iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I appreciate this representation of real life in a floor plan drawing

A portion of an architectural drawing of a studio apartment, showing a slightly messy bed with a cat comfortably sprawled belly-up in the middle.

Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Aside from protecting SFHs from change and allowing more sprawl, they take both sides on issues Cutting $1B in public funding to affordable dwellings: bad Spending $1.45B for affordable housing conversion: no, market-led solutions should solve affordability

While requiring more population density, the Conservatives said in September that the NDP aren’t providing enough funds for infrastructure, especially schools. Prince George-Valemount MLA Rosalind Bird this year joined municipal politicians in criticizing the NDP for suspending $1 billion in spending from the community housing fund, which had been meant for supporting affordable dwellings.

Emphasizing “market-led” solutions to unaffordability, the Conservatives hammered this summer’s proposal by Eby and Ottawa to spend $1.45 billion to buy 3,200 unsold condos to convert to affordable housing. “If prices are set too high for condo units to be sold, market forces will cause the prices to lower until people can afford them,” a statement said.

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Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I hear a lot of "zoning is not the problem because council approves every rezoning", then refuse to support zoning change that makes the incremental or social housing they claim to support easier.

Survivorship bias airplane damage diagram

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Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

50 years later, they're still opposing smaller apartments in the area.

A crowd protesting a bulldozer in 1970s Kitsilano. In the background a six storey apartment is already constructed. Behind the bulldozer is the location of a recently constructed 5 storey apartment that was also protested in the neighbourhood.

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Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

TEAM doesn't think Bligh is worth mentioning 😂

TEAM for a Livable Vancouver would like to thank William Azaroff for his contributions to the political debate leading up to the October 17 civic election. Azaroff withdrew from the mayoral race today.

With that race now having narrowed to four contenders, this election is about a choice for residents.

Will Vancouver continue to be governed by a City Hall that puts developers' profits ahead of residents interests? There are three parties that represent this approach: ABC, the Vancouver Liberals, and the Greens.

Or will Vancouver voters choose a new approach that respects the needs and interests of residents and neighbourhoods and puts people before profit? That party is TEAM for a Livable Vancouver.

"I'm running because no one else is standing up for the residents of this city," says TEAM mayoral candidate Colleen Hardwick. "No other party is offering the change that Vancouver desperately needs."

Pete Fry says he cares about community and livability. But his voting record shows the opposite. When decisive votes were held this past term, he repeatedly joined Ken Sim and ABC in advancing the same sweeping development agenda that TEAM is fighting to stop.

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Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

- Villages Plan - Social Housing Initiative - The Raven replacing a strip mall at Alma & Broadway - Residential over industrial at 2nd & Yukon - Telus phone exchange to residential at 10th & Yew

An article except listing various options for infill development that have been individually highlighted.

"For example, Vancouver has tinkered with infill housing by way of laneway homes and more recently, conversion of single-family detached zones to multiplex buildings. But the group suggests taking infill further by finding density within existing zoning that doesn’t jeopardize existing affordable rentals. It’s an approach that Paris has recently tried when that city adopted a controversial planning document that requires about 1,000 large buildings, including office buildings, to devote 10 per cent of their square footage to residential space. The group recommends rezoning low-use areas for affordable housing and adding housing to unused parking lots in strip malls, or above “vast warehousing roofs or atop public utilities sites; or on obsolete street rights-of-way.” "

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Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Pretty "quiet part out loud" here. Low rise apartments, but not anywhere near me. Put it on suburban stroads instead of in the city where people need homes.

“There is a lot of land out there that isn’t effectively used,” said Mr. Beasley. “A little bit further out in the suburbs you have these strip malls with these huge parking lots. You could add three-storey walk-ups on an edge of it.”

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Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Density drops pretty quickly from downtown in the city proper, and from Skytrain stations in the nearby cities. CoV has limited infill densification for decades in favour of high density redevelopment of industrial areas.

Aerial photo of the city of Vancouver. The towers of the downtown peninsula are in the distance of vast low density houses.

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Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Pretty straightforward graphic from the city. Hard to tell who was being deliberately or ignorantly misleading about the R3 upzoned areas, or a realistic pace of change.

Graphic of the possible options in Vancouver residential zones from R1 (detached house or multiplex) through R5 (high rise)

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Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

I don't know how ABC thinks they're appealing to anybody instead of alienating everybody

In the Mos Eisley cantina, an alien labelled "NIMBys" stares with slight menace, as someone in the background says "They don't like you". The other character, labelled "YIMBYs" leans in front and says "We don't like you either".

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Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

This is such a BS framing. The need for more housing is pretty concrete, and many of the worries about infrastructure are not.

Yan said it was interesting that the most common arguments in favour of the plan were less concrete concepts like the need for greater and more affordable housing, while opposition comments tended to focus on specific concerns, like the loss of tree canopy and infrastructure worries.
Article content

“There are clear parts of the city that support the idea of the villages, and then the opposition deals with the people who are trying to work through the reality, the possibility of these villages,” he said.

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Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

With just those numbers, some would divide by households and say density is worse. Probably need to combine with where that additional tax revenue goes because of efficiencies.

Comparison of servicing costs for suburban ($3462) and urban ($1416) households in Halifax by Sustainable Prosperity

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Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Visiting the VanPoli FB group is not good for my mental health

A Facebook comment including the sentence "I prefer organically built cities like Paris that started in the centre and radiated outwards"

Syndrome from the movie Incredibles getting upset

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Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

(The southwest extent of the Broadway Plan does now permit low rise apartments northeast of Vine & 16th)

Zoning map around Arbutus & 16th.
From two blocks west at Vine, going north and east, are now zoned R3-2 for low rise residential. To the south east is the restrictive First Shaughnessy District, and the remainder southwest and further west of Vine Street is low density residential R1-1 which allows multiplexes.

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Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

What if new apartments could have been built on any of the rest of this instead? Maybe those new residents would have liked to go bowling? www.vancouverisawesome.com/courier-arch...

Satellite view of the blocks of low density residential houses surrounding Arbutus and 16th, where a theatre and bowling alley were redeveloped into a grocery store

Article from Nov 6, 2012:

Community mourns loss of Ridge Theatre and Varsity bowling alley

The Arbutus Ridge community will soon be mourning the loss of two of its members. Plans to tear down Varsity Bowling and the Ridge Theatre were approved by the City of Vancouver's development permit board on Oct. 22.

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Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Most of the neighbourhood is within a 10 minute walk to multiple grocery stores vancouver.ca/people-progr...

A map of grocery stores within Vancouver's West End Neighbourhood

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Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

Bring traditional architecture back to Vancouver neighbourhoods

A two storey apartment with white stucco and brown trim. A wood-shingled eave spans the building above the upper windows.

An older three story apartment building with white stucco and green trim

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Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

I think they did a great job of fitting the scale and context of the neighbourhood

The top floors of Senakw peeking from behind a row of mature trees in Kits Point

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Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Just thinking of it now that I should have painted one of the cubes while they were on Yew

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Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

The city's own 2022 Housing Needs Report, even if you omit the future demand portion 😬

Graphic from The City of Vancouver 2022 Housing Needs Report

77,000 households living in unaffordable, unsuitable, or inadequate housing
2,000 people who are homeless
7,000 people living in an SRO
50,000 new households in 10 years from a growing and changing population

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Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

There's many quotes from her like that

"I can excuse racism, but I draw the line at animal cruelty."

"You can excuse racism?!"

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Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Would the people who think zoned capacity is enough accept the displacement and rapid change of entire blocks?

A photo of 4th Ave from the north east corner of Cypress Street looking south west. A recently built five storey building on the corner is the tallest on the block.

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Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Some people say "there's enough zoned capacity" to oppose upzoning as if it means their neighbourhood wouldn't have to change. But restricting any change to existing zoning would mean replacing all of this first. I think that's more disruptive than allowing more apartments in surrounding blocks.

A wide angle photo of 4th Ave at Maple in the evening, from the south east corner looking north east. A line sketch of approximately six storey height buildings is drawn over top of the existing row of one and two storey buildings on the north side that would be replaced if the area was redeveloped to its zoned capacity.

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Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Someone should offer to pick his mom up and take her for a ride

A senior citizen riding on the front of a cargo bike

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Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

Borrowing an image, to outsiders the downtown peninsula often *is* the city and a lot of what they're visiting for. Things further than that are destinations disconnected by travel, whether they're in the city (Bloedel Conservatory), technically not (UBC MoA), or actually not (Capilano Suspension)

An aerial image of Vancouver used by the Vancouver Area Neighbours Association. The downtown peninsula in the upper right is labelled "The image", while the low density residential that occupies most of the frame is labelled "The reality".

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Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

These developers are lowering my property value by paying my neighbour more than anyone else would for their house. Now excuse me while I renovate my kitchen because it has a good return on property value.

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Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

I guess it really isn't his job to crunch numbers…

A cartoon dog refusing to give up a ball.
"Community centres?"
"No property taxes"
"Only funding"

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Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

Not a choice I would have thought of, but it's pretty good

A pile of seasoned potato chips on a box of Nanaimo bars, one half eaten.

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Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

Sorry, I'm late posting a joke for April Fools

The intro paragraph for the First Shaughnessy District zoning schedule:

The intent of this schedule is to protect the distinct estate character of First Shaughnessy by conserving protected heritage property while allowing increased dwelling unit density with multiple conversion dwellings, infill, and secondary suites. Multiple dwelling is only permitted on sites without protected heritage property . Renovations and additions should be compatible with, subordinate to, and distinguishable from existing buildings. For all developments, emphasis is on sensitive site planning, compatible building scale, flexible and varied outcomes of built form and high quality design, materials and construction.

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Westside Backyard @westside-backyard.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

An honourable mention to this two storey on Point Grey Road near Alma, where apartments would be out of character with this family neighbourhood, but it's looking undersized these days compared to the younger neighbours. Originally Jericho Lodge Apartments built in 1924

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