Video of the day: the Happy Megatowers Polka
Peter Waldkirch brings an accordion
From last night’s public hearing on 1780 East Broadway, the rezoning for the so-called “Safeway megatowers” project. Council heard the application and asked questions, and got through the first 28 speakers - but there’s more than 100 remaining. The public hearing will resume on June 10.
Video of Peter Waldkirch’s full comments:
My name is Peter Waldkirch. I'm here to support this proposal.
I'm also here to express my disappointment with it. I heard about megatowers, which surprised me because here in Vancouver we tend not to be very ambitious about this sort of thing. So I looked up this proposal, and sure enough, I saw the tallest one was only 44 storeys tall. That's not a megatower, that's just a normal tower, especially when you look at the context of what's going on in the region.
In Burnaby they just approved a 72- and an 80-storey tower development. In Surrey they're building 60 and 65-storey towers. I actually think it's completely bizarre and backwards that we're building and approving taller, bigger, denser, more housing in the suburbs than we are here in the core of the city.
That doesn't make sense to me. That's not how cities are supposed to work, especially at a location like this, which is right by one of the busiest transit stations in the entire country. Even if you do approve this, you're going to be significantly underbuilding at this site.
I know you’ve got a mega-hearing ahead of you, so I thought I would try to mix things up a little bit and present to you my feelings in the form of a song. I call this the Happy Megatowers Polka.
Peter re-recorded the song at home, with subtitles: