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Creating EcoDensity

Posted by: Tim Halbur

22 August 2009 - 5:00am

The City of Vancouver, B.C. is shifting its focus away from skyscrapers and condos and into more "hidden" and "invisible" ways of creating density like laneway housing.

Planning Director Brent Toderian talks about the difficulty of convincing people that density isn't scary.

"Talking about density in cities is not easy," he says. "It's not easy politically, it's not easy culturally." In fact, he says "the so-called 'D' word" is often the third rail of local politics—the issue that no one wants to touch—but that as long as it’s done right, density doesn’t have to be controversial.

"When folks suggested height or were concerned about height," Toderian says of the community meetings he's attended, "I often pointed out to them that the initiative was not called EcoHeight… And often individuals are more sensitive to height than they are to density."

Full Story: The E Word
Source: Granville Online, August 19, 2009
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Short of erasing existing political and jurisdictional boundaries, citizens and officials need to develop the capacity to work across boundaries according to the "problem-sheds" of the land and water issues we face in the 21st century.
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