In the annals of construction I have never seen a developer play with floor heights so unscrupulously in order to steal 4 storeys of height from an “unsuspecting public.”
THE STORY: The original Rize development proposal at Kingsway and Broadway came in at 26 storeys and an FSR of 6.37, clearly a feint or dodge, since the legal maximum height of just 6 storeys and an outright FSR of 1.0 made it laughable. Well, the community laughed, and then screamed. Over a year later, after a second design at 19 storeys and an FSR of 5.48 was roundly criticized, a third redesign is touted as a new compromise, a sign of listening to the community. Planning and sitting City Councillors during last fall’s election told us that the new 19-story tower proposal at “just” 5.38 FSR was a true compromise. After all, it was a “full” 7 storeys, or apparently 27%, lower. Nevertheless, Council pushed the approval decision off until AFTER the election.
On a closer look, the new building is stretched so severely that its 19 storeys are in fact HIGHER than the original design’s 23rd floor ceiling. It is in fact more than 4 storeys taller than “advertised.” Of course much of the rest of the site is taller to make up for the loss. Welcome to the new “3-9-story podium,” a cold glass fortress in the centre of historical and heritage-filled Mount Pleasant.
Attached is an overlay that shows the original Rize proposal at 26 storeys directly back-to-back with the newest “19-storey” design. The original building design is to the left and is in its original orientation. The new Rize elevation is flipped horizontally to face the other way.
Creating this graphic accurately was immensely difficult as I found the City’s PDF drawing files on the City website were LOCKED! OPEN DATA ANYONE???
I had to use a crude screen capture to copy these images into Photoshop and then rescale one manually to “match it up” with the other. The effort was incredibly tedious and not as precise as it should be, but I think my final drawing is accurate within a foot or two.
METHOD: After two less successful attempts to create this match, I finally used the original design’s block-wide elevation with the 26-storey tower and overlayed the newest one exactly on top of it, matching the ground and vertical datums and build-to lines of the site edges. Once matched, I then flipped the newest Rize design horizontally to face the other way, cropping away the rest of the elevation that stretched the entire block. The ground datums are mirror images in this visualization.
THE RESULT: The top of the new design is above the height of the 23rd floor ceiling on the original application. This makes the new “19-story” Rize design the equivalent of the old one at over 23 storeys tall. It’s Vancouver NEW MATH! The building is “7 storeys lower,” but lost less than 3-storeys-worth of real height, as the floor heights were increased in the revised proposal.
The District Zoning of course still shows the maximum height of this C3A site as 70 feet (6 storeys), with an outright FSR of 1.0 with discretion up to to 3.0. So it is still more than 3 times too high and almost twice as dense as legally allowed.
And people wonder why land values in Vancouver are being bid up through the roof, and why housing affordability is impossible to achieve with land selling for a rezoning-inflated $300 to $1000 per square foot. Our Council and Planning are in fact assisting with fueling this bubble.
Of course this skyscraper also violates dozens of principles in the new 2011 Mount Pleasant Community Plan (see an appendix of MPCP excerpts below), but City staff do not seem even to notice. They refuse even to discuss the “fit” of this development or its true relationship to the Council-approved Plan. This Community Plan was just completed last year after several years of intense effort; it is hardly “out of date,” let alone not fresh in everyone’s minds.
A new and likely final Open House on this design is scheduled for next Tuesday evening (Jan 17, 2012 – 5:30pm) at Heritage Hall. It will possibly go to Council next month.
It is time to speak truth to power, recognizing that community-centred, neighbourhood-based planning–the globally-recognized gold standard of sustainable development–is a total farce in Vancouver.
—- A deeply suspicious Randy Chatterjee
APPENDIX:
Here are the relevant passages regarding the Broadway-Kingsway site from the Mount Pleasant Community Plan (2011) with page numbers cited. These reflect what should happen in this neighbourhood and on this site (bold added):
- Recognize that its slopes are natural form-makers on which a low profile for residential and commercial properties helps keep the sense of hill intact. (p.9)
- For the purposes of achieving more appropriate site development (meaning more open space, less paving, better connections to the street)and important public benefits (including contributions to heritage retention, new cultural amenities, affordable housing, childcare, flexible gathering spaces, improved pedestrian environment, provision of cycling routes, streetcar amenities, green space), pursue additional height and density in select locations. (p.10)
- Any additional height and density would be contingent on further urban design analysis, including shadowing, view impacts, ‘look and feel’ of the area, ‘permeability’ of the site (the ability of people to see and walk through the site), and other public benefit considerations as noted above. Distribute the height/bulk in relation to the character of adjacent streets (e.g., more height along Broadway, reduced height along 10th Avenue and Prince Edward, larger scale on Kingsway vs. smaller scale along Main Street). (p.10)
- Improve pedestrian link between areas located north and south of Broadway with wider sidewalks and improved pedestrian crossings (e.g. residents have suggested longer crossing times at lights); celebrate the historical importance and physical uniqueness of Watson Street.(p.24)
- Use contributions from redevelopment sites south of Broadway (e.g., Broadway, Kingsway, 10th Avenue and Watson Street site; Kingsgate Mall) for heritage retention, cultural amenities, and public realm improvements north of Broadway in Mount Pleasant.(p.24)
- Support the design of an ‘iconic’ (landmark) building when granting permission for higher buildings. (p.25)
- Address the constraints on larger park development and the strong desire of this community for more green space by increasing vertical gardens, linear parks (laneway edges, adaptive street use), pocket parks, and courtyards, other patios and rooftop terraces with public access, and as an outcome of redevelopment on any large site. (p.10)
- Maintain priority support for walking, cycling and use of public transit as the preferred modes of travel, and mitigate the impacts of traffic and parking on the livability of Mount Pleasant. (p.11)
- Provide more housing and more affordable housing in Mount Pleasant for low to middle income households, especially for families, seniors, new immigrants, and aboriginal people.
- Seek opportunities to build a greater range of housing types in Mount Pleasant, from SRO’s to row housing, to apartments, to house youth, large and extended families, and seniors (to age in place). (p.14)
- Investigate opportunities to increase the variety in design of new housing (e.g., discourage ‘cookie-cutter design’) and innovation in building design (p.16)
- Where additional density and height are being considered, examine opportunities and constraints in providing more affordable rental and strata family-sized units (i.e., 3 and 4 bedroom units), more row housing, and creative tenure arrangements including ‘restricted resale housing’. (p.33)
APPENDIX: B
The open house image demonstrating the incorrect information from Rize can be found on the City website and the Rize website: The height was NEVER reduced by 27%.
http://www.rize.ca/files/kingsway-broadway/PAGE_2_-_KWY_open_house_boards_FINAL_low_res.pdf
“And people wonder why land values in Vancouver are being bid up through the roof, and why housing affordability is impossible to achieve with land selling for a rezoning-inflated $300 to $1000 per square foot. Our Council and Planning are in fact assisting with fueling this bubble.”
So you recognize that land prices in Vancouver are being bid extremely high, and your solution is to allow less new housing supply? Hm.
Also interesting that you can complain about the price premium for land zoned for high density housing… while lobbying to keep land like that scarce.
You can call what you’re lobbying for “sustainable development” as much as you like, but the fact remains that you want to prevent new housing from being built in one of the most transit-accessible areas of Vancouver. I’ll be at the public hearing speaking out against this kind of conservative, selfish thinking, and I know a lot of other Mount Pleasant residents will be too.
To Ripley. Based on previous open houses I do not think many Mount Pleasant residents share your point of view, the project has been given the thumbs down by close to 90% of respondants, from Rize’s own data.
To simply suggest that housing is scarce and therefore we should build this particular hi-rise completely misses the point. Every decision on density effectively “limits housing” as a tradeoff to liveability, it’s part of the process, this is no different.
There is no shortage of vacant high priced condominiums in Vancouver, there are planty of them close by, the shortage is in affordable rental housing and this project with it’s smattering of market rental units will do nothing to solve that problem, in fact by driving up local land values it is doing just the opposite.
My comments are directed at Ripley and your latest bit of “misinformation” that you have been spewing on this post.
Those of us that do not wish to see the RIZE development go up in its current state is not because we do not wish to have more housing in the area, you need to get your facts correct and/or stop misconstrewing what is being said.
As a Mount Pleasant resident I am all for more housing as in more “affordable housing” you know, like what our Mayor (and I use that title with much hesitation) Robertson promised and instead gave us 291 sq ft of bachlor pads in the downtown core for $1000.00 a month rent!
What I and alot of Mount Pleasant residents oppose is a monstrosity of a building that provides no concrete ammenities for the community and alot of vague information about what is exactly going into the commercial space.
I support local small business and developements that provides “affordable housing” in our community….and the same density that the RIZE project wants to acheive in a 19 storey (which actually translates into over 23 storeys with the ceiling heights) can be done at a lower height over the area of the property.
A tower of that height would look ridiculous in Mount Pleasant and quite frankly I moved here for the community and culture that still exisits and not the concrete jungle of a Yaletown or Downtown core.
Do you even live in Mount Pleasant? is what I am curious to know, and if you do, its a pity that you do not love this area and respect it as much as I and my fellow neighbours do because if this was the case then you would be fighting to preserve the nature of our area.
Michelle (Resident of Mount Pleasant and proud to be one!)
“What I and alot of Mount Pleasant residents oppose is a monstrosity of a building that provides no concrete ammenities for the community and alot of vague information about what is exactly going into the commercial space.”
Interesting to see the demands for amenities at the same time as the demands for affordable housing – it’s as if you believe that real estate developers are so kind-hearted that they don’t pass on costs to buyers.
Also, good luck finding businesses to sign leases for retail space before zoning has even gone through.
“…the same density that the RIZE project wants to acheive in a 19 storey (which actually translates into over 23 storeys with the ceiling heights) can be done at a lower height over the area of the property.”
Sure, but it would mean a much stockier building with more shadows on the immediate surroundings. I’d personally be okay with that, but I know a lot of people would prefer to keep as much light as possible on the busy Broadway/Kingsway intersection.
And yes, I do live in Mount Pleasant. Living here doesn’t preclude thinking it could be even better.
At the south-west corner of Woodland and Broadway there is a building that fits right into the designs that people in this community want. What was once a single family dwelling is now a multiple apartment building that will house a lot of people.The height conforms to our wishes and the density welcomes more people into our community.
The idiocy of claiming that people in this community are against having more people settle in this community is nothing more than a pack of lies.
Speaking of lies it seems that the developers are really good at stretching the truth beyond recognition.
There is a lack of integrity in these plans for the Rize developers and it is hoped that the council will see this as irrefutable proof of our fears that we are going to be shafted by the developers. Just as the Olympic Village was to be sold off after the Olympics it seems that there is another developer offering us a pig in a poke.
It would benefit you to be more careful with language, specifically the word “legal” in relation to zoning. It is also entirely legal to rezone a site, so what is your point? To say that 6 stories is “legal” but 19 storeys isn’t is kind of a weird thing to say.
FUNNY MATH. Listened to a news interview with one of the vps of development and he said that they wanted a 32 story building to start with. Now that they have gotten rid of the concept of affordable housing and community amenities they are trying to foist the equivalent of 38 storeys on the community. 19+5+5+9=38. Talk about sleazy. Is this the way that they want to show everyone that they should be trusted?