@ Frank 47.

I’m sorry if I have given you the impression that there isn’t “a role for government in righting the ills of society” and “If adequate and affordable housing isn’t one of them, please tell me what is?”. Please look closely at what I did say and on what I’ve said in many comments here and elsewhere. I think you will find we are in agreement.

I did not agree with the NPA position on affordable housing of ‘cut red tape and let the marketplace deal with this’ as espoused during the campaign. My efforts to argue for something I thought more sensible and realistic were not successful. The marketplace is not the mechanism to solve this problem on it’s own. What I was doing in my comments was simply stating my understanding of recent history and present likely political outcomes.

I’m not sure why you are referring to the “DoP”. I did not bring him into this discussion. And, I was not trying to state a position on “the need for intergovernmental cooperation”. I was simply describing my understanding of what has happened historically and the likelihood of those senior governments doing something meaningful about it.

I believe I have stressed more than once the importance of the City taking a more proactive and a leadership role within Metro and with senior governments in previous comments.

Yes, I am a critic. I was not successful in getting elected. I have, however, emailed Councillors Meggs and Jang in December offering to help with their ambitious affordable housing initiative. They have not responded at this point.

What should be done? Yes, senior governments should be lobbied to bring land and/or subsidies and/or incentives to the table. They have the tax base and mandate to be able to do so, the City does not.

On the City side it has some land that in some cases may be OK for residential use. That land should be put into the solution in a way that protects Vancouver taxpayers assets and accomplishes the goal of creating more affordable housing.

I have crunched the numbers and if the land goes in at $0.00 and construction costs are reduced 20% below market housing and soft costs by 10% new rental housing can be available at $2.05/sf as compared to the market cost of over $3.00’sf.

The amount of City, and even including senior government lands available and suitable for housing are limited. Vision Vancouver has not explained to we citizens on what basis they arrived at the 38,000 unit figure. I for one, would like a bit more background information before I comment further, however, I suspect the available land will require higher densities than will be appropriate fits within neighbourhoods.

Given Vision Vancouver has not provided the public with the basic background information, reports, etc. and we have a history of their mishandling of planning and neighbourhoods, as above, I am not at this point able to know how or where to intelligently contribute to this important initiative.

“Let the marketplace deal with [affordable housing]”

On this issue, I think we can all agree, as Clinton used to say, “That’s a dog that won’t hunt.” We have a regulated market place, and an overheated housing market. Neither is going to deliver affordability.

The market place is dealing with it in the sense that people are finding ingenious ways of sharing houses, creating suites, and making workable living arrangements. But our debate is about what should be happening next, not what is taking place right now.

The prices for housing in Vancouver don’t make sense to me, a home owner, and that just points to the fact that there is a key element missing in my calculus. I don’t know what it is, and that bothers the hell out of me.

What is not missing in my understanding is that over the long term the market will correct, and like seismic activity, the hope is always that we will get a series of small shocks rather than just one, big one. However, there are no guarantees.

As we look to the future, affordable housing is only one cipher in a complex equation that includes the livability of our neighbourhoods, transportation, and social mixing.

Pick any one of those, and the fact is that we are not doing very well.

Add to that the fact that the planning system as we have it really not delivering the neighbourhoods and the city we want and we have an issue that cuts across political parties.

It is not a political question, the one that asks. “how do we do good planning?”

While I concede that pointing to the shortfalls in planning policy is good political fodder for elections, etc., seen as a whole our city and our region is in a muddle of making less than optimum decisions.

The root cause of this, as i see it is in the water—in our culture. In our recalcitrance to embrace ideas current in the professional world all around us, but getting no traction here. And we lack a professional culture where we debate these issues outside the political arena, come to some conclusions, and move an issue forward.

It is a real puzzle why we choose to operate in a climate where the optimum outcome—which will ultimately make more money for the developer class as well—is not the one we seek. These are concrete facts that are missing upon which we should be able to frame a consensus.

That’s where Bill stating he is a ‘critic’ comes into the picture. I see ‘criticism’ in the traditional sense of the word—as analysis—not in its politicized sense of a nay-sayer.

The critical analysis is missing in how we go about building our city, and the shoddy results are everywhere to be seen.

Frank—Montreal—Canada’s urban capital until the deal was struck to build the CPR to the west coast—is (my vote) for Canada’s “most urbanized city” today.

Though, unfortunately, Montreal too has succumbed to Modernism, and Vancouverism, in roughly that order.

As for land assessments, I have always felt that there was a conflict whenever municipal taxes stayed a-pace with periods of land speculation, and heated markets, that create wild fluctuations in property values.

The question is this, given that we all recognize that we are in a “bubble”, what is the proper role of government to help us through those aberrations in the market?

As to industrial lands in the False Creek Flats (east of Main Street—subject of the “Viaducts Competition” hosted by the City last year), or the area between Broadway and the Olympic Village… My views here, as they relate to the Old East End, but applicable more broadlly:

http://wp.me/p1mj4z-sW

On the one hand, ‘good’ urbanism will mix residential with business and artisanal uses (like in Montreal); on the other, we can’t keep industrial uses in an area that is no longer served by barges and rail—that’s what area businesses have told me.

So, these irritants that in our urban policy are indicative of a system imploding.

Imploding… sounds so Marxist.

And its not polical will, a competent development community or design talent that is missing. It s land that is the one thing in shortest supply in this most urbanized city in Canada.

FD 55

Frank, my library, and papers, are in storage off-site. My recollection bears out your observations. However, the devil is not in the tax sheet, far from it.

Urban design in our region still means “modern urbanism”, and with the Broadway corridor still very much up in the air, fair to say, “Skytrain and Towers”.

I remember the time in my career when I made a conscious decision to ‘leave Modernism behind’. Difficult as it was, it gave me a whole new way to think about matters like this:

land that is the one thing in shortest supply

As old paradigm that statement is true: land for suburban development is all gone inside city limits. Old paradigm remedy: amalgamate.

New paradigm remedy: switch paradigm. Land for redevelopment is everywhere in our city. And, so is the development pressure. Mix those two together and re-invent the city: livable streets, walkable neighbourhoods, affordable region.

I wish I could preach “doom and gloom”. That if we don’t shift paradigm, devastating economic consequences, etc. But, the reality is not that. All kinds of places in Canada and the U.S. function quite effectively as automobile-dominated sprawl.

What will change if the paradigm stays the same is the culture.

If we don’t shift paradigm and embrace the longest standing tradition in urbanism, then what we are going to end up looks more American than anything I have seen in 42 years living here. In the words of Galbraith, and Paul Goldberger:

“Private luxury and public squalor.”

My talents will have been used to resist it.