Filed under: commentary
the vancouver sun is reporting that vancouver planners are considering aggressive new policies that would effectively ban new residential condominium development in the downtown and provide for office tower development to automatically be granted 20 to 40 per cent more density, and that developers be encouraged to build as high as possible without blocking the city’s designated view corridors
this is welcomed and much needed policy for the city. recent travel survey analysis that i’ve worked with has shown that many people who reside in the downtown are working in suburban postal codes in burnaby and surrey where much of the new office development in the region has occurred. the result is people living in very walkable neighbourhoods are very reliant on their automobiles for the longest and most consistent trip of the week … the work trip. more jobs in the downtown, coupled with better transit opportunities (i.e. the canada line, evergreen line) could help reduce the travel burden and related greenhouse gas emissions
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Really? Enough people hitting up the suburban jobs? I know that’s a popular lifestyle choice nowadays (I was thinking about doing it in Toronto up until two months ago).
Sucks that all that suburban land is sooooo “cheap” and Van City can’t tell Burnaby and Richmond what to do….
Comment by joenethery June 13, 2008 @ 9:19 pmHow’s the property tax situation in Vancouver (i.e. residential vs commericial/office)? Is there the same imbalance in Vancouver vs the suburbs as there is in the GTA? (or is that even applicable)?
Comment by Jason Tsang June 16, 2008 @ 3:42 pmMight want to point people toward this… http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/corejobs/index.htm
Comment by Jason Tsang June 17, 2008 @ 1:30 pmjason, thanks for the link. i was at a sustainability summit this morning and this a hot topic of debate. a key move, financially , at least to help relocate office and jobs in a more accessible manner would be to have a fair taxation scheme where business and property taxes would be comparable. i spoke with a member of the canadian taxpayer foundation this morning and she told me that,as it is right now, business and office space tax is higher than residential tax in vancouver by a ratio of 6:1. getting this closer to a 1:1 ratio would go along way in balancing business, residential and commercial growth and development in urban centres here in the region.
Comment by andy d June 18, 2008 @ 3:55 pm