Living la vida local
Mixing commercial space with housing, like in Edgemont, is a missing element in many North Shore neighbourhoods. Photo: Heather Drugge
At a time when we need more housing, how does it make sense that we would knock down existing apartment buildings to build, uh, more apartment buildings? Sure, they include more units and are brand new. But essentially, we are replacing one building form with the exact same building form. This is not happening evenly across the shore, either. With a few notable exceptions (Emery Village, Baden Park) we are tearing down homes in the City of North Vancouver to replace them with more of the same kind in the city. But there are swaths of the shore that are not in city boundaries. I think of the North Shore as one place, so this practice seems odd and is jurisdictionally driven, not logically.
These older buildings in the city are being torn down and replaced with new, larger buildings. Photo: Duncan Wilcock
Creating community
The other way to create more housing, disrupt fewer people and make more efficient use of the land, is to allow small mixed-use commercial space and apartment development in all neighbourhoods. Yes, everywhere. Cypress Park, Blueridge, Forest Hills, Pemberton Heights, Sentinel Hill. More small-scale apartment buildings mixed with services like coffee shops, restaurants, grocers, hairdressers, dentists, daycares and more would mean people can live where they shop, access services and meet up with friends—all locally.
The idea is not just to create more housing, but to address our social needs and eliminate transportation bottlenecks as well. Living la vida local is about creating communities where people meet on the street and can get what they need near the place where they live. Including maybe even a job.
A mixed-use building in Ambleshire. Photo: Heather Drugge
This new building in the city was built on city-owned land. It’s a six-floor mixed-use building with a restaurant, shops and a medical center. Photo: Heather Drugge
Alleviating our transportation problems
Transportation remains one of the most pernicious issues here on the shore. By infusing all neighbourhoods with more of the services we all need, we no longer must travel long distances to access them. “I can’t find parking to access shops” is a major complaint among people who don’t live near commercial centers.
No one goes there anymore because it’s too crowded. Photo: Dereck Daniels
Since moving to Central Lonsdale, we’ve changed our shopping habits. We used to go grocery shopping once a week using our car. Now, living five blocks from Lonsdale, we walk a lot more and take our bikes instead, shopping when we need to. That might mean every other day or even every day, depending on what we need, especially if it means fresh bread from Nickel bakery, or a few craft beers from the local. Even the yoga studio is within walking range.
Towers vs. shorties
In a small, 21-suite strata building I lived in, I knew everyone who lived there by name. We had a gardening committee to look after the grounds and a garden party every fall and spring. Photo: Duncan Wilcock
So far, though, instead of favouring wider-spread, smaller-scale mixed-use areas, the District of North Vancouver has adopted a strategy to build at nodes along public transportation corridors. This seems sensible when considering significant public transit investments. But ironically, it also accentuates long-distance travel between the places where we live, work, shop and play. By creating tall, mixed residential and commercial centers at too far a distance from lower-density areas for people to walk or ride, many neighbourhoods are relegated to car-dependency.
New towers in Seylynn. Photo: Heather Drugge
By concentrating people around transit, we can more efficiently move people regionally and across the shore. But if there were services available in smaller nodes in all neighbourhoods, we could avoid many vehicle trips altogether.
The District is currently considering how to grow and has proposed three different models:
Source: District of North Vancouver Official Community Plan Webinar
If you look at how even scenario three (the most distributed) might play out, there are still large swaths of very low density with no services. It’s the lightest purple areas in this diagram where more services in a mixed-use, low-rise zoning scenario would be beneficial. But this is not an option provided.
Source: District of North Vancouver Official Community Plan Webinar
Scale and community
When’s the last time you visited Metrotown? It’s like a sci-fi movie. The towers are so imposing. High-rises prioritize efficiency, packing as many units as possible into vertical stacks. This makes sense when there are no alternatives, but in North America, it is often a way to absorb density without altering behaviour. It’s politically expedient to build towers in areas where few residents will complain, rather than gain consensus on how to distribute population growth to maintain liveability.
Scenario 4 allows for many more small-scale mixed-use housing and commercial zones which spread population growth and improve local liveability.
There is a fourth way
Scenario four above illustrates how we could distribute population growth along with many more service centers, allowing people to shop and get services in their neighbourhood.
In contrast to towers, low-rise apartment blocks include more inviting design features, like walkable entrances, courtyards and balconies. Many low-rise apartments have access to gardens, patios, or green spaces that blend with the environment, rather than being confined to a rooftop garden. In a smaller building, there are fewer people, which leads to more familiar faces and deeper connections. It’s easier to greet your neighbours by name, strike up conversations in shared spaces, and build a tight-knit sense of belonging—something that can be lost in the anonymity of large towers.
Low-rise multi-family homes foster conviviality and connection. However, we are slow to accept them as a way to distribute population growth. Photo: Heather Drugge
Construction costs and timelines
Concrete towers also take more time, cost more, and loom over the landscape. It’s way cheaper and faster to build six-floor wooden buildings than to complete a much more expensive concrete tower. Concrete homes typically cost twenty to thirty percent more than wood-frame buildings. That means homes in concrete towers are more expensive to rent or own.
Developers like towers because they make more economic sense (profit)—especially when pre-sales to investors are in high demand. What about allowing smaller, more widely distributed mixed-use projects everywhere instead? Photo: Heather Drugge
Viva la vida local!
Living la vida local means spreading the wealth of services everyone needs, not concentrating them in “town centers.” Maybe that was an acceptable urban development plan in the past, but it no longer serves us best.
The Connaught building in Edgemont is a mixed use building that adds to the community’s character and appeal. Photo: Heather Drugge
The trend of demolishing existing apartment buildings and townhouse complexes to construct new ones raises questions about efficacy and sustainability. Knockdowns are happening because those lots are already zoned for multi-family buildings. Where most land is zoned for much lower density, developers don’t even go there. They can’t. Revising zoning bylaws to allow for more different forms returns freedom to property owners to develop their land in more flexible ways.
If we support councils that bring forward zoning to embrace smaller mixed-use developments throughout all neighbourhoods, we could spread the burden of growth and alleviate car dependency. By prioritizing local mixed-use development, we can create more housing and a stronger sense of community.
What to do about this?
Participate in the conversations our municipalities are having regarding our Official Community Plans. They are the plans that guide the way we design our communities.
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