ODP Amendment – 320-360 West 2nd Ave

Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Hugh Stimson. I am an environmental consultant and member of the Vancouver Area Neighbors Association. I'm speaking in support. I grew up in a small town. I moved to Vancouver, and we eventually bought a house in Strathcona. That house was built in 1905 by a man named Otto Jarsch, occupation plasterer. I looked this up in the archives. Every time I knock a nail into the wall, I hear a little more of Otto's plaster fall off the lathe behind the paneling. Over a decade in that house, I feel I have built up a communion with Mr. Yarsh and his family. I think of him thinking of all the families that will have lived in the house he built across the street from the school that was built that same year, 1905. And thanks to that communion, I'm reasonably confident that if that place got knocked down tomorrow, 120 years later, to, say, put up a six-story, single-stair, multifamily apartment block with nice views and a little flower shop on the ground floor, Otto would think, what took you so long? I think, and truly, apologies to Otto if I'm misspeaking for him, but I think that he would look at our ODP map and think, the plan being made in 2026 for the future of Vancouver is a city of houses? I think he would think, did something go wrong? Do people not want to live in Vancouver anymore? Did people stop having children? Do they not want their children to be able to live near them? Did they stop getting old? Do they not need nurses? Did Canada switch back to an agrarian economy? Did we cancel immigration? Do we not want tradespeople to build homes that tradespeople can live in? Do we have something against plasterers?

Or maybe we tolerate them as long as they live in smoky, noisy arterials. Or maybe arterials are nice places to live in the future? This is a little gift Mr. Yarsh left me in the walls. It's a 1903 Dodds almanac. Came across it during a kitchen reno. Would have been a little out of date at the time. I'm not sure why he chose 1903. I did learn that Dodds made dyspepsia tablets. Back when he was chuckling over this thing, Mr. Yarsh would have thought that he knew what the future of Vancouver looked like. Because back at that time, it was permissible to build a place like the Shaughnessy Lodge on 10th. I biked by every day. Side street, three stories, lovely brick building. It was announced in August. It was broke ground in May and completed in September. This was in Canada. It had a population of 6 million people. Now we're at 40 million. But unlike then, you can't build that. Not in months. Not in years. Not at all. Not permitted. And according to this future plan we're looking at, throughout most of the city, you still won't be able to. No lovely six-story, single-stair, single-lot apartment block full of families to give Otto's little lot a second act. Nothing but house for house. So, yes. Please pass this plan. It's procedural. We have to do it. Then, I hope, actually do some planning for the future. Not a city of villages. Mr. Yarsh didn't, I think, come to the city for villages. And neither did I. We came for a city of city. Thank you.