As with any large-scale plan, a proposal for Vancouver’s Tower Mall Development is undergoing some buffing and polishing.
“When you get to the rubber meets the road kind of discussions, there are always a little bit of refinements that are necessary to translate that vision into something you can actually build and optimize for the community,” City Manager Eric Holmes said at a recent workshop to discuss the plans.
As the project moves forward, city officials should heed the concerns of local residents — particularly regarding the number of parking spaces. The project can transform the Heights District and help prepare Vancouver for the future, but it should do so while minimizing the impact on established neighborhoods.
Meanwhile, residents throughout the city should embrace the benefits while ignoring pushback that has met projects in other cities. Such pushback is a fascinating result of the absurdity surrounding modern politics, and it requires a bit of explanation.
Vancouver officials are promoting the development as a “20-minute community.” The idea is that residents can easily walk or bike to amenities — coffee shops, grocery stores, parks, elementary schools and other locales that are frequented in daily life.
Not everybody will choose multimodal transportation; cars still will be a necessity for many. But the idea is to reduce our reliance on motorized vehicles and develop a sense of community in the immediate area. The philosophy — often called “15-minute communities” elsewhere — has increasingly defined urban planning over the past three decades, and it has helped rejuvenate cities throughout the world.
But, of course, no good deed goes unpunished. That was explained in an article co-written last month by Carlo Ratti, a professor of urban studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“Champions of the 15-minute city are suddenly the target of far-right conspiracies. The theory is getting its 15 minutes of fame — not as people-centered urban spaces but rather as dystopian, quarter-hour prisons, with opponents saying that they will threaten personal freedom,” Ratti and co-author Robert Muggah write. “Conspiracy theories …falsely claim that people will be ‘coerced’ to live within that area.”
It should go without saying that a 20-minute community in Vancouver will not be isolated. But in this age of misinformation, even the most obvious truths often need to be repeated.
Instead, the Tower Mall Development and the surrounding Heights Development will be designed to help prepare Vancouver for an expanding population. It will provide much-needed housing density while rehabilitating a long-overlooked section of the city.
For some residents, increased density and development is a negative; but the city will continue to grow, and we can either lament that fact or adjust to it.
The latest proposal makes some changes to original plans, such as relocating a Civic Plaza to front Devine Road and realigning a multiuse trail surrounding the development. The plans will go before the city Planning Commission for a public hearing May 9 and then will be considered by the city council.
Robust discussion is warranted. It is a big project that will take years to complete, and its impact will inevitably spill over into established developments of single-family homes. But it is essential that such discussion focus on the realities of the proposal rather than the fever dreams of conspiracy theorists.
