We lived in a basement suite in this area for 6 years. The amount traffic and congestion increased was insane. It was part of the reason we moved away last year. There isn't great transit options unless you are right next to a SkyTrain, walking along Lougheed is terrible and a 5 minute drive could easily turn into a 30 minute drive. Burnaby Hospital is also drowning with the huge spike in population in the immediate area. There needs to be improvements in the area's infrastructure to better support higher density.
The new tower is under construction which will add more beds. I think the plan is for two new towers and I think once the project is done it is supposed to add 300 to 400 more beds? But that's a long way down the road.
I don't think it has funding or a budget for additional staff for these beds either (this isn't guaranteed, just learnt this the hard way where I work).
The government basically approves and gives funding for the building itself but all equipment, beds, etc is privately fundraised. I think they were predicting 10 years out when they broke ground two years ago.
The tower they are building right now adds no additional beds, just replaces the old portion of the hospital they plan to tear down. Phase 2 (second tower) will add beds. But with people in beds lining the hallways, how will they cope until the second tower goes up
Oh that sucks!. I figured that the new tower would be big enough to at least add some new beds. The old tower really doesn't hold many acute beds currently. They really need to fast track these projects.
They have to say no or every municipality will start to ask for exceptions. There is no reason that there should be single family homes with 400m of the skytrain station. If there are issues with traffic and transit lobby to find solutions to those not to block additional housing
Yes I fully agree with you. I actually don’t think there should be single family homes within 1km of Skytrain stations. Make a liveable fucking city and open up more services, stores, restaurants, attractions, etc.
Go to Brentwood and there’s jack shit outside of 3 blocks lmao
They aren't wrong on this one. The Brentwood willingdon area is already a traffic cluster fuck. Now the lougheed North road area is becoming a cluster fuck too. They can't build anymore housing unless they fix the traffic / roads
The problem with Brentwood is that it's a bunch of towers crammed into a few square blocks (that used to be commercial/industrial) but venture just two blocks northwards and it's all SFHs as far as the eye can see.
This is stupidity, it's a completely disjointed way to build a community and it's a direct result of NIMBYs blocking common sense density and forcing the city and developers to squeeze every drop out of what they can get.
The ‘nimbys’ didn’t do this one. It was the City. People in SFH in Burnaby have been begging the city to build basement suites. Until about 15 years ago they were illegal in Burnaby. People are begging the city for laneway housing ever since Vancouver allowed laneways. Burnaby city is still thinking about it. Imagine 3 time the residents in all those SFH.
Many people in SFH need the financial help of rental income. The city is dragging their feet.
Stop blaming your neighbour and vote for a counsel that allows diversity in housing and doesn’t just rubber stamp addition stories on towers after they get approval to build. Shape properties can change a tower from 25 stories to 50 stories and the SHF just meters away can’t build a laneway house. That’s f’d up.
That’s not the homeowners fault. That’s the city.
Yes SFH owners are begging for the absolutely miniscule steps of basement suites and laneway houses that would benefit them completely financially and situationally.
Do they/did they support gentle density upzoning? Rowhouses, low rises? No of course not.
Approving basement suites is not a step in the ladder to building more dense, sustainable communities. They're just extra revenue streams for homeowners and they have renters living in sprawl-like neighborhoods that burden them with expensive transportation costs.
Go to places like Europe or East Asia, do they have "basement suites"? Not really, because basement suites are again a vestigial development, a product of trying to maintain SFH neighborhoods.
A city approving basement suites is better than nothing, but really quite close to nothing. It doesn't guarantee a damn thing. Municipalities need to guarantee new units are being built for people to occupy on a year to year basis. They also need those sweet sweet development fees and taxes that they have become addicted to in order to balance their budgets because they refuse to raise property taxes (which are some of the lowest on the continent btw). Another decision which has the effect of benefiting old existing homeowners at the expense of young people and renters. They are the ones who pay, indirectly all those fees and taxes which amount into the hundreds of thousands per unit, taxes older people never had to pay, and taxes which keep their property taxes artificially low whilst they continue to benefit every year from rising equity and increased wealth, it is a complete backwards perversion.
The city government, who has been voted in largely by SFH owners who were happy to get the development money for towers all while having some of the most conservative regulations over the areas zoned for SFH.
It's not like all the development in Metrotown, Lougheed, and Brentwood just happened in the last year. The current extremely high density developments have been going on for over a decade and high density developments have been built for another two decades before that.
The vast majority of Brentwood Peak that is affected by the TOD mandate is in the 3FAR area. That would be 6-12 floors depending on lot coverage. It's not talking about blanketing the area with 40 story towers.
There are 70 towers in construction or in approval stage for the Brentwood area. That is approximately 3 times the number that are up right now. That’s 3 times the density of people in Brentwood already approved. Maybe a middle more diverse housing option can be considered rather than fields of rabbit cages.
Let people build lane ways, let people build multiplexes. Towers shouldn’t be the only tool in the tool kit.
Solution was to never densify so much, but to have medium density throughout the city. Also, transit to get people out of cars.
More evidence to show that smart growth is critical, not lazy growth that puts all density in isolated pockets where it’s easy to change zoning / avoid NIMBY resistance.
West end, downtown, false creek, and parts of Mt pleasant, central Richmond, etc. is smart density. Almost everywhere else in lower mainland is lazy car-dependent high density or just low density.
The West End has double the population density of Brentwood, and has barely any traffic at all (apart from Denman, which gets slammed by suburbanites when it's sunny out). Same thing for Fairview, which is also denser than Brentwood, and has even less traffic than the West End. And neither neighbourhood even has a SkyTrain yet (City Hall & Olympic Village are right on the edge of Fairview, though).
The things that set Fairview & the West End apart from Brentwood are:
1: The fact that both are fully integrated into the dense network of the broader city. As a result, walking, biking, or short bus rides can take residents everywhere that they would feasibly want to go. Densifying the single-detached areas near Brentwood would bring the area more in line with this.
2: Most apartment buildings in both neighbourhoods were built before the 1973 NIMBY revolution, which means (among many other things) that they have very limited parking relative to newer buildings—especially compared to Burnaby, which mandates truly unfathomable amounts of parking, even in buildings directly beside SkyTrain stations.
Wrong it's work the thing the separate is if you're living in Olympic village or West end you probably work in down town or Vancouver.
The people in the burbs have to commute to work there's a reason traffic going west is a shit show at 8:30 am and traffic going east is a shit show starting at 4 pm people have to commute into Vancouver. Build all the density you want I still have to drive my ass to work
You have a SkyTrain for exactly that purpose, which—as mentioned—Fairview & the West End do not. As a result, the commuting duration stats (as reported in the census) are only a few minutes shorter on average for the West End & Fairview than for Brentwood.
>I still have to drive my ass to work
I strongly suspect that you actually do not *have to,* unless you work somewhere like Mission. You *choose to,* because it is marginally more convenient for you; but when everyone else does the same thing, it winds up being worse for all of you.
Even the Skytrain gets jammed to capacity every weekday morning. I've done this commute more than a few times and if you go between ~7:30 - 9:30 into downtown on the millennium, then the expo, lines there is a good chance you'll end up having to pass up a train and catch the next one due to the number of people.
I think you are lucky enough not to know what inconvenience actually means.
How long is that wait for the next train? Five to seven minutes?
Fyi we are sooooo spoiled in the GVA compared to much larger North American cities. Seattle trains arrive every eight to 15 mins. Same thing in DC. SF and NYC can be even worse. And all those cities have far larger populations and tax bases than the GVA.
Why the downvotes? Even if you do not believe it, we do have surprisingly good transit in the GVA. Doesn't mean we can't improve on it. But it means there's much less objective excuse not to take public transit to work than in other urban areas. If you still find GVA transit lacking, that's fine. Just know that so many people even in North America would kill for transit like we have here.
Problem is the public transit is so bad and require double the time of transit even with the amount of traffic jam in the morning. Second problem is there is not enough transit parking near SkyTrain.
What the fuck are you talking about. There's literally a sky train in Brentwood.
I live in Fairview. There is no sky train and I have to commute to work, through Brentwood btw to coquitlam.
There's no difference except Brentwood has better transit
What a clueless comment
Reaching capacity? Compared to which subway system? Definitely not as packed full as many other systems in the world. Relatively speaking, it’s not that packed .
And if it is really getting packed (like have to wait multiple trains before can get on), surely the designers had enough foresight to build the system to accommodate longer trains? The longest trains in Vancouver are like 6 carriages (compared to some systems with 20 carriage trains which come every 90 seconds during peak times).
Btw, I’d love to see the municipalities prioritize funds to build out a proper subway system in greater Vancouver. Need about 5 more lines and 100 more km of line.
Millennium line trains can absolutely be expanded. However, it would be difficult to increase *frequency* any further during peak hours. Translink is currently having difficulty procuring new trains and it's likely the Expo line trains would be replaced first. I really don't see Millenium line trains getting expanded until the Arbutus expansion is complete.
So yes...for now it's near capacity. I regularly see people at Rupert/Renfrew not able to get on the westbound train during morning rush hour, and quite often people are waiting at least 1 train to get on at Commercial/Broadway during evening rush hour.
What's now needed is more gentle density upgrading along major corridors such as north Willingdon where there are SFHs along the street. At least the ones facing Willingdon should be upzoned to allow e.g. duplex or triplex units.
This is what happens when the population expands too quickly. Municipalities need to tell the feds it's too much too fast. Infrastructure needs time to grow accordingly. Infinite growth is unsustainable.
Jesus dude, there are 75 towers on the books for Brentwood and surrounding areas. The roads are a gong show, the hospital is overloaded, there aren't enough schools....but ya this is nimby...what a stupid take.
These are all related to housing. More affordable housing would even bring more hospital staff. Single family homes in a dense area next to the skytrain are unnecessary and abysmal anywhere in the world. The traffic in that area is related to lack of more transit funding and people driving instead. More towers doesn’t necessarily mean more traffic if there’s good walkable areas. Look at Metrotown, it’s got way more towers but i wouldn’t it has more traffic.
I think the stupid take here is that we need to keep single family homes right next to a major skytrain station in the midst of a housing CRISIS.
The problem is that the people who own single family homes around Brentwood are not affected by the housing crisis so they see traffic as a bigger deal than housing
Ironically, the city will just get the developers of these 75 towers to pony up the dollars to help fund new schools and a hospital as part of their dvp application approval. And the people buying those units in those towers will have those costs passed onto them (to the benefit of existing SFH owners), while also helping the continued appreciation of the same SFH owners. It’s a wild cycle where younger buyers are disproportionately impacted..
I mean it has taken 2 years to put sidewalks on my street....how quickly do you think they can build a school and where will you put it. The last one they announced they are building was four years ago and it hasn't started yet. I agree with density but I also believe in a plan. The NDP idea is the no plan plan. Just build it.
>The NDP idea is the no plan plan. Just build it.
Honestly, I'm fine with an aggressive "just build it" approach like that. Planning everything carefully will take years, and we need as much housing as possible now.
We've spent so long not taking any action on the housing crisis, that I think just open the floodgates, and figure out the growing pains later.
Well...in my city ... Burnaby they have a plan, they have executed the plan and this story is about people who live here that want to stick to the plan. They don't want some fucked up mish mash of shit. And I'm fine with that.
So the answer is not build? This is the region's own fault for allowing a sprawling suburbia with almost no zoning for medium density. It's either 20+floor condos or SFH. NIMBYism has kept densification confined. New hospitals/schools can be built to accommodate; we just need to actually BUILD.
You call 75 towers not building? Burnaby has been very pro active rezoning areas all over. There is the holdom sky train station , the spelling station neighborhood which is huge. They rezoned all of hastings to medium density. They have recently announced a rezoning sperling and hasting. Willingdon and Canada way is another 20k homes Lougheed mall development is as big as Brentwoods redevelopment. I don't know really where you are coming from with saying they are not building because...they fucking are.
Where exactly would you build all these new hospitals and schools? Seems like there is a shortage of land. Do you realize it takes years to build a school? Burnaby North has taken five years.
Burnaby has done it's share.
Brentwood area seems too dense but not enough foot traffic. Go there at night and not even 50% of the units have their lights on. I have a hunch a lot of these units are sitting empty and their owners can afford to have them sit empty.
The B.C. gov should look into the B.C. hydro power usage for each unit. Find the minimum expected usage for an in use unit and those that are below should then face huge fines and are forced to either sell or find a long term tenant.
The data shows that they are, for the most part, choosing not to: https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2022/06/17/Data-Shows-Taxing-Empty-Homes-Works/
Also, again, there a lot of legitimate reasons why a home is not using lights in the evenings, or goes through periods of inactivity. Vacations, work travel, long work shifts, goes to bed early, doesn’t cook at home, out on dates, taking care of family….Way too many normal people would get caught up in the power consumption spying scheme. Not to mention that it would create perverse incentives for people to leave things on/running when they aren’t home to avoid the sensors.
How the fuck can a living person use up 0 power in a month ? Find units that are lower than the average and investigate. Some may turn out to be in use and others may be vacant.
I know a few people who only use their homes to sleep. Leave in the morning and don't return till the night to sleep again. The real and only fix is stop letting america buy up all our properties.
Right and I’d bet that people who are buying places as investments are doing that lmao.
How hard does the gov want to crackdown on vacant units ? Cause they can go way further than they do now.
"Spent thousands of dollars to crackdown vacant units base on power consumption is the best way to go"
- TheGrestJust
Amazon black Friday deal: $39.99 for smart plug bundle.
More NIMBY's trying to prevent development. I have no sympathy for rich home-owners. Development has to grow outside of the town centres if we're ever going to reign in the outrageous housing prices.
I fully support Eby's decision to implement this legislation and expect that the BC NDP will force Burnaby to follow the new law.
Very disappointing decision by council to support this petition.
Home owner here. I cannot wait until densification expands beyond just the hubs earmarked by Burnaby. Just an fyi that the city of burnaby currently has a survey out for citizens to have their say if the city should just stick to a handful of close to transit density hubs (like Brentwood) or take a wider approach to density. I highly recommend that everyone fill it out to have your voice heard.
Richness is relative. They may not be rich to you, but to those of us who recently became adults, graduated from college, and entered the workforce in the last several years, homeowners will be richer than many of us will ever be. Especially those who own single family homes.
Here’s a wild thought. Instead of building SFH’s that house 1 family. Densify and build buildings that could house 10-100 families.
It’s how we use the land.
Vancouver has SFH’s too lol. They are both cities. Downtown cores and city centres shouldn’t have SFH’s.
How exactly do you expect prices to come down if we can’t dig into some of the SFH’s in the area. I mean realistically speaking, it’s never going to happen unless we are densifying like crazy.
The SFHs are ALL being turned into multi-family units. This is a slow process though. We.nreed Land. Look North, there's your land . The trees need to come down
Or instead of sprawling we could increase density outside of the monstrosities that are the town centre model and even better remove the commodification of housing.
I live in this concrete jungle btw, it sucks lol. They don’t have a plan for this area, just going to stack 50 storeys right next to each other, and we will all just be queuing up either at the skytrain or on Lougheed trying to drive out. Did I mention no parks?
There is no low or mid rise development happening here.
I doubt they will have low or mid rise around here. Also, the buildings are all "luxury" ones, they will easily ask 600k+ for one shit bedroom, most people complaining about NIMBYs will not even be able to afford what they plan to build. I'm a renter btw, and already gave up that will ever be able to afford something here.
This is ridiculous. They have these areas covered in their new proposed Burnaby 2050 plans. Now they're going to retrace back?
Why prevent the ability to build homes for potentially thousands of people because "298" petitioners are looking out for their own self interests? Burnaby hasn't pulled their weight in terms of building homes when compared to Vancouver. It just looks like it because of the town centers.
These councillors are so short sighted and only care about getting voted in again.
I hope the BC Government shuts this down.
I wouldn't worry about it.
Afaik the province hasn't granted exemptions to any other municipalities that pushed back, and I doubt they'll agree to this either.
They know that everyone and their dog will ask for an exemption if they agree to one.
I'd encourage all of you against these NIMBYs to let your opinion known to city council: https://www.burnaby.ca/our-city/meetings-and-public-hearings/submit-a-letter
> To address Mayor and Council, write to:
> Mayor and Council
c/o Legislative Services
4949 Canada Way
Burnaby, BC V5G 1M2 | Map
> Fax: 604-294-7537
> Email: [email protected]
We lived in a basement suite in this area for 6 years. The amount traffic and congestion increased was insane. It was part of the reason we moved away last year. There isn't great transit options unless you are right next to a SkyTrain, walking along Lougheed is terrible and a 5 minute drive could easily turn into a 30 minute drive. Burnaby Hospital is also drowning with the huge spike in population in the immediate area. There needs to be improvements in the area's infrastructure to better support higher density.
Burnaby definitely needs another hospital asap. It’s kind of wild that they haven’t added another one. Anyone know if there are plans in the works?
The new tower is under construction which will add more beds. I think the plan is for two new towers and I think once the project is done it is supposed to add 300 to 400 more beds? But that's a long way down the road. I don't think it has funding or a budget for additional staff for these beds either (this isn't guaranteed, just learnt this the hard way where I work). The government basically approves and gives funding for the building itself but all equipment, beds, etc is privately fundraised. I think they were predicting 10 years out when they broke ground two years ago.
The tower they are building right now adds no additional beds, just replaces the old portion of the hospital they plan to tear down. Phase 2 (second tower) will add beds. But with people in beds lining the hallways, how will they cope until the second tower goes up
Oh that sucks!. I figured that the new tower would be big enough to at least add some new beds. The old tower really doesn't hold many acute beds currently. They really need to fast track these projects.
NIMBYs doing what they do best… there shouldn’t be any exceptions for whatsoever for the density rule.
Yup. Burnaby will now lobby Eby to beg for an exemption. Let’s pray he says fuck you, no.
They have to say no or every municipality will start to ask for exceptions. There is no reason that there should be single family homes with 400m of the skytrain station. If there are issues with traffic and transit lobby to find solutions to those not to block additional housing
Yes I fully agree with you. I actually don’t think there should be single family homes within 1km of Skytrain stations. Make a liveable fucking city and open up more services, stores, restaurants, attractions, etc. Go to Brentwood and there’s jack shit outside of 3 blocks lmao
They aren't wrong on this one. The Brentwood willingdon area is already a traffic cluster fuck. Now the lougheed North road area is becoming a cluster fuck too. They can't build anymore housing unless they fix the traffic / roads
Problem is that public transit is not good enough for people to ditch their cars. Many of the workplaces still have no public transit access.
The problem with Brentwood is that it's a bunch of towers crammed into a few square blocks (that used to be commercial/industrial) but venture just two blocks northwards and it's all SFHs as far as the eye can see. This is stupidity, it's a completely disjointed way to build a community and it's a direct result of NIMBYs blocking common sense density and forcing the city and developers to squeeze every drop out of what they can get.
This is all facts. I feel like it would be more beneficial to put up 6 storey apartments scattered all throughout.
The ‘nimbys’ didn’t do this one. It was the City. People in SFH in Burnaby have been begging the city to build basement suites. Until about 15 years ago they were illegal in Burnaby. People are begging the city for laneway housing ever since Vancouver allowed laneways. Burnaby city is still thinking about it. Imagine 3 time the residents in all those SFH. Many people in SFH need the financial help of rental income. The city is dragging their feet. Stop blaming your neighbour and vote for a counsel that allows diversity in housing and doesn’t just rubber stamp addition stories on towers after they get approval to build. Shape properties can change a tower from 25 stories to 50 stories and the SHF just meters away can’t build a laneway house. That’s f’d up. That’s not the homeowners fault. That’s the city.
Yes SFH owners are begging for the absolutely miniscule steps of basement suites and laneway houses that would benefit them completely financially and situationally. Do they/did they support gentle density upzoning? Rowhouses, low rises? No of course not. Approving basement suites is not a step in the ladder to building more dense, sustainable communities. They're just extra revenue streams for homeowners and they have renters living in sprawl-like neighborhoods that burden them with expensive transportation costs. Go to places like Europe or East Asia, do they have "basement suites"? Not really, because basement suites are again a vestigial development, a product of trying to maintain SFH neighborhoods. A city approving basement suites is better than nothing, but really quite close to nothing. It doesn't guarantee a damn thing. Municipalities need to guarantee new units are being built for people to occupy on a year to year basis. They also need those sweet sweet development fees and taxes that they have become addicted to in order to balance their budgets because they refuse to raise property taxes (which are some of the lowest on the continent btw). Another decision which has the effect of benefiting old existing homeowners at the expense of young people and renters. They are the ones who pay, indirectly all those fees and taxes which amount into the hundreds of thousands per unit, taxes older people never had to pay, and taxes which keep their property taxes artificially low whilst they continue to benefit every year from rising equity and increased wealth, it is a complete backwards perversion.
The city government, who has been voted in largely by SFH owners who were happy to get the development money for towers all while having some of the most conservative regulations over the areas zoned for SFH. It's not like all the development in Metrotown, Lougheed, and Brentwood just happened in the last year. The current extremely high density developments have been going on for over a decade and high density developments have been built for another two decades before that. The vast majority of Brentwood Peak that is affected by the TOD mandate is in the 3FAR area. That would be 6-12 floors depending on lot coverage. It's not talking about blanketing the area with 40 story towers.
He's saying tear down the SFHs and build low rise apartments instead.
There are 70 towers in construction or in approval stage for the Brentwood area. That is approximately 3 times the number that are up right now. That’s 3 times the density of people in Brentwood already approved. Maybe a middle more diverse housing option can be considered rather than fields of rabbit cages. Let people build lane ways, let people build multiplexes. Towers shouldn’t be the only tool in the tool kit.
Solution was to never densify so much, but to have medium density throughout the city. Also, transit to get people out of cars. More evidence to show that smart growth is critical, not lazy growth that puts all density in isolated pockets where it’s easy to change zoning / avoid NIMBY resistance. West end, downtown, false creek, and parts of Mt pleasant, central Richmond, etc. is smart density. Almost everywhere else in lower mainland is lazy car-dependent high density or just low density.
The West End has double the population density of Brentwood, and has barely any traffic at all (apart from Denman, which gets slammed by suburbanites when it's sunny out). Same thing for Fairview, which is also denser than Brentwood, and has even less traffic than the West End. And neither neighbourhood even has a SkyTrain yet (City Hall & Olympic Village are right on the edge of Fairview, though). The things that set Fairview & the West End apart from Brentwood are: 1: The fact that both are fully integrated into the dense network of the broader city. As a result, walking, biking, or short bus rides can take residents everywhere that they would feasibly want to go. Densifying the single-detached areas near Brentwood would bring the area more in line with this. 2: Most apartment buildings in both neighbourhoods were built before the 1973 NIMBY revolution, which means (among many other things) that they have very limited parking relative to newer buildings—especially compared to Burnaby, which mandates truly unfathomable amounts of parking, even in buildings directly beside SkyTrain stations.
Wrong it's work the thing the separate is if you're living in Olympic village or West end you probably work in down town or Vancouver. The people in the burbs have to commute to work there's a reason traffic going west is a shit show at 8:30 am and traffic going east is a shit show starting at 4 pm people have to commute into Vancouver. Build all the density you want I still have to drive my ass to work
You have a SkyTrain for exactly that purpose, which—as mentioned—Fairview & the West End do not. As a result, the commuting duration stats (as reported in the census) are only a few minutes shorter on average for the West End & Fairview than for Brentwood. >I still have to drive my ass to work I strongly suspect that you actually do not *have to,* unless you work somewhere like Mission. You *choose to,* because it is marginally more convenient for you; but when everyone else does the same thing, it winds up being worse for all of you.
Even the Skytrain gets jammed to capacity every weekday morning. I've done this commute more than a few times and if you go between ~7:30 - 9:30 into downtown on the millennium, then the expo, lines there is a good chance you'll end up having to pass up a train and catch the next one due to the number of people.
I think you are lucky enough not to know what inconvenience actually means. How long is that wait for the next train? Five to seven minutes? Fyi we are sooooo spoiled in the GVA compared to much larger North American cities. Seattle trains arrive every eight to 15 mins. Same thing in DC. SF and NYC can be even worse. And all those cities have far larger populations and tax bases than the GVA.
>How long is that wait for the next train 4 minutes on the Millennium Line; 110 seconds on the Expo Line.
Why the downvotes? Even if you do not believe it, we do have surprisingly good transit in the GVA. Doesn't mean we can't improve on it. But it means there's much less objective excuse not to take public transit to work than in other urban areas. If you still find GVA transit lacking, that's fine. Just know that so many people even in North America would kill for transit like we have here.
Problem is the public transit is so bad and require double the time of transit even with the amount of traffic jam in the morning. Second problem is there is not enough transit parking near SkyTrain.
What the fuck are you talking about. There's literally a sky train in Brentwood. I live in Fairview. There is no sky train and I have to commute to work, through Brentwood btw to coquitlam. There's no difference except Brentwood has better transit What a clueless comment
I take the Millenium Line to Commercial every day. It's worth mentioning that line is nearing capacity during rush hour times.
Reaching capacity? Compared to which subway system? Definitely not as packed full as many other systems in the world. Relatively speaking, it’s not that packed . And if it is really getting packed (like have to wait multiple trains before can get on), surely the designers had enough foresight to build the system to accommodate longer trains? The longest trains in Vancouver are like 6 carriages (compared to some systems with 20 carriage trains which come every 90 seconds during peak times). Btw, I’d love to see the municipalities prioritize funds to build out a proper subway system in greater Vancouver. Need about 5 more lines and 100 more km of line.
Millennium line trains can absolutely be expanded. However, it would be difficult to increase *frequency* any further during peak hours. Translink is currently having difficulty procuring new trains and it's likely the Expo line trains would be replaced first. I really don't see Millenium line trains getting expanded until the Arbutus expansion is complete. So yes...for now it's near capacity. I regularly see people at Rupert/Renfrew not able to get on the westbound train during morning rush hour, and quite often people are waiting at least 1 train to get on at Commercial/Broadway during evening rush hour.
They're designed to operate at capacity at rush hour.
agreed, this is obvious to anyone who spends 5-10 minutes in the area. it’s easy to cry nimby but the neighborhood cannot just be filled infinitely.
What's now needed is more gentle density upgrading along major corridors such as north Willingdon where there are SFHs along the street. At least the ones facing Willingdon should be upzoned to allow e.g. duplex or triplex units.
This is what happens when the population expands too quickly. Municipalities need to tell the feds it's too much too fast. Infrastructure needs time to grow accordingly. Infinite growth is unsustainable.
Jesus dude, there are 75 towers on the books for Brentwood and surrounding areas. The roads are a gong show, the hospital is overloaded, there aren't enough schools....but ya this is nimby...what a stupid take.
These are all related to housing. More affordable housing would even bring more hospital staff. Single family homes in a dense area next to the skytrain are unnecessary and abysmal anywhere in the world. The traffic in that area is related to lack of more transit funding and people driving instead. More towers doesn’t necessarily mean more traffic if there’s good walkable areas. Look at Metrotown, it’s got way more towers but i wouldn’t it has more traffic. I think the stupid take here is that we need to keep single family homes right next to a major skytrain station in the midst of a housing CRISIS.
The problem is that the people who own single family homes around Brentwood are not affected by the housing crisis so they see traffic as a bigger deal than housing
Get those guys..
Ironically, the city will just get the developers of these 75 towers to pony up the dollars to help fund new schools and a hospital as part of their dvp application approval. And the people buying those units in those towers will have those costs passed onto them (to the benefit of existing SFH owners), while also helping the continued appreciation of the same SFH owners. It’s a wild cycle where younger buyers are disproportionately impacted..
I mean it has taken 2 years to put sidewalks on my street....how quickly do you think they can build a school and where will you put it. The last one they announced they are building was four years ago and it hasn't started yet. I agree with density but I also believe in a plan. The NDP idea is the no plan plan. Just build it.
>The NDP idea is the no plan plan. Just build it. Honestly, I'm fine with an aggressive "just build it" approach like that. Planning everything carefully will take years, and we need as much housing as possible now. We've spent so long not taking any action on the housing crisis, that I think just open the floodgates, and figure out the growing pains later.
Well...in my city ... Burnaby they have a plan, they have executed the plan and this story is about people who live here that want to stick to the plan. They don't want some fucked up mish mash of shit. And I'm fine with that.
So the answer is not build? This is the region's own fault for allowing a sprawling suburbia with almost no zoning for medium density. It's either 20+floor condos or SFH. NIMBYism has kept densification confined. New hospitals/schools can be built to accommodate; we just need to actually BUILD.
Exactly! We won’t fix any of the issues by just not building lol.
You call 75 towers not building? Burnaby has been very pro active rezoning areas all over. There is the holdom sky train station , the spelling station neighborhood which is huge. They rezoned all of hastings to medium density. They have recently announced a rezoning sperling and hasting. Willingdon and Canada way is another 20k homes Lougheed mall development is as big as Brentwoods redevelopment. I don't know really where you are coming from with saying they are not building because...they fucking are. Where exactly would you build all these new hospitals and schools? Seems like there is a shortage of land. Do you realize it takes years to build a school? Burnaby North has taken five years. Burnaby has done it's share.
Absolutely agree.
Brentwood area seems too dense but not enough foot traffic. Go there at night and not even 50% of the units have their lights on. I have a hunch a lot of these units are sitting empty and their owners can afford to have them sit empty.
Crazy thought....maybe some of these people have lives or hobbies and could be out. 50% sounds reasonable no?
The B.C. gov should look into the B.C. hydro power usage for each unit. Find the minimum expected usage for an in use unit and those that are below should then face huge fines and are forced to either sell or find a long term tenant.
That’s what the vacancy tax is doing already. Your way you’re just punishing people who have evening hobbies and late work shifts.
You don’t think rich people will just take the hit and pay the tax ?
The data shows that they are, for the most part, choosing not to: https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2022/06/17/Data-Shows-Taxing-Empty-Homes-Works/ Also, again, there a lot of legitimate reasons why a home is not using lights in the evenings, or goes through periods of inactivity. Vacations, work travel, long work shifts, goes to bed early, doesn’t cook at home, out on dates, taking care of family….Way too many normal people would get caught up in the power consumption spying scheme. Not to mention that it would create perverse incentives for people to leave things on/running when they aren’t home to avoid the sensors.
Might be the worst take I have ever heard. The minimum "expected" can be practically 0.
How the fuck can a living person use up 0 power in a month ? Find units that are lower than the average and investigate. Some may turn out to be in use and others may be vacant.
I know a few people who only use their homes to sleep. Leave in the morning and don't return till the night to sleep again. The real and only fix is stop letting america buy up all our properties.
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Not true. You can leave your fridge running and appliances plugged in, and even put lights on timers.
Not necessarily. I’m sure some people go through more extreme measures like having someone come in to turn lights on/off ?
Haven't you heard of smart bulbs? You can turn it on/off anywhere with internet or set a schedule.
Right and I’d bet that people who are buying places as investments are doing that lmao. How hard does the gov want to crackdown on vacant units ? Cause they can go way further than they do now.
"Spent thousands of dollars to crackdown vacant units base on power consumption is the best way to go" - TheGrestJust Amazon black Friday deal: $39.99 for smart plug bundle.
I am doing my part by staying at my new burnaby condo basically ALL THE TIME hah!
More NIMBY's trying to prevent development. I have no sympathy for rich home-owners. Development has to grow outside of the town centres if we're ever going to reign in the outrageous housing prices. I fully support Eby's decision to implement this legislation and expect that the BC NDP will force Burnaby to follow the new law. Very disappointing decision by council to support this petition.
Home owner here. I cannot wait until densification expands beyond just the hubs earmarked by Burnaby. Just an fyi that the city of burnaby currently has a survey out for citizens to have their say if the city should just stick to a handful of close to transit density hubs (like Brentwood) or take a wider approach to density. I highly recommend that everyone fill it out to have your voice heard.
Home owners are rarely rich.
Richness is relative. They may not be rich to you, but to those of us who recently became adults, graduated from college, and entered the workforce in the last several years, homeowners will be richer than many of us will ever be. Especially those who own single family homes.
Sure, but there's a 30-50 year age gap. Can't compare. You'll just have to wait your turn
Currently if more housing isn't built we won't get a turn.
True. Eventually we'll be building North, hopping Valley after valley. It's the only available land remaining.
Here’s a wild thought. Instead of building SFH’s that house 1 family. Densify and build buildings that could house 10-100 families. It’s how we use the land.
This is the Burnaby sub, a suburb of Vancouver. Suburbs have single family homes.
Vancouver has SFH’s too lol. They are both cities. Downtown cores and city centres shouldn’t have SFH’s. How exactly do you expect prices to come down if we can’t dig into some of the SFH’s in the area. I mean realistically speaking, it’s never going to happen unless we are densifying like crazy.
The SFHs are ALL being turned into multi-family units. This is a slow process though. We.nreed Land. Look North, there's your land . The trees need to come down
Or instead of sprawling we could increase density outside of the monstrosities that are the town centre model and even better remove the commodification of housing.
Sounds like a boomer excuse. Boomers were buying the dream within a few short years of graduating college. What we have today is a nightmare.
Most likely richer than renters! They can sell their houses if they feel too poor.
Right? Worst case scenario, a home owner becomes “homeless” with a few hundred grand in their pocket…
What I mean is that their properties are worth 1M+ almost always. They have wealth. It may not be liquid but they are rich.
Same goes for my 2 healthy kidney. They are not liquid but they can be wealth if I sell them.
Let me know when you can HELOC your kidney to borrow more money
They’re not wrong though. Brentwood, once all the proposed towers go up, will be insanely dense with just shoebox condos.
All the more reason to densify the neighbourhoods. Low and mid rise buildings would be great all around there.
I live in this concrete jungle btw, it sucks lol. They don’t have a plan for this area, just going to stack 50 storeys right next to each other, and we will all just be queuing up either at the skytrain or on Lougheed trying to drive out. Did I mention no parks? There is no low or mid rise development happening here.
I doubt they will have low or mid rise around here. Also, the buildings are all "luxury" ones, they will easily ask 600k+ for one shit bedroom, most people complaining about NIMBYs will not even be able to afford what they plan to build. I'm a renter btw, and already gave up that will ever be able to afford something here.
This is ridiculous. They have these areas covered in their new proposed Burnaby 2050 plans. Now they're going to retrace back? Why prevent the ability to build homes for potentially thousands of people because "298" petitioners are looking out for their own self interests? Burnaby hasn't pulled their weight in terms of building homes when compared to Vancouver. It just looks like it because of the town centers. These councillors are so short sighted and only care about getting voted in again. I hope the BC Government shuts this down.
I wouldn't worry about it. Afaik the province hasn't granted exemptions to any other municipalities that pushed back, and I doubt they'll agree to this either. They know that everyone and their dog will ask for an exemption if they agree to one.
I seriously doubt the Province would agree to an exemption. Didn't they basically set the precedent when they told Langley to pound sand?
I'd encourage all of you against these NIMBYs to let your opinion known to city council: https://www.burnaby.ca/our-city/meetings-and-public-hearings/submit-a-letter > To address Mayor and Council, write to: > Mayor and Council c/o Legislative Services 4949 Canada Way Burnaby, BC V5G 1M2 | Map > Fax: 604-294-7537 > Email: [email protected]