Vancouver planner sets sights on four areas.

Brian Jackson “hit the ground running” when he joined the city as its general manager of planning and development in September, but he said his familiarity with Vancouver helped his fast start.

Jackson lives in Yaletown and typically walks to work across the Cambie bridge or takes the Canada Line. (He owns an Acura, but he noted its mileage was at 31,000 kilometres at the beginning and end of 2012.)

Over the past few months, he’s gotten to know staff, functions of departments, issues in more details, developers and community groups.

Asked about this year’s priorities, Jackson listed several: “We have four area plans coming up in 2013 — Marpole, Downtown Eastside, Grandview Woodlands and the West End. So we’re going to be bringing those forward by the end of the year. Those processes are well underway. We have three implementation strategies we have to follow up on — previous plans that have been adopted — in Norquay, Mount Pleasant and Cambie. We have special studies that are underway for the Pearson site on Cambie and Oakridge at Cambie and 41st. We have policy studies that are underway for the viaducts, Northeast False Creek, We have to respond and to provide a regional context statement in association with the new regional growth strategy that’s been approved by Metro Vancouver and a new sign bylaw for the city. And then we have our applications — a lot of applications.”

Topical article in the Globe & Mail stemming from the sale of the Waldorf Hotel site: 

City staff seek bonusing study.

The City of North Vancouver may soon look to outside expertise to help get its density bonusing policy in order.

The process by which the city trades extra development density in exchange for community amenities has been a frequent point of contention, both in the community and at the council table, during recent years. City staff are now recommending the city hire an outside consultant to help put together a study meant to tackle a number of issues raised at a public workshop on density bonusing held in the fall.

Among the more frequent critiques at the workshop: that the process lacks transparency and creates confusion; that council goes overboard with density in order to secure community amenities like affordable housing or childcare space; and that there is no benchmark to measure the value of density bonuses, project-to-project to make sure the city is getting a “fair deal.”