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Residents in four Vancouver neighbourhoods will have to wait until September to find out if staff will consider an extension in community planning processes for their areas.

A motion brought forward by Green councillor Adriane Carr on Tuesday (July 23) calling for more time on the Grandview-Woodland local area plan has been referred to the fall, following council’s summer break.

Vision Vancouver councillor Andrea Reimer called for the referral of the motion to allow staff to come back with answers to questions she raised at a council meeting earlier this month. Those included whether there are opportunities to increase engagement within the existing timelines, and the potential implications of delaying one or more of the plans that are underway.

“My personal sense is that Grandview-Woodlands very much does need more time in the planning, and...Marpole would appear that way as well in my opinion,” Reimer said Tuesday.

Carr said her support for the referral motion was dependent on staff committing to also look into the potential benefits of extending the timelines, and reassuring communities that no decisions will be made on the plans in the meantime.

“I’m very happy to see that all four plans will be up for discussion in terms of extensions, because I think…there are citizens in all four areas who are deeply concerned that the timeline’s too short,” she told the Straight.

Jak King, the president of the Grandview-Woodland Area Council, said he was disappointed with the decision to refer the motion, and would have liked a chance to speak to the issue this week.

“Had they asked the planners to come back in September with a new process, I think that would have been useful, but they weren’t, they were just told to come back with answers to specific questions,” he said in an interview. “So there’s always the chance they’ll come back in September and say no, we think we should just go ahead, we’ll finish it in December. So I’m rather disappointed in it, frankly.”

The area council has gathered hundreds of signatures on a petition calling for an extension of at least six months on the Grandview-Woodland planning process.

City staff are holding two more events to gather public input on the future of the Broadway and Commercial area next week.

But according to King, residents have concerns across all the sub-areas of the draft local area plan, not just around the transit hub.

“There are issues in every single area of the plan, and we need proper workshops on all of those areas, and all we’re getting are these non-consultative open houses,” he said.

Brian Jackson, the city’s general manager of planning and development, told council there are no further steps being proposed between now and when staff will be reporting back with a memo in September.

“We’re not making any kind of decisions—we would typically be using this time to kind of gather the evidence we’ve heard from the draft emerging directions,” he said.

The open houses focused on Commercial and Broadway area will be held on July 29 at the Croatian Cultural Centre from 5 to 9 p.m. and on July 31 from 5 to 9 p.m. at the WISE Hall.