ASYLUM: a long, last look at woodlands

government team
workshop goals
1) provide a framework for understanding adaptive reuse potential for heritage buildings on the woodlands site
2) provide a general understanding of the heritage preservation field to make a definition of heritage resources and what constitutes heritage value
3) the introduction of levels of intervention and the heritage conservation principles and how they typically apply to woodlands heritage resources
4) provide a general understanding of accepted conservation approach within each level of intervention
5) to review the general process of adaptive reuse and the recommended uses of the buildings of high adaptive reuse potential - reusage on the woodlands site
6) heritage resources can include building interiors industrial landscapes and artifacts

adaptive reuse
the quality of significance in Canadian history architecture archaeology and culture present in a districts sites and buildings and objects that possessed integrity of location design setting materials workmanship feeling association and are associated with events which made a significant contribution important personages or embody distinctive characteristics of a type period method of architecture or represent the work of a master or represent a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction - integrity as part of assessment is a measure of historical resources condition and completeness - heritage value is always a balance between heritage resources significance and integrity - by way of example you can have an incredibly significant historic site and all that is remaining is a single stone on the ground - so you have very high significance and very low integrity - balancing you probably have a very low heritage value - on the other hand you could have lets say a Vancouver special very high in integrity in pristine condition not terribly significant again you would have a very low rating - so thats kind of the idea- there are four principle levels of intervention in descending order of perspective - preservation - restoration - rehabilitation- reconstruction

preservation focuses on maintenance and repair of existing historical materials and retention of the properties form as it has evolved over time - restoration is undertaken to depict a property of a particular time in history while removing evidence of earlier periods - rehabilitation acknowledges the need to alter or add to an historic propert, to meet continuing or changing use, while retaining the propertys historic character - reconstruction recreates vanished or non surviving portions of a property for interpretive reasons

conservation standards - secretary of standards for rehabilitation - american - these standards are largely being adopted by the department of heritage for a national set of conservation standards for canada - it is important to understand these standards as a measuring stick against all the conservation work that you try to do - the property will be used as it was historically or be given a new use that requires a minimum change of distinctive features spaces and spatial relationships - the historic character will be retained and preserved the removal - of distinctive materials or alteration of features space and spatial relationships that characterized the property will be avoided - each property will be recognized as a physical record of its time place and use - changes that will create a false sense of historical developments adding conjectural features or elements from other historical properties will not be undertaken - changes to a property which have in part a significance in their own right will be retained and preserved - 00-15-16 - distinctive materials features finishes and construction techniques or examples of craftsmanship that characterize a property will be preserved - deteriorated historic features will be repaired rather than replaced - when the integrity of a distinctive feature requires replacement the new feature will match the old in design colo, texture and if possible materials - chemical and physical treatments if appropriate will be undertaken using the gentlest means possible - treatments which cause damage to historical materials will not be used - archaeological resources will be protected and preserved in place - 00-17-40

government team
these are the criteria by which we adjourned to each adaptive reuse
a) the demand for reuse
b) the physical adaptability of the building
c) the viability of the new use
d) the maintenance of the buildings heritage character
e) the fit to the overall site development

government team
i want to start running through the adaptive reuse process i employed in 95 and also in this latest go round - what we do is identify the character defining elements of the building - do a preliminary condition assessment develop a heritage value analysis - now this is mostly the buildings - they were largely done in 95 - i have largely worked with that work - develop a building upgrade assessment and construction cost estimates that then gets fed to the teams real estate consultant who chugs through the numbers and determines whether a particular reuse - given the hard costs the soft costs and the market analysis - is economically viable - now this is the process we went through to determine which buildings warrant adaptive reuse assessment - as i said largely based on the heritage assessment of 1995 - new westminsters heritage commission has had an opportunity to review which buildings we thought had high heritage value and were in general concurrence with that - oh - the potential fit to the overall development and the adaptability of the buildings for potential reuse - these are the buildings that we consider to be of high adaptive reuse potentiall and we decided to develop detailed adaptive reuse assessments on these buildings in this 2001 to 2002 planning process - nurses lodge maple lodge Centre Building boilerhouse recreation building and carpentry building - the inclusion of one of the buildings - the recreation building - probably needs a comment - it is not really a high heritage building but its very high integrity and its entirely intact its just perfectly usable building and it has a potential high use on the site - it could possibly be used as a community center - 00-22-33 - this is why we included it - carpentry shop which is one of the three industrial shops on the edge - boilerhouse center block maple lodge and nurses lodge

people
im curious - do you know what year the recreation building dates from

government team
1958 - i mean its a nice example of international style architecture - probably one of the things i want to do is to go back and bump up the heritage research ive done on the buildings - i just really jumped into the fray in the fall to focus on adaptive reuse assessment

people
is the guard house considered

government team
one of the reasons we have sort of shaken it down to this is we do have a general sense of what are high residential or potential institutional sites and thats one of the reasons that some of the buildings didnt make the cut - i guess - this is a fairly remote building from the heritage precinct

people
it dates back to the ----

government team
oh it does - it was the mortuary - it has heritage value but its oh - its position in the overall site was such that it wasnt considered for detailed assessment now

people
shouldnt the value of the building - certainly be - if youre going to look at the heritage value - perhaps that should take precedence over the overall development first - and then you can see what can be developed around it - not to as you say - it didnt quite fit in the development proposal so you kind of didnt even thrown it into the mix - 00-24-00

government team
what i wanted to do earlier was give you those three major determinants that were sort of the first cuts as you will - of whether we looked at the buildings heritage value and the adaptability of the buildings is big for any potential new use and the fit to the overall site development was one and the mortuary is one --- i mean thats why we are here it in front of you today

people
well it fit the first criteria - heritage value

government team
oh potentially

people
the second - what is the assessment reuse

government team
well we didnt have - uh - right now it is used as a guard house it is useful in that regard

people
and it is used by the new westminster police department for its dog training program

people
just something to consider - we dont want to discount it rate now

people
some other buildings - i am sorry if you dont mind the interruption - i think the heritage commission was also interested to mention that there was a firehall and some other ----

government team
the carpentry shop is also the fire hall - its a real beauty its a nice usable space and you know that the east edge of the site here is likely residential development - we can really see a use for the carpentry shop as a sort of a clubhouse or a small community house - its got a great basement and was the old firehall stables - nice masonary rubble foundation and walls - a lot of character and the upstairs - it is demised right now but we have to sort of step in and do more detailed assessment of how we might use that - whether it is more useful as a wideopen space for community use or whether it is more useful for smaller spaces - that is sort of the next stage we step in to

people
what is the other shop next to the carpentry shop - i thought that was more likely the firehall to my mind than the carpentry shop

government team
these are the criteria by which we judge each adaptive reuse
a) the demand for reuse
b) the physical adaptability of the building
c) the viability of the new use
d) the maintenance of the buildings heritage character
e) the fit to the overall site development

what I have done in a preliminary sense is a run through the five buildings that we are doing detailed assessments on and come up with upgrade assessments construction cost estimates and we have got to the point where we can at this first pass do this preliminary adaptive reuse analysis - i will quickly run through the buildings which we have looked at - the nurses lodge - one aspect of the nurses lodge is that it really does it have a high level of integrity its got a lot of interior features remaining it really hasnt been hacked over it has suffered some neglect the porch has taken a beating and is in need of restoration but the building - the heats been off for a while - there are minor leaks here and there but it is essentially a very high - its a building with very high integrity and it is one of the few buildings with original interiors - so the uses we want to fit to this building will have to be gentle on the heritage interior architecture - one of the uses we ran through in 1995 was a residential use and it really required total gutting - its just one of the uses we just threw out the window here - what we want to develop here is a high level of respect for what heritage fabric we have in place - so we are looking at community use special needs use - uh - potential museum use - for all three uses the demand has just not yet been proven but we think that there is a very good potential for those uses - one of the things we would like to do today is just throw out these ideas and see if there are some ideas come forth from the community if there is a group which might tie into it

people
What is the $673,000 referring to?

government team
what I have run through is - not having a client - essentially I have made some assumptions on what building upgrade would be required to the building - a lot of it is code upgrades you will need sprinklering elevators fire alarms a whole range of code requirements as well as architectural requirements - 00-29-40 - heating and electrical upgrades and what not - so this is essentially the cost to turn it over - the construction costs to turn it over to a - well actually it also includes consulting and contingency - but thats the cost to basically turn it around for a new use

people
and is that estimate in current dollars or 1995 dollars

government team
it is in current dollars - i worked with my 1995 numbers did some revision as far as my line items and upgrade goes and then i upgraded all those numbers to todays numbers

people
barry its your wish that its sensitively left alone - the interior - will that be demanded of the team that whoever reuses this building will - must preserve the interior and not gut it

government team

i think that what we are trying to do here essentially - what will develop here are - and its kind of a - what I ended up doing with most restoration projects is developing a restoration plan and it essentially runs with the building you know - so a developer knows what theyre getting into - what we want to do is make this a developer friendly site and allow them to understand right at the onset - this is what we have to do - we have got to say - we have got to keep these buildings and we have to develop them in a way that preserves their heritage value

people
you think that will occur

government team
well this is the direction we are going in

people
barry i wanted one comment - that you and i talked about before and that should be brought up at this point - if you are going to want to use the nurses lodge as a community center for community use - for different services be it special needs recreational or a one stop shopping center for social services or something like that - the question is who do the different organizations get in touch with because that hasnt been brought forth - the 670 - you know three quarters of a million dollars for one nonprofit organization is just not possible without help from other organizations - maybe this should be put to - or does bcbcs real estate people look for these kinds of organizations and have them - you know find them

government team
00-32-17 - i think that there is a recognition that a building of this importance would be kept andiI think the city would expect us to keep it and i think probably expect that there would be some cost to be bcbc - however this will be part of a negotiation with the city - we would come up with an agreed package which would be a plan which had elements which the city wanted - which the community wanted which also had economic viability so you know - at the end of the day i think we recognize that bc building corp will probably be spending money on some of these heritage buildings and thats going to be thequid pro quo that the city is going to require from us as a condition of new westminsters rezoning the site

people
00-33-00 - so in my position as a board member of a non-profit organization who is looking for space are you saying that we go to bcbc or do we go to the city - thats what i mean thats -----

government team
thats a good question - i dont really have an answer at the moment - i think you know as things evolve obviously the final plan that goes to city council - for rezoning will sort of probably stipulate the range of uses and if it - if that is shown as being a sort of public use building with - for community organizations then obviously we will have to sort of address the issue of how we implement that and it may involve bcbc being involved - it may well be that some consortium of social services could take the building over and they would administer it and develop it themselves - i think thats the sort of way that it would work out

people
i dont think that it would hurt for city council to hear the expressed interest of specific groups ----

government team
it would actually help us quite a bit if we heard a specific interest in a use then for instance in this building you might find special needs facility is probably - theres more demand for a special needs facility than communities and one avenue to hear this is as a richard says to maybe get in touch with the city to say well we would like to see this specific use for this building - we see a demand - weve gathered a group of potential users and we want to indicate our interests

concerned local resident- 2002

people
00-34-25 - i had the good fortune of going through that building in 94-95 when the process was being done - its quite unique and if im not mistaken there is a large kitchen off the back of the eating area - if this could be incorporated into the tour and I think the building is safe enough to go through - if you invited community groups to go through it you would probably get a lot more visioning and a lot more suggestions - so if in the next public tour if you could open that up i would like to go there myself

people
and the other thing too is that when you do your announcements in the paper it is always just open to the public and a lot of social service groups and nonprofit organizations dont really think of themselves as being public and therefore there may be then a personal invitation or something or - cause like the rec center its just another example of how it could be used for people ----

people
a walk through there would be good too

people
yeah cause that is just an incredible pool that is in there thats - you know thats halfway ready for special needs

people
barry if i am not mistaken i think last time we went through this and i was one of the citizen representatives on that committee - i think they did a proposal call to nonprofit groups for uses on the site and there were three or four who came forward - school for the deaf - and they were involved in some of those public meetings at the time

government team
00-36-00 - the kenneth gordon school was one and they actually developed a detailed assessment around their use and thats why special needs is up on the board right now because it really became clear that with kenneth gordon school that this facility will lend itself really well to some of these special needs

people
you say parking access is negative is that the reason ----

government team
we have been sitting around a big table and i hear and digest a lot of commentary from the parking engineers and the planners about issues such as parking and access and what we are trying to do - what im trying to do in the assessment is try and bring in all of those elements and - ah - this is - there is a fair great distance between the lodge building and the podium behind and there is an issue of how you park and how do you allow access to this building in a fairly compacted site and not tear it to pieces with roads - its a challenge that we know- museum use - slightly higher cost - you would need air conditioning - a vault in the basement level to deal with artifact storage - 00-37-30 - maple lodge - as office use it is poor demand right now - excellent adaptability for building preservation - the use assessment i went through looked at using the building in its present corridor configuration with the corridors running down the center of the building with office space clustered around the edge which is really quite nice for office leaving a lot of skin and windows for office use - we also planned to do an exterior restoration on the building to the same standard as we have been looking at for the Centre Building and found that it was not economically viable even without doing a complete restoration of the ornate terracotta principled front and the rest of the building - it was not panning out as far as the numbers go - live work studios - good demand excellent adaptability - again we landed with the same economic viability problems - it was a better fit to the adjacent uses being somewhat residential - Centre Building three story townhouse full envelope retention this is a use we looked at - Centre Building is constructed of five blocks which were constructed over time

people
ahh - im sorry to interrupt you but you just zipped past maple lodge - does that mean that its a write off and youre tearing it down

government team
well from a preliminary standpoint what weve found was that it was not economically viable - it had high heritage value - we found a use that worked well with the building - ah - potentially the live work studios fit well with the site but we found that it was not economically viable - so to cut to the chase in the final recommendation at this preliminary stage we are not recommending retention of maple

people
so there is no concept of business venture tax breaks or incentives to take the building on from a corporate perspective and or developers builders perspective - breaks for redeveloping a heritage site or have you strictly looked at the dollars to have it done

government team
well I think there is an issue here there is certainly a cost and i recognize that there will be a cost to bcbc in retaining some of these structures and we dont have a formal budget for this but we have worked some general numbers and i think we have come down with it theres some priorities - i guess what we are really saying is that there are other priorities which are higher than the maple so at this point we are really suggesting that the maple is possibly one which might not be preserved as i say we want to get input from people and if people vehemently disagree then obviously we have to go back and rethink this but as barry will be explaining some of the other things we are going to be dealing with - so if you look at the entire thing the maple is so expensive to seismically upgrade that you cannot go anywhere close to a marketable value

people
sorry to just get caught up on your cost to bcbc if i am not mistaken with the properties which are being developed there will be some income from this sale to bcbc and it will make money off of the development of the property - is there any offset that is allowed here or is it strictly a profit and loss situation

government team
well there will be - some things will cost us money and in some cases we will obviously be making some money and the two are going to cancel each other out to a degree i mean it is obviously a trade-off - i think at this point because of the maple - because of the cost - because all the heritage has been stripped off of it to bring it back to its full heritage value would be so much that it really doesnt make economic sense

people
weve heard its not economically viable from bcbc point of view - do you want a moderate economic return medium economic return or maximum economic return

government team
well we have --- i mean ---

people
what do your principals say - do we want maximum economic return - is that your mandate

government team
no no -- i think were -- the objective is to get a good economic return for the provincial taxpayer while coming up with a plan for a development which meets the communitys needs so were not saying - were not out and out a loquatious developer we are a provincial crown corporation we have to show a profit and with the present government expecting even more than the last government was but on the other hand we are still going to be a sensitive developer - we are not going to be coming in and just saying to hell with it the bottom line is everything - there has to be a trade off - we accept there will be some costs from the heritage preservation and certain other aspects and we expect to bear those costs as a quid pro quo for coming up with a rezoned site and redevelopment plan

people
i guess one of the difficulties im having is when we heard the presentation from the gentleman who was the tree cop - uh he was basically saying youre going to develop the site keeping the integrity of certain trees and these are priorities and he didnt talk about costs he didnt talk about economic viability and paybacks and i guess what i expect is the same tenacity when you look at the heritage and in new westminster and the people in this community have taken on the challenges - the city council and have stood up against all odds - when people say it is not economically viable thats to bad - if you want to do it this is what you have to come up wit - residents have spent their lives we developing properties where people said you will never get any return and it comes back and we have examples of that all over this community and i think its critical if you go back you say that its not economically viable - well we dont know those numbers and were looking at you as a developer coming to city hall and saying we want to redevelop the Kelvin area - the brown of the hill - and oh we cant redevelop those houses - and we have to be on guard and say well wait a minute we have to trust you who work for bcbc telling us you cant redevelop - there is no quid pro quo from a developer saying if you want to develop this piece of property - this is the market value and youre going to put in the money to redevelop that building - i mean our pen site - and a lot of those valuable buildings were only saved because city council said you have to save those otherwise they would be gone and I dont think that that they saved enough of them but they didnt have the same character and value so i really have to take some issue to say that your job is certainly to say this is what the cost would be not to make the determination of whether it is or is not of significant value - and i think that one of the things im hearing is that you are already writing off buildings that in the minds of the public and this community say no - that should be a building - im not an expert in and i know the sentiment in this community and the people who have lived here for generations have put pride in new westminster and the fact that we will take on these challenges and put them to the test and bcbc - you would love to if you had your druthers you would say get rid of the trees - get rid of the buildings - sell the thing and maximize our dollars cause that has been previous bcbc policy and you know maybe its change now cause the new government says you got to be more sensitive - but im really concerned that im hearing an analysis based on dollars not based on heritage - like i say youre not putting the heritage value first

people
and im taking issue with the fact that you say that the government wants you to make money on this property - i think the mandate for that whole aspect without getting too political is that they want the thing to stop costing them money - this is a net drain on their resources and you have to pay taxes on it - so if you can find a balance there - preserve - even though it may cost money - it will stop the expenditures - i think you have a win win situation

government team
- but but ill tell you two things - one of them is i think you should let barry finish his presentation then youll see the totality of our plan - what we are proposing and then look at it then - and then we take ----

people
you say you have already looked at buildings and you are not even going to consider them - they didnt fit into your criteria - but yet they do have very historic value

government team
and i emphasize that this is a work in progress - thats why we are here - our ears are wide open and if we are told that we have to go back and have a look at other buildings ----

government team
we will obviously be looking at financial performa here - we are coming to you with waht we think is a suggested preservation strategy - youre responding to it and this is exactly why we are having this meeting - thats great - you know we are going to have to sit down very soon and look at the numbers and say now what can we afford because given the likely value of the development ----

former kitchen staff, woodlands- 2002

people
and i guess what i get back to if you develop this property depending on zonin - depending on density and what the city allows in that area will determine economic return based on the ability to sell those properties - based on green space - based on all these other buildings costs and if you factor in heritage restoration costs either to bcbc or to the overall development you are going to come up with a net figure saying thats how much money bcbbc is going to get after all is said and done and i think its --- i know you cant save every tree and every building - i understand you have to go through this criteria but i would expect that it would be a - what i would look that would be an independent assessment from somebody saying these buildings in their estimation have that heritage value and yes are they worth it - is the question - not to say inevitably that we cant do it cause its not viable - if new westminster had that attitude half of --- columbia street would be gone most of the city would be torn down and redeveloped cause people have argued time and time again its too expensive to do it and we say then dont do and let someone come along who will and eventually people do - i guess i just want to temper it a bit to make sure that you understand that were not as concerned about how much money you guys make off of it as it is to retain the integrity of many of the buildings and to find ways of making it happen - its creative solutions which we want to see and i understand there are going to be some buildings and some trees that arent going to survive and thats understandable for adevelopment of this size

government team
00-48-34 - those are great comments - ive been bending over backwards to make these buildings work with an engineer who I have been recently working with - vincent donegan - hes developed an expertise in stabilizing seismically restabilizing unreinforced brick buildings and the seismic costs for both maple and for this full retention scheme have dropped through the floor - theyve gone way down because with his modeling techniques hes been able to determine that these buildings have a lot more seismic capability than up til now people have been crediting them with - we are doing everything we can to make these readaptive reuses work - you know its my 10th year in practice - my entire career focus on building rehab and reuses - i would like nothing more than to have all these buildings reused but one of the criteria that we have to use is economic viability - were basically working for the government and there is a cost to doing this - its not just a sort of black hole of --- we cant make it a black hole ---

people
but but ----

government team
maybe if you could just hold the questions and let barry finish the presentation there are few more buildings here to discuss - i dont want to kill this - this is quite good dialogue - if we could just give barry five or six more minutes

people
01-06-51 - i would just like to make a suggestion - i was on the working group back in 1985 - there was quite a strong feeling - uh - in the community and from a number of people that were associated with the site over the years that really the legacy of health and occupational health - it just brought out all of these ideas at the time that there should be a real emphasis put on trying to look in the community for those groups who have a need for these buildings - so i could see that these buildings - and the two adjacent ones - the firehall the stable and the carpentry shop - could form like a small little grouping for a rehabilitation group - i know there are some out there that rehabilitate bicycles - build furniture and they give skills to people that are out there who are really struggling - that were dispersed originally from the closure of the institution and if we can be creative - especially something like - about that - if you are looking at that - there are lot of groups out there that would really like to get their hands on it and love to be able to fundraise in the community to see if they could do it - we should be open to the possibilities and especially be very mindful of the history of the site and be very respectful that you should continue in some way and there should be a real effort made to get those - especially through the simon fraser regional health district to look - and as this woman said usually those community groups - they are not invited - they are not incited to be involved - i really say to bcbc - incite them to be involved and to be creative about something like maple lodge or a group of buildings like this ----

people
01-08-33 - i would like to follow up on what jim said - i am living in sapperton and elizabeth fry is on the corner - the next block - and they have been trying to build a little carpentry shop on the first floor - shoehorned into the ground floor and i just thought that that building - the old carpentry shop at woodlands - here you know it would seem to be ideal for their purposes - i agree that if the right groups are approached then you wont have any problem

government team
we actually had our reservations about coming out and making preswentations but we thought we ought to just hang it out and see where it grows - this is what we are looking at - we would like to work with the nurses lodge - we need to explore demand and nail it down just like were talking tonight - some uses that can fit into that building - i think we are committed to working this out - maple - weve heard an earful tonight - it sounds like the community would like us to take a harder look at maple - Centre Building - both plans for this building are potentially workable but the one that makes the most sense - and frankly its easier on the buildings heritage in a lot of ways - is the facade retention - wraparound roofscape restoration and apartment development - the restoration being to 1897 exterior - one aspect of the town house development that i have always been kind of - that bothered me is that in order to make this thing work as townhouses you have got to get grade level access - that would bugger up the whoe ground floor - the nice thing about the wraparound approach is that they can essentially restore it to its pristine 1897 condition - i think were going to have challenges - we know that there is facade deterioration - there may have been a good reason why they stuccoed - the brick was rumored to come from next door - the pen - and may be underfired and generally of poor quality

government team
barry we are also talking about increasing that center tower to its original shape and adding the cupolas on the roof which were removed

government team
there is all kinds of detail here - gw grant - architect - developed this into a double story veranda here - its not visible here because its all covered over but theres a very nice column portico and a quite nice couple of chimneys all of which were priced and worked into a full envelope restoration of the principal facades

people
in effect though it loses its heritage - history - its just a facade preserving the look

government team
well its a new use - it was an insane asylum ----

people
you dont have to defend it i just wanted to make sure i understood that

government team
youre absolutely right - i mean what were trying to do is like - a great deal of the buildings heritage value is embodied in its facade and its sense of blocks - its entirely lost its interior character over the years - its extremely institutional and the finishes are all gone

people
so at the end of the day after your overview right to the brass tacks what we have left is maple and the nurses lodge

government team
boilerhouse and carpentry shop

people
boilerhouse - just the exterior - we lose the interior

government team
01-13-00 - well we are losing mechanical equipment because its redundant - youve been in the boiler room - one of the more interesting aspects of the boiler room is the stairs and has a lot of interesting industrial and architectural character - but if we keep all the equipment --
people
i just say that at the end of the day what we have left is the nurses lodge which we can keep mostly intact - yes or no

government team
i think that were doing an excellent job of building restoration on boiler house - nurses lodge - carpentry shop and the recreation center - it looks like the most workable retention solution for the Centre Building is the facade - in allowing it to thicken out so we can use it

government team
ok - were advocating a more adaptive reuse rather than preservation as museum pieces

government team
i think that from a societal perspective you have to be responsible and the key to hanging on to heritage buildings is finding viable new uses and thats really what were trying to do here - thats one of the big reasons why we are all here tonight - to get the word out that we want to find some community uses for these buildings

people
01-14-39 - on the Centre Building didnt you say that in your first proposal you could actually leave it intact and develop 30 units at 300000 per unit

government team
thats the problem - the prices are getting way up there - even though they are spectacular units - with the hard costs and the soft costs and the cost of the land you are getting into some very expensive units - the real estate guy after looking at it came away feeling it would be very difficult to sell

people
you need a hungry real estate person - what would the market cost be for a unit like that

government team
i happen to live in a 1912 reform school which was developed much in the same way with 3 storey townhouse units and - uh - and - uh - you know they - the larger units in the building were pricing out at around 310 - that was 1997 - no particular view and the upper levels are kind of loft spaces - i mean these would be rather nice units - uh - not for everybody

people
are you saying that the sale price would be $300,000 and you dont think they would sell for that

government team
no - more than that

people
---- you have got to have the space - you have got to have the good sightlines - so people at different speeds can see each other in advance of - and perhaps you have got lighting unless there is enough ambient lighting already there

government team
i was down in the site in the mist the other day and this was a big issue - um - just for your information you know that the city of new west has adopted the cpted guidelines which is the crime prevention through environmental design program - what it means is basically the police department reviews any changes - the cpted guide lines are a series of design guidelines that the city has more or less adopted and its all about site lighting - security and it also is one of our planning principles that the site has to be safety inspected

woodlands re-development, public workshop- 2002

people
but the sightlines are in conflict with your plantings - there has to be this balance between the plantings and the sightlines

government team
02-57-17 - thats actually something which is part of the cpted guidelines - you addressed it really specifically - quite well actually - cpted is a document - an american document that comes from police associations - it comes from the far end of security planning

people
what is it called

government team
its called cpted - crime prevention through environmental design - and its one of the documents that the city of new west has adopted for any planning solution - its kind of a filter that everything goes through but it is also a planning priority for this particular situation

people
lighting

people
02-58-00 - especially on slopes at night lighting is very important

people
for me the most key word in that statement is open space - when you look at all the plans it is great to have all these green trees and hedges and all that stuff but that doesnt dictate open space to me that - that says narrow pathways as opposed to a vision of walking down the street that is lined with trees - it is not open - if you look at the property now its very open - you have clusters of trees - clusters of plants with areas quite well identified - so closing it in and making these private little kiosks - is a security issue for sure

government team
so we say that scale is important

people
open space is the key - if youre going to have people enjoying it - and like if you want to go out there and play ball with your son or throw a ball you have to have some distance so at least you can step back

government team
so thats sort of called casual recreation space as opposed to an organized ball field

people
02-59-11 - it has got to be in balance with your living accommodation

people
if you have too much woods you dont get the sunlight

people
it would change the whole character of the property if they basically planted it in - i have nothing against plants but the property is open and you have a beautiful view of that front lawn - they have got to take advantage of that

people
you have to take advantage of the sunshine when it shines - if you put it so that the greens get it not the humans then youre defeating the peoples purpose

government team
yeah - one of the great advantages of this site is that it is south facing - towards the river its a big slope - its going to be hard to make a dark site - it is such a fantastic site for vegetation

people
i am assuming that density is going to be a factor - so density and open space is a reallly sensitive balance

people
if youre going to do a high rise of 40 stories then the rest of the property can be all green space - right - we are not doing that obviously - thats not what is proposed - right

people
03-00-25 - would these open spaces include places for dogs

people
a dog park would be tremendous

government team
the ravine would be nice

people
no sunshine blockers

people
the ravine is very damp and its very deep -ive spent some time in there - its very undeveloped

people
i hope it stays that way

people
and there is no point - i hear a lot about this accessibility for wheelchairs and strollers - everyone says thats awesome

people
well my personal bias as a cyclist - i want connections and i try to commute to surrey and i want a safe place to come up the front - i dont want to go through a secluded trail so the green space - wherever that is behind the hedge joining with the main one and then at the end i have got to be able to come up on sixth or something and of course stairs are out of the question

people
03-01-35 - the route up the ravine - which is not developed now and in fact is dangerously signed - has got to be developed - i think thats important - and you know people walking up to canada games - seriously

people
there would have to be a ramp

government team
the access at the end - that area of the ravine is part of planning exercise and larry diamond has been working with the city about the end connections to sixth avenue and also theres a few sort of muddy tracks that - from residential areas - all that is part of the planning area - so it is a really good comment

people
so they are going to put something in at ----

government team
well i mean everything within the ravine has sort of been deemed park land and some of the slopes are pretty horrendous so its going to be ahard connection as a cyclist

people
the pedestrian bridge to queens park

people
with due respect we have the option to get the funds supplied by a corporation

government team
from the planning perspective its essential to make that park to park connection work

people
there is no connection planned to the new sapperton park

government team
no - the connection is there - a couple of retaining structures that make really demanding slopes and there is a little triangle of land in front of the jameson court that is actually owned by the city of new west - our discussion with the city of new west is to get and keep people off the columbia street sidewalk and allow them to connect through the open space in front of our site through that triangle

people
how do you get them across the traffic

government team
the citys position is that they have improved the signal - there is a pedestrian crossing and a four way signal

people
is that cumberland

people
its quite a way back

people
is there any discussion to make a crossing at columbia near front street

people
03-04-20 - there is access to the parkade

people
you have the train tracks

people
you have the skytrain

people
the argument that i would use is that if this site gets developed youre going to see a lot of people trying to cross columbia at that front street light - thats dangerous - really dangerous - right now if youre young and agile like me you can do it - but you know ----

government team
so we are looking at columbia and front street improvements

people
why dont we access the quay- i mean people are going to want to be going to that sapperton landing park - they are going to want to be going to the quay - i mean from woodlands - thats walkable both ways

people
but you have to get them across columbia street

people
and you still have the skytrain

people
well at front street mostly the skytrain is elevated

government team
03-05-00 - but on our site its just coming out of the tunnel and just beginning to rise up at the corner - it becomes a little tricky

people
they did have a plan to build a skytrain station there at one point - so they must have had a way to get to the property

government team
it would likely have been an overpass

people
what they have done is this - there is already a crossing - already a pedestrian crossing on columbia street just at mcbride - nobody uses it - they have already put the ligtst in and everything - it doesnt go anywhere

people
theres nothing on either side - we tried walking from the quay home one day - we were on top of the railway tracks or else on the overpass - the elevated railroad tracks - i mean it was a challenge

government team
so the connection to the waterfront is an issue - lets see if we can get a couple of statements about the primary opportunities of the site from the redevelopment - considering all the things we have said - what do you think as a group are the greatest opportunities that you see

people
03-06-35 - open space thats the greatest opportunity

people
open space but connected

people
i see the greatest opportunity is being able to walk all the way from fraserview over to royal or any of the - like right now you have got to walk along that road - right along columbia - thats criminal

government team
so walk basically right to queens park

people
yeah - from fraserview - but for them - the people in this new development - them being able to walk the other way to sapperton landing park

people
and the obstacle there is the slope - you would need a hell of a big set of stairs there ---

government team
so that is a constraint - a primary concern - the slope and the traffic to jump over

people
maybe its not possible - this might not be an area accessible by wheelchair - right now i dont imagine a person in a wheelchair could go up that hill

people
well they cant - they take the long way around

people
03-07-42 - what other routes do they plan to use to get o to the site - other than going along columbia then coming up mcbride

government team
how - as a pedestrian or as a cyclist

people
either pedestrian cyclist or car because if youre coming down mcbride from 8th avenue you have to pretty much go over the bridge and come back

government team
we are involved in traffic issues with the city of new westminster engineering who is dealing with mcbride and a number of different solutions - but they were talking about what will be the connections - and there is a connection south of the cemetery - and we dont know at this stage whether it is going to be a full signal - if it is going to be something you can only access if youre going north bound on mcbride - as in right in right out only - thats what there is presently near queens park - here there is blackberry lane - its a right in right out intersection

new westerminster resident and an advocate for children with disabilities - 2002

people
oh thats what that was called

people
and its protected - its set off a bit protected by an island

government team
03-08-38 - its pretty tough you know in the other direction - there are safety issues about all that - but the primary access - daycare access which will also be a bicycle access - will be at royal - that was the historical front door other than the columbia street access - the columbia street access which was gated is really unsafe

people
it does not line up

government team
there is a level drop there also

people
so royal would be the primary area

people
and its already signaled

government team
its signaled but only two ways

people
right but you could signal it four ways

woodlands re- development- public workshop- 2002

government team
but were in discussion with the city and john singer will talk about that presently

people
cycling in conjunction with these paths should be considered so that people dont get run over by a bicycle going along there

government team
access to the quay

people
you know a lot of people will cycle through there - you know what its like

people
well yeah - you know if you do it with what do you call it - a dividing line - like millennium trail - i dont know if they have put the white line there yet

people
03-10-05 - is that what theyre going to do there - thats quite a wide trail

people
i dont think so but its wide enough to accommodate all forms of traffic

government team
so the question is whether you merge mix or segregate

people
yes yes yes - you know like faster versus slower forms

people
another challenge your going to have on the site when youre building homes - will they shadow the walkways - basically whatever you build on the south side is going to shadow what is behind it - youll have to have sensitivity to that

people
and where do you put the cars - people have cars - its not just visitors its people living in places and they have cars

woodlands re- development- public workshop- 2002

people
underground

government team
the majority of the buildings on the site will have plans for underground - and one of the big moves on the site for open space is to try and recover big open asphalt areas - now they are a disaster from water runoff - they will become open space and part of a greenway - limit the amount of asphalt

people
this memorial which is a great idea - although i would have trouble walking over somebodys grave - thats why i asked if - youre gonna have visitors for that - we all know you dont like parking underground if youre a visitor

government team
03-11-20 - im writing down visiting the memorial is an issue - there is a large parking area for queens park hospital which for their purposes is actually oversized - they would even think of using part of that as a development area right on mcbride and there is a pathway that leads along the top edge of it to lead people down to the memorial garden from the parkade

people
as long as theres an understanding that it can be used for that - theres nothing worse than all of a sudden the gates come down

government team
thats why its sort of presented in two pieces - its actually a kind of parallel process and the queens park care representatives are on that committee for the cemetery design - it is truly seen as relating to queens park care

people
03-12-05 - where do the kids go to school - that live in this development - do they go up to mcbride

people
to one of the portables that they have there

people
im just curious cause thats quite a climb - i dont know of any other school thats close

people
it is quite a climb

people
they could go to glenbrook middle school and then youre a big kid and you go to new westminster senior secondary - across the traffic - but kids grow up

government team
we are working with the school board as we are with new west planning and its kind of a to and fro and its a funny discussion because theres also the consideration that a school could be on this site - and of course there is a bit of a catch 22 because if you put a school in there then it reduces the demand because not only is it difficult to get from here to a school - but how is anyone else going to get to this place to go to the school - if you go to the school here

government team
we are coordinating with the school board - in terms of that they have our current planning which feeds into their demographics planning which they have to do because they want to be on top of it ----

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