Urban Planning

The City of Vancouver has long contemplated the future of the Georgia and Dunsmuir Viaducts. What began as a failed freeway project has left Vancouverites with concrete giants that squander important space and, quite literally, divide neighbourhoods.

Mount Pleasant recently engaged in a three-year community wide exercise to develop a new Community Plan. This process involved over 2,300 participants from 2007 to 2010, and resulted in a document that will help define the future of the neighbourhood – from social planning and parks, to development of homes and businesses. It also, as unanimously accepted policy by City of Vancouver Council, forms the basis for our rezoning proposal at Kingsway and Broadway, and it restricts high-rises in Mount Pleasant on all but three specific sites-ours being one of the three selected

The stage is set, tonight at city hall the battle for Mount Pleasant will take place. In one corner you have the NIMBY’s, RAMP (Residents Association of Mount Pleasant). In the other corner you have the developer, Rize Alliance. At 7:30pm the two will duke it out in a verbal war, one that will set the tone for future battles. One side will remain civil as they juke and jive to get to the end, the other will probably shout incessantly demonizing the other, throwing nonsensical jab after jab. Ultimately, the fate will lie in the hands of the judges as the future of Mount Pleasant is at stake.

Two weeks ago we showed you 3d mock-ups of what Vancouver would like once all the proposed buildings were built. This week, Dleung at SSP has took it one step further. Not only is the model a lot more crisp, it now contains some fantasy proposal that would really punctuate the skyline. Don’t worry NIMBY’s they’re mainly in the central business district so it won’t be affecting your precious views. Well maybe not.

A brand new Patullo Bridge will be constructed within the next 5 to 10 years and it will most likely be tolled. Translink has started the preliminary public consultations and construction could start as early as 2015. The new bridge will be six lanes. Not all lanes will be for all vehicles, four lanes will be multi-purpose while the other two lanes will be dedicated to truck traffic only.

TransLink has presented a few options (see below) for replacement of the existing bridge. 

A few more photos have popped up from the soon to be released video game Mass Effect 3. We first published the original screen caps of what Vancouver would like like in the year 2187 a week ago, you can see those photos here. In those photos Canada Place and the Burrard Inlet were clearly recognizable. These next two screen shots show the the broader region within the context of the game. As you can see in 2187 Vancouver  is littered with highrises and what looks like elevated roadways. Rising sea levels have also played havoc with the city’s land base. The mountains still look beautiful.