GEOG 346: October 22

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GEOG 346 October 22

• Check out the most recent Campus Master plan
  documents at www.viu.ca/masterplan/keydates.asp
  Did anyone make it to one of the forums?
• The Geography Club is meeting in the Map Room
  tomorrow at 4 p.m. to discuss the Urban Issues
  Film Fest and WDCAG.
• I wanted to mention that Jane Jacobs four
  elements of successful neighbourhoods are largely
  in tune with New Urbanism intensity of land use
  and population mixture of primary land uses
  short blocks with numerous intersections a
  mixture of new and old buildings to encourage new
  businesses and NGOs. All of these principles were
  anathema to Le Corbusier.

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Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design
(CPTED)

• It grew out of Jacobs emphasis on the
  importance of eyes on the street and activity
  occurring at all times of day and night.
• The basic premise of CEPTED is that criminal acts
  require not only motivation on the part of the
  perpetrator, but opportunity. The configuration
  of the built environment can increase or diminish
  those opportunities. CPTED relies on two
  overlapping approaches a physical approach
  adding more lighting, eliminating hiding places,
  improving sight lines, and creating access
  control points and increasing local residents
  and users territoriality and surveillance of
  public and semi-public spaces.

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Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design
(CPTED)

• In the physical realm, it is important to
  eliminate hiding places for criminals, to avoid
  spots where victims can be trapped out of view,
  and to avoid funnels where criminals can
  predict the movements of potential victims. Blank
  walls without windows are to be avoided as they
  reduce surveillance of the street. The nature of
  spaces and their uses should be clearly defined,
  and they should be well-used at different times
  of the day, thus producing more of a 24/7
  environment. In line with the broken window
  theory that a damaged environment communicates
  the message that residents and users don't
  care, maintenance standards should be kept high.

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ECODENSITY IS IT THE REAL THING?

• by Don Alexander and Ryan Brown (Vancouver Island
  University, Nanaimo, BC)?

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Introduction

• The EcoDensity Initiative is a draft policy
  framework developed by the City of Vancouver, and
  first announced in June 2006 by Mayor Sam
  Sullivan.
• It was publicly launched in February 2007, and an
  EcoDensity Charter and set of draft EcoDensity
  Initial Actions was published last November as
  part of an ongoing public consultation process.

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Introduction

• The concept and associated documents have ignited
  considerable controversy. As a result of of a
  series of contentious Special Council Meetings
  held between February and April of this year, the
  City decided to re-issue the documents with major
  changes
• http//www.vancouver-ecodensity.ca/content.php?id
  42
• Given my limited time, I cannot do serious
  justice to the issues involved. I begin by
  briefly summarizing what EcoDensity sets out to
  do, and what the main points of contention. I
  will then assess the strengths and weakness of
  EcoDensity by considering the critics' arguments,
  and conclude by offering some tentative
  reflections and recommendations.

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Introduction

• The EcoDensity concept is largely identified with
  the Mayor, and seems to have been gestating in
  his mind for well over a decade. The
  identification of the term with him has made it
  more of a lightning rod than it might otherwise
  have been, as Sullivan is very unpopular in some
  circles, and his decision to trademark the
  concept in his own name has exposed him to
  considerable ridicule.
• On paper, EcoDensity aims to enhance the
  ecological sustainability of the city with
  climate change, resource depletion, urban sprawl
  and peak oil providing the urgency for stronger,
  more sustained efforts than have been undertaken
  to date. While seeking to become more green,
  the City's planners and politicians have also
  said that they want to improve livability and
  affordability, while safeguarding and improving
  economic performance and the city's overall
  resilience.

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What EcoDensity Seeks to Do

• The centrepiece of EcoDensity lies in its
  advocacy of greater density, which in turn will
  facilitate, if properly sited, a more optimal
  land use mix, a greater critical mass for transit
  and community energy systems, and a greater
  variety of potentially more affordable housing
  options. In the original Draft Initial Actions,
  some of the key strategies for ecological
  sustainability included
• requiring LEED Silver standards in new buildings
  four storeys and higher
• allowing for a relaxation in the density and
  scale of developments beyond existing zoning
  where higher environmental standards are to be
  met
• provide incentives for green design (for
  instance, not counting the space taken up by
  environmentally-friendly technology as part of
  the square footage)

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What EcoDensity Seeks to Do

• allowing demonstration projects in lower-density
  areas in advance of new Local Area Plans i.e.
  densifying single family zones
• instituting a new green single-family zone
• removing barriers to secondary suites by allowing
  them in multi-family housing, along with the
  development of laneway housing
• encouraging more mid-rise development on major
  arterials
• facilitating the development of district energy
  systems
• providing density bonusing for highly green
  projects, and
• developing measurement tools and regular
  performance reports.

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Opposition to EcoDensity

• The opponents of EcoDensity, who hail from a
  variety of points on the political spectrum, have
  raised a number of different arguments against
  the concept. One of the key groups in opposition
  is an informal coalition called Neighbourhoods
  for a Sustainable Vancouver.
• As you can see from their name, they do not wish
  to be perceived as being against the general aims
  of sustainability. Many of their objections
  relate to the perceived impact of EcoDensity, if
  implemented, on housing affordability.

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Opposition to EcoDensity (arguments)?

• The EcoDensity consultation process has been
  rushed and undemocratic and threatens to overturn
  the CityPlan Community Visioning process launched
  in the '90s which has been highly participatory.
  The City has bowed to pressure and modified its
  original documents to a significant degree. The
  CityPlan process has been exemplary in its
  participation levels, but EcoDensity focuses on
  more specific issues. One of our informants
  stated that it was a challenge to communities
  i.e., we have to do something about the growing
  environmental crisis and here is how to do it.
  

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Opposition to EcoDensity

• The concept places too strong an emphasis on
  density as the key to achieving greater
  ecological sustainability, and this greater
  density may also threaten affordability and
  livability. Research shows that increased
  density is crucial in terms of radically
  improving energy efficiency, making district
  energy systems possible, making provision of
  transit more feasible, reducing auto ownership
  and use, and reducing the embodied energy and raw
  materials absorbed by infrastructure. According
  to Walker and Rees (1997), over 60 of the
  ecological footprint of all housing types is
  associated with operating energy. The advantages
  of high rises over walk-ups are often minimal and
  there are disadvantages associated with
  high-rises, from a social sustainability
  perspective. Even the ecological benefits are
  still subject to much debate (see Fowler 2008).

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Opposition to EcoDensity

• That proposed density increases will not be
  matched by enhanced transit infrastructure or
  amenity improvements. There is little evidence
  that the City, in partnership with TransLink, is
  considering how to ensure that density increases
  will be matched by increased transit capacity,
  which is already inadequate. There is attention
  paid to the amenity issue.
• That EcoDensity fails to consider the
  environmental impacts associated with accelerated
  demolition of existing buildings to make way for
  new ones. While state of the art energy
  efficiency systems can be applied to existing
  buildings, new buildings have a strong advantage
  in achieving energy efficient standards over old.
  However, there are other important reasons for
  maintaining many older structures, not the least
  of which is avoidance of demolition and
  construction waste, though some of these
  materials can be recycled.

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Opposition to EcoDensity

• That density bonusing should not be used as the
  main tool for achieving green buildings and other
  public benefits, but rather those benefits should
  be mandatory. Under the revised EcoDensity
  Charter and Actions the idea of incentives for
  green building has been for the most part
  removed. The remaining component focuses on the
  removal of disincentives.
• The sustainability crisis we face today is as
  serious as any challenge our society has faced in
  the past century and a half. Going green should
  be mandatory. At the same time, setting the bar
  too high too fast could exacerbate housing price
  increases or push out the less sophisticated
  developers, leaving only the high-end luxury
  condo developers. Likely, higher standards will
  have to be phased in gradually to give the market
  time to adjust.

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Opposition to EcoDensity

• EcoDensity is just a way of legitimizing a new
  wave of profiteering by developers. There is no
  evidence for this. However, it is ironic that
  more radical ideas for how to achieve affordable
  housing have come from 'condo king,' Bob Rennie,
  than from the City itself.
• That the environmental goals of EcoDensity could
  be achieved by existing programs, such as
  CityPlan and the Climate Change Action Plan.
  These programs, especially CityPlan, do not give
  enough urgent and specific direction given the
  severity of our environmental crisis.

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Concluding Observations

• First, though no doubt sincerely conceived, the
  clarity of the concept and original documents
  could have been improved if they had explained
  how EcoDensity would relate to existing programs
  or what it might look like on the ground.
• Second, given how prominently the affordability
  issue has figured in the debate, the latter issue
  should have been addressed head on, even if in a
  separate but simultaneous program. The revised
  Actions and Charter mention the possibility of
  developing a municipal Housing Action Plan.
• Third, LEED, which figures prominently in
  EcoDensity, is not the last word in green
  building. The passivhaus system developed in
  Germany and Austria enables gains in energy
  efficiency that are from four to twenty times
  those of conventional development for buildings
  of up to three storeys. The impact of a phased in
  city-wide passivhaus standard for housing could
  be significant.

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Concluding Observations

• Fourth, opposition has been catalyzed by the
  identification of the program with Sullivan and
  the NPA Council. In addition, given that it is an
  election year, there are some forces who are
  seeking to use the issue for partisan advantage,
  even though they would normally support many of
  the aims of the program.
• Finally, while there is much of value in the
  opposition's critique, especially as relates to
  the affordability issue, it is also mixed with a
  strong dollop of NIMBYism of people opposed to
  change in their largely single-family
  neighbourhoods. Opposition, in part, can be seen
  as the cry of the disenfranchised, of people who
  feel that undesirable change is engulfing their
  communities and that they have little influence
  or control over it. The CityPlan process
  addressed these issues, but many of the Community
  Visions developed in the '90s have been overtaken
  by events or are too vague and are not adequately
  addressing sustainability issues.

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Concluding Observations

• Overall, EcoDensity highlights one of the
  central contra-dictions of our time how to
  respond appropriately to the urgent ecological
  crisis while also not riding roughshod over
  people's need to be intimately involved in the
  decision-making processes that affect their
  lives.
• What probably should have been done was to
  introduce this cluster of issues, including
  affordability, as part of a huge campaign
  throughout the city, comparable in scope to the
  Ideas phase in the early part of CityPlan and
  really build EcoDensity from the grassroots up.
  There is still time to do that. Of course,
  questions remain how long would such a process
  take, and what balance would be struck between
  community input and planner knowledge and
  expertise on sustainability issues?

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Concluding Observations

• An important issue that suggests itself is that
  there is a important balance between top-down
  city mandates and bottom-up citizen
  participation. Vancouver citizens are much more
  progressive than in most other North American
  cities, but are still wedded to many
  unsustainable luxuries, such as single family
  dwelling units and high levels of material
  consumption. Would a bottom-up process be able to
  provide the social change or paradigm shift
  necessary for EcoDensity or would it be watered
  down by NIMBYism and the desire to appease
  everyone through the lowest common denominator?
  By contrast, a completely top-down approach may
  be rejected as 'eco-fascist' government control.