I attended the above talk last night over Zoom. (Shoutout to Michael Mortensen for inviting Slate's development team and for helping to moderate the Q&A.) The talk was a conversation between Larry Beasley (former Director of Planning for the City of Vancouver) and Theresa O'Donnell (the newly appointed Director of Planning for the City of Vancouver). Prior to this, Theresa was the director of planning for cities such as Las Vegas, Nevada, and Arlington, Texas.
I'd like to point out two comments that she made last night that I found interesting.
The first is that community meetings over Zoom actually aren't all that bad. And the reason that they're not all that bad is that they tend to draw out larger crowds (they are easier to attend), and so the feedback on development applications tends to be a bit more inclusive / representative. I agree with this overall view and I've been arguing for years (here on the blog) that the typical approach to community engagement is pretty much broken. The opinions become lopsided when you erect too many barriers to participation.
The second point has to do with the amount of land in Vancouver (and other North American cities) that is dedicated to low-rise housing. It's too much and it's going to need to be addressed in order to increase overall housing supply and to chip away at the housing affordability problem. This won't be news to this audience, but it's interesting to see how widespread this belief has become. Of course, the big questions remain: How gentle should gentle density be? How much intensification should these neighborhoods see?
I also appreciated her comment that it's pure lunacy (my words, not hers) to have higher order transit lines running through mostly low-rise neighborhoods. We need much higher densities to sustainably support these kinds of investments in infrastructure. For us Torontonians, a good example would be (most of) the underdeveloped Bloor-Danforth subway line, though there are other culprits.
Welcome Theresa.
This deserves a blog post. Below is a great tweet by Jason Thorne. Jason leads the department of planning and economic development at the City of Hamilton, where, full disclosure, we have a development project.
https://twitter.com/JasonThorne_RPP/status/1169749295299538944?s=20
I have said this many times before on the blog, but the challenge with most "community engagement" is that cities typically hear from the people who disagree. Those voices are then taken as representative.
My gut tells me that we need to make it easier for people to agree. We need to reduce the barriers. Some will take the time to write a thoughtful letter. But most won't.
Last week I went for a tour of Sidewalk Labs' "307" workshop here in Toronto. In it they have a generative urban design tool that allows you to toggle things like density, building shape, building height, the amount of green space, the distribution of green space, and so on.
Perhaps some of you have seen it or used it before. The controls look like this:
I attended the above talk last night over Zoom. (Shoutout to Michael Mortensen for inviting Slate's development team and for helping to moderate the Q&A.) The talk was a conversation between Larry Beasley (former Director of Planning for the City of Vancouver) and Theresa O'Donnell (the newly appointed Director of Planning for the City of Vancouver). Prior to this, Theresa was the director of planning for cities such as Las Vegas, Nevada, and Arlington, Texas.
I'd like to point out two comments that she made last night that I found interesting.
The first is that community meetings over Zoom actually aren't all that bad. And the reason that they're not all that bad is that they tend to draw out larger crowds (they are easier to attend), and so the feedback on development applications tends to be a bit more inclusive / representative. I agree with this overall view and I've been arguing for years (here on the blog) that the typical approach to community engagement is pretty much broken. The opinions become lopsided when you erect too many barriers to participation.
The second point has to do with the amount of land in Vancouver (and other North American cities) that is dedicated to low-rise housing. It's too much and it's going to need to be addressed in order to increase overall housing supply and to chip away at the housing affordability problem. This won't be news to this audience, but it's interesting to see how widespread this belief has become. Of course, the big questions remain: How gentle should gentle density be? How much intensification should these neighborhoods see?
I also appreciated her comment that it's pure lunacy (my words, not hers) to have higher order transit lines running through mostly low-rise neighborhoods. We need much higher densities to sustainably support these kinds of investments in infrastructure. For us Torontonians, a good example would be (most of) the underdeveloped Bloor-Danforth subway line, though there are other culprits.
Welcome Theresa.
This deserves a blog post. Below is a great tweet by Jason Thorne. Jason leads the department of planning and economic development at the City of Hamilton, where, full disclosure, we have a development project.
https://twitter.com/JasonThorne_RPP/status/1169749295299538944?s=20
I have said this many times before on the blog, but the challenge with most "community engagement" is that cities typically hear from the people who disagree. Those voices are then taken as representative.
My gut tells me that we need to make it easier for people to agree. We need to reduce the barriers. Some will take the time to write a thoughtful letter. But most won't.
Last week I went for a tour of Sidewalk Labs' "307" workshop here in Toronto. In it they have a generative urban design tool that allows you to toggle things like density, building shape, building height, the amount of green space, the distribution of green space, and so on.
Perhaps some of you have seen it or used it before. The controls look like this:
After you're done playing around with the dials, you are then able to provide feedback on the design that you've birthed through two very simple feedback buttons. One is a happy face. And the other is a sad face. (I wonder if the placement of these two buttons has any impact on responses.)
What I like about this tool is that it immediately imposes a certain degree of reality and it forces you, the participant, to acknowledge the various trade-offs that need to be considered when you're designing and planning a city.
For example, if you want lots of parks and public spaces, but you want to hold population density constant -- perhaps because you're trying to make use of an investment made in transit infrastructure -- well then you'll need to accept taller buildings.
A very similar thought process goes into each and every development pro forma as we all try and manage the myriad of competing interests. But I guess this is also true of life in general. There are gives and there are takes.
After you're done playing around with the dials, you are then able to provide feedback on the design that you've birthed through two very simple feedback buttons. One is a happy face. And the other is a sad face. (I wonder if the placement of these two buttons has any impact on responses.)
What I like about this tool is that it immediately imposes a certain degree of reality and it forces you, the participant, to acknowledge the various trade-offs that need to be considered when you're designing and planning a city.
For example, if you want lots of parks and public spaces, but you want to hold population density constant -- perhaps because you're trying to make use of an investment made in transit infrastructure -- well then you'll need to accept taller buildings.
A very similar thought process goes into each and every development pro forma as we all try and manage the myriad of competing interests. But I guess this is also true of life in general. There are gives and there are takes.
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
