Letters to The Sun, April 23, 2022: The Vancouver Plan doesn’t look like a plan to me

Article content

Re: Detached home dwellers’ opinions not heard?

Article content

I am a Vancouver resident in an attached home of low to medium density. Mary Boulanger wrote a letter about Vancouver’s plans for 12- to 20-storey buildings and the resulting loss of green spaces that cool neighborhoods and provide bird and insect habitat. There is an answer, but it does not include the current solution of allowing 20-plus storeys.

High-rise buildings are really contrary to sustainable densification. Tall concrete-framed buildings result in unnecessary higher greenhouse gases, both in construction and high heat loss on the external frame for the life of the building than mass-timber-framed buildings that can be built to at least 12 storeys. Also, the sheer number of occupants of high-rises creates extraordinary parking demands. As a result, high-rises require deep foundation excavation, usually to the edge of the property. Boulevard trees, that had grown adjacent to existing single-family lots with green space gardens, and whose roots adapted to the altered water table of a paved road become highly vulnerable to change, particularly with warmer days coming on fast.

Article content

Strike One: excavate for a deep parkade and sever the tree’s structural surface roots.

Strike Two: go deep and armor the excavated wall with sprayed concrete and ground anchors, thus ensuring any of the adjacent tree roots can not collect water forever.

Strike Three: install perimeter drainage at the base of the parkade walls and connect to a pump for continuous water table drawdown. How sustainable is that?

Result: trees are severely water-stressed, the top canopy foliage does not get the water to grow, branches die, boughs become desiccated and fall resulting in many complaints from car owners of damaging tree debris. Then the arborists come in for a tree assessment and declare it is a risk, because the chance of a mistake is too high. Three strikes now and the tree is out.

Article content

None of the unintended consequences of high-rise construction is ever discussed. The Vancouver Plan doesn’t look like a plan to me. Nothing but a very hurtful policy document to get more housing shoehorned in without regard to the long-term prospect of an over-dense and over-heated unliveable city.

David Grigg, Vancouver

Single-family homeowners feel escaped too

Re: Metro mayors say they feel escaped by BC government for slow pace of housing construction

We single-family homeowners know how they feel. For many months, various politicians at all levels of government have blamed us for the lack of affordable housing. They call us NIMBYs and they threaten our rights to speak at public hearings.

Our “yards” collectively provide more healthy habitats for humans and wildlife than all the city parks, squares, boulevards, trails, golf courses put together. We pay for the maintenance of our properties, and we pay for the maintenance of all public green spaces. We are very concerned about the destruction of neighborhoods replaced by multi-story concrete/glass towers. Gone are the flowers, shrubs, trees, vegetable plots and ground covers that produce oxygen and store carbon, that provide shade and solace, food and homes for insects, birds and other creatures. Why should we approve the construction of a high-rise that provides no liveable green spaces or community gardens for its residents, that does nothing for nature, and that casts a huge shadow on our gardens and homes?

Article content

Maybe better designs for housing will provoke less dissent from the neighbours. Remember those old apartment blocks that had large gardens and trees? House owners did not oppose those. They were part of thriving neighbourhoods.

Helen Brown, Coquitlam

City of Vancouver has obligation to allow densification

I strongly favor tearing down old rentals located in the near-downtown core to replace them with modern high-rises. Where there are 10-15 families living, there could be 150-200 (three-storey walk-up vs. 20-floor towers). Those people who don’t like this change could move to a farm, where they can enjoy all the green space they want and not be surrounded by towers. The current tenants are selfish, as they think they are the only ones that can occupy that neighborhood and oppose densification.

Article content

The world is always changing, and so do neighbourhoods. The residents of Fairview are not aware, but there is a huge lack of housing in Canada and there is a subway line being built across Fairview with federal and provincial taxes. Why should all British Columbians and Canadians pay for the Broadway expansion if the neighborhood can’t have high density?

Michael Trayler, New Westminster

Letters to the editor should be sent to [email protected]. CLICK HERE to report a typo.

Is there more to this story? We’d like to hear from you about this or any other stories you think we should know about. E-mail [email protected].