Find out more about the BC Housing rezoning proposed for East 1st Avenue on the block between Clark Drive and McLean Drive (north side).

Date: Monday, June 4th, 7pm - 9pm
Location: Learning Resource Centre, (LRC), Under the Britannia Library, 1661 Napier Street

Representatives from Vancouver Coastal Health, BC Housing, the architects and the City of Vancouver will be on hand for the discussions.

Background
BC Housing: "The Province is working with the City of Vancouver and Vancouver Coastal Health to build approximately 100 affordable rental homes, as well as a new withdrawal management centre for people seeking treatment for addictions." (press release)

City of Vancouver: "​The proposal consists of a 12,192 sq. m (131,234 sq. ft.) mixed-use building and includes:
• social enterprise space at grade;
• withdrawal management centre operated by Vancouver Coastal Health, including up to 20 transitional units;
• 97 social housing units;
• floor space ratio (FSR) of 3.07;
• maximum building height of 30.5 m/100 ft. (fronting Clark Drive) and 19.8 m/65 ft. (fronting McLean Drive); and
• 39 car and 100 bicycle parking spaces." (rezoning centre webpage)

Rezoning Proposal Timeline
February 17, 2018: Announcement by BC Housing / VCH / CoV (BC Housing website)
April 23, 2018: Pre-application Open House (BC Housing website)
May 1, 2018: Rezoning application submitted (City of Vancouver website) 
June 11, 2018, Open House 5pm - 7:30pm Vancouver Community College (E7th & Glen Drive) Room 1236 Building B
June 13, 2018, Urban Design Panel (UDP) Review, Vancouver City Hall, 453 West 12th Avenue, 3pm (further details on the meeting agenda and UDP webpage)

Fortis BC is organizing a community meeting related to the closure of 1st Avenue over the summer months. Find out about traffic concerns and traffic calming measures.
​
Tuesday May 29th
Croatian Cultural Centre
3250 Commercial Drive
Room 4
5-7pm

If you are not able to attend this information session, then please visit Fortis at gaslineupgrades@fortisbc.com or 604.592.7494, or visit https://talkingenergy.ca/upgradeproject  ​

Background
www.fortisbc.com/MediaCentre/NewsReleases/2018/Pages/20180405-Construction-of-FortisBC-Gas-Line-Upgrade-set-to-start-in-spring-2018.aspx
www.news1130.com/2018/04/05/roadwork-vancouver/

Hello Grandview Woodland Resident(s)
Grandview Woodland Area Council (GWAC) understands residents’ concerns about increasing traffic volumes in neighbourhoods across Grandview Woodland. To help you deal with cut-through traffic and unsafe neighbourhood streets, we have compiled a resource sheet to provide information about what you can do to calm residential streets, to take them back for people and pets, not cars.
​
The first thing you need to do is figure out what traffic-calming is. You will find the resources from Better Environmentally Sound Transportation (BEST) very helpful as you begin to set up your traffic-calming group:
 
http://best.bc.ca/
 http://best.bc.ca/reclaim-your-street/
 
You can get more information from the  at http://vancouver.ca/streets-transportation/driving-and-traffic.aspx, and for specific help or to report your traffic concerns to the City’s representative on the Grandview Woodland Traffic & Parking Advisory Committee, Cara Fisher, at www.cara.fisher@vancouver.ca 

Another valuable resource is The Grandview Woodland Neighbourhood Transportation and Parking Committee, in particular the Stakeholders Advisory Group (SAG), on which a GWAC Board member sits. The City of Vancouver contact person is Cara Fisher on 604-326-4830 or cara.fisher@vancouver.ca 
 
Below is the committee’s most recent report site:
 
http://vancouver.ca/files/cov/grandview-woodland-neighbourhood-transportation-and-parking.pdf
 
It is advisable to check with the City about the traffic-calming process and available traffic-calming measures, for both have under gone changes over the past few years. 

Details on how to sign up and speak will be posted on the City's website. http://vancouver.ca/meetingschedule 
Information on this application is available on the following link:
rezoning.vancouver.ca/applications/1619-1651ebroadway/index.htm

The order of the agenda for May 22nd has not been set yet. Other rezoning applications will also be debated including a 6-storey building proposed for 2109 East Hastings:
http://rezoning.vancouver.ca/applications/2109ehastings/index.htm

​GWAC Public Meeting Monday, 7 May 2018
Learning Resource Centre (Britannia Library)
Special Guest Speakers and Contributors: Area-Wide Rezoning 
Joseph Jones, Jeanette Jones, Jim Lehto, Elizabeth Murphy, and Steve Bohus (facilitator/media)
The meeting began at 7:06 pm
D. Cromie welcomed members of the public and special guests and reminded attendees to use the new name-tag identification system for our meetings. He also pointed out the Donations Jar sitting on the Membership Table and welcomed people to sign up to be GWAC members and to donate to support our non-profit organization.
Business Arising: No new business to report.
Correspondence Report:
D. Cromie compiled exit poll results from the proposed Mixed-Use Detox Facility Open House at 1636 Clark Drive and 1st Avenue and sent them to the Mayor and Council. We printed 100 questionnaires and received 100 responses, most with comments. Beyond the basic 49 no's and 40 yes's, the size answers are much more telling: 36% found this proposal acceptable at the proposed size or larger; a further 7% would find this proposal acceptable at 75% of the proposed size; a further 15% would find this proposal acceptable at 50% of the proposed size. Clearly, rather than saying no, the neighbours are saying this project is too big as proposed. Respondents acknowledged the need for more detox facilities in the city, but many asked that proposed project be scaled back. GWAC has long supported distribution of services rather than concentrating them in a single neighbourhood or area.
He also mentioned that GWAC has received several inquiries and requests for information from residents who are worried about the summer closure of East 1st Avenue, from Nanaimo to Clark Drive, and the already-increasing traffic volumes on their neighbourhood streets. In an effort to inform people about traffic calming, S. Briggs has put together Traffic-Calming Tool Kit, which is basically a two-page primer for novice traffic calmers. The kit will be posted to the GWAC website: www.gwac.ca.
Treasurer’s Report: No Report

​Community Announcements:
Great Grandview Neighbourhood Garage Sale: Coming to the streets across the GW catchment area on Saturday, June 16th, 10 to 2 pm. Everyone is invited to participate—just put your stuff in front of your homes and sell. 
Grandview Garden Club, Thursday, May 10th, 7 to 9 pm, Learning Resource Centre. Topic: Creative Containers. Presenter: Tammyanne Matthew, Landscape Architect.
Stone Soup Festival, Saturday, May 12th, Noon to 5 pm. Britannia Site and Napier Greenway. Website: https://www.britanniacentre.org/community/events/events_calendar/events/65.php
Mothers’ Day Traditional Pow Wow, Sunday, May 13th, 11 am to 9 pm. Britannia Gym A/B and Napier Greenway. Website: https://www.britanniacentre.org/community/events/events_calendar/events/65.php
Grandview Heritage Group, Thursday, May 17th, 7 to 9 pm. Britannia Boardroom. The group has just celebrated its seventh anniversary—congratulations. For more information on the Heritage Group, please check the website: http://grandviewheritagegroup.org/.
Grandview Garden Tour, Sunday, June 17th, 10 to 4 pm. Tickets $15 (at Figaro’s). This year, there are 12 Gardens on the tour. For more information check the website: http://eastsidegardentour.blogspot.ca/

After the announcements, S. Bohus took the floor to introduce the guests and the area-wide mass re-zoning.
Last Fall (2017), RT5 zones were re-zoned. The Grandview Woodland Community Plan introduced 4-storey Secured Rentals, but that proposal has been taken off the table (for north of East Hastings on the east side of Nanaimo). What is left is 3.5 and 4 storey zoning across the catchment, basically an area-wide mass rezoning. The City may be in the final stages of this rezoning; there were Open Houses held in January and March of 2018. The panels shown to the public in March stated that a recommendations for the 4-storey zones would be brought to City Council in the spring, which would presumably go to Public Hearing.
12th Avenue (Clark to John Hendry Park): An area-wide rezoning is available for the south side of 12th Avenue, as well as the first block east of Clark on the north side. The City recommends 4-storey apartments, with a maximum of 1.7 FSR for lot assemblies of 4 units or more (compared to 1.0FSR for a single lot or 1.2 FSR for assemblies of two or three lots). Spot rezoning is available for the part of the north side of 12th Ave; it is not included in the mass area rezoning.
The area-wide 4-storey apartment zones are also recommended for East 1st Avenue (from just east of Commercial to Semlin Drive), as well as Garden Drive (7th to 8th and 10th to 11th).
Note: Change in density with mass rezoning (lot assembly means density goes up). 
Grandview Community Plan, passing in 2016, limits/defines height to 40 feet or 3.5 storeys, with 1.3 FSR (page 91 of the Plan) from Semlin Drive to Garden Drive on 1st Ave.
Townhouse/Row houses are approved for arterial streets. For example, at 1st and Templeton, townhouses or row houses can now be built on four or more assembled lots. Clearly, the City is incentivizing lot assembly. At Charles and Kitchener between Nanaimo and Kamloops, zoning is proposed for townhouses or row houses on the middle of the block. A number of blocks on Nanaimo from East Pender all the way down to East 12th Avenue (outside of the shopping nodes) are proposed to be in a 3.5-storey row house/townhouse zone, with a choice of use at grade that will allow choice for between residential and commercial. The 3.5-storey zone will allow 4-storey apartment forms with assemblies of 4 or more lots.
Nanaimo at Venables is seeing a surge in lot assembly, as are a number of other sections of the arterials currently under planning.