Frequently asked questions

The Vancouver Plan will be a long-term strategic plan  to help guide the community recovery and long-term planning of our city.  A goal of Planning Vancouver Together is to ensure that the process reflects the voices and diversity of our population. 

While we have much to be proud of, we recognize that who we want to become as a city has not always been clear or intentional. As a result, the benefits and impacts of change have not been equally shared by all.

Without a clear vision, our daily decisions and policies will not lead us in a direction that we desire together. In light of the current pandemic crisis, the Vancouver Plan is shifting to respond to recovery efforts. Together we will create a clear, intentional, and actionable plan to address the needs of the present and ensure that future generations can thrive here.

What is the time frame for the Plan?

The Planning Vancouver Together process began in 2019 and will take approximately three years to develop the Vancouver Plan with early actions while planning. We’ve organized our work into five phases between now and 2022 with key deliverables in each phase.

To learn more please see the timeline at vancouverplan.ca/timeline

We are currently well advanced in Phase 1 the 'Listen and Learn Phase', where we are hearing broadly from the community on their aspirations and challenges.

What kind of a plan can I expect?

This plan will serve as the city’s strategic framework, setting the vision for the future of our City to 2050 and beyond. It will also help guide our community recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, while focusing on how our city grows and how we invest in it over the next 30 years, giving direction in both the near and long-term.

The Plan aims to capture all perspectives and prioritizes from people who live and work here. We recognize there is a rich diversity of people, experiences, and perspectives that can inform the plan. The success of this plan depends on the feedback and input of everyone.

The Vancouver Plan will include a number of key elements including:

• A Long-term Vision – that will set out the broad goals of the type of city we want to be, looking out to 2050 and beyond. 
• A Strategic Policy Framework – that will align with the goals and objectives of the Vision and include a more detailed set of policies and a land-use/ spatial plan outlining how we will get there. It will also include a number of our community-focused short-term recovery actions.
• An Implementation Strategy – that will guide how the plan will be delivered. Key metrics and a reporting structure will be developed to track delivering on the Plan’s intentions. It will also give direction on the future deliverables, such as the high-level physical plan indicating generally where the built environment will change and the early investment strategy.

1. Other policy initiatives in development

There are many current priorities and plans the City must continue to address. The Vancouver Plan is the main platform for policy planning and is being developed in coordination with a number of other programs, including Housing Vancouver, the Broadway Plan, Jericho Lands Policy Statement, the Employment Lands and Economy Review, and the Climate Emergency Response among others.

We will also continue to address immediate COVID-19 needs and the community recovery effort, which is exacerbating housing and local economy/ business needs, the opioid crisis and the climate emergency among other issues. A key goal for the Vancouver Plan is to create a shared vision that integrates and prioritizes our future directions with these other existing initiatives.   

The learning and research from these policies will inform and shape the Vancouver Plan and vice-versa. Staff are committed to working collaboratively to ensure public engagement is coordinated and maximizes participants’ time and efforts.

2. Existing Community and Area Plans

Over the past ten years, the City has completed a number of area and community plans. The creation of these plans involved extensive engagement and community investment, and the plans have created a sense of certainty for what to expect in the coming decades in terms of public and private investment. 

Through the process, the creation of a new Vancouver Plan will identify new priorities that require us to update current policy. As the Plan is prepared, proposed policy updates will be brought to Council. Until that time, existing policies guiding our evolving city will remain in effect.

3. Regional Planning Initiatives 

Regional planning will influence Vancouver directly through the expectations set for the City, and indirectly through the expectations they set for other local governments within the region. The Planning Vancouver Together initiative is a key opportunity to take a leadership role and help shape and respond to the regional picture.

Some key regional work underway that the Plan will help shape and align with includes:

• Metro Vancouver intends to update the Regional Growth Strategy which advances regional goals around urban development, the economy, the environment and climate change, housing and community services, and integrated land use and transportation. 
• Metro Vancouver is also developing Climate 2050 intended as the regional response to climate change. 
• TransLink is in the process of developing Transport 2050, which will set out the vision, goals, strategies, and key transportation initiatives for Metro Vancouver for the next 30 years.

Our intention is to ensure that the voices we hear through the Planning Vancouver Together process are representative of the diversity and richness of our population. Without this diversity, we cannot ensure that the Plan for the future reflects the voices and perspectives of all who live, work and play in Vancouver.

Ensuring everyone can take part

We’ll reach out through existing relationships, networks, email lists, and partnerships to facilitate broad participation in this plan—from individuals, to neighbourhoods, businesses, stakeholders, non-profits and agencies. We will be working specifically with organizations and advisory committees that support and represent under-represented communities.

Here are some of things we are doing:

1. Resources - Community grants and other financial supports, will be made available to address structural barriers, such as language, cultural, or economic barriers to ensure groups can participate meaningfully in the Planning Vancouver Together processes.
2. Languages - The first Vancouver Plan survey was made available in five languages: English, traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, Punjabi and Tagalog. In response to feedback on the survey, we are working to ensure that appropriate language translation services are in place for development of future materials.
3. Youth Voice - Extra efforts will be made to understand the youth perspective; activities and tools will be designed to empower children and youth and allow them to present their voices authentically.
4. Businesses - We are reaching out to businesses through existing networks and the Employment Lands and Economy Review work underway. 
5. Neighbourhoods - We are reaching out to neighbourhood residents through established email lists the City developed through previous engagement processes, public contacts for residential associations, Business Improvement Associations, and through community centres and libraries.

6. Community Circles - We have also been meeting a wide variety of stakeholders and interested organizations to get their early input in the process and establish relationships. Recognizing the wide diversity of interests, these circles have included other levels of government, local service providers, non-profit agencies, educational institutions, neighbourhood-based groups, interest groups, equity-seeking groups and representative agencies, etc. To-date, staff have met with a large number of external organizations in over 80 meetings that have included 1,000 in-person interactions.

Working with the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations and urban Indigenous communities

The City has been actively advancing conversations with the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations to establish working partnerships for Planning Vancouver Together. Through these partnerships, the voices of the local host Nations and their communities will not only influence the outcomes, but will also help shape the process of the planning effort itself.

To ensure that the voice of the city’s urban Indigenous communities and their service providers are reflected in this work, the City is teaming up with the Metro Vancouver Aboriginal Executive Council (MVAEC), and will bring regular updates on this work back to the Urban Indigenous People’s Advisory Committee.    

Ensuring Transparency

Online and print materials will outline the various stages of the process, and advise of ways to participate in the process. The website will share public input received, and capture what we heard in summaries and reports. There will also be regular reports to Council on what we heard, and to confirm next steps. Please sign up for our newsletter to stay informed.

The Planning Vancouver Together process will continue to evolve in response to COVID-19 and based on public input regarding preferred engagement methods and emerging priorities. For now, most of our engagement will be online.

We are asking people to visit vancouverplan.ca to sign up for our newsletter so they can stay up to date on new engagement opportunities and the plan's progress.

Moving forward, engagement will be conducted primarily through digital means such as this website, as well as through mail (in print), and we will explore media and radio opportunities to communicate. Some smaller in-person engagement is being considered later in 2020, pending direction from the BC Provincial Health Officer.

In the meantime, you can review our preliminary engagement findings from the pre-COVID 'Listen and Learn' phase. A high-level summary of the findings and our presentation of them to Council can be found under the “Documents” section on the homepage. Sign-up and stay up-dated with our newsletter at vancouverplan.ca.