VANCOUVER -- ense, old and full of character, Vancouver’s West End has been locked in planning limbo for years.

Eyed eagerly by developers for its older stock of low-density rental housing but fiercely protected by its residents, the neighbourhood on the western third of the city’s downtown peninsula has resisted change as other neighbourhoods have densified.

City Hall, wary of reigniting the fights that 20 years ago resulted in a policy restricting the rate of change in the area, left the West End alone while it reviewed other neighbourhood plans.

But the West End faces a changing future after council adopted a new 30-year community plan Wednesday, following a public hearing that heard from dozens of people. This is one of the four neighbourhoods for which the city is developing new plans, including the Downtown Eastside, Grandview-Woodland and Marpole.

On the face of it, much in the West End will remain the same. The city is determined not to allow spot rezonings that would replace three-storey walk-ups with towering condos. It will also largely retain its link to history as one of the city’s oldest residential neighbourhoods.

The tallest changes include allowing higher density housing along the major thoroughfares of Burrard and Georgia, and to a lesser extent along Robson, Alberni and parts of Davie and Denman.

Up to seven new ultra-tall, thin towers as tall as 550 feet could be allowed along Georgia and Burrard, adding to the six the city has already said could be built without significantly changing the city’s domed silhouette and its heritage view corridors.

Only one, at the corner of Burrard and Georgia, has been allowed to scale 700 feet.

Brian Jackson, the city’s chief planner, says that by arranging the denser buildings along Georgia and Burrard, the city can protect the rest of the West End and keep densities lower.

During the last 30 years, the West End’s population has grown by 20 per cent. The city intends to artificially keep the growth rate to 20 per cent over another 30 years, unlike the rest of the city, which is expected to grow at 23 per cent. Still, it expects to shoehorn another 10,000 people into the West End, most of them into purpose-built rental.

Jackson said his department wanted to retain much of the character of the neighbourhood, which has 45,000 residents. It is richly studded with more than 121 heritage-worthy buildings, all but four of which are expected to remain.

The core will look similar, but the northern and eastern perimeters, and some of the business districts, will be altered.

“With the West End plan, we took a character-based approach with planning. We wanted to make sure that whatever growth is going to happen we would maintain the character of the West End. This was primal in our direction,” he said.

The West End, where the median household income is just under $39,000, less than the citywide average of $47,000, accounts for one third of the rental stock in Vancouver. With its proximity to the central business district and its origin as a lower-income area, zoned in the 1950s to allow for multi-storey rental buildings, it is largely the refuge of renters and seniors.