The Value of Investing in Canadian Downtowns - International ...

VISIONARY
Does the downtown have strong leaders who collaborate to
achieve a shared vision?
Vancouver envisions itself as a “city for people” and
this vision underlies the downtown’s dramatic
transformation over the past few decades. This vision
was epitomized by the City’s decision in the 1960s
not to build freeways through the heart of its
downtown and continues to be reflected in the City’s
unwavering commitment to achieving mixed-use, well
designed and sustainable urban communities that are
safe and accessible for workers and residents.
Vision
Downtown Vancouver has had a strong vision for
growth. The City officials and staff have been leaders
in creating a mixed-use downtown, supporting quality
urban design, integrating transportation and land use
planning, and encouraging green building practices.
The City has created a range of planning documents
and policies that have helped propel the downtown
forward and allow it to emerge as a vibrant and
liveable city.
For example, bringing all of these ideas together was
the City’s “Living First” strategy beginning in the
1980s and the preceding Central Area Plan that
resulted in rezoning 8Msf from commercial to
residential land and transforming railway lands and
other industrial properties along the waterfront for
housing. Essentially, downtown growth had slowed
and this “Living First” strategy 2 pushed for housing
intensification, housing diversity, identifiable
neighbourhoods and fostering quality architecture by
strengthening traditional relationships between the
street, sidewalk, building wall and among buildings to
make high densities work.
In the decades that followed, the downtown was so
successful at attracting residential growth that the City
was concerned future land supply for jobs and
commercial growth was being absorbed. The City
2
Beasley Larry. (2005). Living First in Downtown Vancouver. Retrieved
from: http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/currentplanning/living.htm. Accessed
2012 September 26.
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responded by undertaking the Metro Core Jobs and
Economy Land Use Plan and implementing a range
of policies to help protect this land for commercial
uses. 3 Again, strong foresight allowed the City to stay
the course for achieving its vision of a diverse, mixeduse
downtown.
The City of Vancouver also aspires to be the world’s
Greenest City by 2020 and the downtown will play a
major role in achieving this goal. Many projects to
intensify green sectors, establish energy saving
efficiencies and increase green buildings are located
in the downtown. Moreover, the land use and density
in the downtown support compact and walkable
communities that will be critical to reducing emissions
and energy use.
Vancouver Convention Centre is home to a 6 acre living roof
containing 400,000 individual indigenous plants
Leadership and Collaboration
Vancouver has had a wide range of leaders that have
propelled both the downtown and City forward. These
are drawn from the public and private sector and
across the community. The City’s planning
processes, such as Discretionary Zoning and the
Development Permit Board (handling major
development applications) are designed to be highly
collaborative, requiring input from both public and
private sectors to achieve desirable planning
outcomes for the downtown and the entire City.
In 1973, the City was also one of the first
municipalities in Canada to introduce an Urban
Design Review Panel.
3
City of Vancouver. (2009). Metropolitan Core Jobs and Economy Land
Use Plan. Retrieved from:
http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/corejobs/index.htm. Accessed
2011 September 30.