With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1510895
W henever people talk about the negative impacts they imagine from a new build- ing near them, whether it's a laneway house or a 60-storey tower, there's a short but explo- sive list of hot buttons. Number one: parking. Number two: how local services—from transit to sewers to hospitals—will get overwhelmed by all these new people. (Unless they're empty investor condos, in which case, that's also bad.) And somewhere near the top: The Dreaded Shadow. I remember listening once to a woman from Dunbar who almost started weeping as she catastrophized aloud to the audience that, if taller buildings were ever permitted on her street, the sidewalk would be permanently in shadow, which would mean there would be ice on it all winter, which would mean she'd likely slip and fall and break something. Others have talked about how they'll never be able to grow a tomato in their backyard again or how parks will become bleak, Arctic-like landscapes as they're cast into permanent shade by nearby tall buildings. One of the favourite visuals of groups opposed to density in recent years has been an image of a proposed tower casting an ominous shadow across the city for multiple kilometres. Vancouver, more than any other city in the region, has made shadow avoidance a pri- ority. (I checked with Surrey, Burnaby and Coquitlam and they all appear to have some kind of shadow policy, though far less prescriptive and more open to negotiation.) That's common for major cities as they start to see a big push upward. New York has had shadow poli- cies for 100 years, which is one of the reasons why many his- toric buildings there are stepped back on upper floors. But thoughts about shadows are morphing in many cities, with the issues of shade and light being reconsidered as we move into an era with a whole bunch of new world conditions. Climate change is heating up many cities to the point that they're appointing "shade czars" to make sure there are enough public spaces free of direct sunlight. The housing-shortage crisis has prompted a lot of re- thinking about whether losing dozens of potential homes is a good trade-off to get an extra 30 minutes of sun on a patch of park or street on a mid- winter afternoon. And there are new tools being developed that cities like San Francisco are using to assess not just whether there is a shadow at a particular point in the day, but also what the total amount of sun and shade is at various points around the Shadows of Doubt Anyone who has ever attended a city council meeting about a new development has probably heard the dreaded "S word." But perspectives around supposedly ominous shadows are beginning to change by Frances Bula L A N D VA LU E S ISTOCK ( the informer ) 16 BCBUSINESS.CA NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 SHADY TERRITORY Where does B.C.'s argument for shadow avoidance stand in the middle of a raging housing crisis?