Village plan? New tallest towers? Vancouver council faces summer sprint

Village plan? New tallest towers? Vancouver council faces summer sprint

With August break and a civic election on the horizon, council has few days to make several big decisions

With local elections looming, Vancouver city councilors will have a jam-packed schedule in the weeks ahead where they will vote on a number of high-profile issues — or decide to delay the vote until after a new council is sworn in.

"We are cramming a lot of material into the last three weeks of July," said Coun. Pete Fry.

"For staff to deliver significant policy pieces for us to debate and decide upon so close to an election, and so fraught with so much material, I think is complicated. There's a lot of politics involved now."

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City council traditionally breaks for August, and councillors will likely have swung into full campaign mode by September, leaving precious few days to deal with some major items.

Among the issues that council is scheduled to consider this week are:

On Tuesday, councillors will hold a public hearing into the "villages plan," a proposal that envisions planning for 17 distinct "villages" throughout the city.

The proposal stems from the Official Development Plan councillors approved earlier this year, and envisions denser, walkable neighbourhoods with more shops and commercial amenities at street level.

It would also include significant rezoning, allowing a variety of housing options including apartment buildings up to six storeys tall.

Those possibilities have proven controversial, with the plan receiving around 1,000 written comments, a majority in opposition.

Opponents like former Vancouver chief planner Larry Beasley argue the move would boost population without the necessary public services to support it, while spreading development investment too thin across the city.

Supporters like Danny Oleksiak of Abundant Housing Vancouver said it moves the city away from multimillion-dollar single-family homes, and legalizes new housing where people actually want it: in residential neighbourhoods, not on busy arterial streets.

If approved, the plan would guide the development of significant portions of the city for decades to come.

But with the proposal already attracting significant friction, will councillors want to put their names to it so close to election day?

Is Vancouver ready for a new tallest building? How about three of them?

Councillors are slated to vote Tuesday on whether to advance a rezoning application by developer Holborn Group to a public hearing.

The proposal envisions a trio of new towers, the largest of which — a hotel — would be Western Canada's tallest, at 315 metres. The plan would also include a fourth, 25-storey social housing tower in Gastown.

Holborn is proposing the towers on a parcel of land that takes up nearly a full city block bounded by Dunsmuir, Richards, Seymour and West Georgia streets, including the former site of the Dunsmuir Hotel.

Vancouver architect and planner Michael Geller said he sees why the developer might want to move quickly on the application.

"It's common for developers to want to try and get applications considered by what they think might be a favourable council in the event that a different council is elected in the fall," he told CBC News.

"What is not so common is to see so much co-operation by a council to be going forward with so many significant applications, especially in the middle of July."

Geller said given the proposal's potential to radically change the city's skyline, he'd like to see it given more time — including waiting for the conclusion of a review into the city's Higher Buildings Policy.

Less eye-catching than villages or tall towers, but legally unavoidable, councillors must also approve a capital plan for the next financial cycle before the upcoming election.

Voters in October will be asked to sign off on $790 million worth of spending included in the $3.5-billion plan for 2027-2030 capital spending.

The plan covers major road, sidewalk and sewer renewals, upgrades to the Cambie and Granville bridges, overhauls for five aging community centres and construction of a new firehall.

City staff say the spending is needed to address an annual infrastructure spending gap of $500 million "and evidence of deteriorating asset conditions across the City's portfolio."

Those major items are on top of a slew of other business piling up on an already crowded council schedule with just a few weeks of sitting time left.

In addition, staff are asking council to add several more meetings to its schedule this month to accommodate all the reports and rezonings that, if not passed this month, will be put on hold until after October's election.

With files from Justin McElroy and Simon Little