Preferred new destination for Vancouver city’s Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts: detailed economic scrutiny.
City council’s 5-4 vote October 27 in favour of a staff recommendation to remove the east-west elevated arterial roadways sets into motion what has been estimated to be a $200 million demolition job.
Approval of the project, according to a city staff report, has majority support from members of the public who attended the 38 stakeholder meetings, 13 public open houses and other resident consultation sessions held over the past two years.
It will doubtless also have majority support from developers who stand to gain significantly from the project.
The staff report offers a lengthy inventory of arguments in favour of the viaducts’ removal. They include avoiding the estimated $65 million in seismic upgrading needed for the viaducts and opening the way to an improved midtown street network. But the real carrot in the Vision Vancouver viaduct demolition sales job is allowing city hall to preside over what the report claims will be a more ambitious development of the city’s remaining undeveloped downtown waterfront. Included in that plan: a larger urban park, more affordable housing and better public amenities.
But how many dollars will come from which sources remains largely opaque, as does the project’s eventual cost.
As the report concedes, estimates are based on preliminary designs that are only 20% to 30% complete. The smart money is on significant cost escalation.
Preliminary cost estimates for structural, street and utilities provided to council in 2013 have already risen 19%. Increased costs could be justified because the ambitious project might prove to be, as the city manager maintains in the report, “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to address many council objectives and further existing initiatives.”
However, the city needs to ensure that it’s more than a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for major developers, who will be first in line to benefit from what will be a significant investment of taxpayer dollars.
