West End Substation

The Vancouver School Board has decided to accept our proposal for an underground substation at their Lord Roberts Annex property. We believe our proposal will provide significant benefits to the community, and we look forward to working with the Vancouver School Board, Vancouver Park Board and the City of Vancouver once we move into further stages of consultation, planning and development.

We'd like to thank the West End community for providing their feedback on our proposal for a new substation. We're committed to continuing to engage with parents and residents of the West End. Our Community Consultation Report [PDF, 5.7 MB] presenting the feedback collected from May 1-31, 2018 is available as well as our Community Consultation Response Memo [PDF, 2.7 MB], which includes our response to some of the key themes we heard through the community consultation process.

Our electricity system in downtown Vancouver is aging and needs upgrades. A new substation in the West End is needed to replace Dal Grauer Substation to ensure our customers in downtown Vancouver continue to have access to reliable power.

Our traditional approach to developing new substations is to determine where they're needed, search for appropriate sites, and then build them above-ground. We all know downtown land is scarce and expensive – over the last year, we've explored all available options for a new substation in the West End, which would take up almost half a city block if it were built above-ground. Most suitable and available properties in the West End are currently being used for housing which would need to be removed if purchased for a future West End Substation. If we bought a private property, we'd follow our traditional approach of building an above-ground substation as the cost of private land would make undergrounding the substation cost-prohibitive.

Now that the Vancouver School Board has decided to accept our proposal for the Lord Roberts Annex property, it will allow us to transfer our property purchase funds to the VSB to be used on schools, rather than a private property owner. It will eliminate the need to purchase private property and potentially take away housing stock from the area, and result in an out-of-sight underground substation while providing significant funding to the downtown Vancouver school community. This is why we proposed this as providing the best outcome for our customers and the West End community.

Our Community Consultation Report [PDF, 5.2 MB], presenting the feedback collected from May 1-31, 2018 is available as well as our Community Consultation Response Memo [PDF, 2.4 MB], which includes our response to some of the key themes that we heard through the community consultation process.

This report was shared with the Vancouver Board of Education (VSB elected Trustees) to inform their decision on our proposal for the Lord Roberts Annex property, along with feedback collected through VSB's own consultation.

With the Vancouver Board of Education having accepted our proposal, the consultation results will be used to inform our next steps on this project where there would be many future community consultation opportunities. We're also consulting with the Vancouver Park Board and City of Vancouver. Future community consultation would also include City and Park Board-led consultation to further explore impacts of underground power lines through Nelson Park.

2017 Stantec preliminary technical, environmental, and socio-economic study

Stantec, an internationally-recognized independent consulting firm, completed a preliminary study looking at our proposal for the Lord Roberts Annex property. This study looked at Nelson Park/Lord Roberts Annex as well as Emery Barnes Park as potential sites for underground substation construction. While Emery Barnes Park is not part of this consultation, or a property BC Hydro is currently pursuing as a substation site, the portion of the study pertaining to Nelson Park/Lord Roberts Annex is still applicable.

• Executive Summary: 2017 BC Hydro Seed: Technical, Environmental and Socio-economic Study [PDF, 12.3 MB]
• 2017 BC Hydro Seed: Technical, Environmental and Socio-economic Study [PDF, 27.8 MB]
• Addendum 1 [PDF, 614 KB]

• 2017 BC Hydro – consultation summary report [PDF, 914 KB]
  
• Appendix 1: notification materials [PDF, 3.9 MB]
  
• Appendix 2: discussion guide and feedback form [PDF, 4.7 MB]
  
• Appendix 3: discussion guide supplementary information [PDF, 1.2 MB]
• Appendix 4: meeting notes [PDF, 1.7 MB]
  
• 2017 letter from Dr. Patricia Daly, Vice-President, Public Health and Chief Medical Health Officer, Vancouver Coastal Health [PDF, 83 KB]
  
• 2017 BC Hydro – consideration of input memo [PDF, 296 KB]