INSPIRED DESIGN OR SOULLESS CONCRETE COMPLEX?
Danny Kornfeld stands on his fifth-floor balcony overlooking an almost-empty parking lot near The Bay at Oakridge Centre.
Few might enjoy such a view, but under a bright blue sky, Kornfeld can see across the city to the southern horizon, over single-family residential neighbourhoods sprinkled with the odd highrise.
The 46-year-old lives in a two-level, one-bedroom condo in The Terraces. It’s one of 32 units in a strata located in the top three floors of the building housing Crate & Barrel and medical offices at the entrance to the popular mall at the corner of 41st and Cambie.
Residents of The Terraces will be among the most affected by the ambitious, and some argue overly aggressive, billion-dollar proposal to re-develop the sprawling 28-acre Oakridge site into a mixed-use development featuring 13 residential towers ranging from 18 to 45 storeys, retail space, rooftop green space, as well as various amenities, including a community centre.
Two of the highest towers are proposed to flank the six-storey building in which The Terraces is located — a 42-storey one to the south and a 45-storey one to the west.Kornfeld’s existing view of paved parking stalls and the lowrise buildings that form the mall is among the rationale for the redevelopment.
The property is considered under-developed. It’s also located in the centre of Vancouver on main transportation routes and, with the introduction of Canada Line, is regarded as a prime site for densification.
Gregory Henriquez of Henriquez Partners Architects underlined those points in an interview with the Courier last November. In October 2012, Henriquez’s firm, along with Stantec Architecture, applied to amend the site’s zoning on behalf of Oakridge Centre owner Ivanhoe Cambridge and Westbank Development.
He said the concept is “to take something which is existing as a parking lot, which is sort of a suburban concept, and turn it into a real urban mixed-use, inclusive city.”
It’s a vision shared by the development’s proponents who hail the project as a forward-thinking model for sustainable living. But where Henriquez sees an “inclusive city,” Kornfeld fears another Metrotown of “soulless concrete buildings right up to the sky.”
SCALE AND DENSITY CRITICIZED
On a sunny afternoon in early May, Kornfeld pulls up a chair on his balcony to sit next to three of his neighbours — Linda Leong and co-strata presidents Heather Wye and Joan Phillips.
Leong, who immigrated to Vancouver from Hong Kong in 1967, recalls being impressed by the city’s beauty.
“[I thought] the sky’s blue, the air is fresh, no tall buildings and space — so much space. And the city has changed and now there’s this happening,” she says.
“People are saying you should be used to it, it’s just like Hong Kong and I say the reason I left Hong Kong is I didn’t like what was happening in Hong Kong.”
The four residents say they speak for the majority of tenants — many are elderly and some only speak Chinese. Wye says they moved into the building partly because of the neighbourhood’s suburban qualities, otherwise they’d live downtown or in the West End.
She believes residents would accept some increased density, albeit reluctantly — possibly a small number of towers in the 20-storey range.
But they object to the proposed development’s scale, which far exceeds density approved in the city’s 2007 Oakridge Centre policy statement, which limited towers to 24 storeys. If rezoning is approved, Wye maintains it will be an “eyesore smack dab in the centre of Vancouver” and serve as precedent for future developments.
“When you look at it, it looks like oh this is lovely and green. Well, it’s really not going to be that green. It’s going to be a little postage stamp surrounded by a lot of towers and people in Kerrisdale — people in Dunbar for goodness sake, are going to be able to see this sticking up in the middle of the city.”
Kornfeld argues the developer is “selling amenities.”
“It’s almost like saying, don’t look at the height, don’t look at the towers.”
He acknowledges potential criticism that tenants’ concerns are out of self-interest, but counters it’s in developers’ self-interest to build as densely as council allows to justify costs.
“I’d put the question back to them — maybe they should have to give up some of the profits. We’ve been the forgotten entity on this site.”
The Terraces’ residents aren’t the only critics. The Riley Park South Cambie Community Vision Group supported the 2007 Oakridge policy statement, but chair Allan Buium says it isn’t satisfied with consultation for this proposal. Density is among their chief concerns.
“The density is far too extensive for the area in terms of the Cambie corridor and all the changes happening there,” he says.
The group anticipates rezoning approval would spur development on the northwest and southeast corners of Cambie and 41st, as well as nearby sites.
The group wants more public amenities included in the project, such as a swimming pool, to take pressure off the popular Hillcrest pool and to accommodate thousands of new residents who’ll move into the area — the Oakridge proposal envisions more than 2,800 new residential units, translating into between 4,000 and 5,000 people.
Overall, Buium maintains there are too many unanswered questions about subjects ranging from the affordable housing component to Canada Line capacity.
“One phrase coming up is we’re under siege with development,” he says.
CITY STAFF ENDORSES SCALE
City staff unveiled an interim report on the Oakridge proposal Wednesday, seeking council direction on key issues before moving forward.
Matt Shillito, the assistant director of community planning, told the Courier Tuesday it’s difficult to quantify public feedback as a percentage of for versus against, but concerns have been raised about the development’s scale, proposed heights, the capacity of Canada Line to absorb additional riders, potential parking and traffic impacts in the neighbourhood, and the adequacy of public benefits.
“The most striking thing about it for me is there is a great deal of interest in the proposal and in the development,” he said.
“It seems to be a site that everybody is familiar with and everybody recognizes is a very large and strategically important site that we need to get right, so we’ve had an overwhelming response to our open houses and our online workshops.”
More than 1,400 attended open houses and about 300 submitted comment cards last November. Online consultation, launched in April, garnered a further 500 responses, including 50 in Chinese, with more expected.
Tower height was a key topic of interest — almost 60 per cent called for height to be reduced. Respondents also cited the importance of housing for seniors and for middle-income workers.
Many suggested the rooftop green space should be reserved for passive rather than active uses and that public access to it be improved.
Despite tower height complaints, staff say the range is appropriate for the site “considering its role and place in the region and the city, and in the hierarchy of major transit-oriented sites in Vancouver.”
“We’ve done a lot of analysis of the scale of development in the context of not just the City of Vancouver itself, and the Canada Line and the Cambie corridor and the role of this site and this area plays in the City of Vancouver, but also in the region as a whole,” Shillito said.
“…So we are comfortable recommending this scale of development for this particular site, noting that it’s a unique site in the city. It’s the city’s only municipal town centre and it’s intended to be one of the main nodes of development outside of the downtown core and one of the main nodes of development in the region as a whole.”
(Municipal Town Centres are designated in the Metro Vancouver Regional Growth Strategy and are intended to be among the region’s primary focal points in terms of residential density, job space, civic and cultural facilities and transit service)
Supporters and detractors spoke on staff’s interim report before the matter was referred to council’s June 11 meeting for discussion.
REDEVELOPMENT 'ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY'
The Tikva Housing Society, a non-profit affordable housing organization of the Greater Vancouver Jewish community, is among the proposal’s supporters. Fourteen per cent of the Jewish community live under the poverty line, slightly lower than the city’s 17 per cent average, according to the group.
Lucas van den Berg, one of Tikva’s co-chairs, lives near Queen Elizabeth Park and has two children. He believes it will transform the neighbourhood and the city in a positive manner.
“The substantial increase in the number of housing units around what is a transit hub and shopping destination will provide much needed densification in what is a key area in the city,” he wrote to the Courier.
“The proposed design in particular will enhance the beautiful open spaces of the area even as the skyline is altered. Specifically, more family and couples housing options to counter the scarcity of affordable single-family homes will help the area retain the diversity that makes this city such a wonderful place to live. I also believe the emphasis on social and rental housing being presented have the potential to positively contribute, both directly and indirectly, to the immense affordability issues in our city.”
Richard Littlemore, who lives across from Oakridge Centre in a unit in the Hemingway buildings on 45 Avenue, is also, for the most part, sold on the project, describing it as “disappointing in some regards, fabulous in others — and absolutely necessary, regardless.”
Hemingway residents will lose North Shore views, but Littlemore says that will happen whether towers are six or 45 storeys. He’s worried about years of construction, and the impact of the existing proposal to build vehicle access off 45th, but that’s where his criticism ends and praise begins.
“In almost every other aspect the plan looks great. It makes intelligent use of what is currently a vast, ugly parking lot, adding density to a neighbourhood without actually displacing neighbours. And ‘density’ in this context is just plannerspeak for people — the critical mass of youngsters and newcomers who don’t want to travel for hours a day to the suburbs in order to find affordable accommodations.”
Littlemore looks forward to living next to a “lively village centre, not an auto-destination for fashion shoppers.” While he’s sympathetic to longtime residents accustomed to a single-family residential neighbourhood, he questions whether it’s realistic or even advisable in modern times.
“I think there are lots of people on the West Side who have a nostalgic view for what the city was that is out of step with what the city is or can be,” he says.
“It is not 1965 and it’s not going to be 1965 again. If we block developments in dense urban neighbourhoods then the only alternative is to lay waste to the agricultural land reserve and make bigger subdivisions that are more expensive to service and do more damage to the land.”
OAKRIDGE TENANTS SUPPORT PROPOSAL
Boris Chenkis’s family business is one of the longest-standing tenants at Oakridge Centre. It opened as La Belle Rose in 1970, although it’s since been rechristened After Five Fashions. Chenkis is as eager as Littlemore to see the mall revitalized.
He backed the 2007 Oakridge policy statement and feels “positively” about the rezoning proposal, citing the need for amenities to increase foot traffic in the mall.
The retail industry is changing, according to Chenkis, and traditional bricks and mortar stores are being squeezed by the rising popularity of online shopping.
“It’s been particularly hard for independent operators to make a go of things, and I am one of few independent shops that remain at the mall. Chenkis says Oakridge has become a mall of high-end stores with limited dining options. Even the cinema closed and was replaced by Crate & Barrel.
“I really do believe [Oakridge tenants] think it’s a good idea. I think we all want the redevelopment to take place. We want vitality to take place,” he says.
Chenkis is anxious for a decision because his lease is up in a couple of years. He wants to know what business costs he’ll face. “I want to know if I’ll be staying or I’ll be going — but I want to stay,” he says. “I want to get this thing going. I want to do what I can. It’s just been dragging — stop it or get it going.”
APPLICANT TAKES LONG-TERM VIEW
Darren Burns, senior principal at Stantec Architecture, isn’t surprised by the criticism. He’s been involved in the redevelopment plans for years and is well versed in its intricacies, reaction to it and how it fits with the city’s long-term sustainability goals.
Today, he’s surrounded by design boards in a room on the seventh floor of Oakridge’s north tower. Burns maintains people need to take a longer view when considering development along the Cambie corridor and the opportunity the Canada Line brings.
“This is the place for increased density — at transit hubs and nodal hubs. And, it’s important that we don’t think of this in a 10-year window.
We have to think of this in a 50- to 75-year window. The objectives of environmental and social sustainability that the city has clearly outlined in the policy statements need to be addressed,” he says.
“That’s one of the things we’re proud of — that the development that we’re doing encourages things like less car use. We’re doing things like bike co-ops and car co-ops because of the size of the development is allows us to conglomerate a lot of these opportunities.”
Burns rejects comparisons to Metrotown pointing to design features such as the proposed rooftop park, attempts to address affordability concerns with a mix of market and non-market condos, as well as the green initiatives.
He suspects some people don’t fully understand the plan or may have misconceptions, but noted nothing is fixed until the end of the rezoning process. Tower orientation, heights and location continue to be looked at, as well as other aspects of the proposal.
But Burns noted neighbourhoods along SkyTrain are changing and are designated for density, so the plan should be considered in that context. “When you look at it in isolation, sure it’s a big contrast between what’s next to it, but what’s next to it isn’t going to be there in 50 years.”
noconnor@vancourier.com
