It’s not perfect, but the False Creek Flats development plan Vancouver city council unanimously approved on May 17 recognizes a key factor in Vancouver’s economic viability: land needs to be set aside for places people can work, not just where they can live.
Council’s decision on zoning and development of the 450-acre site, whose former occupants provided much of the grit, grime and muscle that laid the foundation of Vancouver’s big-city aspirations, follows more than two decades of debate over its fate.
The prime location could easily have been given over to residential in a city where home ownership is now out of reach for many income levels.
But, as pointed out in “False Creek Flats a lost opportunity, say developers” (Business in Vancouver issue 1438; May 23-29), the area’s development plan calls for doubling job space on the site.
Developers of residential real estate rightly complain that more could have been done to densify the number of new residences the plan will allow. The marriage of enterprise and affordable housing in arrangements that maximize transit connections and reduce transportation congestion is vital to economic expansion in urban areas.
But the win in the flats plan is city hall’s confirmation that industry is fundamental to Vancouver’s viability and livability.
Elsewhere there are more losses than wins on that front.
As a new CBRE report documents, Vancouver, at 2.7%, now has North America’s lowest industrial real estate availability rate. That number, which is below 2008’s previous record low of 3.6%, puts the city on course to run out of industrial land 10 years earlier than previously projected, CBRE estimates.
Without industrial land to accommodate growth in enterprise and innovation, Vancouver’s long-term economic future is questionable at best. After all, real estate speculation is not a sustainable business plan for any city worthy of world-class status.
Fortunately, the False Creek Flats plan recognizes that reality.