False Creek South is a community, not just a cluster of buildings

David Hulchanski says plan to redevelop is highly unfair.

False Creek South is a planned, socially mixed neighbourhood developed in the 1970s by the City of Vancouver. The city was successful in creating a desirable community rather than just another cluster of buildings or a housing project. The fact that it is on city-owned land, and that the leases are up for renewal has raised the question: Why not redevelop at a much higher density?

The city is asking people in all neighbourhoods whether to bulldoze some or all of the housing in this one neighbourhood, which would mean evicting up to 6,000 people. But don't worry, the city promises to find something else, someplace else ... for some of them.

Why are the YIYBY (Yes in Your Back Yard) campaigners focusing on False Creek South?

The main reason is that it is easy to exaggerate the alleged “low density” of the neighbourhood because of the open space around the housing. This landscaped space is open to the public as part of the public path along the water. False Creek South also includes what planners call a “regional destination park,” something much larger than a typical neighbourhood park, which is intended for the enjoyment of all residents of the region. There is even a landscaped pedestrian bridge linking the park to neighbourhoods to the south.

Densities could be dramatically increased, the city implied in February when it issued a call “seeking public input about how Cityowned land in False Creek South could potentially be used to help address the housing crisis and contribute to achieving other priorities.”

However, the only way to do that is to start over. Redevelopment means replacing some or all of the housing on city-owned land.

Some who oppose any significant public role in land development as well as the “wasteful” use of public funds for inclusive, truly affordable housing — which means non-market housing — point to Vancouver's West End as a successful mixed neighbourhood that was not master-planned.

They forget that the West End is considered desirable today precisely because a proposal for bulldozing most of it for 1960s-style highrises was overruled in the 1970s, allowing for the existing diversity of old and new housing types and styles.

Why retain False Creek South instead of building yet another cluster of glass towers?

False Creek South is well-known internationally as one of the rare successful examples of planning an entire new neighbourhood that was and continues to be a desirable place to live.

False Creek South is also, in part, an affordable neighbourhood, thanks to a great deal of social housing of the kind that most governments refuse to fund these days. The proposal to redevelop False Creek South in the name of higher-density “affordable housing” fails to define what “affordable” means, let alone explain how redevelopment makes financial sense.

False Creek South is the successful community it is largely because it was not designed to maximize wealth for a few.

The YIYBYs oppose the plan to increase residential density in False Creek South by sensitive infill, maintaining the uniquely designed, socially mixed neighbourhood for at least another generation or two. Infill development is considered “sensitive” if it respects the physical character of the neighbourhood's social, historical and cultural context without demolition of existing housing (i.e., no forced displacement of residents).

That proposal was initiated in 2010 by the False Creek South Neighbourhood Association through RePlan, a committee that has worked with city staff to develop planning principles for the neighbourhood, principles that were unanimously adopted by city council. The association has created a community plan in keeping with those principles and established a Community Housing Trust to help implement it. But it needs city agreement.

Densities in False Creek South can be increased. The neighbourhood has a YIMBY (Yes in My Back Yard) plan for that. But there is nothing fair, ethical, or democratic about allowing YIYBYs to wipe out one of the most successful episodes in the city's planning history.

David Hulchanski is a professor of housing and community development at the University of Toronto. During the 1980s, he was a professor of planning at the University of B.C. and author at that time of St. Lawrence and False Creek: A Review of the Planning and Development of Two Neighbourhoods.