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The District Planning Public Hearing is coming up next week, from May 28-30. At the public hearing, City Council will consider the proposed District Policy, 15 district plans, and geographic plans to be retired or amended. Members of the planning committee will also be registering to speak on behalf of The Garneau and will be asking Council to: Support increased density in the District Plan but direct administration to complete more nuanced planning in Garneau due to the unique pressures in our community that pushes primarily student housing and limits other demographics. There is a lot of student housing in Garneau and that will continue, but ensuring that housing supply accommodates other demographics is critically important for community vibrancy. Suggest that planning consider custom zoning to encourage family housing (we will present a definition) to achieve a target of 10% of the population as kids under 14 (it’s currently 6%). Suggest that further planning consider no boarding houses in the DC1 Heritage Area or currently zoned RS zones and consider limiting building form to row housing, duplexes, and fourplexes with a requirement for family amenities. In this way small pockets of housing in Garneau will continue to promote families, which are an integral and disappearing part of Garneau and were a key part of GARP (which is being repealed). Suggest that buildings within .8 km of Garneau School should have high density family units in accordance with guidelines adopted in other Canadian Cities such as Vancouver. This can be applied to smaller scale housing as well.
Check out our blog post for more details, including links to all the relevant agenda items and documents. This is a pivotal time for Garneau and it is of the utmost importance that community members sign up to speak at the upcoming public hearing to share the importance of keeping families, seniors, and a range of housing types (including small scale and multi-unit) in our community. Feel free to reach out to planning-committee@thegarneaucommunityleague.com with questions or to let us know if you’re planning to speak at the public hearing.
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