January 23, 2014 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
West End Zoning Amendments – Public Hearing January 23, 2014
The Coalition of Vancouver Neighbourhoods today wrote to the Mayor and City Council stating that the Coalition “is opposed to the zoning amendments for the West End as currently proposed. We have major concerns that the zoning amendments have been brought forward for approval without acceptable community input based on the West End Community Plan which has been flawed in the same ways that City Council has recognized in three other current planning processes.”
West End Neighbours, one of our member residents associations, has provided many examples of problems with the current zoning amendments, including the following:
- The West End Community Plan was not the product of a meaningful public engagement exercise.
- Residents have not had a fair chance to digest the many and complex proposals – and the City has not done an adequate job of educating residents, or even of answering questions following the release of the Plan.
- Insufficient rationale was provided for the West End needing to absorb 10,000 more residents.
- The City failed to adequately explore or evaluate with our community the variety of options for housing these theoretical future residents.
- The Plan is imposing what the vast majority of residents did NOT want. Most residents surveyed by the City indicated they did not want new buildings exceeding 11 storeys in height. But the Plan, and the proposed zoning changes, propose that almost all new dwelling units be provided in buildings exceeding 11 storeys.
The objective of the Coalition of Vancouver Communities is to create a new development and planning paradigm that will stress community involvement and local influence in land-use and zoning decisions. We have major concerns about the current planning processes and is observing with interest how the City addresses the concerns of the West End.
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Download this release (123kb PDF)
https://coalitionvan.org/files/CVN-Release-5-Jan23_2014.pdf
