Nov. 23 “Pause the Plan!” rally against the supersized Broadway Plan shows Vancouverites are again ready to roll up their sleeves and save their city
VANCOUVER (Nov. 19, 2024) -- Nearly 60 years ago, the people of Vancouver defeated a plan to destroy neighbourhoods with freeways. Now we face a similar challenge: the disastrous Broadway Plan.
It’s ripping the guts out of our city by demolishing affordable rental housing and replacing it with massive, environmentally destructive towers that will turn our streets into concrete hellscapes. Forget about neighbourhood character and livability – City Hall has decided that developers’ profits are more important than people.
TEAM for a Livable Vancouver knows that can go on for only so long. As the 1960s freeway revolt showed, dismissing citizens’ concerns is risky. By 1972, the people who had marched and rallied against the plan to destroy historic East Vancouver neighbourhoods with freeways had elected a new civic government that would listen to them.
That new government was The Electors’ Action Movement. It’s the inspiration for TEAM for a Livable Vancouver, which likewise understands that people can defeat destructive development and its enablers at City Hall. It also knows we have to speak up and take action to save our city.
That includes the Nov. 23 “Pause the Plan!” rally at City Hall. It’s a chance for concerned citizens, neighbourhood associations and other groups to join forces against a plan every bit as destructive as the 1960s freeway frenzy.
TEAM isn’t alone in drawing parallels between the two city-transforming plans.
Michael Geller, a prominent voice in the development industry, wrote on Facebook that when he asked a respected planner whether it was “ridiculous” of him to compare the two, the planner said they had much in common. “‘Although the freeway has been replaced by a subway, the surrounding neighbourhood damage - the loss of affordable rental housing buildings, dramatic changes to streetscapes and neighbourhood character - will tragically be very, very similar.’"
Decades later, we have citizen engagement to thank for our accessible waterfront and livable downtown, with soon-to-be-demolished viaducts as relics of the freeway system we escaped. Will the next generations be grateful for tiny dwellings, shadows and concrete, or can we do better for them?
TEAM for a Livable Vancouver knows the Broadway Plan isn’t the way to solve our city’s affordability crisis. We need to manage growth, building what people need and can afford, instead of giving profit-hungry developers free rein through massive upzoning.
TEAM believes that citizens are reaching the boiling point on the Broadway Plan – even before City Council turbocharges it with amendments that allow even more density, more height and more towers.
Members of the public spoke eloquently against several Broadway Plan rezonings in a darkened, near-empty City Council chamber last week. Only the mayor and a few councillors showed up to hear them. There couldn’t be a more graphic illustration of City Council’s indifference to Vancouverites’ concerns.
TEAM knows that citizens have fought and won back their city before. The “Pause the Plan!” rally at 1 pm, Saturday Nov. 23 on the north side of City Hall is a giant step toward doing it again.
More on “supersizing” the Broadway Plan: https://www.voteteam.ca/post/halt-the-broadway-plan