{"id":798529,"date":"2026-07-13T06:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T06:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/798529\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T06:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T06:22:10","slug":"patrick-condon-serious-concerns-with-vancouvers-villages-plan-public-hearing-july-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/798529\/","title":{"rendered":"Patrick Condon: Serious Concerns with Vancouver\u2019s Villages Plan (Public Hearing July 14)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Prof. Patrick Condon has publicly shared his letter to Vancouver City Council regarding the \u201cVillages\u201d plan to upzone nearly 14,000 land parcels in 17 areas of Vancouver this week. Prof. Condon is Professor Emeritus at University of British Columbia\u2019s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, and author of many books on cities, including <a href=\"https:\/\/cityhallwatch.wordpress.com\/2024\/05\/29\/broken-city-book-patrick-condon\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Broken City<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The attention-getter here is that if Council approves the Villages plan, if tallied with existing plans, Vancouver is setting itself up to add around 1.4 million more people to the population. This is worthy of serious discussion by our elected officials. In public. This week. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/council.vancouver.ca\/20260714\/phea20260714ag.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">public hearing is July 14, 2026<\/a>. More information and links can be found on our <a href=\"https:\/\/cityhallwatch.wordpress.com\/odp\/villages-program\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Villages portal page<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"117291\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/cityhallwatch.wordpress.com\/2026\/07\/12\/serious-concerns-villages-plan-condon\/patrick-condon-to-cov-on-villages-plan-for-14-jul-2026\/#main\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/cityhallwatch.wordpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/patrick-condon-to-cov-on-villages-plan-for-14-jul-2026.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"714,852\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Patrick Condon to CoV on Villages plan for 14-Jul-2026\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/patrick-condon-to-cov-on-villages-plan-for-14-jul-2026.jpg\" width=\"714\" height=\"852\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/patrick-condon-to-cov-on-villages-plan-for-14-jul-2026.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-117291\" style=\"aspect-ratio:0.8380462724935732;width:278px;height:auto\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">July 12, 2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Subject: Serious Concerns with Vancouver\u2019s Plan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dear Mayor and Council,<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I write to challenge key elements of the Villages Plan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Combined with the Official Development Plan and Broadway Plan, the City envisions a fully built-out future that adds around 1.4 million people to our city of 670,000.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This massive oversupply is promoted as the path to housing affordability. Yet there is no historical evidence to support this claim.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Vancouver has tripled its housing stock since the 1960s \u2013 more than any other major North American centre city \u2013 yet our prices remain North America\u2019s highest, not the lowest. If adding hundreds of thousands of units truly lowered prices, we would already see it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The market, driven by globe-wide speculative inflation has failed us. Our plans are feeding this speculative beast rather than taming it.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/patrick-condon-2024.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"117290\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/cityhallwatch.wordpress.com\/2026\/07\/12\/serious-concerns-villages-plan-condon\/patrick-condon-2024\/#main\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/patrick-condon-2024.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"200,298\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Patrick Condon 2024\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/patrick-condon-2024.jpg?w=200\" width=\"200\" height=\"298\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/patrick-condon-2024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-117290\" style=\"aspect-ratio:0.6711569613777816;width:165px;height:auto\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">True affordability requires mandating that new housing be affordable to average wage earners, primarily through non-market housing development.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I urge you to revise these plans accordingly, deeply involving residents from every corner of the city, to arrive at sustainable, equitable, and affordable housing growth<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thank you,<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yours truly,<br \/>Professor Emeritus Patrick M. Condon<br \/>University of British Columbia<br \/>School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prof. Patrick Condon has publicly shared his letter to Vancouver City Council regarding the \u201cVillages\u201d plan to upzone&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":798530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[49,48,55],"class_list":["post-798529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/798530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}