Issue #24: Summer 2009

UTown@UBC

by Chris Petty, MFA'86

UBC’s experiment in town-building has been bubbling for twenty years. How has it fared?

UBC-watchers may remember the controversy surrounding the university’s first foray into market housing at Hampton Place on the corner of Wesbrook Mall and 16th Avenue on the Vancouver campus. The idea of leasing some of UBC’s endowed land to generate revenue was inflammatory to many people, especially those living in Vancouver’s West Side. Protestors came in two stripes: one saying that the university was selling itself out to developers, the other that the pristine nature of the campus would be forever compromised by the destruction of forest.

It’s easy to see what they were getting at. Our campuses pride themselves on their locations. Promotional materials from every university unit including student view books, Continuing Studies pamphlets, web sites, faculty job prospectuses and this magazine do not shy away from showing the grand vistas from UBC’s Vancouver campus and the radiant, wine-growing backdrop of UBC Okanagan. In the refined parlance of today, we pimp our campuses shamelessly. And why shouldn’t we? If our locations will woo a top student or researcher away from the crumbling state infrastructure of California’s universities or the Toronto dreariness of the U of T or the frozen urban tundra of McGill, why not? All things academic being equal, who wouldn’t want to come to UBC?

Protestors’ threats to climb the trees and stop land clearing never came about, and one Saturday morning the bulldozers moved in
to clear the site of its second growth trees. Hampton Place was up and running. And, 20 years on, the dent in the forest has all
but disappeared.

Since then, commercial housing has taken off at UBC. The Official Community Plan (OCP), which outlined the concept of eight neighbourhoods at UBC has informed the construction of market, rental and below-market rental housing across campus, all being marketed under the banner of UTown@UBC. A visit to its website (www.planning.ubc.ca) gives a wealth of information on the planning and execution of UBC’s new community.

The changes are huge: the old B-Lot is gone, replaced by Hawthorn Place complete with a replica of the Old Barn for a community centre. The row of Animal House-era frat houses is gone, replaced by more respectable buildings for the Greeks on Wesbrook Mall, and farther south, just west of Acadia Park, is the new East Campus neighbourhood with rental and market units.

Upscale Chancellor Place centres around the Iona building (the Vancouver School of Theology) and features rental and market units, many of them with a $1 million-plus price tag.

The largest neighbourhood is currently under construction south of 16th between Pacific Spirit Park and Marine Drive, called Wesbrook Place. It will feature about 2,500 units split among market housing, rentals, co-development (where the university partners with buyers) and special needs housing. It will also include the largest commercial area, with food stores, shops and a village centre.

University Square (around the War Memorial Gym) is still in the planning stages, but will include student housing, a new SUB and an Alumni Centre. It’s envisioned as the new heart of the Vancouver campus and, already, there’s a new pub and various commercial enterprises doing brisk business across the street from the Empire Pool.

As well, space in the academic centre of campus has been filling up. From the mid 1990s to today, more than 30 new academic buildings have gone up at UBC, with nearly as many undergoing major renovations including the Science Building, Main Library and the Buchanan buildings. It’s not hyperbole to suggest that grads from the 1990s and earlier planning a visit to the Vancouver campus should get themselves a map before they venture on campus so they won’t get lost.

There’s no doubt that money was one of the driving forces behind the creation of UTown@UBC. The university’s endowment of land was originally about 4,500 acres, taking in much of Pacific Spirit Park and north to Spanish Banks. That shrank to nearly nothing over the years until 1957 when WAC Bennett’s government defined the existing campus lands at about 1,000 acres. The purpose of the land was to supply funding for the university through land leases and rentals, a way of insuring financial viability over a long period of time. Land is leased to developers for 99 years, with funds raised going directly to the endowment. So far, the endeavour has raised nearly $300 million to support UBC’s institutional mission. (See www.universitytown.ubc.ca/endowment.php for details on UBC’s endowment.)

But whatever criticism the university may have earned for using the land for cash generation, it absolved itself, in many minds, by the careful, thoughtful and sustainable manner in which it manages the development. Many other institutions in similar situations have cut every corner and squeezed every dime, squandering whatever good will they might have generated. In formulating a plan for the land’s use, the OCP is very specific on the conditions of development. These are based on the GVRD (now Metro Vancouver) Liveable Region strategic plan and designed to ensure open spaces and to create “a vibrant and integrated community on the university campus.” Development must be aimed at reducing single car traffic, include a large percentage of residents who work or study at UBC, be roughly 20 per cent rental and 10 per cent below-market rental for students and special needs.

This commitment to the concept of open spaces spurred the university’s Board of Governors to provide a conditional guarantee that the UBC Farm will continue in its present form for the foreseeable future. The decision has helped to make moot some of the most pointed criticism of the UTown project.

Now, nearly 65 per cent of the people who live in new UTown residences work or study at UBC; one thousand of those are faculty and staff. This has an impact on the carbon footprint of the Vancouver campus, though the decrease in single-occupancy vehicle trips (down 14 per cent) and the increase in transit ridership (up 185 per cent) might have as much to do with the new student UPass and the high cost of parking as it does with on-campus living.

Altogether, about 10,000 people live on the Vancouver campus (which includes about 8,000 living in student residences like Totem Park). By 2012, the OCP foresees a population of 18,000, and by 2030, when construction is complete, more than 24,000 people will live here.

So, were the initial protestors right? Has the creation of UTown@UBC been an ecological, social, academic and cultural disaster? The jury might still be out on that: what the campus might look like with 24,000 residents on it is hard to imagine. But so far it’s supplied nothing but benefits. The new neighbourhoods give the campus a friendly, village feel; the increase in foot traffic keeps the campus alive after classes end; and the sense of community is clearly growing. Construction has been tasteful and attractive, suited to the local climate, nicely landscaped and well-integrated into the rest of the campus. It doesn’t hurt, either, that the university’s endowment has been enhanced, making sure that the academic mission will continue to be funded.

There are still many who feel that UTown@UBC has eroded UBC’s purity as an academic institution, that it has sold its soul to the highest bidder. But careful planning and an honest eye to sustainability, accessibility and community building have, so far, improved the Vancouver campus’ reputation as the best in the country. Refugees from the world’s dowdier campuses will continue to scour the want ads for hope.