MEDIA RELEASE: ”Don’t rush, Mayor Gregor”: Community leaders make appeal on Housing Task Force major land use policies
(Vancouver, October 2, 2012) Nearly thirty prominent community leaders and groups today sent a joint letter (MTF Housing – Neighbourhood Group letter – 1-Oct-2012) to Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and City Council with the following message: We are requesting that the Mayor’s Task Force on Housing Affordability (MTF) – Final Report to Council Oct. 2, 2012 be accepted for information only and that Council NOT approve any of the recommendations. A more comprehensive and meaningful consultation process is required.
The letter carries the names of signatories, and an attachment with concerns about the Mayor’s Task Force on Housing Affordability, and rationale for the statement. Land-use policy commentator Elizabeth Murphy said, “Top-down approaches like this undermine the community planning process. This will profoundly affect the entire city and needs much more consideration of all the issues.”
The text of the letter is copied below and available for download on CityHallWatch.ca.
CityHallWatch.ca provides tools for citizens in Vancouver to better understand and engage City Hall.
ADDITIONAL NOTE By CityHallWatch…There is no reason Gregor Robertson needs to rush this decision through today. There are regular council meetings every two weeks, so lots of time to get future dates.
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October 1, 2012
Mayor Robertson and Councillors
City of Vancouver
453 West 12 Avenue
Vancouver, B.C. V5Y 1V4
Dear Mayor Robertson and Councillors,
Re: Mayor’s Task Force on Housing Affordability (MTF) – Final Report Oct. 2, 2012
We are requesting that the Mayor’s Task Force on Housing Affordability (MTF) – Final Report to Council Oct. 2, 2012 be accepted for information only and that Council NOT approve any of the recommendations.
A more comprehensive and meaningful consultation process is required.
Supporting Groups or individuals:
- Arbutus Ridge Community Association
- Arbutus Ridge/Kerrisdale/Shaughnessy CityPlan Vision Impl. Committee (ARKS), Jim Hall, Chair **
- ARKS Vision Housing Sub-Committee, Katherine Reichert, Chair **
- Downtown Eastside – Carnagie Community Action Project
- Dunbar, Linda MacAdam **
- False Creek Residents Association
- Grandview Process Advisory and Civic Engagement Group (PACE), Bruce McDonald **
- Grandview Heritage Group, Jak King **
- Grandview Woodlands, Tom Durrie **
- Grandview Woodlands, Petronella Vander Valk **
- Kitsilano Arbutus Residents. Association (KARA)
- Kitsilano Point Residents. Association, Lynn Kent **
- Marpole Oakridge Area Council Society, Gundrun Langolf **
- Mount Pleasant Implementation Committee (MPIC), Grace Mackenzie **
- Norquay, Joseph Jones **
- North West Point Grey Home Owners. Association
- Residents Association Mount Pleasant (RAMP)
- Riley Park / South Cambie CityPlan Vision Implementation Committee (RPSC), Allan Buium, Chair **
- Riley Park / South Cambie CityPlan Vision Implementation Committee (RPSC), Ned Jacobs **
- Shaughnessy Heights Property Owners Association (SHPOA)
- Shannon Mews Neighbours Association (SMNA), John Brimacombe **
- Upper Kitsilano Residents Association
- Victoria Park Group . Gail Mountain **
- Victoria Fraserview Killarney CityPlan Committee (VFK), George Grant **
- West End, Randy Helten**
- West Kitsilano Residents Association
- West Point Grey CityPlan Vision Community Liaison Group (WPG-CLG)
** Signed as an individual only (insufficient time to consult with full group)
cc – Summary attachment
Summary attachment:
Three working days since the report was made public is not enough time for the general public or Councillors to consider the sweeping recommendations in the staff report. The recommendations include broad policy changes for the City of Vancouver affecting land use, zoning, density, civic finances, and much more. The Task Force and mainstream media have so far completely failed to provide the public a satisfactory analysis of the recommendations and their implications. Please see the attached summary for details. http://former.vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/20121002/documents/rr2.pdf
We state at the outset that we support efforts to make Vancouver more affordable to live in, including affordable rentals. But it is not acceptable for Council to approve the MTF recommendations first, and then later go out to consult with the public after the policies are already adopted with directions to staff. Consultation should occur before, not after, adopting the recommendations.
We have many concerns about an unsatisfactory process the Task Force portrays as “consultation.” The interim report released in June did not have much detail about what was proposed and cannot be a basis for consultation on the final report. As one example of poor consultation practice, the “SFU Carbon Talks” was in fact strongly biased and appears designed to manufacture the appearance of consent. The Task Force report refers to surveys by a firm named Place Speak as “consultation,” but there are many privacy and security issues that make using a private company for the city’s consultation process very problematic. Place Speak should not to be relied upon as a representation of public opinion.
The MTF recommendations are mostly the implementation of Sam Sullivan’s EcoDensity initiative, which Mayor Gregor Robertson and the Vision Council criticized and promised to address before and after their election win in 2008. EcoDensity was strongly opposed by the public. At the Heritage Hall neighbourhood event December 10, 2008 Mayor Robertson acknowledged that EcoDensity was not a good idea and praised the neighbourhoods for their effective opposition. But the Mayor’s Task Force recommendations are in reality the implementation of EcoDensity. (See video of Mayor) http://nsvancouver.ca/about-us/history/
Both the MTF Priority Actions for Immediate Implementation and the Additional Actions for Implementation will have broad impacts across the city. None of the Task Force recommendations should be approved because there has not been meaningful broad public discussion or demonstrated majority public support.
The MTF recommendations disregards CityPlan which was an award-winning process that invested millions of dollars of tax-payers’ money and years of community volunteer involvement. To abandon CityPlan without meaningful public discussion or support would be a violation of the public trust. CityPlan Visions are no longer on the City’s new website. The Community Visions and Local Area Plans should not be disregarded. Vancouver has been renowned for participatory planning, but the MTF shows how the city is replacing participatory planning with top-down development-oriented policies that override the community.
Some of the MTF recommendations and our concerns are as follows.
- MTF overrides existing neighbourhood plans without any legitimate public process.
- MTF undermines the current Community Plan processes in the West End, Grandview and Marpole by imposing MTF recommendations without a public process such as Action 1 and the “Thin Streets” concept.
Specific Example:
MTF Action 1: Implement an Interim Rezoning Policy that increases affordable housing choices across Vancouver’s neighbourhoods
1.1 Affordability
We question that the recommendations will provide affordability. There is no economic analysis provided to show how the proposals would be affordable.
1.2 Form of Development/Location
Subject to urban design performance (including consideration of shadow analysis, view impacts, frontage length, building massing, setbacks, etc.) and demonstration of a degree of community support, projects that would be considered are:
- Within approximately 100 metres of an arterial street (i.e. 1.5 blocks), ground-oriented forms up to a maximum of 3.5 storeys, which is generally sufficient height to include small house/duplexes, traditional row houses, stacked townhouses and courtyard row houses.
- Fronting on arterials that are well served by transit and within close proximity (i.e. a five minute walk or 500 metres) of identified neighbourhood centres and local shopping areas, mid-rise forms up to a maximum of 6 storeys
We object most to this proposal. This action is effectively an upzoning without any public consultation or public hearing for this broad reaching policy that will transform Vancouver’s neighbourhoods and override existing community plans and processes. This affects all arterials for 3.5 storeys back for 100 m each side and 6 storeys within 500 m of centres, not just in existing commercial zones. This affects most of the city. These kinds of decisions should be determined by the neighbourhoods if they support this form of development and if so where it should go. This should not be imposed.
General Concerns:
- These proposed actions have not been thought through to consider all the points of view and the many unintended consequences.
- There is a lack of due process, public consultation, transparency, accountability and financial analysis.
- The Mayor’s Task force is mostly composed of appointed development industry-related individuals, some of whom may have a conflict of interest as they could benefit from the recommendations.
- The MTF recommendations override existing community plans and undermines the community plans currently in process.
- The “Thin Streets” proposal to build on city street and utility servicing right of ways is problematic.
We request that the Mayor’s Task Force on Housing Affordability (MTF) – Final Report to Council Oct. 2, 2012 be accepted for information only and that Council NOT approve any of the recommendations at this time. A more comprehensive and meaningful consultation process is required.
Dear Council,
If enraging every resident in Vancouver is what you are after, driving more and more people out of the city and alienating those who remain, busting up our last neighbourly communities, and spiking Vancouver’s true carbon footprint to the highest in Canada, then keep it up.
The plain facts are clear: you do not care a hoot about affordability, since if you did, you would certainly start by defining it.
Council’s refusal to reference a single definition of housing affordability in four years is absurd and patently illegitimate, especially when the City Manager, with no Council guidance, is licensed to decide what it is and what it is not (viz. STIR). Indeed affordability is a policy question, not a bureaucratic one. Its definition is also well known, and WE all know it. But, you’ve never shown you care, and housing prices today are proof positive of a studied ignorance. Ignorance, or a perverted intent to deceive?
On the question of land value inflation, currently the single biggest contributor to housing cost inflation, do you not think that rezoning almost the entire city to higher densities won’t exacerbate this? If nearly every home can now be ripped down and replaced with 2, 3, 5, or even 10 closet-sized apartments, what economist alive would argue that the inherent land value under all these soon-to-be scrapped homes would not be significantly higher, and in fact by multiples of 2, 3, 5, or even 10. Hong Kong housing prices, you are so yesterday!
Of course now every home in Vancouver will have to come down to realize this new fully-rezoned (“re-policied”?) city, at 40 to 60 tonnes of waste per demolished home. No impact on the municipal waste-stream, will there be? No impact on future rainwater permeability, eh? The carbon or any other ecological footprint of the new construction will never be assessed, in part since none of the cement or any other building material is made in or sourced from Vancouver…and who’s counting anyway.
Someone is: the residents of Vancouver as supported by such local heroes as the LCA team at UBC and many other area and global planning, building, and development technologists. They are all laughing, and crying! But few will admit this to your face. They know you won’t listen, and some want a piece of the only work left in Vancouver. All other gainful employment has been crowded out by the high cost of living and high rents.
But you who refuse to consider the horrible cost to society of over-zoning its buildable land and causing the greatest housing bubble crash that history has ever known, need to consider how you will face the voters in just two years, when Vancouver’s credit rating will be in free-fall, just like that of Spain, and for the identical reason: a single-minded unproductive investment in housing.
We will know who to blame. ALL of us will know, renters and owners alike.
Prices of new construction, for sale or lease, will only fall after bankruptcies force property into receivership, and that will take years, if not decades. The City will struggle to collect taxes. Meanwhile people will flee the city in droves as property taxes are forced also to double to cover the infrastructure debts and deferred maintenance this Council has piled on, and these taxes will of course increase the cost of living here, especially for our seniors, some of whom will have lost their largest retirement asset…thanks to you.
We will inaugurate a special day to remember the “Vision” that went terribly wrong. Maybe that day will be October 2, every year, forever. Today is already International Day for Non-Violence, and it’s fitting that this violent act against the residents of Vancouver might be committed today.
But that is still your choice.
Refer the report for review by a librarian, to look up the definition of affordability, and an ecological economist, to point out simply that the emperor is not only wearing no clothes, but also taking a dump in our lettuce bed.
The lesson: the politics of a sham is lifelong shame.
Are you all ready for that?
Randy Chatterjee
no longer of Vancouver, BC
PS – I am 100% opposed to Council receiving, let alone, adopting this report from the so-called “Housing Affordability Task Force.” 100% means completely and totally. No prevarication. A check box in the “opposed” category, please. And I will hire an auditor to ensure my vote is correctly categorized, because the only “trust” in Vancouver is verifiable and verified. Thank you.
I agree with you, Randy, but I am puzzled by one aspect. Virtually all the cement used in Metro Vancouver is made by either LaFarge in Richmond (on River Rd) or Lehigh in Delta (also on River Rd). My husband worked at the latter from 1979 to 2011 (with a short break in 1981 or 1982) and was plant manager from 1999 to 2011. Unless you mean the cement is not made in the City of Vancouver (as opposed to the suburbs), the cement was made in Metro Vancouver.
The cement is not made in the City of Vancouver proper, and you’re right that this is what Randy is alluding to.
Only energy used within the city limits of Vancouver is counted in our GHG report. So any highly energy intensive material that is made elsewhere but used in abundance in Vancouver skews our reporting, just like all the Asian electronics, toys, drywall, etc. that escape the count. Oddly, unlike every other port city in the world, Vancouver fails to include Port of Vancouver GHGs in its numbers. Note, this is not the Port of Metro Vancouver, which is the biggest GHG port polluter in Canada by three times the next worst at over 100 million tonnes CO2e, and growing at 16% per year. After for cities that declare Port emissions, Seattle does. Portland does. LA does. Just not Vancouver.
Up until now everything has been highrises because there are no vancant lots – so you bulldoze 4 houses and make a highrise to the heavens? What is the alternative? Where are they going put in greater vancouver row housing, six story condos? There are no vacant lots. Walking down any average street in vancouver, if there are parked vehicles on both sides of the street, which is normal, there is only room for one vehicle to go one direction and other vehicles have to backup or duck into an empty space and allow the other vehicle to go by. I am not often in the kits area but by chance I was walking and saw houses that were very, very, close together. A fire concern when they are older buildings.
I love Vancouver. I don’t mind if Vancouver grows like the big cities of the world, New York, San Francisco, London UK. Lots of people travel great distance by trains and subway for hours to get to work or to go home. It is the way people on the planet live. But we have to have roads and parks.
Also remember that in many cities there are cars and vehicles 24 hours a day. Here in Vancouver if you step outside at 2:00 or 4:00 a.m. there are almost no cars or people moving about – the except, of course, are those areas where the drug trades operate.