This month’s ZOOM meeting of the Grandview Woodland Area Council (GWAC) will feature a discussion of community influence on development plans via charettes given by urbanist Lewis Villegas. As he writes in the GWAC call to meeting:
“On January 11th, I will make a pitch at GWAC—a ‘Call to Action’—to fight for human-scale, west coast urbanism in Grandview Woodland. And to fight against Hong Kong-style tower building on the Safeway site.
There are two reasons we are building towers in Vancouver today: (1) So the 1% can pile up towering profits; and (2) So that City Hall can continue to build the Vision agenda as if nothing happened 2 years ago.
Charrettes deliver a recipe for sustainable neighborhood buildout over the next 50 years. Neighbors come together and participate in delivering both social and affordable housing, and building public places for supporting higher levels of social mixing. All following in the long established and cherished west coast vernacular tradition. Products don’t exceed human-scale, building 3 to 5 stories high.
Like I did for RAMP in Mount Pleasant, in 2012 when we were fighting the Rize Tower, should GWAC choose to host the charrette, I will lead the process pro-bono.
Let’s “Fight the Broadway Corridor Plan” at the Safeway Site. And at EVERY site. Let’s get something better. Much better. Tell staff, and government, “Go back to the Neighborhood.”
The fact is that we just don’t need the density. Colleen Hardwick has shown how Vancouver has been growing by 1% for the past 40 years—towers and all!
At 1% annual rate of population growth, doubling the amount of living space in the neighborhood will provide housing for 70 years to come. It’s an old investment rule of thumb: invest at 1% per annum and double the principal in 72 years.
In the Mount Pleasant charrette we already showed how to double the density building nothing more than the human-scale vernacular, 3 to 5 storeys high.
We will do the same here.”
The Grandview-Woodland Area Council (GWAC) is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: GWAC January Meeting
Time: Jan 11, 2021 07:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85275757682
pwd=QXhNZnJkclRlVlZIMUZCOUVGbGVYdz09
Meeting ID: 852 7575 7682
Passcode: 863410
Posted by jakking 
Jak's View of Vancouver v.3 