The Broadway Plan is just a piece of the puzzle in Metro Vancouver's vision for regional growth, density

Debate over Vancouver's Broadway Plan has dominated the city's political discussion for several weeks, with everyone focusing on the potential changes to the stretch of land from Clark Drive to Vine Street, where the SkyTrain extension is under construction.

The first day of council debate happened Wednesday, and will continue next week.

But in reality, it's just the biggest puzzle piece in a much larger plan that local and regional officials have been putting together for several years.

For the last few years, the regional government has been putting together its 30-year growth and land-use strategy.

Called "Metro 2050," it builds on the Metro 2040 plan of last decade, and outlines exactly where Metro Vancouver's 21 municipalities have agreed to centralize growth and expand transit options, along with where they've agreed (in principal) to preserve agricultural and rural lands from development. 

"We need to make sure we're putting that population growth in the right place," said Jonathan Cote, New Westminster mayor and chair of Metro Vancouver's regional planning committee. 

Municipalities are in the process of approving the strategy, with a final vote from the Metro Vancouver board expected in July. 

There are 26 urban centres designated in Metro 2050, and they're expected to take on 40 per cent of future population growth (more than a million new people by 2050) and provide 50 per cent of future jobs.

The largest by far is what is called 'Metro Core' — which includes all of Downtown Vancouver, but also areas between False Creek and 16th Avenue between Burrard Street and Clark Drive.

In other words, a core regional assumption is that the Downtown Vancouver and Broadway Plan areas should essentially be one and the same. 

A second downtown or an expansion?

"A lot of folks talk about the Broadway corridor being the second downtown," said Kit Sauder, co-chair of Vancouver's Renters' Advisory Committee and a vocal proponent of the plan.  

"I think we need to dispense with that framing."

It's not just the regional government that's adopting the framing of downtown and the Broadway corridor being one and the same, but the provincial government as well. 

"The Broadway plan is a perfect metaphor for the housing issue that we face in British Columbia," said David Eby, Attorney General and minister responsible for housing. 

Eby believes one of the reasons for escalating housing prices is a lack of supply, and has threatened to introduce legislation that would override local control if municipalities fail to approve enough housing. 

With Vancouver being B.C.'s largest city, and the Broadway Plan its largest planned area for new developments, Eby is keenly watching.

"I struggle to know why rental housing building built on top of a transit station is a controversial issue. And so I'm very hopeful that the city of Vancouver will approve [it]."

Voters' say

Metro Vancouver's 21 local governments work together to come up with their regional growth plans, but it's up to individual municipalities to implement them in the years afterwards  

What's popular with politicians and regional planners isn't always popular with voters, however, particularly when rents and housing prices continue to rise and vacancy rates continue to remain low. 

In the 2018 municipal elections, White Rock's council was overturned largely due to opposition to a number of towers approved in the Semiahmoo urban centre. Mike Hurley became mayor of Burnaby on a platform centred on his opposition to demovictions in the Metrotown urban centre.

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Cote acknowledges the Metro 2040 regional plan didn't focus enough on affordability in new housing next to transit, and says he believes Metro 2050 addresses those shortcomings. 

But he argues that underpinning the entire plan is the fact that tens of thousands of people are moving to Metro Vancouver each year, no matter how individual councils vote on neighbourhood plans. 

"There can always be pushback and there generally is when we are talking about neighborhood change and adding density," he said.

"But we need to ask ourselves: do we want to grow in a smart way, or are we going to grow in a haphazard way?"

That's the perspective of the regional government and a majority of current elected politicians across Metro Vancouver. 

Whether voters agree will be a defining question in this October's elections — no matter which way the Broadway Plan goes.