Vancouver’s New Community Plans

At the City of Vancouver, we’re consistently working on improving neighbourhoods and building a better city for our residents and businesses by thinking about today and looking ahead to tomorrow.

Community plans are important road maps that provide clear but flexible frameworks to guide positive change and development in neighbourhoods over a period of approximately 20-30 years.

Each plan considers long-range and shorter-term goals and work within broader objectives established for the entire city and at regional and provincial levels. A community plan also recognizes the parts of the community valued by its citizens, and addresses the specific issues and initiatives of each area.

Community plans are policy documents that provide guidance and direction on a variety of topics, including: land use, urban design, housing, transportation, parks and public spaces, social planning, cultural infrastructure, heritage features and community facilities.

Plans knit together a range of city-wide policies into a comprehensive planning program, while responding to the unique characteristics of a neighbourhood.

Plans in the works

In the spring of 2012 the City will launch three new Community Plan processes in Grandview-Woodland, Marpole, the West End. A fourth neighbourhood planning program, for the Downtown Eastside, is also currently underway.

The new Plans were endorsed by City Council in July 2011 (54kb) and will incorporate a series of improvements identified through a research and review process that took place between fall 2010 and spring 2011. In particular, the new plans will:

• do a better job of balancing city-wide (as well as global and regional) challenges with neighbourhood perspectives
• offer opportunities for deeper, more diverse forms of public engagement
• better manage development pressures and priority setting for public amenities
• make clear and effective plans for everyone in a timely, efficient way

More details

In the fall of 2011, City staff developed a preliminary General Terms of Reference for the three community plans in the West End, Marpole, and Grandview-Woodland. This document was created with input from organizations in these communities; city-wide groups; and civic advisory committees.

As a framework document, it outlines the key principles and products that will be common to all three planning processes. Each Terms of Reference document will be customized with initial outlines of key assets, issues and engagement opportunities that are unique to each neighbourhood. This work is currently underway.

Council report, March 28, 2012, Terms of Reference (2.29mb)

Results of the Enhancing Community Plans review and past work

Community Planning 101: History and approach of community planning in Vancouver (218kb)