Climate change, future growth centre 30-year vision for West End waterfront

Vancouverites are being asked to weigh in on a sweeping, 30-year plan to revitalize the West End waterfront, while buttressing it against the effects of climate change.

The City of Vancouver released its draft concept design for the area on Tuesday, and is inviting public feedback until Nov. 26 on the plan.

The plan covers the coastal area from Burrard Bridge to Stanley Park, with the aim of preparing it for sea level rise, population growth and aging infrastructure.

“It’s not so much a redevelopment as an enhancement of what we already have. So it’s a really amazing public space, we have beautiful beaches, public parks, this is about making them better, and there hasn’t been a ton of work done to that area in 30-40 years,” ABC Vancouver city councillor Peter Meiszner said.

“If you look at the buildings like the English Bay bathhouse, it’s very, very old. And they need upgrades, they need new washrooms and new change rooms, and they also could be underwater if we have storm surges with climate change.”

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The plan includes a variety of new facilities for park users, including washrooms, concessions, an amphitheatre at Sunset Beach, a covered skate park and a splash pad.

It also proposes dramatic and ambitious changes to the landscape meant to prepare the area for an anticipated sea level rise of one metre in the next 80 years.

“That can be compounded by winter, high king tides, onshore winds and coastal ocean surge, and we’ve seen that with some of the damage to our seawalls, around Stanley Park and False Creek, the other beaches and the barge that was on the beach a few years ago,” said Vancouver Park Board director of planning and park development Tiina Mack.

In response, the plan proposes raising the entire beach by a metre of its own, an idea Mack acknowledged will require lots of detailed planning, and even more funding.

“Notionally what it does mean is filling the lands, finding rock, sand soil to raise the land so they’re above that seal-level rise,” she said.

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In addition to raising the beach, the plan proposes replacing the solid sea wall in some areas with a raised platform.

It also proposes the creation of several offshore habitat islands for local wildlife that will also serve to help protect the foreshore from storms.

“Definitely looking to naturalize these shorelines so that they will be more resilient to those onshore winds and raging storms that we have in the winter months,” Mack said.

Meiszner said the plan will also touch on some transportation issues, including “reconfiguring” the area around Denman and Davie streets to improve traffic flow.

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The plan proposes resuming two-way traffic on the stretch of Beach Avenue exiting Stanley Park — a proposal that has already stirred some controversy.

“Right now there is a lot of conflicts between cyclists and pedestrians and also of vehicle traffic,” Meiszner said.

“So we are looking at potentially making Beach Avenue two-way west of Denman street, and that’s something I know people have been asking for, as well as accommodating the active transportation lanes.”

The city has allocated $10 million to the first phase of the plan. The full cost of implementing the decades-long vision remains unclear, but will come from the city’s annual capital plans.

Once public consultation has been processed, the draft final plan will head to the Vancouver Park Board for approval next spring, followed by city council.