City-wide Design Guidelines Amendment (Trout Lake)

Statement Watch

What you saw was a photo of Trout Lake from a few weeks ago. Good morning, Mayor and Council. My name is Stephen Bose. I'm a Vancouver resident. I'm opposed to the staff recommendations, especially for this change for Trout Lake. I have a degree in landscape architecture, and I currently work in the visual effects industry. This photo of Trout Lake includes massing models for current rezoning applications at 1926 to 1970 East Broadway, which is Tower First on the right, and 2611 Victoria Drive. They're kind of in the middle, and then the Safeway Towers on the left, which are just outside of the current view cone. Next slide. These views protect a whole number of other views around the defined view cone. It's not just one position, but other sites around the park with views of mountains in both directions. Next slide. You're looking at protecting views for the future, and this is the stewardship of these precious views that we've enjoyed for generations. Next slide. It's going to get a bit technical. So staff have actually done a number of changes throughout the year, such as shifting the origin point of the view cone in 2018. You can see that in the open data. I've gone out to the site several times to take photographs from what staff say is their view cone location using the photo and the actual view cone location and the geocoordinates. There's a slight difference. And I did take surveying as part of my landscape architecture background. Next slide. In April, in May of last year, staff had a pop-up tent, which I was present, and they showed the view cone location with a large X, and they said the view cone is from over here. And that's actually reflected in the photo on the left. The photo in the middle on the right actually showed the staff photographs, which are not from exactly the same locations from a couple of meters over. So they're not showing you the origin point of the view cone. Next slide. And one of the issues when staff take these Photos, I don't know if they've been properly processed because the top slide shows a cropped version of a 20 millimeter lens photo. The second one adjusts for distortion of the lens, which is what we do in VFX. And the third slide shows the two line up. You can see it's very blurred. You have to correct for the photograph first. Next slide. And we were talking about the importance of the view to the lions or the sisters and maintaining the breadth of that view. Well, here's the image from the photograph used by staff and me finding the same location in the field. And you can see how close the lines are actually to the proposal at 2611 Victoria Drive. Next slide. This is a close rendering to show how close this is. This is a very quick model slapped in front. 2611 Victoria. Next slide. And I would recommend taking this back to staff, hiring an independent consultant, publishing all data, and not passing this today. I have the entire computer model here for anyone who wants to see my geocoordinates. And if you have any questions, you can ask me within a break.

Statement Watch

Good morning, Mayor and Council, staff. My name is Jeanette Jones, and I'm a resident of Vancouver. I am opposed to Recommendation D and the resolution in Appendix G. These propose to temporarily not enforce many of the design guidelines in the RM, RR, and C zones. The RM7 zone for row houses and stacked townhouses and the RM7A zone for four-story apartments implement the 2010 Norquay Plan. About half the parcels in our East Vancouver neighborhood are located within these zones. I have looked at every submitted application, development permit application, 55 in RM7 and 11 in RM9A. I have commented on most of them. I have attended many open houses for completed projects. What I have seen is that well-designed projects generally proceed smoothly through design review. Problematic projects are usually the ones that get held up. Not enforcing basic design guidelines will simply encourage poor design for projects that no one will want to live in. Just think of what's happening to multiplexes right now. The guidelines under consideration here are not trivial. They go far beyond the, quote, fine-grained detailing and trellises mentioned in the Council report. Few of them are redundant or legacy guidelines like those repealed in 2025. They are currently in use. Failing to enforce them would strike at a fundamental purpose of design guidelines to ensure that a project is livable. As an illustration of what is involved, consider Norquay's seven, sorry, consider Norquay's RM7 guidelines for row houses and stacked townhouses. Section two contains eight basic general design considerations. This proposal would continue to enforce only one of them. The slide on the screen shows potential consequences of not enforcing the remaining seven. And I've since found that the guideline for storage does have a general bulletin which would cover that one, but there are still four. The results of this pilot are expected to inform the citywide design and development guidelines coming to council later this year. I only learned about what is being proposed here by reading the agenda for this meeting. And I should say that these are only a few of the design guidelines that are at risk. If changes of this magnitude are planned, public consultation needs to happen. I urge you not to approve recommendation D. Thank you.

Statement Watch

I'll bring the presentation. There we go. There we go.

First slide, please.

Next slide, please. Thank you. My name is Luis Villegas. I'm a Vancouver resident practicing urbanism in the U.S. and Canada for 40 years. Next slide, please. You're one slide too fast. I oppose the policy changes, the planning department's fuzzy lines, and the towers in the neighborhoods in general for the consequences and the knock-on effects they will bring. Could we get to the right slide? You need to back up. Thank you. Towers lift land values. Economists see the housing crisis all in the land. Government puts on the density fallacy, claiming it is adding housing. when in fact the towers are inflating land values. Next slide, please. Numbers don't lie. The housing crisis is government-made and perpetuated by decisions like this. The proof is in the pudding. The knock-on effects of the SkyTrain and tower plans are laid bare by this chart. Because crises in housing hollow out local economies. Next slide, please. Doubling housing costs cuts disposable income in half. With less money in circulation, local economies falter and shops close. That is too bad because mom and pop small businesses are the backbone of employment in Canada. Next slide, please. Trout Lake is both a park and a natural reserve. What we see in Steve's photo is water as foreground. The treetops as middle ground, with cottages mixing idyllically in our vernacular tradition. Finally, majestic mountains frame the background, shifting to blue and matching the sky on warm, sunny days. Next slide, please. Only building below the treetops will preserve pristine our riches. Oh, you've gone too fast again. Back up one, thank you. Government permits ugly buildings. Government sells the view to inject revenues into the development pipeline. Government shows neither capacity nor interest in preserving natural beauty. Look at the banality of the architecture revealed by Steve's model. Ditto for the lives of residents in those tiny, puny apartments. The sense of community is lost the moment they step into an elevator. Tower floor plates are copied ad nauseum by computers. The entire frame will be filled by towers unless citizens rise against the politics of land lift. There is no balance when profit is the sole motive. The other option is doubling Vancouver's population by building houses, row houses, and courtyard houses, and living below the treetops.

Statement Watch

Hello.

Please go ahead, Maladi.

Hi.

Great. I'm speaking against the proposed changes that would allow megatowers to intrude into the Trout Lake view cone today. Trout Lake is one of the last places in Vancouver where the public can experience a wide, uninterrupted panoramic view of the North Shore Mountains. This view is known as a luxury amenity. It is a shared public asset protected for decades because it contributes to our collective quality of life. are sent to place, and as the Director of Development Josh White said, as I quote, the core identity of our city's identity, and this is the only uninterrupted nature-focused public view in the middle of our city. When there was a view cone review last time, City Council said that you will conserve the panoramic view so you should do that, because once a view cone and particularly a nature-focused panoramic view is compromised, it will be gone forever. What's being proposed is not a minor incursion, but a massive and disruptive one with towers already proposed. You can always build thousands of units of homes across Vancouver outside the View Cone areas, but there is no way to mitigate the loss of a public matching view that would be permanently blocked by private development. Allowing towers to intrude into the Trout Lake View Cone effectively transfers a public good into private profit. Public matching views should remain public. They should not be sold off to real estate developers and condo owners. I urge council to reject any changes that weaken the Trout Lake natural view cone and to reaffirm your commitment to protecting Vancouver's public panoramic views for current and future generations.

Statement Watch

Hi.

I am Paisley Woodward. I live at 4th and Commercial, and I'm a resident. I'm opposed. I don't know how much I need to extol how much we love Trout Lake and East Van. I think councillors are aware of that, but... Man, it's popular, and you're so proud of it when you bring people to visit Vancouver. And in East Van, you don't get over to the seawall or all that as regularly as you can go just to the beach at Trout Lake and enjoy the lake and the views. They're magnificent. It's a beautiful public asset. It's why we love Vancouver as our mountains and water. I just want to say a couple of things. A, public engagement. What they showed us is not what you're seeing. So they've cut it back, and we haven't been able to comment on that. And yet, 95% actually of people, if you look at the report, said that they find that being in Trout Lake, the views enhance their experience either greatly or to a certain extent. A couple of other points. So there are lots of towers going into the neighborhood that are outside of the view cone. We've got the Safeway Towers. There's also a proposal right on the corner of Commercial and Broadway where the CIBC Bank was for another large development. So those towers are there and they've been approved. And so it's... It's our job locally to say, hey, this is part of Vancouver's identity, and yes, we want housing, we need it desperately, but it's that balance. And hey, this is your opportunity to say to the province and to declare that local matters. People have spoken. What else did I want to say? East Van, it's tied with Fairview as the lowest number of parks per person. And also the another thing to know is like there's no huge rush here even like for the Safeway towers The mega towers the Crombie REIT just said in their latest meeting with investors that They don't the market soft in Vancouver, and they're still evaluating whether to go ahead, so there's no huge rush on this you can send it back and Have this commented on Later. But just for us to have just a sliver of mountains to look at and this narrow thing through this forest of towers, hey, like, this is Vancouver. We really need our beautiful views. Yeah. So I guess that's all I need to say.

Statement Watch

She's on the phone. Hi.

There we go. Please go ahead.

Okay. Thanks. I am a resident of Vancouver. I've been a resident of Vancouver my whole life, and I am against these. I'm against the proposed changes. I'm especially against what's been proposed for the view cone at Trout Lake. I think it's quite unnecessary. I really echo what a lot of the other speakers have said today about thinking of the city as a whole. It's not just about balancing housing at that specific site of Charlotte Lake, but there is housing. I mean, I'm just... Dervin Pass, Kingsway, and Fraser, where there's three towers going in. There's all along 10th Avenue. There's many. There's going to be four at the Safeway Tower site. All of these are outside of that view at Trout Lake, and we're wanting to protect an actual panoramic view that people really value and that people who would be living in those places would value. And once we remove it, once we remove that protection, Like Melody had said, it's gone forever, and it's really unnecessarily gone forever. There's lots of housing going in throughout the city, going in within the neighbourhood. It's not necessary to make these changes at that site. I also really want to point out, as a renter myself, the consultation that happened, I think that is really disproportionately showing that a lot of landowners responded. A lot of renters were not really consulted in terms of surveys, access, or... Being able to give those opinions, even at the council meeting today, so many people I talk to don't even know it's happening. So I really think there's a pretty serious lack in the way that consultation was done, not even getting people the ability to look at what that final plan looks like. There's no rush. There's no reason to rush this through, especially if it's something that's going to impact Vancouverites, the people who are moving into those neighbourhoods for generations to come. I really urge you to refer this back. City staff, even many questions that Councillor Bligh and others asked, they weren't able to answer. And I think those really need to be answered before these changes can be approved. And also respect for the people in the neighbourhood who have given you their opinion, who have said what they want. And there's a lot of value in that. And those people are speaking from a place of care for their neighbors, not only for themselves and their interest in the view. And so I think it's really unfair for staff to say that they simply disagree with that evaluation of people's priorities. So I'm really against those changes for those reasons. And I really urge council to refer this back to staff and not vote in favor of these changes.