Social infrastructure (community benefits)

Not too long ago, I wrote a revision of my thinking on community benefits issues, in the blog entry Community Benefits Agreements (revised).

According to the interview with Peter Newman, Vancouver, BC has taken this one step further. All development projects are required to devote 5% of the budget for a project to the enhancement of "social infrastructure." In most cities, such benefits usually kick in only when there are very specific zoning changes. From the interview:

Q: Done well: The spaces in between the buildings are important?

A. Very, very important. And this is what they do brilliantly in Vancouver. They do that with the community. This is the interesting dynamic.

Five percent of the cost of any new development goes into what they call social infrastructure - the space in between buildings. What you can do in landscaping, the cycle paths, the community centers...they've even built schools with it. But the local community decides what to do with it.
So if the local community has stake in density, there's no NIMBY there anymore: You want to go 40 stories? Well, maybe you could go to 50 stories, so we can have more money for our purposes.

It's a very different dynamic, which is why they've achieved high densities and very brilliant on the ground walkable neighborhoods.