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CITY OFVANCOUVER

Kensington-Cedar Cottage CityPlan Committee

Meeting Notes

Kensington-Cedar Cottage CityPlan Committee Meeting
Thursday, December 1, 2005
7:00 – 9:00 p.m.
Trout Lake Community Centre

Chairperson: John Buckberrough

In Attendance: 11 local residents
Ted Sebastian and Kirsten Baillie (COV, Planning)

1) Introductions and additions to the Agenda - John Buckberrough

2) Thin Streets (Ted Sebastian)

Ted presented the concept of Thin Streets where a typical flanking street Right-of-Way (ROW) of 66 feet could be divided in half; half the ROW could be used for street and the other half could be sold and redeveloped as a single family property. Thin Streets could be implemented on North/South streets which typically have less traffic and limited servicing (water pipes etc) under them. Money from the sale of the parcel could be put into an endowment fund and used for community priorities. In addition, Thin Streets could act as a traffic calming measure in neighbourhoods. Ted noted that the neighbourhood would approve the streets that could be converted to Thin Streets. He also noted that servicing and street patterns impact the potential to implement the Thin Streets program on all streets and that atypical blocks present additional problems. Ted also noted that inequity would exist in neighbourhoods where Thin Streets could be done more easily and in east side versus west side situations where land values were different.

The City Plan Committee discussed the idea and highlighted that it would be difficult to implement in neighbourhoods where parking is limited. Ted noted that creating Thin Streets removes three parking spots but creates two so that there would be minimal impact on parking.

Action(s) Committee consider writing a letter to the City requesting that Thin Streets be considered in their neighbourhood.

3) Kingcrest Park Celebration (Liz Jang)

Liz provided an overview of the celebration which consisted of some speeches, face painting, and games to celebrate the park improvements and playground.

4) Broadway and Commercial Skytrain Station- Community Outreach Space (Chris Taulu)

Chris indicated that the Community Policing Centre had signed a contract with Translink to use a space at Broadway and Commercial as a Community Outreach office. Although the space is to be called a Community Outreach space the police and Sky Train police will use the space. In addition, the KCC Community Policing and Grandview Woodlands will each use the space once a week which will increase the police presence in the area.
Translink is providing computers, phones and furniture for the office.
Chris indicated that police presence is based on the number of 911 calls that originate from an area. KCC residents do not call the police often and as a result there is minimal police presence in KCC. Chris wants to encourage people to call 911 when there is a problem because it provides a formal record of problems in the area which in turn notifies the police that they need to increase the number of patrols through the area.

5) My Own Backyard MOBY (Jason)

Jason noted that there had been an increase in drug activity in the Broadway/Commercial area and he and his neighbours started calling the police on a regular basis. As a result there has been an increase in police presence in the area.
MOBY has recently submitted a change of use application to the City and once that gets approved MOBY will conduct an outreach campaign to encourage people that had expressed interest in the garden to get involved again.

6) Workshop with Ian Lockwood, Transportation Planner, Glatting & Jackson, Palm Beach Florida-January 2006 (Kirsten)

Previously the KCC CityPlan Committee allocated $500 to Ian Lockwood to give a one day workshop on traffic calming. However, he was unable to attend and currently Kirsten is trying to reschedule the workshop for January. Kirsten asked if the CityPlan Committee would be interested in allocating $500, from their 2006 budget, to have Lockwood come.
The committee indicated that they would like to have Lockwood come however they would like to pay for him out of their 2005 budget.

Action- Kirsten to investigate if it would be alright if $500 from the 2005 budget could be used to pay for Lockwood.

7) 2006 Traffic Signal Report (Peter/Kirsten)

Kirsten presented the list of problem intersections in KCC and asked the committee to indicate if there were any more intersections to add and to rank the worst intersections.

Action : Peter, and his groups, will report back to Edna with a list and ranking of problem intersections. Kirsten will e-mail the group with more information with regards to what information Edna is looking for.

8) KCC City Plan Meeting Schedule

Meeting Schedule (Thursdays)

February 2, 2006
April 6, 2006 (ACM)
June 1, 2006
September 7, 2006
October 5, 2006
December 7, 2006

9) KCC Annual Community Meeting April 2006 (John)

John indicated that Cathy had suggested bringing in a speaker Jim Diers to talk at the ACM. Diers is from Seattle and was the first director of the Seattle Department of Neighbourhoods and now works at the University of Seattle but remains very involved with promoting asset-based community development. Cathy says that he is an excellent speaker and he might be able to provide KCC with some energy and insight into how to keep the momentum going for community development projects. He charges $1000 to speak but the City might be interested in having him speak and so could cover some of the costs.
The committee was interested in having him speak but they did not want to loose the original format of the ACM and wanted to ensure that the event continued to focus on KCC.
Gordon Price might be a good local person to ask to speak at the event.

Action: Kirsten will investigate the possibility of bringing Jim Diers up to speak and provide more information on the cost.

10) Flyer/Insert in KCC Neighbour (John/Kirsten)

Kirsten asked if the committee thought it would be a good idea to advertise for the ACM in the Neighbour newspaper and if the timing of distribution would be appropriate.
Donna indicated that there would be a newspaper and that production would start in January and that there will be an issue out in March in time to advertise for the ACM.
Distribution may be an issue since the Newspaper is only distributed to houses and the newsletter was sent to apartment buildings.

11) Placemaking Workshop- December 16, 2005 12:30 to 1:45 at City Hall (Kirsten)

Kirsten told the committee that two principles from the New York based group Project for Public Places would be giving a presentation at City hall about how to make vibrant public places. The presentation is open to the public and residents are encouraged to come.

12) Update on 1350 Kingsway-destroyed in a fire (Kirsten)

Kirsten indicated that the property owners on either side of 1350 Kingsway are not owned by the same property owner. However, the size of the lot is large enough to accommodate underground parking however, as of yet no developer has submitted an application to redevelop the site.

The next CityPlan Committee Meeting: Thursday February 2, 2006 at 7:00pm at the Trout Lake Community Centre, Rm. 201.

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