Simon Fraser University, built in a conservation area atop Burnaby Mountain just a 30-minute drive from downtown Vancouver, took its unique geographic opportunity and turned it into an exercise in city-building, literally “moving mountains” to establish a complete, walkable and almost self-sufficient town adjacent to its campus. This week, Ken Steele talks with SFU president Andrew Petter, and SFU Community Trust CEO Gordon Harris, about “UniverCity,” a development that is creating affordable housing for 10,000 people, adding two dozen shops and services for the campus community, generating a $90-million endowment for the institution, and exploring new frontiers in environmental and economic sustainability.
UniverCity also strives for economic sustainability, creating affordable housing to help SFU attract faculty, staff, students and their families. (About half of the residents are affiliated with the University, and almost half have young children.) SFU leased some of the land to developers like VanCity at a 30% discount, so that residential units could be sold at a 20% discount in perpetuity (such as the "Verdant" townhomes). Standalone “green mortgages” amortize the cost of environmental upgrades separately from the purchase price of units. As urban planner Harris explains, “if it isn’t economic, it isn’t sustainable.”
UniverCity had to provide more than just housing to its residents: it needed to establish all the infrastructure of a small town, including restaurants, a grocery story, pharmacy, childcare centre, an elementary school, and soon a medical centre. Residents also have access to campus facilities next door, including fitness and aquatic centres, art gallery, library and bookstore – and in return, the campus community can access shops and services in UniverCity. Someday it may also have an active seniors facility, where alumni and others could move in retirement.
The community has added life and vitality to the SFU campus, as well as $15 million worth of new infrastructure, from a town square to the new heating facility and underground pipelines. Ultimately, the UniverCity endowment will support teaching and research at SFU “for the rest of time.”
Thanks again to Andrew Petter, Gordon Harris, and the SFU videographers who made this episode possible.
To learn more about UniverCity, visit http://univercity.ca, watch this beautiful documentary by France’s EchoLogis https://youtu.be/jDdSaGcQvQw , or read Gordon Harris’ new book, Building Community: Defining, Designing, Developing UniverCity https://living-future.org/product/building-community-book/
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