Amenity bonuses: Bridging cultural production and consumption in Vancouver's city centre

This project examines the City of Vancouver’s Cultural Amenity Bonus program through the story of the Vancouver International Film Centre. The Amenity program, which began in 1975 under Vancouver’s Downtown Official Development Plan (DODP), is a collaborative funding mechanism that links City Hall, developers, and non-profits in facilitating the macro planning goals of creating a sustainable cultural infrastructure base in Vancouver’s downtown, as per the City’s Ten Principles of Sustainability. As such, the program is used to negotiate on behalf of non-profit incubator organizations involved in cultural service delivery within the downtown core. The purpose of this project is to assess to what degree the Film Centre exemplifies sustainable cultural infrastructure. By looking at concepts of consumption, production chain, infrastructure and partnerships this project acts as a preliminary background study which informs how to assess the performance of the Film Centre through the lens of sustainability.