ews & features EDITOR JAMES SMITH THE VOICE, THURSDAY, NOV. 26, 2015 7 rb me “a MURRAY B. HUNT photo The developer and the City of Vancouver are planning to replace the low-rise housing at Langara Gardens with apartment towers. Public has chance to weigh in The city and developer seek the public’s input on expansion plans By MURRAY B. HUNT hase two in the potential renova- tion of the Langara Gardens de- velopment will be announced at an open house today at 6 p.m. at the Langara Gardens social lounge. The plan is based in part on consul- tations done by the City of Vancouver with residents of the development on Cambie St. between 54th and 57th Ave. The landlords of the development, Pe- terson and Concert Properties Inc., sought the consultation because they want to rezone and build higher densi- ty properties. The architect for the project, James Cheng of James KM Cheng Architects Inc., said the four existing apartment towers would remain as they are, but a group of older homes next door may be torn down to make way for the new de- velopment. “The main reason for the rezoning would be to replace the low-rise wood- frame rental buildings because they are now 50 to 60 years old,” Cheng said. “Some of them are not in great shape compared to current standards.” Cheng didn’t give any details about what the proposed development would look like, saying it was for the City of Vancouver to release that information. Langara Gardens currently features 605 units of market-rental housing, 335 of which are located in four 18-story towers. A resident of Langara Gardens, Jim Yue, has lived in the complex for two years in a two bedroom apartment and paying 1,750 a month, said he’s curious about what the plan will mean for him. “TI] love this neighbourhood,” said Yue. “I love it very much and I want to know what exactly is going to happen to this place. Are they going to tear it down? I have to think about my future and if lam going to have to move. I do love it here.” The City of Vancouver is developing a policy statement from information gathered at the phase one meeting held in April to guide future development of the Langara Gardens site. The policy statement will set principles and objec- tives for topics such as land use, sus- tainability, and density. Thursday’s open house will consist of a draft guiding principles and initial concepts will be presented for public review and input. — MURRAY B. HUNT photo The apartment towers at Langara Gardens will stay. JIM YUE Langara Gardens resident 66 Ihave to think about my future and if Iam go- ing to have to move Report card system gets failing grade Teachers experiencing ongoing issues with the province’s new platform By BEN BENGTSON have been struggling all semester to write report cards because of a new student information system. The MyEducation BC (MyEd BC) system, which allows teachers to create report cards and record class atten- dance, has been criticized by the B.C. Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) since it was rolled out in September. The BCTF and other educators say the system of- ten crashes and has a steep learning curve. A Twitter search for #MyEdBC showed many recent tweets from edu- cation professionals expressing frus- tration with the system’s complexity and lack of functionality, especially during report card season. Chad Weller, a secondary school teacher at Sardis Secondary School in Chilliwack, B.C., said MyEd BC can be very confusing, especially for anyone who isn’t tech-savvy. Weller said that teachers were locked out of MyEd BC during recent system upgrades, which caused disrup- tions. “It was upgraded right before report cards were due,” he said. “It was a huge hassle. For the days it was down, it re- ally limited our work.” Rich Overgaard, media relations of- ficer for the B.C. Teachers’ Federation, said teachers across B.C. have reported slow log-in times, and that taking at- tendance and creating report cards has been a challenge because of it. “They’re having a lot of time wasted just trying to use the program,” Over- gaard said. He said one of the biggest issues was how easily the system gets overloaded and stops functioning. “There seems to be a problem with the amount of people able to access the system at one time,” he said. “At high- peak times it tends to be slower.” Craig Sorochan, public affairs officer with the B.C. Ministry of Education, said that teachers would adapt to the new system over time. “It’s a new technology that people will have to learn how to use,” said So- rochan. “Sometimes when things are different than what they’re used to, there’s a bit of a learning curve.” B=: Columbia teachers say they Group: zero-energy builds needed Coalition led by Pembina Institute is urging the province to make net-zero energy buildings the norm By SCOTT DRAKE collection of B.C. organizations is [hersiensie the provincial gov- ernment to ensure new buildings are “net-zero energy” ready by 2030. The call for action comes in anticipa- tion of B.C.’s climate leadership plan to be released in December, and was initi- ated by the Pembina Institute, the Roy- al Architectural Institute of Canada and the Urban Development Institute Pacific Region. The report has been signed by 75 or- ganizations so far, including post-sec- ondary groups like the Simon Fraser University Centre for Sustainable Com- munity Development, and asks the gov- ernment to start the net-zero initiative in 2016 with all new planned public buildings. Karen Tam Wu, program director of Buildings & Urban Solutions for the Pembina Institute, said there is a real opportunity to take bold action on cli- mate change with the Liberal party in power. She said it is important that the gov- ernment “indicates what its vision is and the road to get there, and if the government themselves takes action to get there, they are almost signalling to the marketplace that we want to see in- novation.” Wu also explained that net zero en- ergy means that “a building is so ener- gy efficient that it could meet its ener- gy needs in terms of what is needed to heat, cool, power appliances and gad- gets within that home or building on site.” This runs in contrast to the current carbon neutral government regulation, which allows producers to offset their carbon emissions. “That doesn’t neces- sarily mean your building is super effi- cient necessarily,” Wu said. “It could mean that you’re somehow making up for the carbon that you’re putting out there by paying for a project some- where else.” Langara College has not signed the call to action, though the Science and Technology building currently under construction is LEED-gold certified ac- cording to Langara’s 2014 Carbon Neu- tral Action Report. Wendy Lannard, Director of Facili- ties at Langara, said that a net-zero en- ergy policy would put increased re- quirements on the college. “Net-zero energy would require us to go even further with our energy ef- ficiency program for buildings - beyond LEED-gold, and also require ... more building integrated renewable energy systems to be installed,” Lannard said. Wi weg ao —— ——F ——F ———] i i il t | | | f SCOTT DRAKE photo Langara College’s new science and technology building will be LEED-gold certified but will not meet net-zero energy requirements.