Shaping Vancouver 2018: Contested Places

Conversation #3: Values and Change in Living Communities-Mount Pleasant and the SkyTrain 

Thursday, November 15, 2018; 7pm to 9pm

Admission is free; donations are much appreciated as we are volunteer based and will be used to offset event and venue costs.

Earlier this year, Vancouver City Council unanimously approved the Millennium Line Broadway Extension, which will add six new SkyTrain stops along the Broadway Corridor, including one in the middle of Mount Pleasant. Such an addition necessarily entails change to existing character of the neighbourhood, leading many to ask about the role heritage in transit planning, and how rapid transit in Vancouver can be expanded to contribute to the future of the neighbourhood. 

This SkyTrain extension will cut directly through the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood, which stretches from Cambie Street to Clark Drive along the Broadway Corridor. The junction where Main Street and Kingsway converge is the historic and cultural heart of this area, lined with pedestrian-friendly streets, independent stores and cafes, and a village atmosphere courtesy of affordable rental apartments, historic architecture, and independent businesses.

This extension of the Millennium Skytrain includes a new station in the core of Mount Pleasant. This has provoked some fears that rising property taxes and increasing rent & maintenance costs will squeeze out “the hip, little village”, as well as drive dramatic new developments. With such a major infrastructure project on the horizon in Mount Pleasant--similar to previous transformations of the Cambie Corridor--the City will have to determine how the qualities definitive of Mount Pleasant can be protected and/or adapted due to this comprehensive land use change.

Planners, developers, and policymakers in Vancouver have spent decades debating the improvement of the rapid transit network along the Broadway Corridor. As the City finalizes its policy plan, it has an opportunity to address a number of different social priorities, including housing affordability, neighbourhood integration, the strength of the Corridor’s job market, and the unique cultural fabric of Mount Pleasant.

In this session of Shaping Vancouver, we aim to provide a space for participants to discuss:

• How can we best assess the impact of the SkyTrain on the neighbourhoods that it passes through?

• What features are essential to Mount Pleasant and how might they be compromised with the new development?

• How can this development be conscious of the unique landscape that it will run through and incorporate the qualities that are valued in the neighbourhood so that the expansion enhances Mount Pleasant? 

• How can we balance the retention/protection of neighbourhood character with urban stresses that demand reorganization of space?

About this series

Shaping Vancouver 2018: Contested Places

Welcome to our fourth season of Shaping Vancouver. This season, we focus on the multiple values of places. Change is a fundamental part of heritage. Places are not frozen in time - with the passage of time, changes occur in them layering additional meaning on top of another. These changes bring about the diversity and differing values that characterize a place. And these values may not be the traditional ones we think of – the historic and the aesthetic values of architecture. In many cases, some of those values may conflict.

We engage with these complexities of place and their differing communities by looking at several examples in Vancouver where these multiple values stand out. How do we learn, understand, capture, protect, and balance the differing values that are central for a place so that it contributes to social benefit and for the public to understand, appreciate, and experience the value of the sites. Importantly, we also explore the need to plan for and have appropriate policies that secure the advantages of this diversity and allow for the coexistence of these multiple realities.