As part of the implementation of the 2011 Official Community Plan, District Community Planning staff will shortly be undertaking a collaborative review of the design guidelines and local plan for Edgemont Village. Help refresh the plan for your village! This community planning initiative is anticipated to occur over much of 2013 with opportunities for public participation at every stage of the process.Details here.
These meetings are timely, as there are development proposals on both ends of the Village. Nearer Capilano Road, the old Supervalu is being sold, and Thrifty's plans a new development and store. On the other end, the plaza containing the North Shore Credit Union is slated for a new multi-story development.
Both developments are looking at three or four stories, so no high-rises here.
At the same time, one more long time retailer has disappeared, about to be replaced by the seemingly unstoppable Fresh Slice Pizza chain. Sigh.
I like Edgemont a lot, and come through the Village at least five or six times each week on business, or shopping. I like that it has maintained a real "village" feel, with a lively street life - at least until 6pm when they roll up the sidewalks.
24 comments:
Would be great to see a more vibrant Edgemont Village after 6pm! I hope Canyon adds to that possibility. Had a great dinner there the other night.
I like Edgemont a lot, and come through the Village at least five or six times each week on business, or shopping. I like that it has maintained a real "village" feel, with a lively street life - at least until 6pm when they roll up the sidewalks.
And I like Lynn Valley Village a lot, and use the shops and services regularily. I hope it modernizes some in the near future, but just like Edgemont I would hope high-rises will not be built and take away from that 'Village' feel Why should Lynn Valley get high-rises and not Edgemont?
John Sharpe said, "Why should Lynn Valley get high-rises and not Edgemont?"
Because nobody has proposed them yet.
Why take a swipe at Fresh Slice? It's survival of the fittest in any retail situation and if a business is no longer relevant, or does not entice customers to buy what they have to sell, for any number of reasons, they eventually go out of business and that applies to Fresh Slice or any other entity.
Does Edgemont have a community association?
Anon 1:48 PM, Even the most basic Googling skills will provide you with the answer.
Yes http://www.fonvca.org/Edgemont/
A non-profit group formed in 1992 by residents of Upper Capilano who consider Edgemont Village to be their "Town Centre" and want to play a pro-active role in issues which effect the liveability of the commercial area and the residential neigbourhoods.
Our area is bounded on the west by the Capilano River, on the north by Grouse Mountain, on the east by Mosquito Cr, by the Trans-Canada highway to the south.
Voluntary membership dues are $10/year per family. Meeting are usually held on a Wednesday in the Potlatch Rm at the Capilano Library, 3045 Highland Blvd. Meetings last from 7pm to 9:30pm with a coffee break at about 8pm.
It's interesting to compare Edgemont to Lynn Valley. I'd say that Edgemont is still like a small village, in the sense that it's still oriented towards pedestrian traffic. Even if you drive there, you'll walk up and down the streets, window shop, have a coffee.
I can't see shopping at the Lynn Valley Mall as being anywhere near as pleasant. I'd say that most people drive there, go to one or two stores (mostly grocery shopping, unless they're parking in the disabled spaces to buy beer) and then immediately leave.
The new library square is good move towards Edgemont style shopping, but the model of an enclosed mall will never be the same.
My mention of Freshslice is not to suggest that they are better or worse than any other fast food joint, just that it's one more step towards losing all of the local/mom and pop businesses that have managed to survive in the Village.
On a related note, I finally visited the new Fresh St Market (aka, IGA with a new suit and haircut) in West Van today. Wow, does it ever make our North Vancouver supermarkets look pathetic.
Four storey buildings with underground parking and a village like shopping experience would be more than welcome in Lynn Valley.
It's planting a Metrotown into the midst of LV that most people object to.
We live and pay higher taxes here - not to be saddled with big city turmoil.
How is a mall promoting a village-like shopping experience? Suburban is not village-like, no matter how much you wish it to be.
We have the mall. We must do the best we can with it.
Why? Why settle for that waste of space and visual abomination? A mall and surface parking do not a 'village' make. Face the reality that you are in a suburb, not a 'village'.
I love the mall. It rains half the year, and that mall is a welcome break.
And that pretty much sums up why they have chocolate and vanilla!
And black and white.
Putting in 2000 underground parking stalls and making it look green on top does nothing. These cars still have to come and go from Lynn Valley.
It's called spin and the only people who benefit are the developers.
I take it you ride a bicycle.
I do.
We don't need more cars in Lynn Valley. The public transit system has to be improved here before densification. I know it sounds backwards, however we cannot count on TransLink for anything.
Sorry, Anon 8:08 PM, but the cars are already coming to and from Lynn Valley. If you place mixed use on that site with residential, you're providing potential for residents to live and work in one area, thus reducing car traffic coming and going. The traffic you complain about is a direct result of a sprawling suburb where services are not within walking distance. Mixed used development at the town centre begins to adress that to a degree. So while you rail against traffic, remember that that traffic is from your own community. Also, Translink has made it clear that there will be no increase in service until there is an increase in density.
Anonymous 8:08...
You really do spout'
a load of cr..p.
As you say "but the cars are already coming to and from Lynn Valley"..
Well, we kind of noticed without your help. As the OTHER Anonymous said ..:
"Putting in 2000 underground parking stalls and making it look green on top does nothing. These cars still have to come and go from Lynn Valley"
But then you tell us how it will all be 'mitigated' because there will be local employment ( in the urban MALL ??? you so detest?) .. I dont think so.
Truth is, these people who fill the 22 storey HIRISE TOWERS are still going to drive to Surrey, or New Westminster, or downtown Vancouver or DELTA ( as I did for many years) and the traffic will be much worse than today. You know this as well as I do, so I am not sure what drives your comments here unless it is zealotry. Yea ya know, the idea that we will all give up driving forever and live in stac and pac egg crates ( how sustainable!!).
Now it is confused in here, with so many Anonymeece, but in reply to
"Why? Why settle for that waste of space and visual abomination? A mall and surface parking do not a 'village' make. Face the reality that you are in a suburb, not a 'village'. " I would have to reply that I am fine with that. I am fine with the visual abomination as it compares with the abomination of 22 storey hirise towers blocking the view of Seymour. I am aware that I moved to a pretty suburb, a very nice one and I am fine with that.
So if you aren't, well then tell us why spend your time in here advocating its demise and why you moved here in the first place, when you have so much else to choose from over at Metrotown or City of North Vancouver, or the West End.
Why huh?
Anon 10:57 PM, you need to improve your reading comprehension. I very clearly said that a new mixed use development has the POTENTIAL for "residents to live and work in one area, thus reducing car traffic coming and going." With the inclusion of retail and office space with the residential development, there is the POTENTIAL for residents to live and work within the neighbourhood. This has the potential for reducing the need for these residents to use their automobiles. Will some people still be commuting to other areas to work? Sure, just as current residents do. You want to prevent new residents from using 'your' roads to make a living? If you commuted for many years, why is it wrong for new residents to do the same? Why is it only okay for you and not others?
Taste is a subjective thing. You say you moved to a pretty suburb. That's your subjective opinion. Personally, I see a lot of waste and ugliness. Ugly, inward facing, blank-faced, brick malls with seas of ground parking are at the top of my list of human built abominations. Generic strip malls fronted by fields of asphalt reserved for cars is right up there too. I'd rather see architecture that interacts with the street and community. I'd rather see a pedestrian friendly neighbourhood. I'd rather see an end to wasteful sprawl. You dislike high rises, while I like them. Subjective.
You want to continue living in the past. But I would suggest that your desire to live in the past is what will cause the 'demise' of your community. I'm interested in a vibrant, walkable town centre that provides options for people to live and work within their community. I want to see those options include more options for affordable housing so that the people working or retiring on the North Shore can continue to live in their community. You like your single family detached home, which is fine, but you don't have the right to deny other people options for living and working in their own community.
Look I am Lee Leeman not Anon 10:57 so that straight Anon 9:07.
First... you didnt answer me as to why you moved here? what is it that made you want to live in Lynn Valley ( if indeed you do ).
Second.. your comment about my reading comprehension was interesting to me as I passed on upbraiding you about what you quoted back to me.. :
"I very clearly said that a new mixed use development has the POTENTIAL for "residents to live and work in one area, thus reducing car traffic coming and going.""
Yea.. you I agree. There is POTENTIAL but a very small potential. Unless you think you are going to build a couple of high rises and suddenly there will be scads of 'small is good' engineering firms, wood processing mills, publishers, call centres, chicken farms and coal ports opening offices in Lynn Valley, then you are peddling cr_p as the residents of these monstrolsities will be doing what the ones in Metrotown , North Vancouver and the West End are doing.. mainly.. commuting to work to pay their mortgages.
And if you do your research, I think you'll find that the 'local' employment is not relocating but has already relocated to the suburbs like Langley and Surrey.
It is all too clear, just from your verbiage, that you are an LA21 zealot where everything is 'vibrant' and and 'walkable' and have yet to think through the consequences of your zealotry. You like hirises because you have been indoctrinated.
Resisting the building the first of many ugly hirise towers in a mountain enclave is not about how I am living any past, but how I fear for the future the likes of you would bring upon your own generation and those that follow.
And finally, don't be telling me I am denying anyone options with the City of North Vancouver building hirises by the score just blocks away.
I didn't move here newcomer. I've lived here my entire life.
Bob and weave Anon 3:04.
Bob and weave.
Children, behave!
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