Nobody plans to fail, goes the old saw, but people do fail to plan.
With that in mind, the City of North Vancouver made a smart move this month hitting the pause button on a huge development proposal for Central Lonsdale.
The developer was seeking to build a 19-storey tower on Eastern Avenue, only a block away from the North Shore's regional core and well above current height restrictions.
Developers do routinely ask for the moon at the beginning of the public process, but some very careful planning is needed when someone suggests more than tripling a site's current density.
Council recognized this and opted to hold off until a new OCP, which is currently under review, could be completed.
The city's plan-first approach to this site begs the question: Why did the Harbourside project not get similar treatment?
Granted, the mixed-use waterfront project has been on the table for a few years now, but there were several moments when city council had the option to defer a decision until the City Shaping process was complete, or hand the question over to a task force.
If introducing 162 new homes to Central Lonsdale is reason enough to wait for a broader plan, then surely introducing 800 new homes to an isolated stretch of commercial waterfront deserves at least the same deliberation.
The city can't call a halt to all development while it hammers out a new OCP. But pressing forward with a project that could fundamentally alter the community while stalling a smaller one looks a lot like a failure to plan.
