Boston’s blue collar, in your face attitude versus Vancouver’s highly stylized, flashy style applies to more than the play of the two cities’ hockey teams. The differences in approach also summarize development priorities in each city.
As one of the fastest growing cities in the world, Vancouver has taken a highly regulated approach to ensuring access and affordability along its prized waterfront, according to Brent Toderian, Vancouver’s planning director. Toderian spoke at a morning gathering in Boston sponsored by the Boston Harbor Association celebrating the 25th anniversary of harbor cleanup efforts and focused on the future of the Hub’s waterfront.
Toderian said Vancouver’s efforts to regulate both the style and proximity of new development to the waterfront has resulted in the collection of very modern, glass, steel and concrete structures that’s very different from Boston’s more down-to-earth brick and beam historic construction along its waterfront.
He also said that given Vancouver’s relative lack of public funding for development, the city has relied upon a combination of private development money and city regulations to coax more than $600 million in public and city improvement out of new development.
In his experience, developers have been surprisingly willing to include public improvements as part of their projects, Toderian said.
Notable Boston developer Don Chiofaro and the audience seem particularly surprised by Toderian’s figures and Vancouver’s markedly different approach to its waterfront development.
In Vancouver, residential towers step down to the waterfront and are pushed back. The philosophy in the Canadian city that towers provide views and property values, but are intended to "float out of view" of pedestrians walking by, Toderian said. That stands in contrast to Boston’s philosophy which relies upon residential and commercial density along the waterfront.
Toderian also said that moving forward, Vancouver is trying to adopt a more "play, work, live" attitude, versus the current "live, work and play" philosophy.
