planners can do to their neighbourhoods. However, experience with
the last of the nine visions (still underway in <a href="http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/cityplan/Visions/wpg/index.htm" target="_blank">West Point Grey</a>)
shows that planners seem determined to manipulate community visions to
promote the changes that they have already decided on. The list of
discontents with Vancouver "planning" multiplies by the month: <a href="http://www.my-calm.info/" target="_blank">Little Mountain</a>, <a href="http://hastingspark.ca/" target="_blank">Hastings Park</a>, <a href="http://www.falsecreekresidents.org/" target="_blank">Northeast False Creek</a>, <a href="http://www.rpscvisions.ca/webpages/content.cfm?contentID=1" target="_blank">Cambie Corridor</a>, <a href="http://arcca.info/" target="_blank">Arbutus Ridge</a>, <a href="http://www.straight.com/article-274221/vancouver/fraserlands-heats" target="_blank">East Fraserlands</a>, <a href="http://defendgrandview.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Grandview Park</a>, Broadway Corridor, Marine Gateway.<br>
<br><br><b>Norquay on the Edge</b><br><br><a href="http://www.vcn.bc.ca/norquay/" target="_blank">Norquay</a>
just entered year five of its struggle with city planners. Since July
2009 planners have reduced communication with their official Norquay
Working Group to occasional reportbacks. <a href="http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/neighcentres/norquay/pdf/NV%20Newsletter%20No.%206_English.pdf" target="_blank">Three upcoming Open Houses</a> are supposed to finalize a draft plan slated to go to council in fall 2010.<br>
<br></div>The notorious unaccountable Open House procedure lets city
planners take in all sorts of comments (especially from savvy
developers) and then claim to have consulted the community and to have
heard "voices" that call for newer and denser and taller. The city planning
website says, "Your feedback is needed to help refine the draft plan."
Despite extensive investment of time and effort by the official Norquay
Working Group, that draft plan was drawn up in a back room without community resident involvement.<div><div><span></span><br>In 2006-2007 city planners force-fed steroids to the original CityPlan <a href="http://www.vcn.bc.ca/norquay/nrqexp.pdf" target="_blank">Norquay neighbourhood centre</a>.<br>
<br>Back in June 2007 Vancouver city planners were still conducting real surveys, and Norquay residents said a strong <b>No</b> to a Draft Plan that eliminated all single-family housing. Planners did not like <a href="http://www.vcn.bc.ca/norquay/nrqsrvrslt.html" target="_blank">that survey result</a>. So they got an independent consultant to say that they should disqualify the survey and stop doing surveys!<br>
<br><br><b>Who Is Next?</b><br><br>Planners have recently clarified that the next neighbourhood centre process will focus on <b style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Hastings Sunrise North</b>
(a 1.4 km stretch of East Hastings between Semlin and Renfrew). Before
Norquay stood in the path of the redevelopment juggernaut, <a href="http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/documents/pe4_003.pdf" target="_blank">city planners anticipated 2008 starts for the process</a> in both Hastings Sunrise North and Main Street Riley
Park. With Little Mountain and Cambie Corridor now looming for Main Street
Riley Park, neighbourhood centre planning for that location seems to
have been set aside. Future planning efforts directed toward East
Hastings will be the other jaw of a gentrification vise to intensify
the squeeze on the Downtown Eastside.<br>
<br>All of the four scheduled neighbourhood centers target the
immigrant working-class east side of Vancouver. Compare this with the <a href="http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/cityplan/Visions/index.htm" target="_blank">chronological sequence</a>
of the community visions, and notice that the first pair was Kensington
Cedar Cottage (KCC) and Dunbar. KCC already has the first neighbourhood
centre at Kingsway and Knight, and Dunbar is nowhere on the horizon.
This is a tribute to the singularly strong <a href="http://dunbar-vancouver.org/" target="_blank">residents association</a> in Dunbar. What planners are out to do to Norquay clearly has no correlation with <a href="http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/census/2006/popdensity.pdf" target="_blank">present density</a> or <a href="http://www.vcn.bc.ca/norquay/22localareas.pdf" target="_blank">recent growth</a>,
and everything to do with vulnerability. Their aim is to take out the weaker
neighbourhoods first. Norquay appreciates the support it has received
from Dunbar and other neighbourhoods all across Vancouver in its
struggle for equity and a livable future.<br>
<br>The mass rezoning of Norquay is a major tactic in the Director of
Planning's strategy to eliminate single-family zoning trhoughout Vancouver.<br><br><br><b>What Can You Do?</b><br><br>
Norquay now occupies the uneasy position of having been told that our
neighbourhood centre process must and will be forced to a conclusion.
Planners tell us that without a plan approved, our
neighbourhood has no protections against developer desires for density
and height. We say the City of Vancouver should not be running a
protection racket.<br>
<br>The official Norquay Working Group has effectively been cut out of
planning since July 2009. Planners will use the three Open Houses of
June 12, 14, and 16 to claim consultation and to select support from
among the responses.<br>
<br><b style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">All residents of Vancouver should consider responding to the
Norquay plan, because it will affect everyone's future.</b><br><br>If attending an
Open House is not convenient for you, the materials <a href="http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/neighcentres/norquay/updates.htm#nv" target="_blank">should become available on the web</a>. At a minimum, send an email response to neighbourhood centres head planner Neal LaMontagne <<a href="mailto:neal.lamontagne@vancouver.ca" target="_blank">neal.lamontagne@vancouver.ca</a>> and Director of Planning Brent Toderian <<a href="mailto:brent.toderian@vancouver.ca" target="_blank">brent.toderian@vancouver.ca</a>>, with copies to City Manager Penny Ballem <<a href="mailto:penny.ballem@vancouver.ca" target="_blank">penny.ballem@vancouver.ca</a>> and Mayor and Council <<a href="mailto:mayorandcouncil@vancouver.ca" target="_blank">mayorandcouncil@vancouver.ca</a>>.<br>
<br><br><b>Lots of Ideas – Choose what you can stand behind</b><br><br><i>Below are ideas of elements that you could
include in an email or on the Open House form. If you go through the information provided by links
above, many other ideas will come to you as well:</i><br><br>This email responds to the June 2010 Open House information about planning for Norquay.<br><br>Vancouver
city planning needs to use legitimate social-scientific survey
methodology to measure the will of the community. Open House comments
are too open to manipulation, to misinterpretation, and to illegitimate
input by warped developer interests.<br>
<br>Only cart-before-the-horse planning would propose to mass rezone
many hundreds of homes as a starting point, long before a necessary core of
retail
and community services exists at the centre of the neighbourhood.<br><br>Vancouver's
midterm needs to accommodate growth do not require this planning
approach to a residential family neighbourhood that is located 8
kilometers from city centre.<br>
<br>To force this kind of planning on a neighbourhood that clearly
rejected mass rezoning in the City's June 2007 survey is arrogant, and will only increase distrust and backlash.<br><br>Over the past few decades the Norquay area has grown in population and
dwelling units at the same time that local retail has experienced
serious decline. Growth by itself may create more problems than it solves.<br><br>To
upzone the affordable commercial space that exists along Kingsway seems
likely to drive out the desirable retail that still can afford to operate in Norquay.<br>
<br>City
planners have held up Commercial Drive as an example of what Norquay's
1.35 km of Kingsway (a dedicated truck route) might become. Why should
Norquay residents have any confidence in this kind of fantasy?<br><br>The
Norquay Working Group wants to see a central shopping area focused
along East 33rd Avenue just east of Kingsway. City planners think this
cannot work and insist on their model of a Kingsway retail strip. Why,
then, did planning ever come into Norquay with a neighbourhood centre model?<br>
<br>Expedient spot rezoning of a few large parcels of land should not
determine the future of the Norquay neighbourhood, nor should it be
used as a threat to make residents submit to unwanted planning.<br><br>Norquay
residents value the diversity that comes with organic development over
a long period of time. Top-down broadscale planning destroyed the
character of Robson Street and threatens Commercial Drive.<br>
<br>Planning that has deliberately excluded the City's own Norquay Working Group is highly suspect.<br><br>No good reasons have been given for the excessive expansion of the CityPlan boundary around the proposed Norquay neighbourhood centre.<br>
<br>The City of Vancouver approach to Norquay is not what I want to see
coming to my own neighbourhood. Do not do this to Norquay either.<br><br><br>My name is _______________________________________________<br><br>My address is ______________________________________________<br>
<br>My telephone number is ______________________________________</div></div><br>