The Metropolitan Vancouver Region is expected to have a population of over 3.3 million
within the next 25 years. As a designated growth concentration area, the City of
Vancouver is expected to absorb 160,000 people by 2021. While existing plans will
allow for future high density developments, 70% of the City's residential areas remain
zoned explicitly for single-family use. The intensification of these single-family
neighbourhoods is viewed as a way of using the existing housing stock and the existing
residential land more efficiently. The intensification techniques that are appropriate for
single-family neighbourhoods include: conversion, infill and redevelopment.
Planners think that intensification efforts will not only alleviate some of the detrimental
impacts of sprawl, but will also provide a more diversified housing stock that will be
more appropriate for the needs of an increasingly complex society. Unfortunately, some
existing residents have been extremely vocal in opposition to any intensification efforts in
their neighbourhoods. The residents claim that any intensification will disrupt the
character of their existing single-family neighbourhoods. While the arguments for
retaining exclusive single-family neighbourhoods are specious at best, the NIMBY
mentality of residents has often proved to be an effective form of opposition to
intensification efforts.
An approach for overcoming the NIMBY syndrome is a successful program of
community outreach. Community outreach attempts to minimize community opposition
and to rally support for the development within the community. Attention is focused on
the residents who have not already become opponents of the development. A successful
community outreach program will limit residents' factual misunderstandings and their
exaggerated fears about the project's potential impacts. Negotiations should be
undertaken with residents who are willing to compromise; residents who refuse to talk
cooperatively should not be brought into the problem-solving process.
Future plans for intensification must establish a sense of certainty in the way a
neighbourhood will change. The exaggerated sense of fear that residents have about the
potential changes in their neighbourhood is the biggest obstacle to overcome if the
Metropolitan Vancouver Region is to successfully implement an intensification program
into existing single-family neighbourhoods.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/9018 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Patrick, Lyndon Lee |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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