Neighbourhood group concerned new development could make Commercial/Broadway more congested

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VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Three residential towers, a grocery store, and a childcare facility are just some of the features of a proposed development for the site of the Safeway at Commercial Drive and Broadway in Vancouver.

The plan for 1780 East Broadway has now gone to City Hall as a rezoning application, but members of a local neighbourhood group don’t like what they’re seeing.

“It’s an enormous disappointment to us. The city is planning on increasing the densification of Grandview-Woodland with no accompanying increase in amenities, no increase in green space, which is already a huge deficiency in the neighbourhood,” says Dorothy Barkley with the Grandview-Woodland Area Council.

And even though the application was made months ago, Barkley says she didn’t know about it until this week.

“There will be, with over 500 condos, 160 rental units, many, many cars that will be added to what is already one of the busiest intersections in the city.”

She’s concerned about an already-busy area becoming even more congested, and doesn’t think the transit hub will serve people living there.

“I think that’s a fallacy because it cannot handle the number of people using transit right now,” she says. “They have to use stanchions and have these great long s-curving lines, queues of people to try and manage the volume that’s currently there.”

Barkley says the 24, 27, and 30 storey towers may look like “warts on a nose,” and says she prefers mid-rise buildings instead. “I think it promises to be an enormous debacle.”

She says she would have liked the city to continue with the plan that was already in place for the area.

“The city seems to be overreaching in so many ways from the community plan for Grandview-Woodland,” Barkley says. “And the community spent years developing that plan and it seems as though it’s simply being overlooked. The city says that it is conforming to the plan, but it isn’t.”

Rachel Harrison, a Rezoning Planner with the city, says the application was received on June 12, 2019 and staff have started their review.

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