Perhaps you haven't noticed, but stories about major construction projects along the Canada Line route have been appearing with increasing frequency. You are doubtless familiar with the kerfuffle caused by a towering project on what was once industrial land at Marine Drive and Cam-bie in South Vancouver. But that is relatively ancient history. Just this past Wednesday the Globe and Mail carried a piece about the Mandarin Residences, a Richmond development being marketed by Bob Rennie as an "urban village." It's targeted at new immi-
grant investors and parents intent on helping their kids.
The Courier also reported on the proposed redevelopment of Oakridge Centre, a mall built in the '50s and ringed, as was typical back then, by parking lots.
What all these developments and many smaller ones have in common is that they are located adjacent to Canada Line stations.
It is that fact Oakridge project architect Gregory Henriquez told Courier reporter Naoibh O'Connor that made it a "game changer."
And the game that has changed is not simply an increase in density, although that is certainly significant for all these projects. But as we have seen in the past, building new roads can cause density increases. And building transit lines can create density around each stop.
This, however, is different. As one report on the new project notes, while there will be 2,800 townhouses and apartments along with commercial space, Henriquez's proposal for Oakridge "focuses on reducing car use." It will also create what is anticipated with the Mandarin Residences; it will create an urban village. And that means it will be, if you will pardon the pun, another driver in the cultural shift away from automobiles and over to modes of "active transportation" that is to say, walking and cycling as well as public transit.
It will echo a reality we are already seeing in the city's downtown peninsula where the relative numbers of trips by car have been declining for years. And it will reflect what was intended when the city - under then head of planning Brent Toderian - came up with the Cambie Corridor Plan.
Some, doubtless, anticipated this change. The city was certainly on it from the moment the transit line was first discussed. Their initial concern was that, with the rise in property values around transit stations, the province would scoop up all those profits to pay for their investment in the transit project, or those profits would bleed out to developers. The city wanted the dough to benefit Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»taxpayers through improved services - daycares, parks, social housing - all to support those new communities.
But it all started on a sour note. The line was originally called the RAV line, connecting as it does, Richmond, the airport and Vancouver. Unions opposed the project because it would cost bus drivers' jobs and, they argued, it would never achieve the 100,000 daily trips by 2014. It actually hit that target by 2010, and during the Winter Olympics of that year it was even higher.
What was more of an issue, however, was the mess and misery caused by the construction. Instead of a tunnel that most merchants were told would disrupt their businesses for a relatively brief time, the private contractor chose a cheaper "cut and cover" approach that interfered with businesses on Cambie to the point some folks were forced to move and others simply went out of business.
In the end, the province gave the city some of the value gained by increased density. Toderian's Cambie Corridor Plan was completed once the line was up and running and was recently awarded a national planning award of excellence from the Canadian Institute of Planning.
And we are seeing the effects of this game-changer which, in the case of the Oakridge development, the public will be able to comment on at hearings planned for next week.
