Our Concerns
The proposed building of four, 20-storey residence towers near the cliff edge present the following environmental and social concerns:
- Pacific Spirit Regional Park, around and including Wreck Beach, is the site of a very fragile ecosystem. It is the only wilderness-type environment left on the Vancouver shoreline of the Georgia Strait. It is home to numerous resident and migratory species of birds, such as the world's population of Western Sandpipers, the great blue heron and the Pileatted woodpecker. A multitude of wildlife, including river otters, shelter in its forests and marshes.
- Vibrations caused by construction of the towers, drainage from the construction site, and increased truck traffic plus building weight could affect the perched aquifer topography of the cliff-face. The next conceivable step would be for UBC to pressure the GVRD into erosion-control measures that could involve bio-engineering and shaving of the cliff-face to an angle of repose in an already challenged and fragile area.
On Friday, April 30, the GVRD Board of Directors voted to send a letter to the UBC Board of Governors (BOG) asking them how proposed campus development such as the four, 20-storey Marine Residence towers "fit with the Cliff Erosion Management Plan (CEMP) for Pacific Spirit Regional Park," a plan that the BOG signed off on November 30, 2003.
With the GVRD Board of Directors asking that UBC’s Board of Governors "take into consideration environmental sensitivities (of the cliffs within Pacific Spirit Regional Park) when they undertake planning of the towers," the pressure on UBC to relocate and drop the heights of the Marine Residence Towers is steadily increasing.
- If these towers are built as projected, the beach will most definitely be visible from the top of the towers below the high water mark. This will mean that unless people will be content to huddle like Emperor Penguins near the foot of Wreck Beach trail #6, they will be easily seen by those above. Such planning does not honour the Cliff Erosion Management Plan which the UBC Board of Governors signed on November 30, 2003.
- If the beach were to become visible from above, the towers would also be visible from the beach. For centuries, people have enjoyed the last untouched, pristine view of the cliff side, its trees, and its wildlife without any view of development at all. This is the same view that Captain George Vancouver and Simon Fraser had when they approached the shoreline, and which has continued to be enjoyed by the Musqueam (People of the Grass) of Halkomelem Nation for generations. They called this sacred land "Ulksen". If the towers go up, the tradition of a natural view and setting will be gone forever.
- The beach itself is the destination of over 300,000 visitors annually from around the world. Changes of this magnitude -- the construction of these residential towers at this location -- would destroy the ambience of the beach enjoyed by over 14,000 persons on a peak summer weekend day in July. Although 83 percent of beach users are from the Lower Mainland, our other visitors literally journey to Vancouver from around the world because of Wreck Beach. We estimate that Wreck Beach, in goods and services, generated tourist revenues of over $61 million in 2001 alone. Wreck Beach wraps around the Point Grey promontory for a distance of 7.8 kilometers.
- Even if the towers' height is lowered, the view of the cliff side would still be marred by bright ambient light that would be increased in the area. Lights above the park would be extremely unaesthetic, and not at all in keeping with the principle of maintaining a wilderness feeling and ambience in the park. We want the building re-located as well as reduced in height -- or removed altogether.
Lighting in the tower area is hazardous to the birds. The towers will be sited beside the major Pacific Migratory Bird Fly-Way and bird strikes will be inevitable due to nighttime lighting. Eagles train their young in this area because they nest and roost in trees that lie directly across from the proposed towers. The area in front of both St. John's Campus and all along the Nitobe garden areas are already being impacted by nighttime lighting, but this situation will be seriously worsened should the tower development go ahead in this location.
- Wreck Beach (and the water surrounding it) is the unparalleled best viewing area for astronomical events in the Vancouver region, primarily because there is no ambient light coming from above.
Development on the UBC campus farther away from the proposed cliff side area would create a necessary buffer zone between the park and proposed student housing, and would address the above environmental, ecological, and social concerns.