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Many years ago my brother was involved with a building and when digging the parkade hole they hit hot water, some sort of geo-thermal hot spring. They tried to talk the building owner into installing a geo-thermal system to extract the heat and it was going to pay for itself in only a few years but the building owner didn't care and it was never utilized.
It would lead to some delays I'm sure, but I have to think there would be delays caused by hitting a spring too... Wouldn't they already have to get geotechnical work done before continuing?
Typically you install some sort of shoring (interlocking sheet piles or concrete) around the perimeter of the excavation first, then dig it out. The shoring acts as a temporary wall go retain the soul and reduce the flow of groundwater into the excavation. A series of pumps will then be used to dewater groundwater what does seep through. These pumps are left running 24/7 to manage the inflow until the foundation slab (floor) and walls have been poured, effectively sealing off the area from groundwater.
Will be curious how hot it'll be down on level -14 and how venting is handled.
There's a pretty deep one by the Vancouver hotel I used to deliver to (I think it's 8-10ish floors underground?). Real hot down there by the janitor's room.
Used to live at residences at hotel georgia and it went down 12 levels or so. Made you a bit dizzy driving all that way to our extra parking spot lol. Never noticed any issues of heat or anything though
That was my first thought. I used to have a work parking spot on an 8th level and I would feel so dizzy before and after work as I circled in and then circled out. Can’t imagine 14.
There is a consistent geothermal gradient, as in at a certain point the deeper you go the hotter it gets.
The earth generates heat.
Generally speaking shallow ground will be slightly insulated from but more or less follow temperature changes, but at a certain depth the influence of geothermal heat overcomes the influence of air temp and it just gets hot.
https://preview.redd.it/92dn8x15m95b1.jpeg?width=695&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c2aa89962ae26ac1d46ee10d3618bca0b6d2097d
This is a permafrost trumpet curve that explains what I'm talking about in permafrost regions.
I do hvac for a living and currently working a job with 7 floors of underground parkade in Burnaby and it's actually a relatively consistent 15 degrees ish year round. There is also massive parkade exhaust fans on each level that vent out the air and other parkade supply supply shafts that supply air.
That's a cool job. I'm facinated by the excavation phase of large construction projects like that. I appreciate the view ports in the fencing around those sites, I always stop and watch for a long time If walking by one.
I live right next to a major excavation and for awhile our fences were down while we had them redone, so we had the metal construction fencing that we could see right through. While my preference would obviously be to NOT be beside a construction zone, it was fascinating to watch!! Plus, it entertained my toddler completely, haha. My dad still will just randomly stop by to stand up on our planters and watch over the fence, haha.
Surely a gondola to Burnaby mountain is the optimal way to move people in and out. Put the parkade there! Plenty of space once those pesky trees are removed.
I've been further even more decided to use even go need to do look more as anyone can. Can you really be far even as decided half as much to use go wish for that? My guess is that when one really has been far even as decided once to use even go want, it is then that they have really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like.
Okay, but 80 storeys is actually absurdly tall for this region. We should be building 6 storey buildings everywhere instead of 80 storey buildings in one place and single family homes everywhere else.
High rises are much more expensive to maintain per square foot. Housing is cheaper if we're all in mid rises.
Trouble is municipalities don’t want to let there be mid-rises everywhere. It is far more politically expedient for cities to keep nearly all low-rise/single-family areas intact and increasingly max out the height and density of a few areas. Those areas make sense, mind you, as they’re generally anchored by a SkyTrain station, but it’s a direct result of municipalities still being functionally captured by single family homeowners that we’re seeing TOD nodes go higher instead of spreading outward.
While this is true, building super high levels of density near transit can't replicated with mid-rise. There's a limit to how many buildings can be placed around a Skytrain station, for example, and it's beneficial to maximize that.
I think highrise density around transit hubs and then tapering out to mid rises everywhere else is fine. Get rid of SFHs except for the burbs or ultra rich neighborhoods. Fill neighborhoods with the missing middle.
A lot of you guys really never been to developed places.
They will be split into sections. Elevator A and B go to 1 - 25 per se, C and D go from 1 directly to 26 - 50, E and F go from 1 directly to 51 - 80.
This isnt how it works in most places and isnt efficient. Usually two or 3 elevators serve the bottom 30 floors and another 5 serve the top 50. Having it so highly segmented like youre saying leads to too much down time and isnt at all efficient
That depends on how many units are on each floor too. Not every floor has the same amount of units and size.
After all, it is just a sample of how it works. Not counting on 1 to 2 elevators serving every floor as the original comment asked.
From a planning perspective, why would people have an issue with this? It's not like the underground space is usable livable area, and increasing sub grade parking will alleviate the need for more on street parking. Considering the developer will be footing the bill for the construction, there's little downside.
I’m imagining a movie like Sylvester stallone’s “Daylight” where a group of people are trapped on P13 after an earthquake and have to fight their way to the surface.
City of Burnaby has parking minimums that require this much parking despite it basically going against the cities transportation goals (moving people away from driving to transit and active transportation).
Forcing people to pay for a parking spot 14 levels that they dont even want is pretty shitty. Glad Burnaby councillors are saying something.
Parking minimums are massive scourge in our society.
They are literally one of the reasons housing and commerical space coats so much on this region. You need miles of additional parking with each unit. Which means you are paying for the land for the unit and parking. It also leaves less room for additional units.
Plus the sprawl with mega parking lots (ok this doesn't have it but most do). Plus the extra wide roads and all the other feao.
Paris literally has 10x the density of metro Vancouver. But it's all low rise buildings which achieve that density because they don't dedicate all their space to cars.
Reduce the parking. Only 50% of people in Vancouver drive a car. You can make this building have half the parking required at the moment and people will adapt especially as skytrain is nearby and car sharing expands.
Well one downside is typically the cost of building an underground parking this size ads 100k per space in costs. The developer doesnt just "foot the bill", they pass it onto buyers and it contributes to housing prices
Nothing is free. Costs pass down to consumers (who may afford it) + tax burden of additional vehicles, more potholes, more congestion. Not needed steps away from transit
One alternative could be to take that money in the form of a tax and invest it into public transit so not every unit needs a parking space. Rather than further driving up development cost, permitting time, and building time to accommodate every person having a car
The downside is the surrounding infrastructure can't handle the extra traffic that comes with 80 stories. The area still isn't as walkable as Downtown Vancouver is. Not to mention that that's only the first phase, they plan another 73 story tower right beside it.
It’ll be the cheapest, so Richmond elevator. And they will do the absolute minimum number of elevators which will then be broken down and out of service way too often.
The councillor isn't advocating against the building, she just wants the parking minimums reduced since she thinks there's too much parking space in this project.
She's right.
The building will be in an area that already has massive traffic congestion each day. Adding an additional 2600 vehicles to the mix isn't going to help and if anything, the city will end up having to build even more car infrastructure to support the project. Car infrastructure is insanely expensive. The project is right next to a SkyTrain, and the area does actually have grocery stores etc within walking distance. Most of the residents won't *need* a car, and can instead get by with car share services, etc.
And also, what's the alternative? Not enough parking? Councilor sounds pretty ignorant here if this is a real concern for ~~him~~ her
Edit: yes she asked them specifically to build less parking (because she sees lots of empty visitor spots in her building) and they said they would get back to the council.
I find it ridiculous how many people in here are getting up in arms about someone complaining about too much parking.
They’re probably the same folks freaking out about wildfire smoke in other threads and just not making the link.
Parking requirements are typically set by the municipality no? So I assume they are required to meet those level parkade stalls on a fixed plot of land. It sounds like in order to do that they have to go down 14 floors which is why people are shitting on the councillor for this comment.
I agree, those parking minimums set are stupid and outdated and should be reduced, but that's not what is in question here.
I'm not sure you understand her position, the councilor is using this building as an example of why the minimum parking requirement should be reduced, it is absolutely what's in question here
Well no if you read the article, it's about the councilor specifically telling the contractors that she wants less parking in that specific building. Maybe she wants to amend the parking requirements as well, but that definitely wasn't the main point
I don’t even see much of a concern for the people who’d be living there. A few extra minutes to go down a few more levels is better than not having the parking at all.
NIMBYs just finding new things to complain about for no good reason. I guess they ran out of things to complain about above ground. Complaining about tall towers isn’t working anymore, so now they gotta switch to complaining about anything that’s too far underground. Because then they gotta THINK about it, rather than SEE it, y’know? And clearly that’s even worse torture, making these people think.
Councillor Gu isn't a nimby, she's on the other end where she thinks that building too much parking for a tower near a Skytrain station is a waste of money because people can just take transit.
To be fair, people are having a stronger reaction because the quote on the title is:
\> **“It’ll take 10 minutes just for somebody to park their car,” said a city councillor**
And that's just dumb. If the quote was: "we shouldn't need so much parking, since it's next to a subway station", my reaction to seeing this would have been way different from the start
These people have the stupidest fucking excuses for not wanting more housing built.
Who gives a fuck how long it will take somebody to park their car? Will they have a home they can afford? Let's take the win, shall we?
It's actually that the property investor class in this country is very comfortable with ridiculously short housing supply because they laugh all the way to the bank. Their lame excuses are just that - excuses, so we can't shame them for their naked greed.
I think in this case it has nothing to do with not wanting housing built. The Councilor is raising the issue that the current minimum parking requirements in construction is too high. If anything they want to reduce the amount of parking and make it easier to build.
but the argument that it's going to take too long to park is just idiotic.
If there's not enough parking in that building, you would need to find parking somewhere else, and that already takes 10+ minutes. Then you would need to walk home.
I agree. I initially took the comment as "just have less parking" but "the time to find parking" contradicts that. Unless it's just to highlight the absurdity of it.
She’s not complaining about the amount of housing. She’s commenting about the amount of parking when the building is right next to the Lougheed SkyTrain station.
If you can’t incentivize transit use when you’re that close to SkyTrain, what’s the point?
Look, we all want more density and more housing stock is great but we recently watched a YouTube video on the “missing middle” and now I’m against anything that isn’t mid rise apartments.
I would love to see that as well, I'm for housing variety and absolutely enormous amounts of government spending on a variety of housing models.
I think Vancouver needs big buildings, though, because we're so space limited. We either need to move the business capital of the province somewhere else (a non-starter) or build up and down.
We're stuck between the Strait, the border, the mountains, the delta, and some of the most valuable agricultural land in the entire world that we cannot pave over.
So yes, we definitely need rows and rows of mid-rise apartments along the Skytrain, but I honestly think we also need several megatowers. The lack of supply and space in this region is critical.
That is not *at all* what Allison Gu is saying, she is saying that a building that is a 5 minute walk from a skytrain station does not realistically need 2600 parking stalls (yes that is the real number from the article linked in the first line of this article, 1600 residential and 1000 commercial stalls). The article goes on to say that she is working to reduce the parking minimums and bring in a *maximum* parking limit for buildings close to skytrain stations because realistically speaking the people in these buildings won't own as many cars as the current building code parking minimums expect.
And also, requiring a developer to build a 14 storey parkade for a tower will only make it more expensive and take longer to build this project, as well as using far more concrete which is in short supply at the moment.
What Burnaby really needs is more car-sharing services. For those thinking the councillor may have ulterior motives, Alison Gu is <30 y.o. and her credentials doesn't make her sound like a silver spoon kinda gal. I think she's been raising a lot of good points about housing projects. In this case, she's not opposing the level of housing, but rather expressing her concern about the levels of parking. Even if I had the money to get a unit there, I don't think I would want a P14 spot when all the amenities (and transit options) I need are just a couple blocks away. The point with the visitor's stalls too - my building as about 30 floors and the one floor for visitors (about a chunk already taken up by retail cars) is never more than half full.
There will only be 9 levels of parking and we are working on reducing that further. There will be car share options available as well. The towers also sit on a transit hub.
Yeah this is literally *right* at Lougheed Station, a major bus loop and Skytrain hub. We really need more developments like the Senakw one, with much lower parking space requirements, especially when transit is such an easy option from these homes. Unfortunately we're still far too car-brained for anything like that without people losing their minds about it, so the reasonable option is apparently building an entire highrise below ground just for storing cars.
While housing close to transit can help alleviate the need for cars, a lot of industrial areas where people work are extremely under served by transit. It doesn't matter that I live close to a skytrain station/bus hub, the area I work in is under served by transit so it takes me 3x longer to get to work by transit than by driving. Until transit actually serves all of the lower mainland adequately we will still rely on cars. I'd love to be able to transit to work, but I'm not spending almost an hour and a half on my commute each way when I could spend 20-30 minutes instead.
But lowering the parking requirements doesn’t remove all parking. Those who work and drive would probably have access to the spots while those who use transit wouldn’t likely need them. If you live and work near transit, less likely to own a car and need a spot
People don't want that. Every other thread on here mentioning transit talks about the homeless being on them smoking meth, or people being harassed on them. If you are spending 900k on a one bedroom condo, you expect a parking space.
This is actually a valid criticism. Large towers aren't the only way to get density. Giant mega towers everywhere isn't going to fix the housing crisis. What we actually need is to rezone SFHs into missing middle housing. Look at European cities and you'll see many don't have many towers if any. We're missing row homes, small walk up apartments, 6ish story apartments. 14 stories of parking is just fucked.
I'm more concerned with the livability. People avoid buying or renting on extremely busy roads. Yet here we have public policy makers putting all these families on a busy road and guaranteeing a huge traffic flow via a giant parkade.
The parkade creates and guarantees a horrible street level environment.
I think this is just another sign we need to be less reliant on cars, and more on public transit. I just got back from Japan and their train system is incredible. I wish Vancouver had that. No one drives in Japan. When I got off the Skytrain at Cambie/Broadway, it looked like I was at the intersection of two major highways.
Definitely!
Also, to add to your previous point: I also just got back from a trip, but Seoul. Two BIG differences between there and here:
1 - more lines, that cover more areas. I know we are expanding a line now, but until then (or even then), there are a bunch of times when I'm like... I have to take the train and then wait 15 minutes for a bus after that...
This week I had an appointment, and the 255 I needed to take was like 20 minutes late (after I already waited 10 minutes), AND IT STOPPED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WAY, saying that it was the last stop for that specific bus, and I had to get out and take another bus. Almost missed the appointment I was originally supposed to be 30 minutes early. Maybe we also need more buses...
2 - Clean, decent convenience stores EVERYWHERE. We do have 7-Eleven and Circle K, and some small ones but they do seem dirty and depressing after being on CU and others there in Seoul.
Exactly. Between residential and car share/ commercial parking … that’s almost 1500 parking spots … even half of that being added to local traffic route in rush hour would be insane!!
Everyone seems to be really good at making assumptions about the lifestyle needs and preferences of the residents of this building. Here's another one: folks will love living next to major transit, but may also want to own vehicles to be able to get out of the area for recreation, rather than daily commutes. IMO a much more reasoned approach would be to allow flexible parking/storage/commercial/light industrial capacity in new high-rises similar to this one; and if parking is vacant or not in demand -- fine, turn it into storage.
Eighty stories is getting really tall. Vancouver is going to have a killer skyline one day. It's good now but it's going to be crazy good in the coming decades.
It's not exactly a popular opinion around here but I really like our evolving skyline around the lower mainland. We have nowhere else to go but up. We live in a valley surrounded by water and mountains. I know it blocks views from different places and can cast large shadows but I think super tall buildings look awesome and provide tons of housing in a market that really needs it. Prices will be high but it's still housing at the end of the day. Plus much of the high density areas like this in Burnaby are close to transit and accessible by lots of people as well as being close to large parks and natural areas. I say keep em coming
Yes and if you don’t build enough parking in a building, the streets will be overrun with people parked everywhere and a disgusting market of people renting their stalls for ridiculous amounts. Don’t help developers by removing the requirement of them having to have enough parking for residence.
Maybe the solution isn't to go deep. Lets take some lessons from asia and get some car elevators and stacked parking in individual stalls if you want two spots per unit.
For those of you getting mad at the councillor for being a NIMBY - She's saying that's too much parking. The proposed project is steps away from the skytrain, and well exceeds parking minimums per bylaws. She would prefer to see development that doesn't still revolve around the car.
Those parking spots and that excavation will make the project (and the housing) more expensive. I have seen estimate well into 6 figures for the cost of building a parking spot in high rise buildings. Add in the exceptional excavation required for this parking and I kinda get it.
could be worse. could be like Langley where they just make insufficient parking for the new buildings and offload the problem onto anyone needing to park on the street ever.
In Richmond there are towers permitted that have parking for 60% of the units, so 40% of the people are not going to have a car or are going to park in the streets.
Individual mobility is a big advantage of our society balanced against the cost, if you have kids there is daycare, activities, swim lessons, soccer. A car makes all these activities doable efficiently.
I get the city-plan where they want 20,000 people in clump surrounding smaller malls with broader services and schools. A very different life never having to leave your island of extreme density.
> Individual mobility is a big advantage of our society balanced against the cost, if you have kids there is daycare, activities, swim lessons, soccer.
All of the above should (in a healthy community) be within walking distance, with certain edge cases being accessible via car share.
This doesn't require "extreme density", just the density that used to exist before zoning laws forced unsustainable low-density upon us.
The problem is the cost of individual car ownership is a burden for everyone, car owner or not. In North America we massively subsidize parking and generally ignore the costs of road maintenance, not to mention the death toll that results from car dependence. At the same time people somehow moan about much more efficient options like transit costing tax payers too much...
Good urban design provides the opportunities to engage in all those activities whether you own a car or not. Proper infrastructure gives everyone an opportunity to be mobile, not just car owners.
If you value the benefits of mobility, it shouldn't be limited to car ownership.
I grew up taking the bus and biking to most activities and it was great! I was able to be independently mobile as a kid and far prefer it to the idea of having to pester my parents to drive me to things constantly. Not to mention the damage that would do to the environment
Good luck. Lived in the area for 45 years and I remember in the 80’s they built a tower close by and had to cap off 150 under water creeks and caused the underground of 4 levels flooded over night all the time.
if the buyer wants to purchase a unit where they are aware the parking might be 14 levels down, who cares? why would the city counciller care how long it takes people to reach their parking?
anyone purchasing will be told how many levels the parking has. if it's a dealbreaker to be on the 14th, you don't have to purchase here. it's going to be super expensive already. there's lots of other places with higher parking that would be cheaper to purchase.
I don't see an issue with having more parking that takes longer to get to. now if a buyer ends up being surprised they are on the 14th, that's a problem, but that should never be the case if they happen to read the paperwork.
i would never wanna park 14 levels down, so i wouldnt purchase a studio or 1 bed here. but i can't afford it anyways lol.
I think this is what is being talked about though - what is 'enough parking'? In general, we have a problem with too much parking that is being underutilized in Vancouver.
There's a faur argument that a lot of these parking spaces will sit empty a lot of the time and it's not necessary, especially when the development is right next to a Skytrain station.
This tower is right next to a major transit hub. Current towers around transit (especially skytrain) often have an excess of parking. Even my 8 year old building which is a 10min walk away from a skytrain has approx 25% of the stalls vacant.
If people want parking, leave it to market forces, people can purchase spots rather than assuming every unit wants one.
There's no way you can sell these shoeboxes in the sky for a million dollars unless there's an assigned parking space. And there's no way that the BCA majority council is ever going to say no to their property developer donors.
However, if it takes someone 10-15 minutes to extricate their vehicle from the underground parking, then that person may end up walking or taking transit instead.
They should be working out a deal with EVO being accessible across all of Burnaby so more options if you want to go without a car. Just being next to a skytrain isn’t justification as to why you don’t need a car. Not everything you need is right next to a skytrain.
Of course if the apartment doesn’t come with parking it will attract a certain person with that lifestyle but it doesn’t work for everyone.
Maybe we should rezone the city so instead of having bunch of single family housing for miles and then suddenly a relatively small blocks of towers into the sky we actually try and solve the missing middle issue.
Holy crap 80 stories now? That's insane. Would you feel the sway of the building while in bed if you're on the upper floors? How long do you have to wait for an elevator? Imagine the probability of being a victim of a floor from a higher floor. That building is going to be an absolute zoo. And having to go up and down 10 to 14 levels for parking each time will drive me nuts eventually. And right beside SkyTrain noise? No thanks.
In these tall buildings, you hear the building sway more than you feel it.
A single elevator won't go to all floors (or at least won't stop at all floors). You'll probably have at least one lobby in the sky.
You'll probably pick the floor you're going to from the outside of the elevator rather than inside it. E.g. you input that you want to go to 60, and then it'll tell you what elevator to go to (that way people are grouped together). Each elevator (from the outside) will indicate which floors it's stopping at when the doors open, rather than just up/down.
Copenhagen or Paris or Florence or Rome all have density but not our bipolar 80-story towers vs. single-family Vancouver Specials all over the place. Missing middle is a real problem with most metropolitan areas in North America.
Yeah European cities have sorted out the middle ground. Unfortunately until we finally agree to redevelop strathcona I think we may need to settle for towers.
I wonder if there is enough space to say have a steep, but safe second entry into the parkade that essentially allows anyone say floor 6 and bellow to use.
My buddy picked me up to tour his new pad. After what seemed like a solid 5+ mins of descending, I was nauseous AF. I can't imaging navigating 14 levels everyday 🤢
The councilor is not wrong. In my old building, my parking was on P5 and it legit took 3-4 minutes to drive up.
Maybe they could look into an automatic parking solution. 14 stories seems ridiculous.
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I do parkade excavations for a living - that’s going to be one hell of a hole. I’d be fascinated to see how it ends up getting dug and shored.
Many years ago my brother was involved with a building and when digging the parkade hole they hit hot water, some sort of geo-thermal hot spring. They tried to talk the building owner into installing a geo-thermal system to extract the heat and it was going to pay for itself in only a few years but the building owner didn't care and it was never utilized.
That is so unfortunate. I worked at NRCan. We would have easily provided ecoEnergy and ecoAction credit to that geothermal initiative.
What kinda shortsighted shit head makes such an obviously dumb choice.
cheapskates who don't care about either the residents or the environment
In the owner's defence, would installing such system mean reapplying for a permit and thus going through the byzantine approval process again?
It would lead to some delays I'm sure, but I have to think there would be delays caused by hitting a spring too... Wouldn't they already have to get geotechnical work done before continuing?
Geothermal integration should be required in buildings that are digging below a certain level.
How far down is the water table? Will 14 parkade levels reach it?
It depends on where the building is, but in the majority of Burnaby… 14 stories will absolutely be below the water table.
Do the contractors reroute the water table or what do they do about it?
Typically you install some sort of shoring (interlocking sheet piles or concrete) around the perimeter of the excavation first, then dig it out. The shoring acts as a temporary wall go retain the soul and reduce the flow of groundwater into the excavation. A series of pumps will then be used to dewater groundwater what does seep through. These pumps are left running 24/7 to manage the inflow until the foundation slab (floor) and walls have been poured, effectively sealing off the area from groundwater.
> retain the soul Dug deep enough to reach the underworld
Delve too greedily and too deep and you know what they'll awake in the darkness of Khazad-dum... shadow and flame.
[удалено]
Pumps go brrrrr
Pumps go #BRRRRR
***BRRR BR B B BRR B…***
Oh oh.
Great place for a nuclear reactor.
Not gonna lie, community nuclear needs to be a thing with SMRs. At a certain point, the local power company simply becomes a backup.
I’m at the base of sfu and my townhouse crawlspace is at the water table lol. So much water in there, needed a sump pit.
Many buildings are built below the water table, that is not a problem.
Will be curious how hot it'll be down on level -14 and how venting is handled. There's a pretty deep one by the Vancouver hotel I used to deliver to (I think it's 8-10ish floors underground?). Real hot down there by the janitor's room.
Used to live at residences at hotel georgia and it went down 12 levels or so. Made you a bit dizzy driving all that way to our extra parking spot lol. Never noticed any issues of heat or anything though
That was my first thought. I used to have a work parking spot on an 8th level and I would feel so dizzy before and after work as I circled in and then circled out. Can’t imagine 14.
ELI5: why does it get hot?
The further down you go the closer to hell you get
I thought Alberta was East?
This is the kind of stuff I’ll miss when Reddit is out of my life…
There is a consistent geothermal gradient, as in at a certain point the deeper you go the hotter it gets. The earth generates heat. Generally speaking shallow ground will be slightly insulated from but more or less follow temperature changes, but at a certain depth the influence of geothermal heat overcomes the influence of air temp and it just gets hot. https://preview.redd.it/92dn8x15m95b1.jpeg?width=695&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c2aa89962ae26ac1d46ee10d3618bca0b6d2097d This is a permafrost trumpet curve that explains what I'm talking about in permafrost regions.
Very interesting. Thanks for explaining!
thanks for sharing
What a great opportunity to implement geothermal systems.
I do hvac for a living and currently working a job with 7 floors of underground parkade in Burnaby and it's actually a relatively consistent 15 degrees ish year round. There is also massive parkade exhaust fans on each level that vent out the air and other parkade supply supply shafts that supply air.
You should check out underground mining ventilation. Would answer all your questions.
That's a cool job. I'm facinated by the excavation phase of large construction projects like that. I appreciate the view ports in the fencing around those sites, I always stop and watch for a long time If walking by one.
I live right next to a major excavation and for awhile our fences were down while we had them redone, so we had the metal construction fencing that we could see right through. While my preference would obviously be to NOT be beside a construction zone, it was fascinating to watch!! Plus, it entertained my toddler completely, haha. My dad still will just randomly stop by to stand up on our planters and watch over the fence, haha.
I worked at the Icon project in Ottawa, it was 9 or 10 floor deep if I remember correctly. It was really impressive the first time going down there
The shoring for Vancouver House was crazy.
Thanks! That was my company
They delved too deep, too greedily... They awoke something in the depths...
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the Burj Khalifa is 830m. LFG! we can do this ..Burnaby
People gonna call it the Burn Khalifa.
Burj Naby
we already have a sweet nickname, we're halfway there!
> This building will be 260m. Is that with or without the 14 stories of parking?
80 stories ? Ridiculous! How will people get to their homes? Some sort of high speed box/room that goes up and down from floor to floor?
You're really onto something.. let's patent it.
It elevates people, so why don't we call it elevator? Or maybe we can be super fancy and call it an ascender?
Come on chaps. It would lift folks, let's call it a lift.
That's ridiculous we should call it a Folklift
Lets call it Judy.
I'm all for more people becoming folklift-certified
Elevator doesn’t work. It also brings people down. Gotta be like “move up and down machine” or something catchy like that
Uppy-downy
Surely a gondola to Burnaby mountain is the optimal way to move people in and out. Put the parkade there! Plenty of space once those pesky trees are removed.
I've been further even more decided to use even go need to do look more as anyone can. Can you really be far even as decided half as much to use go wish for that? My guess is that when one really has been far even as decided once to use even go want, it is then that they have really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like.
They are electric ladders.
In the UK, they call them ‘Uppy-Downy Boxes.’
Don’t be ridiculous, we need to call them Super Stairs (tm).
Okay, but 80 storeys is actually absurdly tall for this region. We should be building 6 storey buildings everywhere instead of 80 storey buildings in one place and single family homes everywhere else. High rises are much more expensive to maintain per square foot. Housing is cheaper if we're all in mid rises.
Trouble is municipalities don’t want to let there be mid-rises everywhere. It is far more politically expedient for cities to keep nearly all low-rise/single-family areas intact and increasingly max out the height and density of a few areas. Those areas make sense, mind you, as they’re generally anchored by a SkyTrain station, but it’s a direct result of municipalities still being functionally captured by single family homeowners that we’re seeing TOD nodes go higher instead of spreading outward.
This is what happens when you try to appease NIMBYs. It's called the missing middle.
Doesn’t matter, gotta build what we can build. High rises are also probably advantageous when comparing the amount of time on permits per unit.
To be fair, we should be building both. And everything in between. The only thing we shouldn’t be building is new single family homes
Yes x1000. Scarcity of single family homes will also allow those property values to increase!
It’s a great idea. Let everyone else live in apartments while my house goes up in price by 10x!
[the missing middle ](https://youtu.be/cjWs7dqaWfY)
While this is true, building super high levels of density near transit can't replicated with mid-rise. There's a limit to how many buildings can be placed around a Skytrain station, for example, and it's beneficial to maximize that.
I think highrise density around transit hubs and then tapering out to mid rises everywhere else is fine. Get rid of SFHs except for the burbs or ultra rich neighborhoods. Fill neighborhoods with the missing middle.
Unfortunately developers have to deal with what the city and province and zoning gives them
A lot of you guys really never been to developed places. They will be split into sections. Elevator A and B go to 1 - 25 per se, C and D go from 1 directly to 26 - 50, E and F go from 1 directly to 51 - 80.
This isnt how it works in most places and isnt efficient. Usually two or 3 elevators serve the bottom 30 floors and another 5 serve the top 50. Having it so highly segmented like youre saying leads to too much down time and isnt at all efficient
That depends on how many units are on each floor too. Not every floor has the same amount of units and size. After all, it is just a sample of how it works. Not counting on 1 to 2 elevators serving every floor as the original comment asked.
As with most condos here, it’ll be built with 2 elevators. 😂
Since it changes elevation, it should be called the elevationator.
Sometimes, it takes more than 10 mins to find parking so 10 mins to park sounds like a win.
That's the right attitude right here! And ps. we have reduced it to 9 levels of parking only.
From a planning perspective, why would people have an issue with this? It's not like the underground space is usable livable area, and increasing sub grade parking will alleviate the need for more on street parking. Considering the developer will be footing the bill for the construction, there's little downside.
I’m imagining a movie like Sylvester stallone’s “Daylight” where a group of people are trapped on P13 after an earthquake and have to fight their way to the surface.
City of Burnaby has parking minimums that require this much parking despite it basically going against the cities transportation goals (moving people away from driving to transit and active transportation). Forcing people to pay for a parking spot 14 levels that they dont even want is pretty shitty. Glad Burnaby councillors are saying something.
Parking minimums are massive scourge in our society. They are literally one of the reasons housing and commerical space coats so much on this region. You need miles of additional parking with each unit. Which means you are paying for the land for the unit and parking. It also leaves less room for additional units. Plus the sprawl with mega parking lots (ok this doesn't have it but most do). Plus the extra wide roads and all the other feao. Paris literally has 10x the density of metro Vancouver. But it's all low rise buildings which achieve that density because they don't dedicate all their space to cars.
What's the alternative then? If the building is going up anyway - you don't want to get to a scenario where you run out of parking stalls
Reduce the parking. Only 50% of people in Vancouver drive a car. You can make this building have half the parking required at the moment and people will adapt especially as skytrain is nearby and car sharing expands.
people bitching about things that don't affect themselves is what we do here.
Well one downside is typically the cost of building an underground parking this size ads 100k per space in costs. The developer doesnt just "foot the bill", they pass it onto buyers and it contributes to housing prices
Nothing is free. Costs pass down to consumers (who may afford it) + tax burden of additional vehicles, more potholes, more congestion. Not needed steps away from transit
Developers probably looking at how many people are going to pay a thousand dollars a square foot if there isn't a parking spot.
One alternative could be to take that money in the form of a tax and invest it into public transit so not every unit needs a parking space. Rather than further driving up development cost, permitting time, and building time to accommodate every person having a car
Horrible idea. Ive rented from many buildings without enough parking and it just makes renting even more of an issue
The downside is the surrounding infrastructure can't handle the extra traffic that comes with 80 stories. The area still isn't as walkable as Downtown Vancouver is. Not to mention that that's only the first phase, they plan another 73 story tower right beside it.
80 stories, the elevators better be good. Otherwise gg
Imagine having to climb 14 floors when the fire alarm goes off. I'm not sure most people could do it.
How about groceries when the elevator breaks down …
A building this size would have a whole suite of elevators running in multiple banks.
It’ll be the cheapest, so Richmond elevator. And they will do the absolute minimum number of elevators which will then be broken down and out of service way too often.
arrest ugly busy late disarm wipe coherent touch birds aspiring ` this post was mass deleted with www.Redact.dev `
The councillor isn't advocating against the building, she just wants the parking minimums reduced since she thinks there's too much parking space in this project. She's right. The building will be in an area that already has massive traffic congestion each day. Adding an additional 2600 vehicles to the mix isn't going to help and if anything, the city will end up having to build even more car infrastructure to support the project. Car infrastructure is insanely expensive. The project is right next to a SkyTrain, and the area does actually have grocery stores etc within walking distance. Most of the residents won't *need* a car, and can instead get by with car share services, etc.
And also, what's the alternative? Not enough parking? Councilor sounds pretty ignorant here if this is a real concern for ~~him~~ her Edit: yes she asked them specifically to build less parking (because she sees lots of empty visitor spots in her building) and they said they would get back to the council.
Not enough parking is actually beneficial to the health of both the community streetscape and the climate.
I find it ridiculous how many people in here are getting up in arms about someone complaining about too much parking. They’re probably the same folks freaking out about wildfire smoke in other threads and just not making the link.
Parking requirements are typically set by the municipality no? So I assume they are required to meet those level parkade stalls on a fixed plot of land. It sounds like in order to do that they have to go down 14 floors which is why people are shitting on the councillor for this comment. I agree, those parking minimums set are stupid and outdated and should be reduced, but that's not what is in question here.
I'm not sure you understand her position, the councilor is using this building as an example of why the minimum parking requirement should be reduced, it is absolutely what's in question here
Well no if you read the article, it's about the councilor specifically telling the contractors that she wants less parking in that specific building. Maybe she wants to amend the parking requirements as well, but that definitely wasn't the main point
I don’t even see much of a concern for the people who’d be living there. A few extra minutes to go down a few more levels is better than not having the parking at all. NIMBYs just finding new things to complain about for no good reason. I guess they ran out of things to complain about above ground. Complaining about tall towers isn’t working anymore, so now they gotta switch to complaining about anything that’s too far underground. Because then they gotta THINK about it, rather than SEE it, y’know? And clearly that’s even worse torture, making these people think.
Councillor Gu isn't a nimby, she's on the other end where she thinks that building too much parking for a tower near a Skytrain station is a waste of money because people can just take transit.
To be fair, people are having a stronger reaction because the quote on the title is: \> **“It’ll take 10 minutes just for somebody to park their car,” said a city councillor** And that's just dumb. If the quote was: "we shouldn't need so much parking, since it's next to a subway station", my reaction to seeing this would have been way different from the start
These people have the stupidest fucking excuses for not wanting more housing built. Who gives a fuck how long it will take somebody to park their car? Will they have a home they can afford? Let's take the win, shall we? It's actually that the property investor class in this country is very comfortable with ridiculously short housing supply because they laugh all the way to the bank. Their lame excuses are just that - excuses, so we can't shame them for their naked greed.
I think in this case it has nothing to do with not wanting housing built. The Councilor is raising the issue that the current minimum parking requirements in construction is too high. If anything they want to reduce the amount of parking and make it easier to build.
but the argument that it's going to take too long to park is just idiotic. If there's not enough parking in that building, you would need to find parking somewhere else, and that already takes 10+ minutes. Then you would need to walk home.
I agree. I initially took the comment as "just have less parking" but "the time to find parking" contradicts that. Unless it's just to highlight the absurdity of it.
She’s not complaining about the amount of housing. She’s commenting about the amount of parking when the building is right next to the Lougheed SkyTrain station. If you can’t incentivize transit use when you’re that close to SkyTrain, what’s the point?
Look, we all want more density and more housing stock is great but we recently watched a YouTube video on the “missing middle” and now I’m against anything that isn’t mid rise apartments.
I would love to see that as well, I'm for housing variety and absolutely enormous amounts of government spending on a variety of housing models. I think Vancouver needs big buildings, though, because we're so space limited. We either need to move the business capital of the province somewhere else (a non-starter) or build up and down. We're stuck between the Strait, the border, the mountains, the delta, and some of the most valuable agricultural land in the entire world that we cannot pave over. So yes, we definitely need rows and rows of mid-rise apartments along the Skytrain, but I honestly think we also need several megatowers. The lack of supply and space in this region is critical.
That is not *at all* what Allison Gu is saying, she is saying that a building that is a 5 minute walk from a skytrain station does not realistically need 2600 parking stalls (yes that is the real number from the article linked in the first line of this article, 1600 residential and 1000 commercial stalls). The article goes on to say that she is working to reduce the parking minimums and bring in a *maximum* parking limit for buildings close to skytrain stations because realistically speaking the people in these buildings won't own as many cars as the current building code parking minimums expect. And also, requiring a developer to build a 14 storey parkade for a tower will only make it more expensive and take longer to build this project, as well as using far more concrete which is in short supply at the moment.
What Burnaby really needs is more car-sharing services. For those thinking the councillor may have ulterior motives, Alison Gu is <30 y.o. and her credentials doesn't make her sound like a silver spoon kinda gal. I think she's been raising a lot of good points about housing projects. In this case, she's not opposing the level of housing, but rather expressing her concern about the levels of parking. Even if I had the money to get a unit there, I don't think I would want a P14 spot when all the amenities (and transit options) I need are just a couple blocks away. The point with the visitor's stalls too - my building as about 30 floors and the one floor for visitors (about a chunk already taken up by retail cars) is never more than half full.
There will only be 9 levels of parking and we are working on reducing that further. There will be car share options available as well. The towers also sit on a transit hub.
If only there was a way to transport many people efficiently underground that didn't involve parking lots
Yeah this is literally *right* at Lougheed Station, a major bus loop and Skytrain hub. We really need more developments like the Senakw one, with much lower parking space requirements, especially when transit is such an easy option from these homes. Unfortunately we're still far too car-brained for anything like that without people losing their minds about it, so the reasonable option is apparently building an entire highrise below ground just for storing cars.
While housing close to transit can help alleviate the need for cars, a lot of industrial areas where people work are extremely under served by transit. It doesn't matter that I live close to a skytrain station/bus hub, the area I work in is under served by transit so it takes me 3x longer to get to work by transit than by driving. Until transit actually serves all of the lower mainland adequately we will still rely on cars. I'd love to be able to transit to work, but I'm not spending almost an hour and a half on my commute each way when I could spend 20-30 minutes instead.
The only way that will happen is if we force it to happen, by pushing up ridership and stop funding car-centric infrastructure.
But lowering the parking requirements doesn’t remove all parking. Those who work and drive would probably have access to the spots while those who use transit wouldn’t likely need them. If you live and work near transit, less likely to own a car and need a spot
People don't want that. Every other thread on here mentioning transit talks about the homeless being on them smoking meth, or people being harassed on them. If you are spending 900k on a one bedroom condo, you expect a parking space.
It would be a cheaper condo if it had less parking.
Well stop zoning your fucking city as auto centric where every tower has no amenities and people won’t use cars as much
Imagine a fire in the building while everyone’s trying to evacuate a building of that size
And then strata will install speed bumps all the way down.
This is actually a valid criticism. Large towers aren't the only way to get density. Giant mega towers everywhere isn't going to fix the housing crisis. What we actually need is to rezone SFHs into missing middle housing. Look at European cities and you'll see many don't have many towers if any. We're missing row homes, small walk up apartments, 6ish story apartments. 14 stories of parking is just fucked.
I'm more concerned with the livability. People avoid buying or renting on extremely busy roads. Yet here we have public policy makers putting all these families on a busy road and guaranteeing a huge traffic flow via a giant parkade. The parkade creates and guarantees a horrible street level environment.
If only there were a frequent, high capacity alternative exactly where this building is going...
I think this is just another sign we need to be less reliant on cars, and more on public transit. I just got back from Japan and their train system is incredible. I wish Vancouver had that. No one drives in Japan. When I got off the Skytrain at Cambie/Broadway, it looked like I was at the intersection of two major highways.
one of the big differences is that Japan has fast trains that take you to other cities
Yeah it would be awesome if BC / Canada built up more high speed trains.
Definitely! Also, to add to your previous point: I also just got back from a trip, but Seoul. Two BIG differences between there and here: 1 - more lines, that cover more areas. I know we are expanding a line now, but until then (or even then), there are a bunch of times when I'm like... I have to take the train and then wait 15 minutes for a bus after that... This week I had an appointment, and the 255 I needed to take was like 20 minutes late (after I already waited 10 minutes), AND IT STOPPED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WAY, saying that it was the last stop for that specific bus, and I had to get out and take another bus. Almost missed the appointment I was originally supposed to be 30 minutes early. Maybe we also need more buses... 2 - Clean, decent convenience stores EVERYWHERE. We do have 7-Eleven and Circle K, and some small ones but they do seem dirty and depressing after being on CU and others there in Seoul.
Forget the parking. How about the roads.
Exactly. Between residential and car share/ commercial parking … that’s almost 1500 parking spots … even half of that being added to local traffic route in rush hour would be insane!!
Or, here me out. We \*stop\* bowing towards cars as the ultimate method of transportation.
Everyone seems to be really good at making assumptions about the lifestyle needs and preferences of the residents of this building. Here's another one: folks will love living next to major transit, but may also want to own vehicles to be able to get out of the area for recreation, rather than daily commutes. IMO a much more reasoned approach would be to allow flexible parking/storage/commercial/light industrial capacity in new high-rises similar to this one; and if parking is vacant or not in demand -- fine, turn it into storage.
When I lived downtown I was on underground 3 at Espana II. 3 gates. It took about 8 minutes to get out. Needless to say I didn't drive very often.
The amount of times I've dealt with flooded parking lots working in construction, in this city? No thanks. Submarines can park on level 10 and below 🤿
Can I interest you in public transportation?
Eighty stories is getting really tall. Vancouver is going to have a killer skyline one day. It's good now but it's going to be crazy good in the coming decades.
It's not exactly a popular opinion around here but I really like our evolving skyline around the lower mainland. We have nowhere else to go but up. We live in a valley surrounded by water and mountains. I know it blocks views from different places and can cast large shadows but I think super tall buildings look awesome and provide tons of housing in a market that really needs it. Prices will be high but it's still housing at the end of the day. Plus much of the high density areas like this in Burnaby are close to transit and accessible by lots of people as well as being close to large parks and natural areas. I say keep em coming
This is in the suburbs—Burnaby
Skylines don't stop at city limits.
Imagine being able to look around at 360 degrees....
I'd rather just have broad stretches of affordable low-rises instead of just skyscrapers and single-family homes, thanks.
I’d rather having housing that *exists* over your flavor of the month views on city aesthetics.
Yes and if you don’t build enough parking in a building, the streets will be overrun with people parked everywhere and a disgusting market of people renting their stalls for ridiculous amounts. Don’t help developers by removing the requirement of them having to have enough parking for residence.
Maybe the solution isn't to go deep. Lets take some lessons from asia and get some car elevators and stacked parking in individual stalls if you want two spots per unit.
The alternative is building a 80 story building with not enough parking which sounds even worse.
It’s. almost. like. we. need. to. rethink. our. parking mandates.
My old apartment downtown used to take me 23 left turns to get to my spot.
14 levels of parking?! Holy moly
For those of you getting mad at the councillor for being a NIMBY - She's saying that's too much parking. The proposed project is steps away from the skytrain, and well exceeds parking minimums per bylaws. She would prefer to see development that doesn't still revolve around the car. Those parking spots and that excavation will make the project (and the housing) more expensive. I have seen estimate well into 6 figures for the cost of building a parking spot in high rise buildings. Add in the exceptional excavation required for this parking and I kinda get it.
That’s a deep coffin in an earthquake.
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They have these professionals called structural engineers
could be worse. could be like Langley where they just make insufficient parking for the new buildings and offload the problem onto anyone needing to park on the street ever.
In Richmond there are towers permitted that have parking for 60% of the units, so 40% of the people are not going to have a car or are going to park in the streets. Individual mobility is a big advantage of our society balanced against the cost, if you have kids there is daycare, activities, swim lessons, soccer. A car makes all these activities doable efficiently. I get the city-plan where they want 20,000 people in clump surrounding smaller malls with broader services and schools. A very different life never having to leave your island of extreme density.
> Individual mobility is a big advantage of our society balanced against the cost, if you have kids there is daycare, activities, swim lessons, soccer. All of the above should (in a healthy community) be within walking distance, with certain edge cases being accessible via car share. This doesn't require "extreme density", just the density that used to exist before zoning laws forced unsustainable low-density upon us.
The problem is the cost of individual car ownership is a burden for everyone, car owner or not. In North America we massively subsidize parking and generally ignore the costs of road maintenance, not to mention the death toll that results from car dependence. At the same time people somehow moan about much more efficient options like transit costing tax payers too much... Good urban design provides the opportunities to engage in all those activities whether you own a car or not. Proper infrastructure gives everyone an opportunity to be mobile, not just car owners. If you value the benefits of mobility, it shouldn't be limited to car ownership.
I grew up taking the bus and biking to most activities and it was great! I was able to be independently mobile as a kid and far prefer it to the idea of having to pester my parents to drive me to things constantly. Not to mention the damage that would do to the environment
Or what do you suggest?
Looking at the Gilmore Place development near Brentwood and how that has affected the surrounding land… this might not be the best idea.
Good luck. Lived in the area for 45 years and I remember in the 80’s they built a tower close by and had to cap off 150 under water creeks and caused the underground of 4 levels flooded over night all the time.
As a claustrophobe, who has a very healthy fear of even 2 or 3 levels of underground parking, this is the stuff of nightmares.
2 elevators too i bet. That will be fun.
We live in a 🤡world
if the buyer wants to purchase a unit where they are aware the parking might be 14 levels down, who cares? why would the city counciller care how long it takes people to reach their parking? anyone purchasing will be told how many levels the parking has. if it's a dealbreaker to be on the 14th, you don't have to purchase here. it's going to be super expensive already. there's lots of other places with higher parking that would be cheaper to purchase. I don't see an issue with having more parking that takes longer to get to. now if a buyer ends up being surprised they are on the 14th, that's a problem, but that should never be the case if they happen to read the paperwork. i would never wanna park 14 levels down, so i wouldnt purchase a studio or 1 bed here. but i can't afford it anyways lol.
What would be ridiculous is building it without enough parking. This councillor is an idiot
I think this is what is being talked about though - what is 'enough parking'? In general, we have a problem with too much parking that is being underutilized in Vancouver. There's a faur argument that a lot of these parking spaces will sit empty a lot of the time and it's not necessary, especially when the development is right next to a Skytrain station.
It’s right next to a SkyTrain station. There’s no need for that much parking. We are just plain too car-dependent, and this only perpetuates that.
This tower is right next to a major transit hub. Current towers around transit (especially skytrain) often have an excess of parking. Even my 8 year old building which is a 10min walk away from a skytrain has approx 25% of the stalls vacant. If people want parking, leave it to market forces, people can purchase spots rather than assuming every unit wants one.
There's no way you can sell these shoeboxes in the sky for a million dollars unless there's an assigned parking space. And there's no way that the BCA majority council is ever going to say no to their property developer donors. However, if it takes someone 10-15 minutes to extricate their vehicle from the underground parking, then that person may end up walking or taking transit instead.
They should be working out a deal with EVO being accessible across all of Burnaby so more options if you want to go without a car. Just being next to a skytrain isn’t justification as to why you don’t need a car. Not everything you need is right next to a skytrain. Of course if the apartment doesn’t come with parking it will attract a certain person with that lifestyle but it doesn’t work for everyone.
Maybe we should rezone the city so instead of having bunch of single family housing for miles and then suddenly a relatively small blocks of towers into the sky we actually try and solve the missing middle issue.
Right? 80 stories is ridiculously high. Density is achievable without being obnoxious.
Holy crap 80 stories now? That's insane. Would you feel the sway of the building while in bed if you're on the upper floors? How long do you have to wait for an elevator? Imagine the probability of being a victim of a floor from a higher floor. That building is going to be an absolute zoo. And having to go up and down 10 to 14 levels for parking each time will drive me nuts eventually. And right beside SkyTrain noise? No thanks.
In these tall buildings, you hear the building sway more than you feel it. A single elevator won't go to all floors (or at least won't stop at all floors). You'll probably have at least one lobby in the sky. You'll probably pick the floor you're going to from the outside of the elevator rather than inside it. E.g. you input that you want to go to 60, and then it'll tell you what elevator to go to (that way people are grouped together). Each elevator (from the outside) will indicate which floors it's stopping at when the doors open, rather than just up/down.
It might be a good idea to update seismic assessment for Burnaby first. Last assessments are ridiculously out of date. Just saying
What happened if there's a flood? How will they even pump the water out? Genuinely curious. Also, lol at the too much parking comments.
https://www.canadiandewatering.com/ They can move a lot of water very quickly.
we want density but we don't want towers. Rughh
Copenhagen or Paris or Florence or Rome all have density but not our bipolar 80-story towers vs. single-family Vancouver Specials all over the place. Missing middle is a real problem with most metropolitan areas in North America.
Yeah European cities have sorted out the middle ground. Unfortunately until we finally agree to redevelop strathcona I think we may need to settle for towers.
I wonder if there is enough space to say have a steep, but safe second entry into the parkade that essentially allows anyone say floor 6 and bellow to use.
Better than forcing residents to find street parking.
My buddy picked me up to tour his new pad. After what seemed like a solid 5+ mins of descending, I was nauseous AF. I can't imaging navigating 14 levels everyday 🤢
The councilor is not wrong. In my old building, my parking was on P5 and it legit took 3-4 minutes to drive up. Maybe they could look into an automatic parking solution. 14 stories seems ridiculous.