The City of Vancouver has quelled Marpole residents’ furor over their draft community plan — at least for now — through additional consultation.
The city started holding a series of “coffee talks” in the neighbourhood in mid-November offering residents individual discussions with planners. Two more coffee talks are scheduled next week on Dec. 3 and 4, while “community dialogue sessions” are set for Nov. 30 and Dec. 7.
Planners have also been meeting informally with small groups for “kitchen table talks,” including with members of the Marpole Residents’ Coalition.
Council voted, at the end of September, to extend consultation on the plan based on residents’ complaints about consultation and issues such as the proposed rezoning of some single-family areas to allow stacked townhouses and low-rise apartment buildings.
The plan was revised to focus change on arterial streets and to limit change in single-family areas, as well as to remove a defined area west of Cambie Street from the plan for further planning work.
Once approved, the community plan will guide change in Marpole over the next three decades.
Mike Burdick, a spokesperson for the Marpole Residents’ Coalition, said he’s “quite pleased” with the progress.
“I guess it remains to be seen what they say at the end of it all and what their plan is, but I think [planners have] been quite candid with us. So, I’ve been cautiously optimistic with the results we’ve had and I feel pretty good about the process. I just don’t know if I’m going to feel good about the results. But at least it’s a start and at least we’re getting consultation. We’re getting meaningful input,” he told the Courier Friday morning.
Coalition members formed a working group and broke down their concerns into nine topics, which were further narrowed into three sub groups — population, traffic and community amenities.
They’ve met with planners to discuss the first two of the three topics so far.
Burdick said there’s still debate and questions about the accuracy of population predictions for the city. He said without rezoning, there’s already a lot of new development being built in Marpole.
“What I suggested they do is sit back and take a breath. Wait five years. You’ve got all this stuff being built right now — why don’t we see what the population does. Why don’t you let the community assimilate all the growth that’s coming in now, or [what] you say is going to happen, and let’s see what happens. What’s the rush to rezone and build all this new stuff?” he said.
Matt Shillito, the city’s assistant director of community planning, said consultation sessions have been well attended and are going well.
“The biggest area of concern in the summer was the scale of change in the single-family areas, mainly from single-family to duplex and townhouses and council directed us to take out a lot of the areas that were recommended for that kind of change. There are still some areas of the plan where we are recommending change from single-family to other forms of housing and there is some concern in some areas, so we’re looking at that,” he said pointing particularly to the region west of Granville Street.
Residents have also raised concerns about traffic and transportation, and told planners they want assurances there is a good plan for community amenities to support the growing population.
Shillito said staff is open to making further revisions to the plan based on input from consultation.
A final report will be prepared over the holidays and a final draft will go out to the public at the end of January. Council is expected to vote on the Marpole Community Plan by the end of March.
