Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 6.1
Resident preferences for downzoning changes, Westside neighbourhoods, 1992 (n = 1364)
40%
floor space
reduction
25%
floor space
reduction
10%
floor space
reduction
No change
Total
South Shaughnessy
34
40
13
13
100
Kerrisdale
16
52
12
21
100
Oakridge
22
41
10
28
100
All residents
24
44
12
20
100
Source : Ley (1995, Table 1)
Despatches from the Trenches
As anxieties escalated markedly in South Shaughnessy about housing
demolitions and the construction of new large houses unsympathetic to the
local landscape, Council grasped the nettle, calling a public hearing for
September 1992 to air opinions and bring a definitive resolution to a now
acute problem. In one of the longest public hearings in the city's history,
councillors sat uncomfortably beneath television lights and before an agi-
tated audience of up to 500 residents for six consecutive evenings.
The arguments put forward by SHPOA and its allies were consistent
with the rhetoric and discourse of neighbourhood protection that had been
normalized in urban politics and local area planning in the City for the
previous 20 years. Council was familiar with these arguments for they had
been presented in petitions and letters for the past five years and indeed
had been accepted as a rationale for the First Shaughnessy Plan in 1982.
There was a constant refrain: the need for public regulation to preserve a
heritage landscape, the requirement that new buildings be 'neighbourly' in
their design, an insistence that mature trees and landscaping be respected.
The tone of letters was sometimes defensive, even pugnacious, condemn-
ing the 'indelible blight' of 'hideous monsters'. 'My sense of beauty',
declared one writer 'is assaulted by those stark, tasteless monster houses,
built right in the middle of our neighbourhoods on clear cut lots without
landscaping'. In letters to Council and in SHPOA's brief at the public
hearing the case for social rights and responsibilities was contrasted with
the perceived individualism and social irresponsibility of the market.
Shaughnessy, wrote a resident, is 'a community of character and maturity'
threatened by 'unbridled greed'.
SHPOA's brief affirmed the conclusion to such logic: 'We need guide-
lines. The unique characteristics of the neighbourhood require limits. Are
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