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The City of Vancouver intends to boost jobs and build bike lanes, overpasses and new homes in False Creek Flats under the guidance of a draft area plan expected to go public Wednesday.

The Flats, which extends east from Main Street to Clark Drive and south from Prior Street to Great Northern Way, is one of the largest industrial areas remaining in the city. It’s jammed with rail lines, populated by hundreds of businesses, and has some of the most expensive industrial land in the region — second only to that in Mount Pleasant.

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The city wants to increase employment floor space in the area to 11 million square feet, from 5.4 million, and pave the way for as many as 22,000 more workers (many of them at the new St. Paul’s hospital and new Emily Carr University campus), according to information boards that staff will take to residents at an open house Wednesday at 231 Industrial Ave.

That would be done, in part, by introducing “creative products manufacturing” and “digital entertainment and information communication technology” as permitted land uses in the area. “Creative products manufacturing” includes things like clothing design and manufacturing or industrial design, while “digital entertainment and information communication technology” covers things like software, gaming and social media, according to the city. Introducing those categories would broaden the mix of jobs in the flats, which now includes those in light industry, cultural, clean and green tech, and research and development, among other areas.