Detailed proposal to update Broadway Plan zoning
Currently, rezoning is required even for compliant projects
One of the key recommendations from the MacPhail Report was for city councils to focus more on city-wide plans and policies, instead of site-by-site public hearings and approvals.
City council approved the Broadway Plan policy in 2022, but didn't update the zoning. It's still illegal to build almost anything. Every project needs to get special permission through the slow and painful spot-rezoning process, which is basically asking the city to changes its laws for one specific site.
The city is now proposing to update its zoning for parts of the Broadway Plan area. Projects which comply with the zoning won’t have to apply for a spot rezoning, which can easily take more than a year. Instead, they can go directly to applying for a development permit. (People can still submit written comments about the development permit application.)
City staff have prepared a detailed plan for updating the city’s bylaws so that future projects wouldn’t have to go through the rezoning process. This is a major step forward.
That said, if you take a close look at the map, you can see that site-specific rezonings would still be required for high-rise projects in all the hatched areas, which is about half of the area that’s being rezoned.
The referral report is on the agenda for today’s council meeting.
Referral Report: Standardized Apartment Districts and City-Initiated Zoning Changes to Implement Broadway Plan and Cambie Corridor Plan. The entire report is 447 pages. It includes the following major appendices:
Appendix A (119 pages) - bylaws and district schedules for R3, R4, and R5. Half of the appendix is maps showing specific parcels which are being rezoned.
Appendix K (165 pages) - Design and Development Guidelines.
Appendix L (11 pages) - Summary of Economic Testing for R3 and R5 Districts in Broadway and Cambie. Blair Erb, Coriolis.
The proposed districts:
R3: allow low-rise apartment buildings up to six storeys.
R4: allow mid-rise apartment buildings up to about 12 storeys.
R5: allow high-rises up to about 15-22 storeys.
There’s three variants for both R3 and R5:
R3-1 and R5-1 are for the Cambie corridor.
R3-2 and R5-2 are for low-density areas in the Broadway corridor.
R3-3 and R5-3 are for apartment areas in the Broadway corridor.
I’m particularly interested in the R3 district and six-storey apartment buildings, since they should be faster to plan and build compared to high-rises. It still doesn’t look that easy: you can build a low-rise apartment building on a 50 x 100 lot, but the floor space is limited to 1.45 times the site area. To get more floor space, you need to assemble multiple lots, which is time-consuming.
The description in the R3 schedule doesn’t provide much explanation of the rules, which thus appear somewhat arbitrary. For example, for R3-2:
The Design Development Guidelines seem clearer. My guess is that they were written first, and then the specific regulations in the R3, R4, and R5 schedules were derived from the Design Development Guidelines.
Funding for infrastructure and amenities
Figuring out how to come up with the funding for municipal infrastructure and amenities is a major challenge.
City staff are preparing recommendations related to this challenge. From page 20:
The City’s financing growth framework will be updated in Q2 2026, where it is anticipated public benefits will be secured through new Amenity Cost Charges (ACCs). After the ACC is introduced, it’s also anticipated that any new applications within the City-initiated rezoning areas would be subject to an ACC.
And:
Approval of the recommendations will also lead to a substantial shift in how the City collects development contributions. While provisions for social and secured market rental housing have been incorporated into the proposed new zoning districts, the new process will significantly reduce the number of site-specific rezonings, which may lead to a reduction in provision of public benefits, through Community Amenities Contributions (cash or in-kind), secured by the City through development.
Staff are undertaking two streams of work related to the modernization of the City’s development contribution system: i) developing a city-wide Public Infrastructure Investment Framework (PIIF) to establish service levels that reflect the City’s financial capacity, and ii) conducting a comprehensive review of the City’s financing growth tools; and will bring forward recommendations for Council consideration in Fall 2025 and Spring 2026 respectively.
In addition, the City will continue to pursue advocacy through the Federation of Canadian Municipalities on modernization of the municipal growth framework to address the funding challenges associated with renewing and expanding infrastructure and amenities to support growth and build complete communities.
More
Previously: Proposal to update Broadway Plan zoning (March 2025)
Why does Vancouver have 895 zoning districts? Reilly Wood, January 2023.
Vancouver To Transform Development Process With Standardized Residential Zones. Howard Chai, Storeys.
Nearly 4,300 properties in Broadway Plan and Cambie Plan areas to be proactively rezoned by the City of Vancouver. Kenneth Chan, Daily Hive.
The opposition view: Mass rezoning proposed for tower zones in Broadway Plan and part of Cambie Corridor. Stephen Bohus, CityHallWatch.