UBC Vancouver in 2050
More on-campus housing means more UBC community members have affordable housing options close to where they work or study. The campus includes even more family homes, opportunities to age in place, and amenities that make life easier and richer for residents, including child care, groceries and transit. Free from long commutes and worries about finding stable housing, more students, faculty and staff have more time to focus on studying, teaching and research, being present for their families and friends, getting involved in campus life, and building community with their neighbours. Reducing the number of people commuting to campus has helped UBC address the climate crisis.
Key Strategies
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Future Student Housing
The Vision supports the Housing Action Plan target of building 3,300 more student housing beds as a priority, plus 1,000 beds to replace aging facilities and address seismic deficiencies, and identifies sites for even more student housing, with timing and project delivery subject to demand, prioritization, financing and funding capacity. The Vision also allocates replacement sites for student housing affected by future neighbourhood development in Acadia and through an expansion of the Hawthorn Neighbourhood.
View Future Student Housing Sites
Place Vanier Expansion
The expansion of Place Vanier will significantly increase undergraduate student housing capacity, address seismic deficiencies and create a more active and vibrant pedestrian environment through building design and ground-floor programming. Thoughtful location of buildings and open spaces will maintain the tranquil forest character that is a defining feature of the western campus edge.
St. John’s College (SJC) Expansion and Graduate Commons
The expansion of SJC will create more housing opportunities for graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, faculty and visiting scholars. Combined with the expansion of Place Vanier, additional capacity for first-year residents and upper-year undergraduates will create a vibrant community with social spaces and dining hubs that unite students of every type.
Arts and Culture District Mixed-Use Hub
A new Mixed-Use Hub in the Arts and Culture District (at Armouries Commons) will combine student housing with consolidated and expanded space for the Faculty of Arts and will include a range of amenities such as local retail, collegia and child care.
Ritsumeikan-UBC House and Lower Mall Research Station Expansion
Future redevelopment and expansion of Ritsumeikan-UBC House and Lower Mall Research Station will accommodate more student housing over the longer term, in addition to replacement capacity for nearby Thunderbird Residences, whose buildings will be replaced and/or renewed over time to enable faculty and staff rental housing near the academic core.
Acadia Park Student Family Housing
Student family housing affected by Acadia Neighbourhood development will be accommodated through future redevelopment of the current student family housing in the Acadia Park townhouse area. New mid-rise courtyard buildings will provide a family-oriented environment with a range of outdoor spaces for play, community gardens, natural areas and social gathering. Student families will benefit from easy access to nearby amenities and services, including child care, retail, community facilities and Norma Rose Point School.
Additional Student Housing Sites
Additional student beds can be accommodated at several sites across campus including Thunderbird Mixed-Use Hub; along East Mall, within the new Thunderbird Stadium; an expansion of Marine Drive Residence; and potential new Mixed-Use Hubs enabled through parkade redevelopment in the campus core.
The Thunderbird Mixed-Use Hub will replace aging buildings at the Osborne Centre. Replacement of the UBC Tennis Bubble will be incorporated into the design of the new Hub, along with other academic programming to be determined.
Future Neighbourhood Housing
To optimize livability, maximize open space and balance the distribution of growth, new neighbourhood development is focused in new and expanded neighbourhood areas south of the academic core. Housing will include a mix of mid-rise and taller buildings, prioritizing mid-rise wood-frame construction where possible, to maximize affordability, carbon sequestration and a ground-oriented neighbourhood feel. In alignment with the Housing Action Plan, at least 40 per cent of all new neighbourood housing will be rental and at least 25 per cent of all new housing will be discounted rental for faculty and staff.
Wesbrook Place South
Situated where the south campus greenway meets Pacific Spirit Regional Park, and within walking distance of future rapid transit, a southward expansion of Wesbrook Place Neighbourhood will include approximately 1.3 million sq. ft. (120,800 sq. m.) of new housing beyond the current Neighbourhood Plan, or about 1,300 units. This will include locally-serving amenities, creating a secondary community node for Wesbrook. More housing is achieved on sites already identified in the Wesbrook Place Neighbourhood Plan and through a more intensive use of land to the south.
Wesbrook Place South will continue the form of towers and mid-rise buildings found throughout Wesbrook Place Neighbourhood. Towers (ranging from 22 to 39 storeys) will be located next to the forest edge, increasing in height towards the south, and arranged to minimize shadowing on community open space. Mid-rise buildings (four to six storeys) will be organized around a large new open space that can support a range of activities, including informal recreation and community programming, and an urban plaza framed by locally-serving ground floor activity and amenities.
The image shows conceptual layout and massing for Wesbrook South as well as an alternative design approach. Detailed planning and design of the neighbourhood will be subject to a future neighbourhood planning process.
Acadia
Acadia will be a major new neighbourhood within walking distance to rapid transit, providing approximately 3.6 million sq. ft. (335,900 sq. m.) of new housing, or about 3,600 units, and dovetail with the existing mixed-use neighbourhoods of University Village and Musqueam-owned leləm̓ in the University Endowment Lands (UEL). A new Thunderbird Boulevard mixed-use “main street” will offer a range of amenities for the community within a pedestrian oriented environment.
Acadia will include a range of building types, with an emphasis on mid-rise wood-frame buildings (four to six storeys), with towers set back from a major central open space. It will be a walkable neighbourhood, reminiscent of older cities, with small blocks and narrow streets that prioritize pedestrians. Predominantly mid-rise buildings will frame internal courtyards and public spaces to support a human-scaled experience. Taller mid-rise buildings will front Thunderbird Boulevard and open spaces. Slender towers (ranging from 18 to 35 storeys and with 6,500 to 7,000 sq. ft. (600 to 650 sq. m.) floorplates) will be placed to minimize shadowing and overlook on neighbourhood public spaces and reduce visual impact at the campus scale.
Additional student family housing and child care not affected by new Acadia Neighbourhood development will also be considered for redevelopment in future Land Use Plan updates. A portion of existing student housing will be affected by new Acadia Neighbourhood development and will be rebuilt in new locations. Future planning will also consider redeveloping the current site of emergency services into a mixed-use development that includes emergency services and housing.
The image shows conceptual layout and massing for Acadia as well as an alternative design approach. Detailed planning and design of the neighbourhood will be subject to a future neighbourhood planning process.
Stadium Neighbourhood
Stadium Neighbourhood will be a new compact residential development. It will include 1.63 million sq. ft. (151,500 sq. m.) of new housing, or about 1,600 units, as well as commercial and community amenities, academic “flex space” and a major ecological park adjacent to a redeveloped Thunderbird Stadium. This new neighbourhood will knit together new and existing residential, ecological and recreation areas near the academic core and a future south campus rapid transit station.
The Vision expands the neighbourhood boundary beyond what was proposed in a 2019 draft neighbourhood concept to enable an additional 171,000 sq. ft. (15,900 sq. m.) of mid-rise, wood-frame housing along East Mall, while maintaining the neighbourhood building height and density limits established with the community in 2019.
Stadium Neighbourhood will provide a mixed-use community hub that reflects and respects the character of surrounding uses such as the Botanical Garden, UBC Farm and forest and Thunderbird Park.
An emphasis on ground oriented, human scaled buildings combined with active street level uses will support social exchange and community building. Mid-rise buildings and podiums (predominantly six storeys) will frame open spaces and streets, including six-storey, wood- frame buildings along Thunderbird Park realized through adjustments to the width of East Mall. A cluster of five towers (ranging from 20 to 28 storeys) will provide a visual terminus to Main Mall and frame the ecological park and the redeveloped Thunderbird Stadium, stepping down in height towards Thunderbird Park. Additional student housing could potentially be integrated into the east side of the new Thunderbird Stadium building.
Hawthorn Place North
A northern expansion of Hawthorn Place Neighbourhood will enable new housing for faculty and staff close to where they work. It will expand the neighbourhood, maintaining the existing mid-rise form of development, by 590,000 sq. ft. (54,800 sq. m.), providing about 600 units of housing. The expansion to the north side of Thunderbird will reinforce the boulevard as a new mixed-use “main street” that includes new local transit service, a diversity of housing types, academic uses and amenities in and around Hawthorn Place and Totem Park, and connects to the new Acadia Neighbourhood. Residential buildings will frame Thunderbird Boulevard, and ground-floor amenities and community uses will front onto Main Mall.
Hawthorn Place North will be characterized by simple, mid-rise buildings, respecting the scale of the rest of the Hawthorn Neighbourhood. Front doors will address and activate the street, while courtyards will provide a sense of enclosure to the shared social space behind.
Six-storey mid-rise buildings will frame open spaces and streets, including Main Mall, and shorter buildings will be located to maximize sun into courtyards.
Future neighbourhood planning will explore the feasibility of renewing and adapting some of the existing buildings to reduce embodied carbon and improve affordability.
Affordability at UBC
The Vision enables a significant expansion of UBC’s on-campus housing supply and increased financial resources to deliver more affordable housing, such as below-market student housing, faculty and staff rental housing and new home-ownership opportunities. It also provides opportunities to improve the affordability of other aspects of life on campus, including child care and amenities and services, as part of a complete community approach to planning.
Affordable Services & Amenities
In addition to the high cost of housing, people in the community are contending with rising costs of food, transportation and other necessities, and while significant progress has been made to reduce child care costs, spaces remain limited across the region.
Housing Action Plan
The updated Housing Action Plan is a bold response to the affordability challenge currently facing the UBC community, including providing on-campus rental homes for nearly 30,000 people who study or work on campus and their families by 2050, more than 80 per cent of which would be below market rates.