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Vision sees a glorious new era unfolding but for COPE, a difficult conversation ahead

November 21st, 2011 · 31 Comments

There are so many tea leaves to read in the election results and many of you have been busy at doing that through this blog and many other outlets.

Here are two of the stories I wrote in the last couple of days. One is about Vision supporters seeing this solid second win for the new party as a sign that there has been a permanent shift in the city.

The other is about the unpleasant side of that win for Vision’s ally, the Coalition of Progressive Electors, which now has to assess what went wrong and what to do about it in the next election. That’s not going to be easy, because there are so many explanations of why they trailed their Vision partners by enough of a margin that NPA candidates got in ahead of them.

As I note in my story, there’s the Tim Louis explanation: COPE didn’t sound independent enough.

There’s the David Cadman and Bob Penner explanation: Knocking off David and replacing him with Tim gave many people the impression the whole party had turned left and made more centrist Vision voters less likely to vote COPE. Cadman was like COPE’s mayor, with tails that could bring others along.

And there’s the Ellen Woodsworth and Nathan Allen explanation: COPE couldn’t compete with the Vision and NPA spending. (But they both spent like crazy last time too. So the corollary here is that the Occupy Vancouver circus took up so much of the media’s attention that none of the parties could get any attention for their announcements. But the NPA and Vision could compensate by spending on advertising. COPE, with a budget of only $341,000, couldn’t.)

A few bits and pieces that I didn’t manage to squeeze into these two stories but have been thinking about or had observed.

– Although the vote for Robertson went up by 10,000 votes, the votes for three of the six incumbent councillors went down (for Raymond Louie, by 3,000 votes). And, for those who went up (Kerry Jang, Andrea Reimer, Geoff Meggs), it wasn’t by anywhere near the same numbers as the mayor.

Bob Penner says that’s because people tending to vote Vision/COPE included Adriane Carr from the Green Party and tried to spread their 10 votes for council around among 11 people, so many people eliminated one of the other 10 in order to give her a vote.

– Still, Carr only got 48,000 votes. Spread among 10 people, that’s 4,800 each. That still doesn’t boost those councillors by the same amount the mayor got. So there appears to be a gap opening up between the mayor and his party, something that will have consequences when he moves on.

– Although Coal Harbour seems to have shifted to Anton, in fact the votes there are fairly close between Anton and Robertson, indicating there are still lots of people in those condo towers who like the green mayor.

– Last time, the mayor got his highest number of votes — 886 — from the Fairview poll (#142). That dropped this time and, instead, the single poll that brought him the highest number of votes was #32, the heart of the Republic of Commercial Drive around the VanEast Cultural Centre. It was also, not so coincidentally, the strongest poll for Ellen Woodsworth. He got 1,023 votes there; she got 757.

– Like everyone, I’m trying to assess the impact of Randy Helten’s Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver. The last time a party ran that promoted a “not so much density, the neighbourhoods are being trampled” line, it was vcaTEAM in 2002. Valerie MacLean got about 8,000 votes in the mayoral spot — about double Helten’s 4,000 — and the other candidates on her team topped out at about 18,000, the same as what Helten’s slate did. That means support for an alternative dropped slightly, since there more overall voters in this election than in 2002.

But you have to wonder about those 20,000 votes and what they mean. COPE identified 20,000 core supporters for its party. If COPE were to work independently from Vision, would those 20,000 stay with them? That’s got to be something that Vision strategists are thinking about. Bob Penner says no. He believes that most of the people who supported the co-operative slate would migrate to Vision if the parties were to run against each other.

But perhaps, if COPE separated, the supporters it loses to Vision could be picked up among the NSV crowd. Or is there an NSV crowd?When each person has 10 votes, it’s so hard to figure out who was throwing votes to those NSV candidates.

– Speaking of NSV, another observation I got from UBC poli sci prof Richard Johnston was that there may be a permanent place for a small group of anti-density voters.

Most people have signed on to accepting density, he says, in a city full of new, young professionals for whom that’s the new norm.

“I do have the sense the city has a working consensus on that.” The question for them becomes, who benefits from the creation of that density. Do the benefits just go to the private developers? Or do some of the benefits get spread down the “ladder of social structure,” as he put it?

Presumably, the Vision concept is that some of the benefits are turned back to working families in the form of below-market housing units that the city creates by demanding that developers build some in return for some sort of incentives in the form of extra space.

And the COPE concept is that even more of the benefit should be filtered downstream by demanding that developers build below-market units and turn them over to the city, just for the privilege of building in Vancouver.

But, Johnston says, there will be for the foreseeable future a core of people who don’t accept the consensus that the city has density. That core could include people from the right and left: those who feel as though they’re being priced out of a city that once was working class meeting up in some ideological full circle with people from nice single-family-home neighbourhoods who don’t want to see change.

 

Categories: 2011 Vancouver Civic Election

  • Bob Penner

    There a number of reasons that could explain the gap between the Mayor’s vote and Vision councillors. Even still, they did get a high vote.

    One, is the loss of some votes to Adriane Carr , who attracted a disproportionate share of votes from Vision/Cope slate voters, as did Sandy Garosinno. And there were just a lot more council candidates than last time, also a factor.
    Also we largely focussed our council campaign on Tony Tang, given the already existing popularity of our incumbents.

  • Paul T.

    I can tell you very quickly when it will become clear if COPE will simply disappear into the Vision vacuum or will split away and run a full slate…. That moment will come during the next round of labour talks. The mayor’s purse is not doing very well. He won’t be able to offer everything the unions will want. We’ve seen how delicate union support can be in this province. One false move from the negotiators and COPE will all of a sudden have new life breathed into it.

    However, get too generous and it will only embolden taxpayers to punish the current administration (HST anyone?).

    2012 will be a very interesting year.

  • gmgw

    It’s a pity that NPA supporters are apparently unable to think strategically. Had they really wanted to strike an effective blow at Robertson and the Visionistas they should have saved a vote for Tim Louis. Louis would have been immeasurably more effective at getting up the collective noses of the Visionistas than the two wet ends the NPA did manage to squeeze onto Council. I’m surprised and disappointed he not only wasn’t elected but finished so far back in the pack , especially after the Georgia Straight temporarily suspended its babe-of-the-week policy and put Louis on the cover. I think it’s safe to say that the VV caucus is probably greatly relieved at not having to listen to that abrasive voice in Council meetings giving them hell for the next three years. I was looking forward to watching it… damn.
    GMGW

  • Roger Kemble

    Occupy Vancouver circus

    Calling OCCUPY a circus Frances is like calling the carpet bombing of Libya a humanitarian mission.

    As with Libya, we haven’t heard the last of that.

    You Nuzies have an interesting way with words!

  • boohoo

    Your relentless support for something that isn’t at all what it once is odd. Capitalizing and bolding it every time you write it doesn’t make it more supportable either…

  • Chris Porter

    I’m not surprised that Mayor Robertson polled much higher than his councillors.

    Some of that is his personal popularity. There was also nearly 3000 people who voted for mayor but didn’t vote for any city councillors. Then there was the quality of candidates that encouraged people to vote outside of their desired slates (many people were actively encouraging mixed slate voting). You mentioned Adrianne Carr, but there was also Garossino, NSV candidates, and progressive NPA candidates like Bickerton and Affleck that took a few votes from some Gregor supporters.

    NSV council candidates out-polled Helten by over 10,000 votes. That is 10,000 voters that gave 1-4 of their council votes to the NSV, but not for mayor. They either voted for Robertson or Anton. That alone would elevate Robertson and Anton well above their council candidates.

  • MB

    This exercise was indicative that the majority of Vancouverites, and especially youth, no longer identify with the traditional isolationist left-right islands that leave open water in the centre. Occupy Vision has built a bridge in the middle, like it or leave it.

    That doesn’t mean they don’t need a credible opposition; neighbourhood disatisfaction with Vision-era development issues became a vocal and therein major issue. But the electorate en masse seemed to accept that Vancouver, in a general sense, will always have development and that much of it brings benefits such as creating housing stock that is more affordable, albeit not in the form of detached housing on standard lots, and bringing new shops and services to the neighbourhood. The majority just aren’t anti-development or anti-capitalist.

    But the majority obviously did not place a high priority on voting their preference for an opposition, and found many candidates, especially COPE, either represented the overly strident Old Guard, or were not credible at all, like they were only riding the coattails of a party nameplate. These are not the days of Rankin, Erickson and Davies who reflected the local version of a world view of the 70’s and 80’s, and whose humour — remembering Rankin here who gave several speeches spiced with one-liners at campuses outside of council — provided the perfect foil to their otherwise sharply honed dagger parries directed toward George Puil et al. The under-35 voting block had not even arrived in their teens when the strident left and freemarketeers were prominent. Now their consciousness is focused on the characters at hand who are rather timid bridge builders, not bold and opinionated Occupiers of fortified islands.

  • Roger Kemble

    A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds” Emerson.

    thanQs boo @ #5 4 pla7ing my game. You obviously have an investment in OCCUPY, (capitals and all)!

    Who know the future but “ . . . something that isn’t at all what it once was . . . ” may be a little premature?

    It is more . . . than what it once was . . . according to the maniacal response coming from the 1% and their paid thugs: they obviously aren’t sanguine. In fact they appear to have inadvertently roused a sleeping giant!

    Gregor and Jim are civilized which is more than we can say about you and your farm team.

    No matter, we are onto new obsessions: NUMBERS.

    How many angels can she fit on the head of a pin?

    Frances and her latter day number crunching?

    Teaching her students yesterday’s cold spaghetti confirmed my trepidations re higher education

    Isn’t it spookie teaching future “journalist” (if such exist in the ever expanding cyber world) to regurgitate a world long gone“looking in the rear view mirror

    Luckily we have the mountains, the sea, paradise to distraxt us. . . phew . . .

    Relentless . . .” I like that . . .

    And thanQs boo 4 pla7ing . . . go for it!

  • boohoo

    “You obviously have an investment in OCCUPY, (capitals and all)!”

    I have none, it hasn’t impacted my life one bit other than a few laughs. I support the principle, but it’s nothing like that now.

    “Gregor and Jim are civilized which is more than we can say about you and your farm team.”

    What team is that exactly?

    Again, with the 7’s and q’s. Not sure that’s having the impact you’re hoping for.

  • Lewis N. Villegas

    The geek-number that I am looking for is the turnout (I have it at 21%). And the remedy we have to put in place is internet voting.

    Our region saw an incumbent’s election with some worrying signs out there that there should have been more challenging going on. I have in mind the funding of the Green Line, and the construction of the Gateway Project. Old news, I know, but decisions that will shape our urbanism for decades to come.

    The two major centres, Vancouver and Surrey, seem to be marching at a different tempo from the rest—that’s giving Mayor Watts a wide bearth. The tune I’m singing is the difference between urban and suburban planning.

    The rest of the Lower Mainland appears firmly entrenched in auto-dominated suburban mode and not giving it up any time soon. To support this position you have to accept the contention that both residential towers and Skytrain are respectively high-density sprawl, and high-capacity transit for sprawl. The latter supported by the fact that many drive to Skytrain.

  • brilliant

    Internet voting is for the lazy and ill-informed. If you can’t take 10 minutes to go to a polling station you don’t deserve a vote.

  • david hadaway

    We certainly need electoral reform, and I was glad to read Bill McCreery mention it on a previous post, but internet voting? The potential for abuse is huge, beyond even that which has been established for postal voting. Also, maybe this is my inner Puritan, but while I’m all for encouraging political engagement, reducing it to a mouse click by people who can’t even be bothered to walk a few yards down the road does not seem to offer an enticing future.

    Dave Pasin described Vision as the new establishment, and so it is. My guess is that with ten candidates they would have taken nine or ten seats. Their centrist consensus image means that any opponent can be portrayed as divisive or marginal. NPA = angry, COPE = extreme.

    When Larry Campbell ensured the failure of the ward referendum, further betraying his COPE roots, he was very far sighted and the NPA was a patsy. His political descendants may, in several cases, be as dim as ten watt bulbs (compact fluorescent of course) but they and their giga-buck backers now control the conversation.

    We need wards, the political maps being drawn strongly suggest that would give much fairer representation. It’s the only way that, combined with expenditure limitations, the overweening power of money can be broken. Unfortunately, in the new civic order, that just makes me a sore loser!

  • Roger Kemble

    Yes, wards of course.

    But how do you persuade a candidate to change a system, i.e. at-large, that ensured her success?

  • Ian Mass

    There are many good ideas about why the COPE/Vision partnership did not result in COPE candidates being elected.

    For COPE there were two electoral bottom lines in this partnership. The first is that vote splitting be avoided so the NPA does not regain power. For COPE this was a very difficult political compromise and meant aligning ourselves, through Vision, uncomfortably close to developers who, by driving affordability from Vancouver, are driving the working and middle class from Vancouver. The compromise worked. Vision’s electoral triumph using our joint coordinated electoral strategy achieved the first goal.

    The second goal is that COPE and Vision candidates are elected so that progressive debate and actions can at least be a possibility. Fundamentally, COPE delivered their supporters to Vision while Vision could not deliver their supporters to COPE.

    This will be the debate inside COPE, we succeeded with this strategy in 2008, failed in 2011. If Vision can’t deliver on their part of the bargain what are we to do – split the vote? There are many days left before November 28, 2014

  • MB

    @ Ian Mass 14: “For COPE this was a very difficult political compromise and meant aligning ourselves, through Vision, uncomfortably close to developers who, by driving affordability from Vancouver, are driving the working and middle class from Vancouver. ”

    I contend that is the type of simplistic and absolutist generalization that drove people like me (and evidently thousands more) away from COPE.

    Let’s extend your assertion to building a giant geodesic dome over the city as a method to stop all development. Would that not result in “driving the working and middle class away” (especially newcomers whose major demographic definition is ‘middle class’) due to the exorbitant real estate prices that would result by preserving the expensive, inefficient single-family zoning that covers 70% of our scarce urban land base?

    You have unfortunately devolved this land use issue into a class division. Our geographic shortage of land and desireability as a place to live are beyond politics.

    Also: ” Fundamentally, COPE delivered their supporters to Vision while Vision could not deliver their supporters to COPE.”

    Are not party supporters free agents to support whomever they choose? Does COPE have a sense of entitlement to a portion of Vision’s support base, to force them to vote COPE?

    Indeed, please be free agents to debate what dumping Cadman and maintaining an ideological outlook from the late 70s did for the party in 2011.

  • Glissando Remmy

    The Thought of The White Elephant

    ‘The white elephant would never make a great spy. Never. The white elephant is big and white, duh! And because of that, the white elephant in particular, is easily spotted inside any room he might wonder into. But here’s the upside. The white elephant never forgets.’

    THE METAMORPHOSIS OF COPE

    COPE
    COPE Classic
    COPE Classic & Lite
    COPE Lite & Classic
    COPE Lite & Classic & Friends Of Larry
    COPE Lite & Friends of Larry & Classic
    COPE Lite & Friends of Larry
    COPE Lite & Friends of Larry’s VISION
    COPE & Friends of Larry’s VISION
    COPE & Hollyhock Friends of Larry’s VISION
    COPE & Hollyhock Friends of VISION
    COPE & Hollyhock VISION
    Hollyhock COPE & VISION
    Hollyhock VISION & COPE
    Hollyhock VISION
    VISION

    Sorry COPE comrades, but COPE is ‘damaged goods’… a ‘toxic brand’ like cigarettes if you may, COPE is … in eternal denial.

    …………………………………………………………………
    Back in September 20th, of 2010 I wrote this :
    …………………………………………………………………

    The Thought of The Day

    “COPE vs. Vision. Vancouver’s version of the Dumb Cop – Devil Cop routine.”

    Cadman deserves credit for this motion as much as OJ Simpson deserves to play golf with his buddies.

    He was never part of any solution; he was in fact, part of the problem. COPE ‘put out’ to Vision in the previous election in a deplorable manner. Where was their mayoral candidate? How many COPE ‘activists, jump ship to Vision, for the kicks? My point, exactly. As a matter of fact I would give Carbon credit for staying put with COPE, if for anything else. I give him that.

    BTW I heard it on the radio, Jasper the Merry Realtor and his band of friends plus the rest of the VPB voted ‘unanimously’ to save the ‘Bloody Hell’ Conservatory… but not the Petting Zoo in Stanley Park. So it seems it’s not a good time to be a sheep or a goat in the City of Vancouver if you are not ‘connected’.

    The way I see it… Money Talks, Donkey Walks.
    …………………………………………………………………

    Now Cadman blames Louis for the loss?
    Madness!
    If for anything, COPE will be remembered as a nursery for great Vision plank jumpers. Here’s a few:

    Tim Stevenson -jumped ship 2005
    Raymond Louie – jumped ship 2005
    Jim Green – RIP
    Larry Campbell – RIP
    Aaron Jasper – jumped ship 2008
    Sharon Gregson – jumped ship 2008

    But there are still good people out there. take this one for example.
    Spencer Herbert the former COPE VPB Commissioner, presently an NDP MLA almost lost his political virginity in 2008 when he was approached by the Vision hacks, but he played the fidelity game and stayed with COPE.

    He said:
    “I’m coping with COPE,” he said. “I think the question should be, ‘Can COPE cope with Vision, and can Vision cope with COPE?’”

    Well, COPE members, I think this election confirmed my words from a year back.
    It could have been so simple!
    All you had to do, was to read and think about what I wrote…

    Here’s a JOKE to go with your misery:

    One Guy is praying on the roof of his house.
    The whole area is flooded, and the water is almost reaching the first floor of his house.
    “Please God save me and I’ll be good!”
    Five minutes later a big rescue boat approaches:
    “Jump in!” says one of the rescuers. “No, I’m praying to God, I trust he is going to save me!” says the Guy.

    The whole area is flooded, and the water is now almost reaching the second floor.
    “Please God save me and I’ll be good!”
    five minutes later a rescue helicopter approaches:
    “Jump in!” says one of the rescuers. “No, I’m praying to God, I trust he is going to save me!” says the Guy.

    Needles to say that the house was taken down and away by the fury of the water, the Guy died and went to Heaven.
    Sitting in a long line to see the Boss. The look on his face told the story of a Guy pissed off on the whole idea of religion, faith, hope, trust …
    “I’m very disappointed in you God” says the Guy “I trusted you, I prayed to you, I worshiped you, yet, you let me to drown …”

    God looked down at the Guy, and in a very suave but firm voice said:
    “But my Son, I sent you first… a Boat, and then… a Helicopter…!”

    Sooo…

    We live in Vancouver and this keeps us busy.

  • david hadaway

    Ian Mass

    COPE ‘succeeded’ in 2008? Well, not that I noticed. You finished up making no difference to anything, the classic example being Woodsworth’s futile efforts over Little Mountain. I’ve been a COPE voter as long as I’ve been in Vancouver but not one ready to be ‘delivered’ to Vision. This time round only Louis got my vote.

    You’re going to have a debate? About what? Whether to hand the switch to the people who put you on life support?

    This council will present you with a moral choice
    over the next three years because Vision is going to ‘solve’ the homelessness problem. That is to say all of the ‘street’ homeless will be in PoW style barracks come the next election, the head count will be zero and the PR machine with the connivance of most of the media will announce “Gregor keeps his promise”.

    You can pretend to believe this in exchange for a few more crumbs or you can stand up for the beliefs and people you claim to represent, but you can’t do both.

  • gasp

    COPE wasn’t the only one that lost in its alliance with Vision. So did the Green party – by letting their name be used in Vision’s advertising of Vancouver as a “green” City.

    Vision believes in green all right, but not the same “green” that environmentalists think of. In Vision world, the natural environment can be destroyed, but their “green” buildings will save us. Stuart MacKinnon, former Parks Board Commissioner, understood this, but I’m not too sure that Adrianne Carr does.

  • gasp

    To MB @15:

    Your comments indicate that you don’t seem to understand that Vancouver’s land base (many steeps hills and therefore watershed areas) and climate (rainforest) cannot support high density housing everywhere. Vancouver needs low density areas and lots of green spaces to allow the water to permeate the soil to prevent erosion of the land base.

    Your comments about single family housing being “inefficient” is real estate talk for “we need to build more so we can sell more”. Single family zoning was designed to allow families to own property that they could use for their own sustenance in times of financial hardship like the great Depression. Since we may very well be near to experiencing another depression, it may once again become necessary for families to grow their own food.

    At the current time, Vancouver’s housing prices are artificially inflated beyond any reasonable values. This is because of speculative investment driven primarily by low interest rates, not true demand or need. In many neighbourhoods of Vancouver right now there are empty apartments, condos and houses being held for speculative purposes – because many people think prices will go up forever. They can’t and they won’t because it is unsustainable. Vancouver may be a desirable place to live, but people will leave if they can’t make enough money working here to live here. Vancouver does not have the economy or business climate to support a never ending supply of people.

  • Michelle

    david haddaway #17
    Excellent points. But don’t hope for Ian Mass to understand them. They are still lost in Glissando Remmy’s beautiful metamorphosis :
    THE METAMORPHOSIS OF COPE

    COPE
    COPE Classic
    COPE Classic & Lite
    COPE Lite & Classic
    COPE Lite & Classic & Friends Of Larry
    COPE Lite & Friends of Larry & Classic
    COPE Lite & Friends of Larry
    COPE Lite & Friends of Larry’s VISION
    COPE & Friends of Larry’s VISION
    COPE & Hollyhock Friends of Larry’s VISION
    COPE & Hollyhock Friends of VISION
    COPE & Hollyhock VISION
    Hollyhock COPE & VISION
    Hollyhock VISION & COPE
    Hollyhock VISION
    VISION
    Wake up Ian, there is no place for you at the table anymore. It’s been Vision reserved, you suckers.

  • gmgw

    @gasp, #18 and especially #19:

    Excellent points. Thank you.
    gmgw

  • boohoo

    @gasp

    Steep hills equals watershed areas? Did you mean something else?

  • Mira

    A very difficult conversation ahead for COPE… indeed!

  • MB

    @ Gasp 19.

    There are holes in your logic, a few of which one can drive a bus through.

    In essence, your conjecture could lead to either a ban on immigration or the decimation of the Agricultural Land Reserve. In the latter case you’ll find yourself in bed with your worst nemesis, people like Phil Hochstein who would like nothing more than to see the ALR subdivided into low density lots. How ironic that your inadvertent support of a regressive development philosophy will result from the poorly thought out realization of your left-oriented and supposedly ecosystem–based political commitment.

    For the sake of supplying a record from a detached land planning point of view with at least one reference, read below the fold. Of course, you and Gmgw can choose to ignore any factual counterpoint to your ideas, and misinterpret it as being part of a political conspiracy where any development anywhere – except the one in which you live, of course – is the result of possession by developer demons. _________________________________

    Geography. Metro Vancouver has a total land base of 818 square km. The city of Vancouver itself has very little land left that has not already been subdivided. According to census data anywhere between 15,000 and 45,000 people move to our little patch of Earth every year. The recent Metro Vancouver planning exercise seeks to accommodate an average population growth of 35,000 people a year for a total of one million to 2040. Last time I looked, the mountains were not being levelled and the ocean was not being filled in to create more land for these people.

    http://www.metrovancouver.org/planning/Pages/default.aspx

    Geometry. Over the next generation one million new people will need housing of some kind. Let’s say they will average 4 persons per home (this can be debated … would likely be less), which defines a need for 250,000 houses. Let’s also say we’ll preserve your precious precedent for single-family lots. Let’s say that 25% of these newcomers will find accommodation in existing homes too. I’m sure you’ll agree the latter is a reasonable assertion. This leads to a total need for 187,500 new homes on single family lots consuming almost 17,000 acres of land.

    Please tell us, Gasp and gmgw, where you think this land should come from.

    Agriculture. You brought up urban farming, and I agree that this will become very important as we progress further into this century. However, unlike most other urban jurisdictions on the planet, we have a progressive mandate to preserve the best food-producing soils in the province in the form of an Agricultural Land Reserve at our doorstep. Yes, it’s been tinkered with and eroded since Dave Barrett saw the wisdom to save it from development four decades ago, but it is still significantly intact. The ALR covers 41,035 hectares (101,000+ acres) in the Lower Mainland and produces 27% of the province’s farm receipts from 1.5% of its land area. There are over 3,800 farmers working land in the ALR; greenhouses alone cover 320 hectares (790 acres) and supply produce year round. There is an increasing number of cooperative organic farming-for-fees outfits utilizing in the ALR who deliver directly to your door or to farmers markets, and I predict these will become very common in future. Why lock in thousands of hectares of backyards for food production alone when a better alternative has been around for decades?

    Immigration. The alternative to maintaining your advocacy for large lots and removing 17,000 acres from the ALR to provide housing for new immigrants would be to just ban immigration altogether. Please note that not every immigrant to the Metro is a rich Asian focused on jacking the price of land up through speculation; the majority are middle class, and a huge number are Canadians simply moving here from other provinces. Look it up.

    Land economy and housing prices. Though it’s widely debated, I suggest speculation doesn’t have as much of an effect on residential prices as simple lack of supply and high demand (read above). If speculation was the bugbear it’s made out to be, then the value of residential would have been largely artificial and would have collapsed in 2008/09. Yes, there’s some speculation, but prices dipped, not collapsed in the second most severe recession in a century. In my opinion, this is indicative that prices are mostly founded on true value as they are in any desirable city with limited land and growth pressures. Interpret that as you wish, but if you’re gonna pin it all on speculators and demon-possessed developers, then you’ll have to back it up with research citations. If you still drool for that cheap, standard single lot, then you’re gonna have to pony up as you do in any city with high growth rates.

    Storm water + ecosystem management. Your comment doesn’t make sense. How can you maintain a watershed / riparian forest with any development, let alone single lot subdivisions? Vancouver culverted 26 streams, many of which were primary salmonid habitat, and built over them. They were gone long before the Fisheries Act established stream setbacks.

    Valid precedence’s. We need to recognize that there are many viable and pleasing housing types between the ubiquitous tower and increasingly expensive single family detached house. Attached freehold houses are less expensive than detached houses because they occupy less land, but are more expensive than leaky condos. There are also many low and mid-rise alternatives in the middle ground. These types are centuries old in many European cities, and evolved under the same conditions we are now experiencing here. And there is no right-wing conspiracy involved.

    But if you’re still wanting a cheap large lot with a house, then you can always remove yourself from the urban pressures we have here and move to Williams Lake.

  • brilliant

    Just curious MB why you’re still hanging onto a single family home,even on a small lot, if you find them so loathesome. Why not convince your neighbours to redevelop your lots to condos?

  • MB

    @ brilliant, I’m not against single family homes. I’m all for them on smaller lots, or attached in row houses, or even lofts, as long as they are maintained as freehold and not strata’d.

    My point above is the nonsensical notion that retaining such a huge amount of land locked up in large lots is even possible over time given our geography, demographics and planning intiative to preserve farmland. This ain’t Calgary with thousands of acres of flat farmland at the city’s edges available for sprawling subdivisions.

  • spartikus

    I’d like to nominate MB’s #24 as the non-election related Comment of the Week[tm]

  • MB

    Thanks Sparti. But it WAS an election issue to me, and I voted accordingly. As one further example, Bill McCreery lost my vote by a hair’s breadth at the last minute when he advovated a moritorium on lane houses. This was unfortunate because he otherwise understands the issues and has creative ideas idependent from NPA headquarters.

    Lane houses are part of the answer and are appropriate for all areas currently zoned single-family and outside of CBDs and transit corridors destined for higher densities.

    Of course, there are those who’d prefer Hobbitville-by-the-sea.

  • spartikus

    Via Gordon Price, there’s this which seems extremely relevant to the above:

    Seventeen students combined to do a 2050 plan for the City of Vancouver. The City of Vancouver is considered by many to be North America’s most sustainable city. ith growth pressures unabated, and with housing never less affordable, the big question looms: what next? This is where this book comes in. It contains the answers provided by a team of young visionaries. They discovered that as the city becomes more efficient, more diverse, more intensely utilized, and more equitable, it also becomes a more and more convenient place to live.

    Chapter 3 is something (as an interested layman) I’ve been looking for for a long time. It has a nice overview of housing forms and Vancouver history.

  • MB

    @ Sparti, yes, that’s Patrick Condon’s work. I have a copy of the report at home along with his Seven Steps book. Excellent and very relevant work.

    Prof. Condon was in a debate with Jarrett Walker on streetcars vs. rapid transit on the Human Transit blog a while back. Condon seems to prefer streetcars over any other mode of transportation except bikes and feet, whereas Walker sees the gradations of transit needs / demand (“mobility vs access”) and prefers tailoring the mode to the need, whether that’s steetcars, buses or grade-separated rapid rail.

    A bit off topic, but politicians after all make the final decisions on such matters.

  • Bill McCreery

    I’d be interested to hear other opinions about why Cope fared so badly. I said when Cope re-entered into their “deal with the devil” just before their nominations that Vision would throw them under the bus, and they did.

    They abandoned Cope, particularly in the latter part of the campaign. There was no mention of Cope Candidates in any of the ads, etc. that I saw. By contrast NSV mentioned their own slate as well as their endorsements in every ad. Perhaps this should also be in the mix of Cope’s post election assessment.