[URBAN NOTE] "Vancouver’s new chief planner says city is ripe for change"

[rfmcdonald]

The Globe and Mail carries Frances Bula's article interviewing Vancouver's new chief planner, who says that it is time for Vancouver to change its trajectory. Is it too late, I wonder?

Vancouver, which is beset by high anxiety over homelessness, growth, development and the soaring price of housing, is in a prime position to reset itself, says the city’s new chief planner.

“There’s a moment of ripeness to ask the big questions and make some big moves,” said Gil Kelley, who was recruited from San Francisco to head up the city’s beleaguered planning department. “It’s a time to look at where is the city heading in the long term.”

He said Vancouver is suffering from a bewildering dilemma that has become common among attractive 21st-century cities: The better it becomes, the worse it is for some residents.

“Like most global cities now, we’re dealing in Vancouver with this conundrum of being highly liveable and prosperous but also dealing with that other piece, which is everybody wants to be there. It’s our obligation to try to reconcile these twin forces and deal with the social effects of gentrification and displacement.”

[. . .]

Vancouver’s planning department, once admired in North America for its ability to shape development sensitively, with benefits for residents, has gone through a rocky few years. The Vision Vancouver council elected in 2008 hired a new city manager and new planner to carry out ambitious ideas about encouraging development near transit or with dedicated rental units. At the same time, developers started moving into established neighbourhoods after having built out much of the downtown peninsula. That led to a rise in friction between the city and resident groups.