Between The Bridges – June 4

Delegates to the last Neighbourhood Association meeting almost unanimously embraced the idea of a “Pop-Up Plaza” in Leg-in-Boot Square.

Evan Alderson (Regatta), chair of the Association’s Community Engagement Committee, brought details of a City proposal to revitalize the Square.

“There has been a long-standing neighbourhood regret that the original vision of Leg-in-Boot as the vital centre of the False Creek South community has never quite come to pass”, he said. 

“Now that dream is about to get a big boost from the City of Vancouver.” 

The Pop-Up program, designed to enhance the use of public lands by providing welcoming outdoor gathering places, has successfully expanded outdoor seating for neighbourhood residents and businesses elsewhere by re-claiming little used traffic lanes. It debuted in False Creek South last winter with the introduction of the “Rain-Friendly Plaza” under the Cambie Bridge. 

The Leg-In-Boot initiative came from Convivial owner Beth Dempster, who has a persistent interest in animating the Square and some experience trying to navigate opaque City processes. She and Trina Lee Ferris, a good friend of the Café, wondered if the City’s Pop-up Plaza Program might be a fit. 

Belinda Chan of VIVA Vancouver, the City’s “tactical urbanism and public space innovation platform” responded warmly to the enquiry. She found the idea attractive in part because the Square is already a designated public plaza, and the initial approval process can be shortened. As the program’s “Design-Build Coordinator”, she is moving ahead with planning and has already secured the approval of other City Departments.

Community support is important, and feedback is welcome before and throughout a trial installation. 

Part of that feedback at the Association meeting came from delegates representing two different enclaves around the Square but whose views differed from each other. After discussion, delegates overwhelmingly voted in favour of the proposal.

The early signs are promising. Beth has committed to take on some of the “stewardship” responsibilities expected of local businesses. By the time summer really begins there will be several mobility-access picnic tables and additional moveable furniture in the Square, along with signs requesting feedback as to whether the experiment is working well or might be improved. 

On a related issue, and as she did last year, Beth is scheduling a get-together on Wednesday, June 16, 5:30 in the Square for all those interested in planning and participating in summer activities there. The Neighbourhood Association has again offered a modest financial subsidy as needed, and assistance in finding volunteers.

It could be a busy summer!

Last month, RePlan had an introductory meeting with Theresa O’Donnell, the City’s new General Manager of Planning, Urban Design and Sustainability for the City. She expressed interest in touring False Creek South and some of the key sites identified as part of the community-based community plan that RePlan believes is consistent with the provisional principles Council unanimously approved in 2018.

Also last month, City Councillor Boyle’s motion to fast-track new 12-storey social housing developments – by not requiring rezoning in certain areas – was defeated: 7 to 3. Councillor Swanson – one of the three who voted in favour of this motion – explains her reasons in this article, noting that an average of only 400 social housing units open each year.

Read more and listen to Councillors Boyle and Fry (who voted against it) discussing this on CBC Radio. ** Note: the City’s definition of social housing requires that 30 percent of a building’s units house people earning between $55,000-$83,000/year (and the median income for renter households in Vancouver is roughly $50,000).

On June 23, a report is scheduled to go to Council that outlines City staff recommendations for the framework to achieve lease renewals for co-ops throughout Vancouver that are on leased municipal land. Check the City website to verify this report is on the agenda and to sign up if you are interested in speaking directly to Council.

In the April 9th issue of Between The Bridges, we wrote about a unique drama program at False Creek Elementary, run by Little Mountain Lion Productions, where the students in Divisions 1, 2 and 3 (Grades 6 and 7) were the playwrights and the Little Mountain Lion artists were the actors and directors/producers.

The theatre artists led the three classes in a playwriting workshop; the students then wrote their scripts and the artists put the plays together. Rehearsals of each play were held, via video, with the corresponding playwrights so the students could see their creations come to life and provide feedback.

The physically-distanced final productions were recorded and posted to the company’s social media accounts. You can see the wonderful results here on YouTube. 

The Neighbourhood Association’s Speaker Series takes to Zoom to explore Greening The Marina, a significant initiative at Spruce Harbour in using seawater for energy.

You can read about this project in the article below and can also see and participate in a full presentation through this link, which also includes the Zoom link itself:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/greening-the-marina-speaker-series-on-zoom-tickets-157733634547

Host for the session will be Yael Stav, the FCSNA’s Sustainability Chair, joined by UBC Environmental Science students who will present their research results.

Could we actually use the water of the Creek to heat our buildings? 

Yael Stav (Spruce Village) certainly thinks so. As she reported to the Neighbourhood Association’s June meeting, a project is on tap that would see thermal energy from seawater heat the central common area of one of our enclaves.

A year ago Yael, chair of the FCSNA’s Sustainability/Resilience Working Group, accepted an invitation from UBC’s Environmental Science faculty:  Propose a community-based project that would challenge their students to address “real world” environmental problems. 

Brainstorming ideas, the Working Group decided that our neighbourhood’s proximity to water  held promise for such a project, and that the enclave closest to the water is the one actually floating on it: the Greater Vancouver Floating Home Co-op (aka Spruce Harbour Marina; “the Marina” for short).

Designed around  a compact common area including showers, washers and dryers, sauna and shared kitchen and lounge -- all of them potential power hogs - the Marina’s clubhouse became the focus of the four students working on the project. Looking at all the existing technologies for generating renewable energy, they concentrated on those that harness ocean energy
 

Fortunately, they were working with resident Wendy Strom as the Marina’s project champion who provided information, communicated regularly with both students and residents and, developing her own enthusiasm, began to implement some energy-saving ideas that came up along the way. Wendy, Yael, and Working Group member Charlie Richmond (Henley Court) were also involved in regular discussions with the student group as they refined their ideas.

To the students (and their professors) the project was not just to generate possibilities but, as a practical matter, to discover what could work best in a complex local situation under constraints of cost, existing and new technologies, and possible development opportunities. Their final report in April offered a roadmap for renewable energy at the clubhouse. While every idea might not work, at least not at present, the important part was to identify a way forward.

To the Marina and the Working Group the lessons to be learned are both immediate and inspiring for the future. The path to sustainability involves doing what we can now, planning to do more in the future and seizing on imaginative opportunities as these arise. 

For our whole community, this also involves generating interest, sharing knowledge, and inspiring collective enthusiasm for necessary change. In reporting out on the detailed findings of this project on June 9, Yael and the students involved will take us further along that path.

 

For the next two years, Jessica Angel’s Voxel Bridge will augment the stern reality of Cambie Bridge concrete. The well-used neighborhood pathway under the bridge to shops and transit will take us right inside a giant work of 3D graphic art.

Likely striking to all, fascinating to some and mysterious to many, the artwork will certainly command attention as it is installed over the next few weeks. 

Infused with the spirit of digital possibility, the piece will combine visual transformation of the bridge understructure with virtual reality and online components, along the way referencing sustainability issues and the nearby Neighbourhood Energy Utility. 

In Biennale leader Barrie Mowat’s view, public art takes on the meaning of the place, and its reception contributes to that meaning. He also believes that works leave echoes once they go. If so, those of us who pass through it often may be haunted for a while. 

But at least, we may become more familiar with the lingo of an emerging digital world, like “blockchain” and “NFTs”.  We may even learn what a “voxel” is.

If you walk east along the seawall toward the pond, you might notice opposite the dog park a distinct pathway down to the Creek.

Clearly intended - and used - as a landing point for small boats, the well-cleared path allows kayakers and canoeists to paddle the Creek and stop for a visit to the park and all that is False Creek South. No mystery here, except for one: Whose work is this?

A few years ago, the Neighbourhood Association heard complaints about boaters removing  riprap --  the large rock or concrete material that supports shoreline structures. Like a seawall. Their objective, clearly, was to make a path for small boat access.

Now that we are all firmly settled into recycling, it may be hard to remember the “before time” and a bad idea that almost came true. 

As Beryl Wilson announced in The Creek newspaper of January 1990: “A majority of Council is pushing ahead with a scheme to construct a controversial $6 million white elephant called a ‘resource recovery plant’ on the CN railway flats just east of False Creek.” 

The blue box program was about to begin in single family neighbourhoods, but without a good recycling plan for multi-family housing and commercial addresses. The resource recovery plant was the “solution.” 

The City would truck unsorted household and commercial garbage of False Creek South, Fairview Slopes, the West End,  Downtown, and other addresses not part of the blue box system to a site off Terminal, between Main and Clark Drive. There, sorters working for a private company would retain anything of value for resale, with the rest off to the landfill. 

As Beryl marvelled: 
Imagine having to sort through a mixture that includes paper from offices, kitchen scraps from restaurants, oil, batteries and other industrial wastes; and everything from disposable diapers to newspapers, cans, bottles, and plastic from individual households.

The neighbourhoods protested, as did the City’s own engineering department, saying that it was not the time to rush ahead with an expensive untested project. With letters and calls to the Mayor and the six councillors who favoured the plant, the City agreed to what turned into two lively public meetings. Environmental groups protested as well, and David Suzuki promised solidarity by attending the meeting at Britannia. 

It didn’t take long for the City to change its mind. The March edition of The Creek duly reported  City Council’s vote to put the project “on hold.” 

 “On hold” lasted most of the decade until apartment recycling began in 1999 with pick ups by both city crews and private companies. In 2016, what is now Recycling BC took over collection of residential packaging and paper product recycling. According to an email from City Hall:

“This stewardship program is funded by businesses, like retailers, manufacturers and restaurants that supply packaging and paper products to BC residents. Homeowners [both single family and multi-family] don’t have to pay for recycling collection.”

Convivial Café’s community fridge sat dormant while the café was on reduced days/hours over the winter - but now with more regular hours (Wednesday-Saturday, 8:30-5:30  --  later and Sunday if the weather is nice), there is an opportunity to fill the fridge again.

Before we can accept much food, however, we are looking for volunteers to help with the project.   
 
The point of community fridges (at Convivial and elsewhere) is to address both food waste and food insecurity.  And many of our customers want to bring food to help others as much as to exchange foods that might otherwise go to waste. The question is, how do we make sure the food will get to people who can use it – rather than going to waste in the cafe’s fridge?

There are some possible answers to this question – and we would like to hear more. But all of them require people-power, including one-off assistance to get things going and/or ongoing support. 

If you would be willing to help out, please send me an email (*email is hidden, JavaScript is required*) or drop in for a chat at the café (afternoons are usually less busy) -- and let me know if you would like to be a friend of the fridge!

Between The Bridges welcomes readers’ contributions of story ideas, events of interest, original photographs, and completed articles relevant to the False Creek South Neighbourhood Association’s goal to “promote an economically, social and culturally diverse neighbourhood with a friendly, positive and vibrant sense of community”. For details go to: