Digesting a marathon day in council: The Broadway Plan and more

Good morning,

Nate with you today. On Wednesday I spent most of my day tuning into a contentious, marathon city council meeting, 14-hours of careening between significant changes to an already major rezoning plan, a long-overdue recognition of wrongdoing, the relocation of a significant piece of public art, and an eager push to get curious about adding bitcoin to the city’s financial portfolio. It was a lot, and obviously I’ve got the lowdown on all that for y’all. 

But first I wanted to give a nod to the 170 some members of the public who showed and tuned in to voice their opinions, insights, and personal stories on the sundry topics. The vast majority of these speakers were respectful, thoughtful, and passionate, and they represent just a fraction of the people who have deep care and enthusiasm for what happens in our city. 

However, near 11 p.m., someone who came in person to speak shared that moments before their turn came, another member of the public accosted and threatened them. It so happened they were speaking in favour of the amendments to the Broadway Plan, an opinion held by only a small minority of the over 120 people who spoke on the topic. 

The speaker, clearly shaken, expressed his fear of being attacked on his walk home, telling council, “This can't keep happening. It's not right. It's not fair that young people just want to make a home for themselves are put to this.”

Clearly tensions are high right now, at city hall and at large. But this is a reminder to take a breath and treat each other with respect, while we all continue to organize and advocate for ourselves and our communities here in Vancouver.

Let’s get into it. 

— Nate Lewis, Vancity Lookout

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WEATHER

Friday: 7 🌡️ 4 | 🌧️

Saturday: 6 🌡️ 1 | 🌧️

Sunday: 3 🌡️ -3 | 🌨️

Monday: 2 🌡️ 1 | ☁️

CITY HALL

The Broadway Plan of it all

The big event this week was a report and (eventually) approved amendments on the Broadway Plan, an area that covers about 500 city blocks, spanning west to Vine Street, east to Clark Drive, south to 16th Avenue, and rimming around False Creek to the north. We’ll provide an update on the changes to the plan and some of the public commentary. 

Turbo-charged: It’s how many of the speakers described the proposed changes to the already ambitious area plan. The changes include: 

• Increase allowable building uses, heights, and densities in some areas, particularly along 16th Avenue, 4th Avenue in Kits, and along Main Street between 16th and 7th. These are based around transit-oriented areas mandated by the province, and the new view cone guidelines city council adopted earlier this year. 

• Removal of tower limit policies (ie. number of towers per block) in most of the areas around new Broadway Subway stations, and allowing for up to six storeys of additional height for some towers.

• Allow hotel development in more areas, plus additional height and density, more than doubling the Plan’s 30-year hotel room target.

On their face these updates feel like pretty significant changes. While there’s no guarantee of when and where developers and landowners will actually build, the over 100 building approvals, applications, and sites of interest identified since the plan was initially brought in two years ago suggests there will be an appetite to build at least some of the towers that the plan is increasingly permissive of. 

Counterpoint: However, the city’s director of projects said that while many of these applications are serious, a significant percentage of the proposals are likely to be withdrawn throughout the development process, according to Urbanized. 

“Pause the plan”: It’s the rallying cry repeated by detractors throughout the day. Speakers highlighted the loss of affordable homes in the many existing two and three-storey walk-up apartment buildings and neighbourhood character across Mount Pleasant, Fairview, and Kits. 

• They spoke about the emotional and financial stress of eviction, and the struggle to find new housing in the same neighbourhood, even with the Plan’s substantial tenant protection policies that require financial compensation and other considerations for renters displaced by development. 

A letter from 22 planning and urban design experts, many of them former City staff, also called for a pause to the plan, articulating concerns about the demolition of existing affordable housing without short-term alternatives for displaced tenants, the emphasis on towers as the primary new building form, and the short one-week timeline between when plan amendments were made public and Wednesday’s report.  

Those in favour: While they were the minority opinion, there were speakers who welcomed the changes, voicing support and excitement about the plan’s ambition to improve and expand public spaces, increase density, and eventually provide more housing and services close to hospitals, transit, and business areas. 

Scratching the surface: This is a significant expansion of a plan that already had the potential to reshape a core stretch of the city, and it deserves in-depth coverage far beyond what we can put together in a newsletter. We’ll be working to bring you more on this in the new year.

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VANCOUVER NUMBERS

⏱️ 3: The number of minutes each speaker gets at city council. Early in Wednesday’s marathon of hearings, Acting Chair Lenny Zhou granted 30 seconds to 1 minute of extra grace time to speakers, but began to abruptly cut speakers off at their 3 minute limit as Broadway Plan debate dragged into the evening. [Vancity Lookout]

🚍 1 hour: The average one-way commute for people in Metro Vancouver, the highest of any region in Canada and the United States. Vancouver also had the highest percentage of medium and long commute times. [Moovit Insights]

 💰 $105,852: A recent Canucks For Kids Fund jackpot won by first-time contestant Jana Blueger. She’s in town visiting her son, Canucks forward Teddy Blueger. [The Province]

CITY HALL

Digesting a marathon day 

You got a taste for the scene at city hall on Wednesday in our intro (or you may have been watching, or there in-person yourself). While the Broadway Plan discussion took up the late afternoon and evening, there were a number of other consequential and stimulating topics taken up by council. 

Recognizing a terrible wrong: Between 1942 and 1943, over 8,000 Japanese Canadians were forcibly incarcerated in livestock barns and exhibition halls at the PNE in Hastings Park, some of whom died in the “primitive and unsanitary” living conditions there. These injustices were supported by both the federal government and city council at the time, which the city officially apologized for in 2013. 

• This week, councillors heard emotional testimony from descendants of those who were unjustly imprisoned at Hastings Park. 

Council unanimously voted to support the construction of an interpretive monument and display at one of those barns that still stands today.

Monument on the move: Councillors approved plans to move the iconic East Van Cross (officially known as Monument to East Vancouver) from its current location on a busy and uninviting corner on Clark Drive and Great Northern Way to a “prominent, highly visible and accessible location on the city’s east side.” 

• A new office building that’s just gone up between the landmark and VCC-Clark station has partially obscured views of the cross from the west. 

Institutions like Emily Carr, Eastside Arts Society (who organize the annual Culture Crawl), and Destination Vancouver expressed their support for it to be moved. A relocation plan and timeline will be developed by city staff in consultation with artist Ken Lum and other stakeholders, and be presented for council approval in the summer of 2025. 

In typical ABC Party fashion, Coun. Mike Klassen’s motion also called for staff to explore “opportunities for revenue generation, such as branded merchandise or on-site food and beverage offerings,” at the new location and to have it included in the city’s sponsorship and naming rights initiative. 

• Upon pushback on that point from Coun. Pete Fry, Klassen stressed his intention wasn’t for that to be a corporate sponsorship, per se. So while the motion passed and the cross looks like it’ll be moved in the coming years, we allegedly won’t be hosting the  ‘Electronic Arts Monument to East Vancouver.’

Bitcoin bonanza: Council heard strong support for Mayor Sim’s motion to have staff explore options to integrate Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency, into the city’s financial strategies. Most of the support came from Vancouver’s community of bitcoin enthusiasts including influencers and cryptocurrency professionals, but also came from professors, accountants, and high school teachers.  

The many proponents claimed a variety of benefits to Bitcoin: improved equity for people who can’t access traditional investing and banking programs, avoiding loss of value caused by inflation, financial transparency, and its broader potential as a tool for financial empowerment for individuals, businesses, and governments. 

• There were a handful of dissenting voices, who called it a scam and pointed to its short-term volatility, while Coun. Fry raised major concerns about the risk of money laundering enabled by crypto currency. Coun. Peter Meiszner drew attention to the big difference between Vancouver residents investing their own money in crypto currency, and the city investing public funds in Bitcoin. 

Mayor Sim was in his element, proudly offering colleagues the 12 books he’d read on the subject, saying he believes it’s the future of finance, and announcing he and his family would be donating $2,000 worth of Bitcoin to the City of Vancouver.  

 “I’m just glad we can be curious and explore with an open mind,” Sim said. The motion ultimately passed and city staff will report back to council on the idea early next year. 

THE AGENDA

👮 A public hearing will be held on the 2015 death of Myles Gray. Seven Vancouver police officers who were present during the violent encounter between those officers and Gray, which led to his death, were cleared of wrongdoing after an investigation and disciplinary hearing earlier this year. A retired B.C. judge will review the case and determine if there was police misconduct; however, criminal charges are not in the scope of the hearing. [CBC]

🛑 A 68-year-old pedestrian was left with serious, life-altering injuries after being hit by a car on Cambie Street and 57th Avenue last week, with police asking for the public’s help in their investigation. This happened two days after a cyclist in their 60s was hit and killed by a truck at Kingsway and Nanaimo Street. The respective drivers stayed at the scene of the incident in both cases. [CTV]

🏒 The Canucks won big last night, 4-0 against the reigning Cup champion Florida Panthers. Star forward J.T. Miller returned to Vancouver’s lineup after missing the past three weeks of play for personal reasons. Goalie Kevin Lankinen recorded his 3rd shutout of the year, and has played well enough to stay in the net despite number one goalie Thatcher Demko returning from injury. [Canucks Army, Vancity Lookout]

🦀 Construction is underway on the park board’s project to daylight a portion of Canyon Creek on the western side of Spanish Banks. The ecological restoration process involves digging up buried pipes and restoring surface habitat to allow the stream to flow above ground, as it did in the past. Other nearby streams were similarly restored in 1999 and 2012. [Park board]

Outside Vancouver 

😬 BC United is sending fundraising messages to supporters, saying their decision to pull out of the 2024 election has cost them government subsidies. The party will be “unable to continue,” if they don’t raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in the coming weeks to meet their financial commitments, the email says. [Twitter/X]

🚑 A pair of suspicious deaths in 2022, initially ruled accidental by police and the BC Coroners Service, on the same day in the Kootenays are one example of what experts say are fundamental and unforgivable errors in the province’s death investigations. In part, they blame low coroners budgets over the past two decades as a reason for B.C.’s low rate of autopsies and infrequent and delayed inquests. [The Tyee]

EVENT GUIDE

The Eras Tour (Kendall’s Version) | Dec. 13, 10 p.m. | Birdhouse | Didn’t get enough Taylor? Vancouver’s pre-eminent drag superstar Kendall Gender (and other queens) put their spin on Swift | Tickets $36 

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl | VIFF Centre, 1181 Seymour St | Opens Dec 18 | Aardman Animation’s mix of dad jokes, slapstick and emotion marks a joyful return for the beloved claymation odd couple | Learn more [Sponsored]

Candlelight Comedy | Dec. 14, 9:30 p.m. | Chill x Studio | A night of standup comedy at one of Vancouver’s newest live events spaces | Tickets $22

Vancouver International Black Film Festival | Dec 13 -17, various times | VIFF Centre | VIBFF showcases the most relevant Black films from here and abroad while creating a space to debate major cultural, social and socio-economic issues | Tickets $20+

Kingfisher Bluez Christmas Party | Dec. 15, 6 p.m. | Rickshaw Theatre | 17 artists take the stage for the 17th version of this annual event with proceeds benefitting the BC suicide crisis line (1-800-SUICIDE) and Crisis Centre BC | Tickets $36

Festival of Lights | Nightly until Jan. 5 | VanDusen Garden | Explore 15 acres adorned with over 1 million twinkling lights, including exciting new displays | Tickets $31

Bright Nights | Nightly until Jan. 4 | Stanley Park (Children’s Farmyard and Railway) | Train tickets are sold out for the year but you can still take in the extensive Bright Nights light display and support the Burn Fund | Admission by donation

Big Country Christmas | Dec. 20, 7 p.m. | The Wise Hall | Join the Vancouver Country Music family for a night of holiday celebration and support the Roll for Warmth charity campaign | Tickets $25

Outdoor Skating | Daily until Feb 28 | Robson Square | Enjoy some old-fashioned fun and celebrate winter in style with skating in the heart of downtown Vancouver. Skate rentals available | Free admission

Polar Bear Swim | Jan. 1, noon | English Bay Beach | Jump into 2025 with a splash and take an invigorating dip at this park board event | Free

COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHTS

• You can’t spell ‘Merry Christmas’ without ‘Eras’ [CBC]

• This restaurant has been called Vancouver’s best vegetarian restaurant. We agree.

• After two years of construction, there’s a new option for getting up and down Grouse Mountain [City News]

• A retired North Van couple were consummate hosts for a pair of New York Swifties last week [City News]

PHOTO OF THE DAY

If you’re heading to Spanish Banks, maybe to the off-leash area with your dog, be aware of the ongoing work for the Canyon Creek daylighting project.

GAME TIME

These are going to be a big feature of the Broadway Plan. How many tries do you need to work it out?