Vancouver city councillor calls for fewer studies, more realistic and timely shovel-ready projects in next capital plan

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The motion highlights several pressures facing the City, including aging infrastructure such as century-old pipes and community centres dating back to the 1940s to 1980s. Rising construction costs and declining municipal revenues from private development contributions — due to both economic conditions and new housing policies — add to the challenge of funding such investments.

Kirby-Yung asserts the City must adopt a more “nimble, outcome-driven approach,” emphasizing projects that can be funded and finished quickly. Smaller upgrades — such as refreshed playgrounds, new dog parks, or repairs to local facilities — can be just as impactful to quality of life as high-profile projects, she emphasizes.

The motion also underscores disparities between neighbourhoods in access to amenities, including ice rinks, fire halls, and community centres. An equitable capital planning process, she asserts, is needed to close these gaps.

Once approved, City staff will be directed to prioritize the renewal of aging, end-of-life facilities and infrastructure, focusing on projects that are fully or substantially funded and can realistically be completed within the four-year capital cycle. City staff will also be tasked with preparing a comprehensive inventory of community facilities and infrastructure — detailing their age, condition, and expected lifespan — to support “evidence-based decision-making” when City Council finalizes the 2027-2030 capital plan in late 2025.

One new major project expected to be included in the upcoming capital plan is the complete replacement of the aging, storm-damaged Kitsilano Outdoor Pool. The potential plan includes the possibility of building the new pool on a different footprint within Kitsilano Beach Park, further inland from the shoreline. Preliminary planning is already underway for the potential design, which could carry a price tag well in excess of $100 million. To help fund the project, the City may add a plebiscite question to the October 2026 civic election ballot, seeking voter approval to borrow money.

No more “fantasyland”?

By deprioritizing planning studies and initiatives where funding is uncertain or unlikely in the near term, the motion effectively shifts City staff’s resources away from extensive planning for costly, long-term projects that may not be immediately essential. Instead, more of the City’s capital funding would be directed toward practical, achievable upgrades that address pressing deficiencies. This means less spending on lengthy design processes, contracting third-party consultancy companies, and conducting lengthy studies and reports, and more investment in delivering basic, tangible improvements that residents can see and use sooner.

While Vancouver Park Board commissioners approved the West End Waterfront Plan strategy in April 2024, it was ultimately controversially rejected in May 2024 by the ABC Vancouver party-led majority in City Council, which has final say over the Park Board’s capital spending.

City and Park Board staff’s joint planning process for the West End Waterfront Plan first began in 2019. Through many phases over the long term, the strategy called for a complete redesign of the English Bay Beach and Sunset Beach Park areas, with new purpose-built features, spaces, and amenities for recreation, active transportation, events, and other community uses.

In 2023 dollars, the entire waterfront master plan carried a preliminary cost estimate of $300 million to implement. Leading up to the decision, at least $2.6 million was spent on contracting landscape architectural design companies to conduct the master plan work, not including municipal staff time and resources for their portion of the work, conduct public consultation, and craft the 158-page final vision document.

“Listening to this report, it appears to be a fantasy. I would love that we could achieve this, but we don’t live in fantasyland,” said Kirby-Yung at the time City Council rejected the West End Waterfront Plan.

“Sometimes we need to be the adults in the room, and I am not comfortable approving one third-of-a-billion-dollar plan when we know there’s no line of sight to that funding.”

Instead of the significant financial resources that would have to be expended on the West End Waterfront Plan, the majority in City Council asserted there was a competing and more pressing need to focus available resources and attention toward upgrading or replacing Vancouver’s aging and seismically deficient community and aquatic centres and other recreational facilities.

Even in 2022, based on an assessment by Park Board staff, 11 community centres were identified to be either in “poor” or “very poor” condition, and will require major reinvestments for renovations or replacements over the next 10 to 20 years. Some of these facilities could be 90 years old by the time they are replaced, at which point additional aging facilities would also need renewal.

That list of 11 community centres did not include Britannia Community Centre, which was previously eyed for a major redevelopment project to renew and drastically expand its community and recreational facilities.

The 17-acre cluster of Britannia civic facilities is located just west of Commercial Drive at Napier Street in the Grandview-Woodland neighbourhood, which entail 1970s-built buildings containing Britannia Secondary School, Britannia Elementary School, Britannia Community Centre, Britannia Gym, Britannia Rink, Britannia Pool, and Vancouver Public Library’s Britannia branch.

Given the size of the redevelopment and the wide range of major different uses, it was originally envisioned the new buildings, facilities, and green spaces would be constructed across three phases over 10 to 20 years spanning multiple capital budget cycles. For the first major step after the concept approval, the aim was to begin the rezoning process in 2019 and detailed design work in 2020.

But over seven years after the redevelopment’s master plan approval, no progress has been made towards achieving the required rezoning, never mind reaching construction readiness. Funding is also currently unavailable, and there is no established timeline for the project.

Even in 2018 at the time of the master plan’s approval by the Vision Vancouver-led City Council, the campus-like Britannia redevelopment carried an estimated construction cost of up to $490 million, including $280 million for the various new community and recreational facilities, $25 million for the new childcare facilities, $130 million for a significant affordable housing component built above the new community and recreational facility buildings, and $55 million for major new and improved parks and public spaces across the site. Following years of rampant inflation in the market prices for construction materials, labour, and equipment, these estimated costs are far from current.

Leading up to the 2018 decision, the municipal government also made not insignificant investments toward coming up with the master plan, including hiring consultants. With each passing year, such plans become more outdated.

City of Vancouver staff also previously embarked on preliminary planning work on transforming the 8.6-acre Vancouver City Hall campus into the “Civic District,” with a renewal of the seismically-deficient heritage City Hall building, the creation of new major public and cultural spaces, and significant new building developments totalling 1.152 million sq. ft. of floor area.

The new buildings at the Civic District could include new City Hall office space to end the municipal government’s current significant annual operating costs on leases for office space, and consolidate City staff teams into an on-campus hub. There would also be commercial office, retail, restaurant, and hotel space and possibly residential uses — all leasable uses to provide the City with a new substantial revenue stream.

But the upfront capital costs of construction would be highly substantial, in the range of at least hundreds of millions of dollars if not far more. If the Civic District proceeds, which would also provide the Central Broadway business district with a new anchor of activity and a community hub, it is unclear how it would be funded.

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