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Metro Vancouver asks province to solve stalemate over anti-sprawl strategy

April 8th, 2011 · 10 Comments

As I reported earlier this week, Metro Vancouver was preparing to ask the province to step in and order binding resolution for the standoff between the region and Coquitlam, the only municipality that has delivered a resounding no to the new Regional Growth Strategy.

To no one’s surprise, it voted this afternoon to do that.

REGIONAL GROWTH STRATEGY DELAYED BY SINGLE MUNICIPALITY’S NO VOTE

Despite approval by 23 of 24 involved local authorities, adoption of Metro Vancouver’s new Regional Growth Strategy (RGS) will be significantly delayed, the region’s Board of Directors noted today.

The City of Coquitlam has declined to approve the strategy, despite intensive efforts to accommodate its concerns, triggering a provincially-mandated dispute resolution process that could take months to complete.

“It is indeed unfortunate that, after many years of hard work, consultation and collaborative problem solving this important strategy is being held up,” said Board Chair Lois Jackson.  “Balancing local and regional responsibilities, controlling sprawl, focussing development – particularly employment – where it can be served by transit, preserving important agricultural lands and green spaces and ensuring the availability of industrial lands so critical to our economy, all of which the RGS does, is absolutely critical as we accommodate the next million people who will call Metro Vancouver home,” Chair Jackson said.

Metro Vancouver is required under provincial legislation to prepare a regional growth management strategy in collaboration with its member municipalities.  The legislation requires unanimous acceptance by all local authorities affected by the strategy, including neighbouring regional districts and Translink, and in the event unanimity is not reached, lays out a series of dispute resolution options.  The Metro Vancouver Board resolved to ask the provincial government to proceed to binding resolution in an effort to expedite the process.

“In a strategy of this nature it is inevitable that municipalities will identify concerns with some of its elements.  With every municipality but one, we have been able to work through the specifics and arrive at mutually agreeable solutions,” according to Metro Vancouver’s Regional Planning Committee Chair Derek Corrigan.  “In Coquitlam’s case, their objections seem far more directed at the intent of the legislation itself, rather than any particular components of the Regional Growth Strategy.  We have, at the regional level, bent over backwards in an effort to accommodate Coquitlam without success.  It is clear that only binding resolution will provide a solution.”


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  • Dan Cooper

    To me, the key point here is that there are ways to resolve this – dispute resolution, mediation – that Metro is refusing to take. Yet, they actually said they have done, “everything humanly possible.” I am not a mediator, but I see this often in my work which is somewhat related – people who want to reach some agreement, but refuse to sit down with everyone present and all the positions on the table at once, with the help of a professional and neutral facilitator…because they have it in their heads that whatever they’ve done before (often amounting to screaming their position at the other person) should have worked, and so nothing else will. I don’t know what exactly the nature and content of the communications have been so far between Coquitlam and the rest of Metro, but obvious – since they haven’t included mediation or dispute resolution – they cannot, by definition, have been “everything humanly possible.”

    So, two choices now: a) Go to mediation and possible – possibly! – get a solution that will work for everyone; b) Have the Province enforce your position on those who do not want it, and destroy your relationship with them forever.

  • Sean

    @Dan Cooper #1:

    “To me, the key point here is that there are ways to resolve this – dispute resolution, mediation – that Metro is refusing to take.”

    I might be wrong here, but my understanding of what’s happening is that Metro Vancouver is asking for what amounts to binding arbitration – which is in fact mediation, is it not?

  • Gentle Bossa Nova

    I’m not a fan of the Metro governance we have, Frances. So, I guess I am a bit of an outside observer on this.

    Lemme see… The two municipalities that are getting the short-shift on Evergreen (Coquitlam and Port Moody) are balking… Good for them!

    Of course, “Evergreen” is ever the worst possible transit solution for these places, but that’s something to set aside.

    What we really lack is one-person-one-vote at the regional governance level. If we are going to get to “sustainability” (whatever that means), then we have to get there on the basis of a representational democracy.

    Full stop. Get the clowns to run for office.

  • IanS

    @Sean #2,

    Mediation is a negotiation carried out with the assistance of a neutral mediator. The mediator does not make any binding decision; rather, he assists all sides in reaching an agreement.

    Arbitration is more of a judicial process. The arbitrator hears all sides and then makes a binding decision.

  • Sean

    @IanS, #4

    Thanks Ian, but I understand the difference. My point was that I don’t think what’s happening is to “have the Province enforce your position on those who do not want it” as Dan was seeming to suggest in post #1.

  • Dan Cooper

    Interesting question Sean. However, while of course I could be wrong, I do not understand “binding resolution” to be the same as “binding arbitration.” Certainly if what Metro intended was arbitration – rather than the Province simply imposing Metro’s current proposal by fiat – then I would think they would use that term.

  • http://www.nofuncity.org ThinkOutsideABox

    I heard it’s binding arbitration decided on by Ida Chong. Apparently there hasn’t been a study on the financial impacts to individual cities. There is a push to get this through before the next civic elections.

  • MB

    What needs to be remembered is that all municipalities bar none had extensive, multiple opportunities to provide detailed comment on the policies and actually help author the document.

    Coquitlam either balked at participation at the outset, maintained a contrarian view all along, or is holding out for gain at the expense of the other cities. This is not surprising given their penchant to build sprawling single use communities (e.g. Westwood Plateau) outside of their more urban-flavoured centres.

    Perhaps they need to dump their Leave It To Beaver-era planners and politicians.

    Port Moody held out only because they’ve rezoned and accommodated growth around perpetually-promised-but-never-realized rapid transit stations. They have since signed on, perhaps comfortable with letting the Metro catch up to them.

  • coquitlamgal

    Port Moody’s refusal is understandable; but they are opposing the wrong plan as the RGS is a land use plan not a transportation plan. Metro Van can’t tell TransLink or the Ministry what to do about transportation issues.
    Coquitlam…this is more of a head scratcher. While some council members are opposing the plan because of inconsistancies, it seems most of the opposition was taken directly out of the UDI play book; in some cases word for word. Does the development community has this much control of Coquitlam Council?

  • http://www.gerrymcguire.com Gerry McGuire

    @ Gentle Bossa Nova,
    Hear, hear- taxation without representation is the soul of tyranny. Ditto for Translink.