Editorial: Densification must include livability

Oakridge development needs to keep new residents in mind

 VANCOUVER SUN MARCH 20, 2014

Vancouver council is embracing densification as a way of promoting the city’s sustainability. But, in endorsing massive projects such as the soon-to-be developed Oakridge Centre, municipal politicians also need to keep livability in mind.

Plans for a $1.5-billion redevelopment around the Oakridge Mall at 41st and Cambie reflect something of an experiment in urban planning.

The 12-hectare neighbourhood, comprising mostly single-family dwellings, kilometres from Vancouver’s downtown core, is to become during the next few years a civic hub with thousands of new residents, about 2,900 new condo units, 11 residential towers with some soaring to 44 storeys (the tallest in the area now are seven storeys). Retail space will more than double; office space will nearly quadruple. More than 3,000 jobs are to be created in this redesigned neighbourhood. The development also will accommodate park space, a community centre, library, child care facility and seniors centre.

The plan, conceived in 2007, is in keeping with Metro Vancouver’s regional growth strategy, encouraging new density along key transportation corridors.

Density has become all the rage in this fast-growing city, a means to respond to population growth and climate change. The hope is it will curtail suburban sprawl and keep housing more affordable in neighbourhoods designed to be walkable and good for cycling, with plenty of public transit and shops and businesses.

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So all the usual play here for densification that we are also seeing being played out in the Unitary Plan back here in Auckland as well.

However, as expected problems start cropping up when especially large-scale intensification start. Continuing from the Vancouver Sun:

“If we’re going to save the planet,” project architect Gregory Henriquez has been quoted as stating, “other parts of the city need to densify besides downtown.”

But the downsides of density, which have been less well advertised, are just as real.

In high-density neighbourhoods, residential crowding can make daily life less comfortable: Condo conflicts are frequent; feelings of anonymity can accompany life in big, tall complexes and pressures on community infrastructure grow.

Opponents of the Oakridge plan, understandably, have cited such complications at recent public hearings.

One big concern is how the five-year-old Canada Line will deal with a surge in passengers as density grows along the Cambie corridor. Already, during rush hour, transit users are crushed like sardines in the two-car trains.

It is hard to understand why city planners approved such small station platforms and two-train transit configurations for the line but service levels, the city assures, can be increased through a service-contract purchase of more frequent trains.

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We are not the only ones realising that more than the downtown needs to be intensified as well as pressure on infrastructure will occur – as it does for any growing city. That said I would love to know what Vancouver was thinking with the Canada Line that five years in is facing pressures already from surging passenger growth. It seems Vancouver committed a rookie mistake Auckland is known for with its public transport system. I know we have problems with NZ Bus at the moment getting the smallest of buses it must be able to find and throwing them down the busiest routes on the Isthmus rather than going for the larger buses available such as the double deckers on the Northern Bus Way. As for our trains we are nearly there as we are just over five weeks away until the first electric trains (that hold 375 passengers each in three car configuration or 750 when in 6-car top and tail mode) run on the Onehunga Line as part of the wider roll out. So nearly there folks with new trains and new capacity on the rail network.

Finally from the Vancouver Sun editorial:

Accordingly, developers should create as much green space as possible around residential accommodation. They would do well to ensure windows from the units in any given building do not look directly into the windows of an adjacent complex. Private balconies — ones that are not shared spaces with a simple divider between them — become important, as does soundproofing, and measures that can enhance the professionalism of and ground rules for condominium strata councils.

In the end, livability is every bit as important a development principle as sustainability because it is essential that Vancouver residents buy into densification for it to be viable.

—Ends—

This is what the Auckland Design Manual is hoping to achieve.

So some lessons again from Vancouver on what to watch for when Auckland’s city building and Unitary Plan kick off post 2016,