Community Update: The Fight for 2030 Barclay Continues

Dear Neighbours and Supporters,
First of all, thank you. Because of your incredible dedication, the thousands of signatures on our petition, and your powerful voices at the public hearings, the City Council sent Marcon’s 25-storey tower proposal back to the drawing board on March 12th. That was a massive victory for the West End, but the fight is far from over. Marcon is preparing to resubmit their application and is trying to play a game of semantics to get their massive tower approved.

🛑 The Developer’s "Shell Game"

Marcon recently floated some preliminary changes. They are proposing to drop most of the hotel rooms and swap them out for a mix of rental units. They even set up a developer-led “steering committee” to give the appearance of community input.

At the inaugural meeting of this committee, the developer’s message was crystal clear: changes to the physical size and scale of the 25-storey tower are completely “off the table” for discussion. They told the committee it is only there to suggest “tweaks” to minor details. Furthermore, this developer-led group does not represent the broad range of community voices from the public hearing, and vital local stakeholders, such as the West End Seniors’ Network (WESN) and the neighbouring Pooh Corner Daycare Centre, were not represented at the meeting.

Shuffling the floor plan on the inside does absolutely nothing to shrink the massive tower on the outside. Whether the rooms are filled by hotel guests or renters, a 25-storey concrete monolith will cast the same shadows, cause the same traffic congestion, violate the same required tower separation, generate the same noise, and completely overwhelm the residential character of Barclay Street.

⏳ Why We Must Act Right Now

We have written to City Planning Director Josh White, requesting that neighbourhood representatives be included in the planning discussions now. If we wait until MARCON formally submits their reapplication, the massive size and scale of the building will already be locked in, and it will be too late for the public to have any meaningful impact.

We need Mayor Ken Sim and City Council to hear from us immediately, and we need to make sure our voices can’t be brushed aside in an inbox.

MARCON has scheduled a “Neighbourhood Preview” of their revised plans for their 2030 Barclay rezoning application.

Please see the above artwork for more information about Macron’s Neighbourhood Preview, being held on July 14th!

🌳 Sunday Tables Are Back! The Power of a Physical Letter

We need Mayor Ken Sim and City Council to hear from us immediately. While emails are easy to send, they are just as easy to overlook, delete, or get lost in a crowded inbox.

An actual, physical letter is completely different. Paper letters carry massive weight at City Hall because they have to be physically opened, sorted, logged, and piled on desks. A stack of real mail cannot be ignored; it is a tangible, visible reminder that real voters are watching.

To make this as easy as possible, we are setting up our Sunday community tables once again! If you don’t have a printer, envelopes, or stamps, don’t worry. Stop by our table this Sunday, where we will have printed copies of the letters ready for you to sign. Once signed, our team will hand-deliver them directly to City Hall in bulk to make sure they hit the desks of the Mayor and Councillors with maximum impact. If you prefer to mail it yourself, you can print or handwrite the text below and send it directly.

Mailing Address:
Mayor and Council City of Vancouver 453 West 12th Avenue Vancouver, BC V5Y 1V4

Suggest Text for Your Letter:
Dear Mayor Sim and Members of Council,
I am writing to you today as a West End resident because I am very concerned about the future of 2030 Barclay Street. When City Council voted to send this application back to staff on March 12th, those of us living in the neighbourhood felt heard. We truly expected that the massive size of this building would be reconsidered.

Instead, I understand that the developer, MARCON, is planning to keep the same 25-storey tower design but change the floor plan inside, swapping out some of the hotel rooms for rental apartments. Shuffling the rooms around on the inside completely misses the point. The main reason our community opposes this project is that a tower of that size and scale just does not fit on this residential street. Changing the labels on the blueprints doesn’t fix the massive shadows, the noise, the required tower separation, or the traffic congestion. The physical impact on our neighborhood remains the same as the proposal you already declined to approve in March.

The developer recently set up a neighbourhood committee, but told those attending that they could suggest “tweaks,” but that discussion about the size and scale of the tower is completely “off the table”. I am asking the City to step in and ensure that our concerns about the actual size of this
building are taken seriously now, during the current planning discussions. If the City waits until the developer formally resubmits the application, the height will already be locked in, and it will be too late for us to have any impact. The West End needs a project that actually respects the scale of the neighbourhood, not a 25-storey tower with a new label.
Sincerely,
(Your name & address)

Click Below to Email This Letter

To look at newsletters, news coverage, and public hearing recordings prior to March 12 (2026), please visit our "Looking Back" archive page!

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