Come Out and See the Latest Plans!

This just in from Mark Sager at Bosa:

If you would like to see our revised plans for the re-development of the Lynn Valley Shopping Centre please join us Thursday September 12th at 7 pm. in the former Zeller's space. Please enter using the exterior doors on the west side of the building (across from Safeway).
Thank you and I sincerely hope you will like and support the new plan.

Best regards
Mark Sager

Crime in North Vancouver

One of the biggest claims made by the anti-highrise crowd is that more people living in Lynn Valley will mean a skyrocketing crime rate.  Often this claim is accompanied by the assertion that crime in North Vancouver has doubled or tripled in the last (insert arbitrary number of) years.

In a nutshell, the basis premise of the anti-development crowd is that any person who might choose to move to Lynn Valley, except those who buy single family detached homes, are criminals.

To start this discussion, let's begin by looking at the claims that crime is already out of control in North Vancouver. A handy tool for that is Statistics Canada's Crime Severity Index.

In a nutshell, the CSI allows you to compare different towns and cities in a consistent manner.

The Crime Severity Index (is) a new tool for measuring police-reported crime in Canada that for the first time tracks changes in the severity of crime, not just volume.The report also examines how crime is measured in Canada, as well as recent improvements to statistics on crime that are gathered from the police.

Nationwide the overall CSI for 2010 was 82.7.  For the District it was the remarkably low 48.9.

In other words, there is really not much crime in the District of North Vancouver, although in the District we do skew towards violent crime compared to the City.

And, if you compare it to other municipalities that sit around 90,000 people you'll see that even within similarly sized places we're sitting in the lower end of the scale.

Source: Crime Severity Index values for 238 police services policing communities over 10,000 population, 2010

Thanks for your patience

We're back after a couple of weeks filled with life and business, all of which left no time for this side project.

First up - will a few more people turn Lynn Valley into the Crime Capital of Canada?

We Get Letters!

We've added a page for letters.  Not so much letters raving about this site - and we've had a few - but a place for letters to politicians, to the North Shore News, to the Outlook.

It's important for all of us to understand that we're part of a large group of Lynn Valleyites who understand that it's time to revitalize and invigorate this community; that there are fiscal and corporate realities involved in this process; that really tall buildings do mean the downfall of civilization; and that new people moving here are not all criminals, drug addicts, and "renters."

In particular it's important to understand that the lack of pro-development Letters in the local news media does not mean that people aren't writing them - it just means that they're not being published.

Today we kick off our Letters page with three letters to the North Shore News that you haven't been able to read.

Your submissions, to politicians, to the local media, and to us, are heartily encouraged!

Target is Coming to Lynn Valley! Well, Actually not.

One of the ongoing rumours around Lynn Valley Centre is that Target will be taking over the old Zellers space.

Today I received confirmation from Bosa Developments that this is not true.

Looking at the size and configuration of the Zellers space, and the limited amount of parking around it, I'd be hard pressed to think of a large retailer that would be interested.

Large retail these days is in the Big Box model, which wants a lot more floor space than Lynn Valley Centre can offer, and enough parking to handle a clientèle that's drawn from a region, not just a neighbourhood.  Although Target is opening some small stores - small being 125,000 sq ft - those stores are designed for urban areas with high population densities.

Looking at the major retailers who are moving into Canada, it's pretty clear that none of them are too likely to see Lynn Valley Zellers space as a priority location.

Will There Really be FIVE THOUSAND people moving into Lynn Valley?

Short answer: maybe some day.

Long answer: the proposed plans suggest an increase in population over the next twenty years.

Yes. Twenty years.

So it's not sensible to paint a picture of thousands of people arriving overnight and overwhelming transit, roads, parks, and schools.

And most of that new residential development is expected to be town houses and low-rise development, not towers.

Regardless of what a twenty year plan might suggest, the proposals currently on the table (Bosa and Safeway)  have asked for two 6 floor towers, one 14 floor, and two 22 floor buildings, with just over 600 residential units.  At current family sizes for the DNV of 3.1, that might add 1800 people, not  5000.

Let's Bring Lynn Valley Back To Life!

Every time that I drive by the closed stores at the Safeway end of Lynn Valley Centre I get worried.

In cities and towns all over North America we've seen similar scenes - one business closes, then another, then a third, then a whole nieghbourhood.

Lynn Valley is on the edge of that sort of collapse, with Zellers gone, and an empty library building beside it, and two or three empty spaces at any time inside the Mall.

Now Safeway has been bought by Sobeys, and it's anyone's guess how long it will be before the Eastern owners decide that our seventies supermarket is an underperformer and closes that too.

Already most people in Lynn Valley make two or three trips each week to shop elsewhere - there are simply too many things that aren't available here.  Those trips become habit, and going to the local mall becomes just one thing too much to bother with.

The truth of the matter is that the centre of Lynn Valley is old, tired, and in desperate need of redevelopment.

Right now the District of North Vancouver is part way though a process of consulting with anyone and everyone to get ideas on what direction that development should take.

At the same time there are a group of people who are adamant that any development above four stories is too much, that any new influx of residents are too many, and that anything that significantly alters the existing Lynn Valley Centre is an affront to their ideas of community and culture.

What I've tried to do here is counter the mis-information and fear-mongering that has characterized the anti-development groups.  What I have tried to do is offer facts, links to source materials, and ideas that acknowledge the reality of the commercial development process, while still encouraging everyone to explore the ideas and speak their piece.

I absolutely want informed contributions to add to what's on the site.  I'd love for some meetings to be arranged for people who like the idea of re-inventing and revitalizing Lynn Valley.

And if someone wants to register a domain name, or print pamphlets, that's good too!

Next up for me, when time permits, are some of those automated e-mail forms so that we can also blitz the elected officials.

Barry Rueger
Lynn Valley resident
barry.rueger@gmail.com