The project includes one 20-storey, three 15-storey and five six-storey buildings. It is to be built over 10 to 20 years. The planned 900 residential units would replace 196 currently on site.

--

“I was hoping to see something much more ambitious..."

--

Mayor Marianne Alto called the project “modest,” saying she hopes B.C. Housing will come back and ask for more.

It's effectively maybe 2.5 city blocks of land area, and these towers would be the first towers in that neighbourhood. So naturally we're worried that four new buildings with floor counts in the high teens might not be sufficient. Why not double the height of everything and add a couple more towers while we're at it? Ideally this property would be transformed into the most densely populated chunk of land in the entire city, if not the entire province.

I give myself a point for predicting this scenario many times back in the day. We now live in the era of lawful good (government-built) highrises, whereas previously we lived in the era of chaotic evil highrises.

Speaking of when the place was sketchy... Anyway, we know where we've been, so fingers crossed that they don't royally eff up this redevelopment and create a monster.

Daily Colonist
May 20, 1972

Blanshard Court Resident:

Helpless Fear Her Companion

"There's just a misery about this place. A feeling of helplessness and a horrible hostility and fear."

This is a resident of Blanshard Court speaking, and she's describing her reactions to life in the low-income development.

"I don't have any personal beefs about it really. The house is fine, it's dry and warm, and there is a housing shortage but..."

"It's so demoralizing. No matter how hard you try all you have to do is look around and get discouraged."

"There's no way out of here."

"There's nothing for the kids to do but run around in packs until they do something wrong and get picked up by the police -- and then the social workers will pluck them off you one by one."

"No matter how nice you make your own place -- and I've fixed the house up and put flowers outside -- Blanshard Courts is still Blanshard Courts."

There are social workers who are supposed to help us -- that's what they are paid for, but as far as I am concerned they are all talk and theory -- they never get round to helping."

"I don't care how friendly or sympathetic they are, as far as I'm concerned they're all theory."

--

"I can't understand the thinking behind the building of Blanshard Court without even a swimming pool or a baseball diamond for the children. You have a big development with a lot of low-income group people crammed together and no facilities. The children have nothing to do but roam the streets or roam the stores and supermarkets, getting into temptation which they don't have the self-restraint to resist, or looking for a project that will cause some excitement."
-Family Court prosecutor Barry Riseborough in an interview

That's quite something.

I think highrise redevelopment could work there, don't get me wrong. And there may even be some sense in what they're saying re: you don't want to under-build (the first children who move into the first phase will probably be adults by the time the final phase gets done). But at the same time you need to be sensible and understand the potential for disaster.

What's the parking proposal here? Even when the place was sketchy as heck, lots of tenants had cars.

It's funny how all of the canned warnings and doomsaying re: the potential negative impacts of even very small developments tends to evaporate when it's a public project, and in this case an extremely large public project. If people like to lose their minds about the potential traffic increase related to a 24-unit building then shouldn't we be working overtime to study the traffic and parking implications of this one?

“As part of the new Evergreen Terrace development, Council asked BC Housing to re-exploring daylighting "Rock Bay Creek" watershed, which runs from Fernwood to Rock Bay. There is lots of history on this watershed at: rockbaycreek.ca and rockbaycreek.baremetal.com/index.html #yyj”

https://x.com/mattdellok/status/1912287893298823522?s=61&t=gRZkFU5kwKsq-Q8cZlrq-g

Wow I had no idea Bare Metal was still operating.