MEDIA RELEASE: Crowd to gather, City Hall, Tuesday before hearing on rezonings

MEDIA RELEASE
CityHallWatch.ca
Crowd to gather at City Hall on Tuesday before hearing on massive rezonings
For immediate release, Vancouver, July 25, 2011. Download: MEDIA_Release_CityHallWatch, 25-July-2011 web

CityHallWatch declares that the Vancouver system of planning and rezoning is broken and needs fixing. Working with Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver (NSV) and Shannon Mews Neighbours’ Association (SMNA), CityHallWatch has called Vancouver residents to gather in front of City Hall on the evening of 26 July 2011 at 6:00 pm, just ahead of major public hearings on 488 units at 105-167 West 2nd Avenue, and 735 units at 7101-7201 Granville (Shannon Mews).

 What:                Neighbourhoods’ Gathering at City Hall
Topic:                “Vancouver’s Planning/Rezoning Process is Broken. Let’s start Fixing it” (Speakers on broken system, Shannon Mews and other cases, community planning, discussion about how to fix it)
Where/When:     South entrance, City Hall, July 26, 2011. (6 pm gather, 6:20 start, 7:10 end, then go to Chambers)

This event connects straight back to the broken promises made by newly-elected Mayor Gregor Robertson, flanked by many on his Council, speaking to hundreds of neighbourhood representatives at an NSV forum at Heritage Hall on 10 December 2008. [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdpOAPgGHmQ ]
Caption: In 2008, newly-elected Mayor Robertson lambasted EcoDensity, promised to respect for grassroots and community. Vision Vancouver’s record shows the opposite.
See video:

In the video, the Mayor credits local communities for the strong pushback against EcoDensity that helped Vision Vancouver get its near sweep of City Hall in the 2008 election. Ever since, he and his Vision councillors have used their majority vote repeatedly against community input. The Mayor’s words that day about a “great opportunity right now with the big shift in the political winds to do things differently at City Hall” have cynically translated into the new Council handing even more over to developers than before. Just one example is the STIR program’s huge giveaways to developers.

But now tower and high density developments opposed by local neighbourhoods are being forced onto unhappy residents all over the city – Norquay, Arbutus, Mount Pleasant, Marpole, Cambie Corridor, Little Mountain, False Creek, Chinatown, the Downtown East Side, and Shannon Mews, to name a few. Among their many problems, outsized developments eat away at the ability for Vancouverites to look up at their cherished mountains.

“Little did Vancouverites know that Vision Vancouver would take EcoDensity and put it on steroids. Or that when in 2008 the new Mayor invited the community to City Hall, it meant that time after time citizens would have to drag themselves out there speak before City Council, to fight unwanted policies, plans, and rezonings.” – Randy Helten, coordinator of CityHallWatch.

CityHallWatch.ca is new website to help Vancouver residents better understand, discuss, and address City Council on major issues of the city, especially rezonings and decisions on land use.

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Contact: R. Helten, citizenYVR@gmail.com Web http://www.cityhallwatch.ca

BACKGROUNDER:

The mayor in his 2008 speech was referring to the intensive effort of NSV groups culminating in a declaration against the Non-Partisan Association’s (NPA) “EcoDensity” Charter, and the strength citizens expecting positive change change gave Vision Vancouver. People expected that if elected, the new Vision Vancouver councillors would honour their campaign commitment to respect communities. Instead of withdrawing EcoDensity, however, Vision Vancouver rebranded it and applied it even more strongly in the Greenest City initiative.

Policies such as Short Term Incentives for Rental Housing (STIR) has resulted in massive spot rezonings in the West End and across the city.

Unsupported tower and high density developments are being pushed through all over the city such as Norquay, Arbutus, Mount Pleasant, Marpole, Cambie Corridor, Little Mountain, False Creek, Chinatown, Downtown East Side and Shannon Mews. Even “view cones” of Vancouver’s cherished mountains are being encroached on.

Below are more issues of concern this week.

• On Thursday, July 28 at 2 pm, Council will consider a “Next Community Plans,” a new planning process that will even further undermine local communities by instituting a top-down power hierarchy directly from the Metro Vancouver region (under the newly-minted Regional Growth Strategy bylaw, barely even known to Vancouverites), TransLink and the Province dictating land use decisions in neighbourhoods. This is completely the opposite to the “bottom up” process of  grass roots democracy that Mayor Robertson and Vision Vancouver campaigned on in the last election. The list goes on. Our website provides more detail.

• During summer vacation when most citizens are not watching, City Council often passes what would be controversial policies, slipping them through below the radar. This one appeared on the agenda just on Friday, July 22, for Regular Council meeting at 2 pm, July 26, under “Policy Reports,” (3. Advancing Deconstruction in Vancouver and Supporting By-law AmendmentsPDF). Here is the staff staff recommendation: B. THAT the Director of Planning be instructed to make an application to amend Section 5.7 and Section 10.12 of the Zoning and Development By-law to allow, in the case of deconstruction of one and two family dwellings, a building permit to deconstruct to be issued in advance of a development permit, and that the application be referred to a Public Hearing together with: (i) draft by-law amendments, generally as presented in Appendix A; and(ii) the recommendation of the Director of Planning to approve.
  CityHallWatch comment: This Planning Department proposal is a problem because it puts all heritage buildings at extreme risk. It would allow demolition (deconstruction) of any buildings in RS or RT zones prior to the issuance of a development permit. As it is now in Vancouver, no demolition can happen without a development permit first. It prevents a developer from demolishing a heritage or other building and leaving the site vacant for years before they are ready to apply for development. It would allow developers to threaten to proceed with demolition if they aren’t given extremely large density bonuses since they would have much more clout.