Density Is Not The Boogieman

Individual Submission
Bowen Island Official Community Plan Update Committee

February 28, 2010

Dear Members of the Committee:

My name is James Glave and I’m a father of two. Ours is a young commuter family, and my wife and I actively participate in many aspects of island life. I love this place, and I am proud to call it home.

My personal passion is climate change solutions, and the transportation, energy, and land-use strategies that have been shown to reduce per-capita greenhouse-gas emissions here in our region and around the world. We can talk about any number of issues, but in my mind, carbon is the ultimate deal-breaker. We simply don’t have an option other than finding ways to slash the stuff from our lives and community. If we don’t “act locally” on this “global” issue, it will eventually come home to our doorstop and find us where we live anyway.

The science suggests that climate change will, in the near-term, overwhelm our first responders and social services, exhaust our municipal budget, and place hardship on our population via skyrocketing food prices. In the long term (which is what community planning is all about, right?)  it will ultimately result in waves of climate refugees flooding into Canada, and ultimately our community. This is not chicken-little stuff, it is exhaustively documented in reports by The Global Humanitarian Forum, the World Health Organization, Oxfam, and many other public agencies and non-government organizations.

Climate change is not an “environmental” issue, it is a civilization challenge. I believe we have a profound moral obligation to address it, wherever we live. I personally believe that we do not get an excuse or “opt out” pass to address climate just because we choose to live in a beautiful place that is “seen to be rural,” where fawns dance at the roadside and salmon thrash in the lagoon. We are not entitled to an exemption because we are surrounded by great natural beauty. This is not just “China’s problem.” We should see our emissions as an opportunity to lead, not barely squeak through our statutory obligations and hope nobody is noticing. That’s how we are not dealing with it now.

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Ready for Rurbanism?

We know that low-density suburban development is bad news for the atmosphere, for community, for taxpayers, and lots of other things. As I note in my book, Almost Green, I don’t think we’re  quite a suburb over here on Bowen Island, though we have some suburban housing forms and neighborhoods, including mine. But thanks to an outdated community plan and land use bylaw—documents designed to preserve and protect rural character, but which have in fact have set us down a path of vehicle dependence and unaffordability–we’re heading more that way all the time.

There’s been a lot of excellent work done on the “rural-urban interface.” I think that description fits this place nicely; we have our farms and wildlife, but the city is very close indeed. Last year’s Snug Cove Master Plan makes the case that we should focus our growth in our village as a way to preserve green open spaces for recreation, ecological health, and carbon sinks.

A commenter on another blog posting on this site drew my attention to the District of Sechelt, her  hometown, located on B.C.’s famous Sunshine Coast. She characterizes Sechelt as a prime example of bad community choices:

It used to have a unique character and local products — now it is utterly swamped in big box stores, cineplexes, trinket kiosks and national franchises. I still try to appreciate it but it is so different and less than what it was… People want to enjoy an authentically local experience when they visit. Let’s see how we can achieve that while still providing the convenience of essential and necessary services on-island.

This is absolutely what we need to work toward. Since I haven’t been up that way in a while, out of curiosity I made a few calls to friends in the B.C. planning profession. “Problematic development pattern and terrible town councils made a lot of bad decisions,” explained one. The good news is that the district recently created a comprehensive Community Vision Plan that looks to be the key reference for an upcoming Official Community Plan review.

Here’s one neat bit, describing mixed-use neighborhoods known as the “Rurban Hamlet.” (I haven’t come across the term before — can anyone share its history?) Here’s what the plan says about it:

A rurban hamlet is density neutral and arranges the units in a mixed building type cluster … on only a small portion of the overall site.  For example, on a 10 acre site with an allowable density of six units per acre, or 60 units overall, it can locate all 60 units on four to six acres, saving or conserving six to four acres, respectively, in contiguous open space.  All with conventional building types using detached, attached and multiplex homes.

The section inclues several sketches to illustrate rurban hamlets, including this one.

Included in the above is “multiplex housing (single-entry with three to five units, a shared front porch and shared garage); single-family detached bungalows, including one with an attached in-law suite; attached cottages; a shared garage; and a studio/potting building. Each unit has a private yard that connects to shared open space.”

For those not still turning up their nose at the idea of four-storey apartments in the cove, perhaps a rurban hamlet like this might be more palatable? Scary thought for the 10-acre brigade: The houses are very close together. Five of them are — shudder — even in the same building!

Welcome to Asphaltburque!

I’m reminded how much of a green bubble I live in here in the Vancouver area every time I spend a few days in a major city in America’s middle section, like Albuquerque, New Mexico.

I spent five days there last week, including a maddening afternoon trying to run a few quick errands in a city clearly engineered for fast-moving automobiles powered by cheap and limitless petroleum. We’re talking six-lane arterials fronting acre-sized parking-lots with limited on-off access. Think miles of concrete sound walls isolating cheek-and-jowl tract housing from the engine noise.

It’s no wonder Albuquerque’s retail is largely Big Box; the storefront has to be two hundred feet high if you have any hope of noticing the logo as you blaze on by. It’s pushing 100 degrees down there, and everyone on the roads is emptying the tank rushing around, committing to hours or driving just to pick up a few things. Welcome to James Kunstler’s happy motoring utopia, circa 2008.

I spotted perhaps two or three Priuses over the course of five days, and barely a smattering of Fits, Yarises, and other next-gen subcompacts. The arterials were swarming with pickups, SUVs, muscle cars, and big sedans: They were either sailing along at 65 MPH, or stuck idling in long lines at long red lights

The place feels profoundly stuck. Nobody connects the dots. Nobody even sees the dots.

Well, almost nobody. I did get an insider tour of the Nob Hill neighborhood, which is being dragged, kicking and screaming into the walkable mixed-use era, in part thanks to the efforts of city councilor Martin Heinrich. Martin proudly showed the multi-story residential buildings under construction along Central Avenue, which exist because of zoning amendments that he fought for. Martin is now running for Congress in the state’s first congressional district. It will be a tough fight; he has his work cut out for him.

As as our plane climbed steeply out of the Duke City airport, my four-year-old son peeked out the window with me. "Dad, I’m trying to spot the people," he said, scanning the shrinking sidewalks and shoulders of the asphalt jungle below.

I didn’t know what to tell him; I couldn’t see them either.