It’s up to Google to update those links when the re-crawl the CoV new website, which will happen at some point soon I imagine. Note that in the meantime even though the link may be dead, you can still click on the Google “Quick View” link underneath to view the cached PDF, without having to search on the new CoV website.

Frances, I would ask a few of your friends to analyse the city budget and ask, when it gets right down to it, how much are expenses able to be pared? We can debate CAC contribution amounts to the moon but from the outside, without knowing too much about it, it smells to me like this a whole bunch of smoke but designed to have little effect on the City’s bottom line.

sorry…top right corner of the city site

I could not even get Quickfind in the new site search which means the entire city phone directory is nowhere to be found.

@Cam in Van #(. Good idea. They couldpost a prominent notice on the home page.

Under “News You Can Use”. 😉

Not all change is bad – developers don’t like the uncertainty of negotiations that take place after millions are already committed to a project, and community associations are suspicious of them because the CACs for every development are negotiated by staff behind closed doors with very little input from community or transparency.

But we should be very careful not to kill the goose that laid the golden egg that is our beautiful, livable city.

The daycare, community centres, rec centers, swimming pools, parks, public housing, schools, and many other amenities have been paid for through CACs and DCLs and when you look at the result, it’s hard not to conclude our unique, sometimes problematic system has served all of us well. Improving on it should be the goal, not, mixing metaphors and risking banality, to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

I am delighted that the CAC system is about to be reviewed and hopefully revised. The current system does not work.

“Vancouver got $223-million last year in fees and special charges from developers, an amount equal to about a quarter of the annual city budget.”

Is that typical for other cities? If there really is a slowdown coming, it’s going to hurt a lot.

Frances, thank you for clarifying where you got those numbers from. I almost fell of my chair when I first read it, as they are even larger than shown in the financial statements. I hope as part of this process the City will also explore how it can cure its addiction to this revenue. This golden goose has seen its best days.

I thought everyone was upset about how little 311 was being advertised? And now we’re upset we have to use it?

Regardless, don’t those of us that want to contact staff person x that badly already have their contact info? How many new staff people are there that makes this such a big deal?

PW – Your pronouncement is based on little fact or evidence. Without CACs and DCLs your property taxes would go up a lot, and small business, in particular, would find it even harder to continue.

I certainly don’t see any compelling evidence to replace or eliminate the basic principle that those who profit from development should contribute to mitigating its impacts and improving amenities for the public at large. If you have an alternative philosophy let’s hear it. Thanks.

Oh Boohoo, you obviously have no clue about the 311- staff directory issue.

I am not even going to try and explain it. Those that use it and need it, know what a stupid decision this is.

So, JJJ – just to be clear, developers should pay something for their developments as they go. I think we agree on the basic principle. Of course if there isn’t development, no revenue. Doesn’t mean there aren’t needs however, like maiantenance, repair and replacement of infrstructure and other capital works. Which is not cheap (the proverbial potholes, sewers, sidewalks, parks, trees, etc.) . These costs will generally go up over time like everything else.

As someone above has referenced, Surrey has a targetted approach, depending on the specific needs in the community. It varies from place to place, however, which is just the opposite of a flat fee approach, as I understand it.

@24.

I guess not. I know I have my own contacts and if I need to contact someone new then going through 311 doesn’t seem like that big a deal (assuming they give that info of course…)

Maintanance and repairs should be accounted for in the operating budget not the capital budget. If the operating budget doesn’t cover those items, then it should be increased accordingly via property tax increases or reducing other expenses.

The key issue to my mind is not whether community amenity contributions and development cost levies should be collected, or the amount of the payments…it is how should they be determined?

Right now, in many neighbourhoods in Vancouver and other municipalities, CAC/DCL’s are clearly set out, based on a determination of the community needs and the cost of financing growth. They are generally expressed on a square foot basis and known when a developer purchases a piece of property. There are some problems with this approach that need to be resolved, especially when non-profit and charitable projects must pay the fees, but in principle, I do not object to this approach.

Where the problem arises, in my opinion, is when the CAC/DCC’s are not predetermined. Rather they are calculated on a case by case basis, not based on the cost of providing services or financing growth, but rather on the ‘value’ of the land before rezoning, and the ‘value’ of the land after rezoning. Again, this is not happening just in Vancouver. It is happening in other municipalities that are copying Vancouver.

I am not making this up!

I put value in quotes since it is often a very subjective thing, especially when a rezoning results in a new form of development, or development in a new neighbourhood, and there is uncertainty as to what might happen in the future.

Even the city’s best appraisers will admit that there are many variables affecting value, both before and after rezoning, and a ‘good’ appraiser can assist the landowner/developer in his negotiations with the city or a municipality to achieve a lower number.

I am not making this up.

At one time, the city calculated the difference in value or ‘lift’ relying in part on the price paid for the land. Staff requested copies of Purchase and Sale Agreements. However, this created problems when sites were purchased at too high a price, as was the case back in the 90’s for a property I rezoned on West 41st. More recently, we witnessed the phenomenon along Cambie Street where some inexperienced developers paid much too much for the land not understanding that the city would be expecting additional payments.

Today staff generally ignore the price paid, or claim to ignore it, and simply look at ‘appraised value’ before and after rezoning.

The problems with this entire approach are too numerous to list. However, the net result is that many good developers have decided not to play the game and have moved their activities to municipalities that offer greater certainty. (Burnaby, Coquitlam and Richmond come to mind along with others.)

They know it is too difficult to assess a project’s viability when you don’t know whether you might have to pay millions to the city in CAC’s based on ‘lift’.

Some developers, who I won’t publicly name, but are well known in the industry, have managed to determine exactly how to play the game. They often come forth with a variety of ‘amenities’ that invariably cost much less to produce than the value ascribed in staff reports, and are confident enough in their relationships at the Municipal Hall, that they can buy sites and take chances that others pass on. Invariably they succeed.

I am not making this up!

Moreover, let me clarify that this happens under all political jurisdictions….In Vancouver it is not a Vision vs NPA or COPE issue. Indeed, as most industry insiders know, some developers are equally adept at working with any administration!

Now, everyone knows that sometimes property values go down as well as up. They must be wondering what happens in such cases. If the city calculates a $4M CAC based on certain assumptions and the assumptions change, does the city give the developer some of his money back? Of course not!

Although in the past the city has ‘helped’ at least one developer when faced with such a situation. While this is well known in the industry, it is not talked about publicly.

No, I am not making this up either.

So…while fixed predetermined CAC/DCL’s may not fully address the vagaries of the market, along with its ups and downs, this would be a much fairer system in the minds of most knowledgeable real estate professionals.

Sure, it would result in less work for the appraisers, and less work and less bonuses for some real estate and development consultants who often assist developers going through the process. But it would result in a more certain, equitable development approval process.

And believe it or not, a more certain, equitable and less arbitrary system would not only benefit the city and developers, it would benefit neighbourhood organizations and future buyers. But that’s another story!

Michael; if all the developers are abandoning Vancouver to build elsewhere, how is it that so far this year CMHC’s housing starts data show the City of Vancouver with over 30% of the region’s activity with almost the same number of housing starts as Surrey, Burnaby and Richmond combined? In 2010 and in 2011 there were also more housing starts in Vancouver than in any other municipality (including Surrey) – it’s not just a 2012 anomaly.

I was going to say something about that article but the comments on that page pretty much sum it up.

Fact Checker…your nom de plum is a misnomer!

I didn’t say all lthe developers are abandoning Vancouver….I said many good developers are abandoning Vancouver.

“ But we should be very careful not to kill the goose that laid the golden egg that is our beautiful, livable city.” Sean @ #12.

I have been following this conversation reluctant to participate because, other than feeling the pain of my clients, I know nothing about CAC’s or other extractive alphabet soup. I do know development is market driven, so eliminating them is off the table.

I practiced in Vancouver when all we had to do was pop into Thu Hall to pick up a building permit and a couple of weeks later . . . hey presto we had machinery on site. Nostalgia: it is useless.

Obviously developers must contribute something to the communities from which they derive their wealth. If Wall and Macdonald can bet Rolls then we need more than a bit of their action (BTW who got the Rolls?).

I am more concerned with what to do with the booty? Conventional practice has parks, community centres and . . . errrrr . . . green automobiles (now there’s an oxymoron)!

Unfortunately we have a gullible public easily seduced. The architectural profession has learned a splotch of green on a proposal labeled park and another splotch, of varied colours labeled community center works for them.

One thing Vancouver has too much of is badly designed, badly placed splotches of green as in that recent plan designed as a ruse to replace the viaducts.

As for community centers and day care, I don’t know how many or how well sited are the ones already insitu. I do know, if such a label appears on a plan the public is a push over: ignore the limited community amenity and cost of participation.

Vancouver already has too many parks badly sited and too many community centers with limited facilities (how many OAP’s play volley ball?) and day care inconveniently sited and too expensive.

As for Michael “not making it up“, well, he does that all the time.

And Sean’s unctuous comment, he must live in a sealed bubble. All I can say is, do not vote for such oleaginous delusions.

Golden egg indeed? Banal!

Based on a number of conversations I have had with a number of developers who do most of their great work outside of BC, the Vancouver CAC negotiation process looks, to the outsiders looks and smells like corruption. I am not saying the system is corrupt, but it looks that way to some and it keeps them away.

More than how the fees are negotiated, I–like other posters–am more concerned about the city being possibily over-dependent on unsustainable revenues to finance continuing operating expenses. For this reason, I think the whole system needs a transparent review and revision.

When it comes to revising the CAS, I would encourage the City to build some of its “greening” agenda into the permitting process. It is highly inefficient to have city staff developing pet “green” projects. They just don’t get it right enough of the time.

But we could phase in, for example, a “no net new” energy demand/GHG emission condition on all new building permits. To get the occupancy permit, the developer has to prove that they have invested in initiatives that will result in a reduction in energy demand within city limits equal to or exceeding the new energy demand associated with the new development. Leave it to the developers, individually to decide whether they will finance energy retrofits for 4 existing houses, or co-finance the replacement of one of the many made-in-1955 train engines that roll through the city every day.

The new CAS fees could be slightly less than they otherwise be without the addition of the “no net new” energy demand and emission permit condition. I can assure you, the market will respond to a no net new energy demand (a pre-condition to curbing emissions) permit condition, as population increases, much more efficiently than the bureaucracy will perform by picking and choosing pet projects.

Putting this kind of permit condition in place should result, over time, in a lower net cost of governing in Vancouver.