The EcoPreservation Newsletter

Been a long while since our last item was posted and here's why!

For a couple of weeks or so nothing happened. The media was dry of EcoDensity News. It was almost like time had gone backwards and the word EcoDensity had not been "invented".

Then someone opened the stop valve and we were flooded with EcoDensity news. There was so much news that we didn't have to tell you where to find it. Then...

• There were the series of EcoDensity presentations at City Hall where many of our members presented their perspectives.
• The DRA stood together to voice their opposition to EcoDensity in Dunbar.
• The Dunbar Vision Implementation Committee made the City Planners return to present EcoDensity AGAIN to an "advertised" meeting. The DVIC have increased their membership and are increasingly being representative of Dunbar, not City Hall.
• So many people in Dunbar now know what EcoDensity is: we've heard people discuss EcoDensity in the Stongs lineup and, more recently, at Salmonberry Days walks.
• We were the first to talk OUT LOUD about EMAAR's plans for 41st and Balaclava. [Basically they want to develop from 40th to 41st... and then, shhh, push that footprint all along 41st.]

So EcoPreservation didn't grind to a halt, we were just swamped and involved by the native activism of Dunbar'ites.

One of EcoPreservation's major aims was to "spread the word" to Dunbar about what was EcoDensity REALLY meant. We think we were hugely successful, plus we were hugely pleased to see our site quoted occasionally by mainstream media and other Blogs.

EcoDensity is not dead in the water and we're sure it will be rammed through by the NPA City Council IF they have enough time before they get defeated in the next City election.

What about our Dunbar Vision? Our City Planner did say the City Planners will stand by the Vision BUT that City Council can overturn their recommendations. Wow!!!

So get prepared for 8 story highrises in Dunbar. Get prepared for Infill Housing on 33 foot lot sin your laneway. This will happen unless you're active and voice your disapproval well before rezoning gets to the voting stage.

EcoPreservation is NOT DEAD, we've just passed our torch onto other eager hands... and joined them!

Susan Chapman, co-chair of the DRA, announced on their Neighbour's Mailing List there is a meeting of the DVIC at

Thursday, February 7th , 7:00 - 9:00 p.m., at the
Dunbar Community Centre, Room 202.

Quoting from the *latest* minutes of the DVIC (May 28,2007) which are *only* 8 months old now.

Our goals are the following:

• to communicate our presence and activity to the community
• stimulate discussion about issues in Dunbar and elicit direction/suggestions from the community
• invite participation in the committee, the subcommittees and action arising from the committee.

Sigh...

---

 We encourage all residents of Dunbar to attend, hear and question EcoDensity as presented by the City Planning Office.

• There is an excellent chance that you will hear "Yes we know there are opponents to EcoDensity but we have also heard from many, many people in favour of it."
• You may also hear that there is no plan for mass rezoning but you might not realize how much "wriggle room" there is in the Dunbar Vision for the Planning Office and Developers. After all the Dunbar Vision was crafted by the Planning Office
• You might also hear that "Dunbar Vision rules decisions" and "the Vision will trump what developers ask for in Dunbar". To a lesser extent, you might hear the City Council can ignore the Dunbar Vision and the Planner's Office, and vote FOR a development.

---

To give a small taste of EcoDensity that could be appearing in your block: Infill Housing. One of our City Councillor, Peter Ladner, has a website where he speaks his mind. Read his thoughts on Infill or as he puts it Green Granny Flats.

Suppose City Councillors in their wisdom, shoot down all the by-laws that disallow Infill Housing. (Dunbar Vision is progressive, Infill is allowed  for character homes on larger than 50 foot lots.) Our quick thought: all the sewers, water and gas lines run down the avenue and streets, not the laneways. How will these new abodes get these services?  What will it cost to run new services down the laneways? Who pays for it? the City? Us? Me, without an Infill house?

Comments from Councillor Ladner's idle thinking

• "Families with young adults could let a child move out into the backyard." My children would rather I pay their tuition at a nice university far away from home so they can get an education that would let them buy into a nice neighbourhood.
• "Seniors could age in place, either by renting out their main house and moving into their own small suite, or by moving into a flat in their family's back yard" I asked my in-laws if they'd like to move into our backyard and got a rather fishy look back.

I just have to say this: how many houses in Dunbar already have empty basement suites? Why do we have to dig and build to provide low rent housing in Dunbar.

EcoDensity favours developers, planners, real estate agents, architects, politicians (municipal, especially), "farseeing" academics, mortgage lenders, builders and their suppliers, etc., and all the employees of the above. Are you in that list? I'm not!

Please show up at this meeting!

Ned! 

 

Could someone explain this Committee to me?

For quite a while I thought they were the "good guys", the white knight guys who saddle up and gallop over the horizon to do battle with the development "dragons", those abusers of the Dunbar Vision!

After doing some Googling, I'm a lot confused? 

Who are they? 

• Are they part of the Dunbar Residents Association? or not?
• Why are their minutes on http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/cityplan/Visions/dunbar/meetings/index.htm, a City Planner's site? Are they really a City group? a satellite of the Planner's Office?
• Where are the last 8 months worth of minutes?
• Why when I Google them does nothing really show up?
• Did they exist before EcoDensity was announced?
• Was there an election for the Committee that I missed?
• Do they actually have the "power" to express an opinion for Dunbar to the Planners and Council? How did they get that power? 
• Have they ever expressed an opinion...? and where is it documented?
• Why did the City Planner describe EcoDensity to DVIC at their December meeting WITHOUT ANNOUNCING THE MEETING TO THE NEIGHBOURHOOD like they have for other neighbourhoods?
• Why does Dunbar have to IMPLEMENT its Dunbar Vision?

Planners and politicians in Vancouver should accept Marlene Dietrich's advice: "Don't ever follow the latest trend, because in a short time you will look ridiculous."

Vancouver is fortunate to have the United States as a neighbour. Americans are daring and innovative. Canadians tend to be more cautious. We can regard each State as a separate testing ground for original ideas and when they pan out we can adapt them.
 
Canadians also know that one should never test the depth of a manure pile with both feet. Vancouver's failures have happened when they have violated this rule. During the Seventies energy conservation as now was a grave concern. In response to the precipitous increase in oil prices, the National Building Code introduced airtight, insulated buildings. We bought into the latest technological fads and the government hyped foam insulation that could be blow into the walls of existing buildings. Wood particleboard made with urea formaldehyde glue was allowed. Basic rules of construction including the calculation of vapor barriers were ignored in this brave new world.

All of this resulted in catastrophic building failures. Leaky buildings turned into mush. Foam insulation and particleboard gave off formaldehyde gas and occupants developed serious lung disease. All of this cost billions of dollars.

Closing streets to traffic was all the trend in the United States in the sixties and seventies. The Journal of the American Institute of Planning among others documented the astounding successes of pedestrian malls throughout the world, the star of which was said to be the Nicolet Mall in Minneapolis. Granville Mall was the result. It failed to live up to expectations. After a few years of the American streets were reopened to cars.

Vancouver's planning successes sometimes occurred in bucking trends. I was a Trustee of Granville Island. It violated all of the rules for people places by failing to separate cars from pedestrian Traffic. Danish planners have studied it carefully and hopes to implement a similar development near Copenhagen.

Canadian Cities tried desperately in the late 1960's to copy American experiences in Urban Renewal. It seemed like a good idea to get rid of whole communities occupied by poor people. Fortunately part of Canada's charm is that we tend to get our act together rather slowly and by the time Vancouver's Strathcona neighborhood was about to be demolished for renewal, the Americans were already blowing up their disastrous urban renewal housing projects.

Vancouver's trendy EcoDensity Charter, proposes to adapt the trendy LEEDS system for evaluation of Green Buildings. A number of American cities have already adapted it. "LEED", an acronym for the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design building rating system generally applies to larger buildings. It is one of many American programs offering green building guidelines and certifications based on a scoring system.

Building standards are normally written into building codes and zoning bylaws and impose specific requirements. This enables developers to determine in advance what they must do to get a permit. LEED, on the other hand, allows a builder to buy his way into a zoning system by scoring points with the help of a LEED consultant. The point system covers categories such as sustainable site selection and design, water efficiency, energy performance, material selection, indoor environmental quality and design process.

LEED is fast becoming an emperor with no clothes. Thom Mayne, the distinguished American Architect has all the right Green Credentials. The 2005 Pritzker Prize winner is acclaimed for the aesthetic originality and overall sustainability of his buildings. Mayne barely disguises his contempt for the "tacking-on" of green features as demanded by the LEED system. He feels that Green standards should be treated like building codes. "LEED should give performance requirements and let the architect solve the problem." The point system he notes can degenerate into absurdity. "A bike rack and air conditioning get you the same point. I'd much rather see BTU and CO2 requirements and let the professional community solve the problem."

Other critics of LEED, say that the results have been sorely disappointing.[i] Jay Stein and Rachel Reiss express the concern that a LEED rating doesn't necessarily reflect a building's greenness and that techniques encouraged by LEED are not always the best way to reduce environmental impacts.[ii]"I'm sick of the hype. I'm sick of meetings where you spend endless hours debating a LEED point instead of focusing on good design." said one respondent to a Green Building Alliance Survey.

The process has been described as "Point mongering." This is what happens when the design team becomes obsessively focused on getting credits, regardless of whether they add environmental value. After all, the stakes are high when the reward can be a rezoning. Since LEED certification is costly and time consuming, gaming a final few credits can be well worth it. Other critics say that in truth, LEED is based less on scientific analysis than on committee consensus. LEED, like Feng Shui, can be arcane. There is a lot of money to be made by consultants fluent in LEED credit interpretations.

LEED has been criticized for producing a crippling bureaucracy. Certifying one building doesn't make it any cheaper, easier, or quicker to certify the next one. "For this reason, LEED, rather than launching a green design revolution, may soon fade to irrelevance ... devoid of credibility."[iii]

Daniel Brook in an article Its Too Easy Being Green [iv]examines the many flaws, loopholes and inconsistencies of LEED guidelines for "green" buildings. The Guidelines are more useful as a marketing tool than for achieving actual sustainability.[v]

Some American architects see a system that's easy to scam and has more to do with generating good PR than saving the planet. The loopholes in LEED are no longer a trivial problem. Brook says, "The point system creates perverse incentives to design around the checklist rather than to build the greenest building possible."

There is a lot of money to be made in LEED and it is a valuable tool in block busting. The good news is that not many LEED buildings have actually been constructed in spite of all of the talk. What we can expect from LEED in Vancouver is what has happened in many states. Developers will assemble large parcels of land in low-density areas. They will then retain a LEED consultant who will score them a high rating. Architectural toadstools will spring up replete with bicycle racks, solar panels, windmills, micro glaciers and owl habitat.

And as Marlene Dietrich warned, in a short time the building and the system that produced it will look ridiculous!

---

[i] http://www.grist.org/comments/soapbox/2005/10/26/leed/index1.html AND http://www.igreenbuild.com/cd_1706.aspx
[ii] http://www.grist.org/comments/soapbox/2005/10/26/leed/index1.html
[iii] http://www.grist.org/comments/soapbox/2005/10/26/leed/index1.html
[iv] [iv] http://www.slate.com/id/2180862/pagenum/all/
The decidedly dupable system for rating a building's greenness.
By Daniel Brook Posted Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2007, at 11:24 AM ET
[v] http://www.planetizen.com/node/29072

 

West-side school closures announced: Janet Steffenhagen (Vancouver Sun)

Queen Elizabeth annex could be sold to help pay for UBC school expansion

VANCOUVER - A plan released Thursday for the city's west-side schools would result in the closure of one elementary school, the opening of another to serve burgeoning University of B.C. neighbourhoods and the relocation of a popular high school to a larger building.

The school targeted for closure is Queen Elizabeth annex, a small K-3 facility on Crown Street. If the plan is approved, the annex would be sold and the proceeds would help pay the cost of moving University Hill secondary into a UBC building and transforming its current site on Acadia Road into a new elementary school.

---

Lovely site, close to the Pacific Spirit and Chaldecott Parks. Can't say much about shutting down the school, as that's "just life". As the world changes, I suppose we all have to.

But give pause and reflect on this thought: this would be the perfect place for another 50 Condo development!

EcoDensity has already said it's in favour of Increased Density near parks, parks like Central Park and Pacific Spirit Park.

I know, I know, the Dunbar Vision is against increased development near Chaldecott, Memorial and Balaclava Park but did you know this? City Planners say they will abide by the Dunbar Vision BUT their decision can be OVERRULED by Council.

Just have to say this: What has the Dunbar Vision Implementation Committee done recently? Are they even posting their minutes on the CityWebsite anymore??

As Ray Spaxman has said on the VoteMcrae site, it's too late to protest when the approval is before the Council. We're not calling out the picket line for tomorrow, we 're just saying that EcoDensity could be coming to a neighbourhood near you.

Mr. Baker kindly sent along a copy of his letter to Editor of the Courier.

Increasing Vancouver's density by redeveloping and paving over single-family neighborhoods will solve the politicians' problem of raising money from developers. To propose it as an environmental solution is scandalous.

Shaughnessy residents fight townhouse development on Nichol House estate: Carlito Pablo (Georgia Straight)

Since its inception as a premier Vancouver subdivision more than a century ago, Shaughnessy has served as the residence of many of the city's elites. Low in density and predominantly a single-family-dwelling area, it boasts a number of heritage buildings that hark back to its history as the habitation of the rich and powerful.

One of these is the Nichol House, located at 1402 McRae Avenue. Originally owned by Walter Nichol, one of the early owners of the Province newspaper and a former lieutenant-governor of British Columbia, the mansion was built on a large property stretching from The Crescent-the site of some of Shaughnessy's most expensive estates-to 16th Avenue and Granville Street.

The current owner of the property-Arthur Bell Holdings Ltd.-has applied to city hall to rezone the lower portion of the estate abutting Granville Street. The company plans to build 16 two- and three-storey townhouses, with a 51-car underground garage.
...
The mandate of the Shaughnessy Heights Property Owners' Association includes the preservation of the neighbourhood's historical single-family character. "We believe in single-family homes in Shaughnessy," SHPOA president Frank Shorrock told the Straight. "The neighbours don't want townhouses."

While Shaughnessy may be the home of the rich-part of the traditional base of the ruling Non-Partisan Association of Mayor Sam Sullivan-Shorrock isn't sure whether or not residents have enough influence to stop the proposed development.

"The city's got EcoDensity, and it's hell-bent on developing all over the city," Shorrock said. "It's certainly EcoDensity."

---

Read http://www.ecopreservation.org/ecopblog/item/94 for more details.

Have a look at http://www.votemcrae.com/ tp see the Shaughnessy's reaction to this development.

 

Concrete Proposals Needed (The Economist Dec 19th 2007)

The construction industry confronts its carbon footprint

FANS of cement like to point out that it is the most widely used substance on the planet after water. Unfortunately it is also one of the most polluting. The main ingredient in concrete, cement is made by heating limestone and clay until they fuse into a material called clinker, which is then ground up and mixed with various additives. Both the heating, which is normally fuelled by coal, and the chemical reaction it induces release large amounts of carbon dioxide, and so contribute to global warming. By the industry's own admission, cement-making accounts for some 5% of the world's emissions of greenhouse gases--twice the amount attributed to aviation.

---

Isn't there anything that doesn't have an appalling carbon footprint?? Suppose not! One might even consider how appalling EcoDensity's carbon footprint is? 

Are towers really the way to build an ecological city? by Fances Bula (Vancouver Sun:A blog about urban issues, local governments, and city life in metro Vancouver)

Vancouver's developers, hungry for a way to get more out of less from scarce city land, are pushing the idea that taller towers are the way to go on the basis that they're more environmentally friendly. They add a lot of density and they can plug into the current wave of innovation and interest in ecotowers. (For more on this, check out www.ecogeek.org.)

But Vancouver's planning director, Brent Toderian, isn't convinced yet that height automatically equals "better for the environment" as he and his team work out what exactly the city's as-yet undefined EcoDensity plan is going to be.

Vancouver's EcoDensity Initiative Takes Next Step: by Brent Toderian

[This is an entry dated Dec 5/2007 by Brent Toderian  in www.planetizen.com, a "forum for the urban planning, design, and development community". There are many interesting and worthwhile entries in there.]

In an earlier post, I wrote about how the EcoDensity Initiative here in Vancouver has been transforming the public dialogue about density ( http://www.planetizen.com/node/25399 ). Since then, over autumn, the conversations have intensified, with Vancouverites from all perspectives weighing in. Just Google "ecodensity" for a flavour of what's being written, in media, articles, and blogs, etc. The community is very aware and engaged in this important initiative, and that's a great thing.

It's clear, not everyone feels that change in Vancouver is necessary, and some have spoken about the "price" of EcoDensity. Some are passionate in their belief that additional density, for whatever reason, may diminish the city's existing quality of life, and certainly their own. Some worry that change will come in the same form everywhere, such as high rise towers, and only market condos. They worry it will come without the public amenity and transit that makes neighbourhoods work better for more people. They ask "how do we know it will be "eco", and not just more density?" They comment on profit for developers, and pressures on existing houses around gentrification and affordability. They question how we'll still have a diverse social and income mix? Will everything look the same, or will a neighbourhood's special design character still be respected? They wonder if they will be heard, before more detailed decisions are made. And yes, they worry about important details in their lives, like sunlight on their private gardens.

Sigh, here we go again. Toderian at his best standing at his pulpit sermonizing to his public how WE, his employers, have to sacrifice. He speaks again of those supporters speaking such encouraging words in his ear, "young people are telling us they want us to do better." "It is truly sobering to have young Vancouverites passionately tell us we haven't done enough to ensure their quality of life, their livability."

Old people want him to do better as well. Middle aged people want to be able to still recognize Vancouver which is getting difficult with all these near identical condos. Young people in Dunbar are realizing affordability can never be forthcoming when the cheapest house on the block is bought by a developer, who outbid all other bidders. When the new house goes on the market for more than twice what the old house sold for, that is surely not "affordable" accommodation.

Toderian is leveraging what Vancouver has always had: livability. He's not creating livability, he's eroding it. Vancouver is in an amazing location with its mountains and the water. That's what makes Vancouver livable, not a maze of concrete towers, housing economic refugees.

Dunbar people are starting to worry when we're told we have to sacrifice what we have for "future livability", that we must give up our privacy, our backyards, our gardens, our parking, our sunshine, our neighbourhood and then we see ads for condos bragging about their sunshine, their tremendous views of the neighbourhood, etc.

December 2007 and the 2008 Civic election clock is ticking loudly. So far Mr Toderian has failed miserably with the voters of Vancouver, the voters who elected his boss who never spoke of EcoDensity until he was safely ensconced behind the mayoral dais.

Toderian has affronted the voters who elected the NPA. Have a look at the map of Shaughnessy at http://www.votemcrae.com/ as it "goes green". Watch as Dunbar starts to react to the idea of the "towering gated community" Emaar is proposing on 41st. It will be an "enclave for millionaires" and bring nothing of value to its surrounding neighbourhood. What amenities can Emaar offer to the neighbours when their sunlight, a rare enough commodity in Vancouver, doesn't show up on a summer day until noon.

Tick, tock. New mayors fire their City Planners on a regular basis.