On July 10, 2024, Vancouver City Council’s majority party, ABC (Anything But Common Sense) gutted the city’s long standing view cone policy. The new 2024 Public Views Guidelines entirely eliminate 14 public view cones (was 38, now 24), amend a further 11 public views, and reduce origin points by two.
The view cones policy was first introduced in 1989 after a year’s work by then Deputy Planner for downtown, Larry Beasley, and then Vancouver Mayor, Gordon Campbell. They had realized that many proposed developments had the potential to block the city’s iconic views, so they set up a team to solve the problem.
This team of staff, councillors, and consultants assessed every aspect of the issue, including financial implications for future developments. They spoke with 72 other cities, five of whom had their own view protections, in those cases for historical buildings. They also undertook wide public engagement, consulting thousands of Vancouver residents.
The new view cone policy was popular with residents and there was generally little pushback from developers, as the City worked with them to redesign buildings and if needed, transfered permitted density to other sites. It became one of the hallmarks of the internationally celebrated approach to city planning dubbed “Vancouverism” — also known as ‘city building done right.’
Although there were minor infringements over the years, the view cone policy had remained substantially in place, but ABC Council members have now decided that views for residents and tourists are no longer a priority. Their decision to get rid of or reduce so many of the view cones will rob forever literally tens of thousands of individuals of the vistas which make Vancouver such a beautiful city – our mountains.
Much more quietly, the ABC Council is also considering increasing allowable shadowing of neighbouring properties by high buildings and dense development.
Why did ABC make what appears, on the face of it, to be such a wrong-headed decision? Why, for developers of course!
This decision will put literally billions of dollars into the pockets of Vancouver’s largest developers. Let me explain.
According to City staff, developers will now be able to add an additional total building floor area of between 108 million sq ft and 215 million sq ft over 100 years, adding between 230,000 and 300,000 additional homes. During the first 30 years, they expect development capacity to include 15,000 to 75,000 additional homes. While calculating profits can be complex due to the various cost factors involved, CityHallWatch (a volunteer group that monitors and reports on Vancouver’s civic government processes and decisions) has calculated that the change in view cone policy has created $22 to $43 billion in additional land value. Over time, this additional development capacity will certainly provide windfall profits for developers.
It will also increase profits for land speculators. Research has shown that any upzoning — which will certainly incorporate the reduction in view cone requirements – adjusts land assessments to reflect permitted use and market value – i.e., potential, not actual use. As land value assessments increase, the often-excessive profits gained from land ownership, whether the property is flipped or used directly for construction, will increase to the benefit of the landowners.
This change could also produce windfall profits for the City. It has been reported that as of January 2023, the average total cost of charges levied within Vancouver on new high-rise housing is $125,542 per unit or $157 per sq ft of unit floor area. This is up by 25% compared to 2020, when average fees were $100,679 per unit, and it includes fees such as development cost levies (DCLs) and community amenity contributions (CACs). Even calculating for the lowest estimated growth over the next 30 years, the City would take in almost $1.9 billion.
Community researchers have calculated that Vancouver has already approved or encouraged through community planning enough housing for the next 68 years, given historic absorption rates. That calculation does not even include Vancouver Plan expectations or existing units. This alone begs the question as to why more construction capacity is presumably needed now.
Finally, the entire process leading up to this scheme has been called into question. There was no prior public engagement to assess the proposed changes. CityHallWatch has reported that there were, however, numerous prior discussions with architecture and development consulting firms. And it should be noted that the added floor space is the most valuable for developers as it sells for the highest price.
So why did ABC abandon the view cones? It’s clearly not the public who profits.
Vancouverites WITH common sense from all points on the political spectrum should remember ABC’s decision to rob us of our beautiful mountain views when they vote on October 17, 2026 – the date of our next civic election.
Daily atmospheric CO2 [Courtesy of CO2.Earth]
Latest daily total (July 31, 2024): 424.83ppm
One year ago (July 31, 2023): 421.95ppm
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