Oops by “members” I mean constituents 😉

PS . . . and home owners are renters too. They just have a different landlord!

Renters often have less financial resources to begin with and the impact can be just as great as a jump in mortgage rates when you have to move from a place where you have resided for a significant length of time.

Smoke and mirrors. All the group wanted was for the Mayor and council to listen up and respectfully take into account their side of the debate, nothing different than what so many other members of the public who come into council are looking for. They were looking for a little respect for their ideas. They didn’t get any last week.

The debate is not pro-rental housing or against it – what the Mayor is subsidizing at a cost of millions of dollars per building is the construction of expensive MARKET rental housing.

The cost to taxpayers is enormous, but it does nothing to help provide subsidized or low-cost rental which is what’s so badly needed. Yet it costs taxpayers millions of dollars handed over in benefits to the developer and the deals are all negotiated ad hoc behind closed doors, eliminating the standard formula used for decades to determine community benefits.

Of course residents of the west end are upset, as are taxpayers across the city at this enormous waste of people’s money for no tangible community benefit.

Their continued tone deafness on this issue only points to the greater problem – they don’t like what the citizens of the city are telling them, so they’re out shopping for citizens that will tell them what they want to hear.

Which is why the public consultation process in the West End, in False Creek North, in Dunbar and in Marpole, let alone Strathcona and the DTES are not taken seriously by anyone participating because they know that unless they go along with whatever Robertson has already, they too are disposable.

Councillor Stevenson, meanwhile, resorts to class warfare instead of addressing the real concerns raised:

“These people really believe that as an owner, you have more rights, you have more at stake,” said Mr. Stevenson, who is a renter.

Really Tim?

“Someone step up.”

Yes – it’s called leadership.

He’s called the mayor.

As an insider, perhaps you could ask him to show us some. (Or ask Mayor GeoffPennyMike?)

As someone who campaigned on the importance of greater public consultation, Gurgor’s execution of this has been abysmal.

“People keep saying this, but it’s not true. Oh well.”

I think it’s the incessant shilling that is causing this supposed misperception…and the smell of astroturf.

I think it’s the incessant shilling

Of course yours is merely the behaviour of a legitimately concerned citizen, something which you probably consider you have a monopoly on.

I’m guessing you don’t have a constructive suggestion to offer here, and are instead resorting to poisoning the well.

Based on their past commentary, I suspect Bill McCreery and Sean Bickerton will conduct themselves with more integrity.

Being baited is so fun.
Here’s my take on all this:

I voted for a mix on council in the last election. Some NPA, some Vision. I was pretty engaged and attended a mayor’s debate and a candidate’s meeting or two. I voted for individual candidates who I felt represented my ideals and who I felt were interested in positive change. When the results came down, I was neither surprised or disappointed.

What is disappointing is that Vision ran on a platform that included greater community consultation. They offered Vancouver a fresh and new alternative.

It’s pretty clear that there is no commitment, leadership, or even a tolerance of greater community consultation coming from Vision. (See: NEFC, Burrard Bike, STIR, HEAT, Bloedel, Jang in general, and on).

Community consultation is a brutally difficult task.(It’s part of my job.) It requires leadership, determination, and respect for different views. It’s a process that absolutely must be led.

It’s not up to Bill McCreery to dig up a process that worked. If Gregor’s first proposed plan was poo-pooed, then he should work to another one.

Strong, principled leaders keep moving towards a goal without losing sight of their vision and purpose. They don’t sit back and trash people, especially not the people they’re leading. That’s the problem with this whole F-Bomb thing. The disdain for those participating in community consultation is so unbelievably disappointing and there is a massive leadership void.

Vancouver needs leadership.
The NPA was not very good at it, so Vision promised it.
Vancouver voted for it.

So here are my constructive suggestions for mayor and council:
Lead. Keep your promises. Fulfill your mandate.

It’s safe to say that everyone here wants the leadership of Vancouver to be successful.

As for the shilling comment, I’ve been here since the start and I read most everything you write. I think others will agree with me when I suggest that despite your best efforts, your partisanship consistently betrays your attempts at objectivity. It’s like a bad wig: way more obvious than you think.

Good grief indeed. What are the consultative models that have worked?

Well, let’s start back in 1972 to 78 when TEAM, of which I was an idealistic young Park Commissioner & the Park Bd. rep on the Council False Creek Planning Committee chaired by Walter Hardwick, instituted the community based storefront design processes @ Britannia Community Services Centre, the Jerricho Park, False Creek South, Champlain Heights, etc. Citizens Advisory Committees & established neighbourhood planning committees throughout the City. We also spearheaded the Livable Region Planning process. Variations of these early models have been used with varying degrees of success since then. Darlene Marzari is a wonderful resource to speak to about getting citizens involved in the creation of their own communities.

Recently [I’m told particularly in the last 5 years but, there were earlier problems as well] this process has broken down. It’s time to revisit & reinvigourate rather than the Meggs model: “the election was the consultation, now we’re implementing” spot rezoning carpet bombing approach. Not surprisingly people resist having heavy weights dropped on them from great heights. And, well they should.

I’m not quite so young but, still an idealist. Vancouver is to special to allow what is currently happening to continue. There are new young idealists who are also becoming involved in the political process from across the City because of the misplaced priorities & mismanagement of the Current Vision Council, Park & School Boards. I look forward to working with them to put Vancouver back on the path to being an even more wonderful, rich, diverse sustainable & livable City.

Citizens Advisory Committees & established neighbourhood planning committees throughout the City.

How are these different than the Advisory Committe that was proposed? In a real, tangible way.

Describe the process how they were set up (or link to something that describes them)

Let’s pretend…and I know this is a crazy, shilling, partisan thing to say…that I was 3 in 1972.

As I’m sure many other gentle readers of this blog were.

There was a plenty of opportunities for public feedback on the Burrard Bridge bike lanes, both before and during the trial. I attended a public meeting at the Roundhouse that saw hundreds of people attend and have an opportunity to look at the proposal. Certainly there was plenty of debate before and during the trial. The last council that attempted a trial caved in a week. That’s not productive.

Here’s how it seems to work, near as I can tell:

Politician makes decision. You agree, therefore he is a principled leader who sticks to his guns. You disagree, she’s the type of politician who doesn’t listen to her constituents.

Council makes plan. You agree. There was plenty of public input. You disagree. There will never be enough public input.

There had been @ the time a period of frustration with the previous regime with respect to updating City services & planning in general. A lot of spadework had been done by people in various communities around the City. Consequently your ‘volunteers’ were just there, as they are now starting to be once again.

Funnily, the ? of stacking committees never came up. Partisanship was not part of what was happening @ that level. In Hastings we dealt with their reps. In Point Grey, theirs’. Part of why partisanship was not a factor was that the elected people genuinely wanted to deal with the issue @ hand & the ‘volunteers’ recognized that. So by & large there was mutual respect.

Timing varies depending on urgency, complexity, subject, etc. Generally, public consultation is not quick. A +/-2 to 4 year timeframe for something like a neighbourhood plan is typical. But, if something must be done quickly, break out the important bits, get focused public input, make decisions. This Council has done everything backwards. According to Geoff Meggs [could have been another Visionite] the “election was the consultation, now we’re implimenting”.

Yes. The current STIR projects should be withdrawn across the City not just the WE for 2 reasons:

1] they do not conform to existing zoning & community plans;
2] the STIR programme has been demonstrated to be badly flawed.

In addition to 1] it costs taxpayers +$20,000 per unit in direct tax subsidies; it gives developers windfall profits of 10s of millions of dollars; it destablises the real estate market; it does not provide affordable rental housing; it will actually increase the rents of existing stock because of its much higher rent levels [STIR @ $2.70 /sf; average WE @ $1.50 to $2.00]. The whole process is a crap shoot, which will result in higher than normal project failures &, developer & contractor bankruptcies.

The STIR units are to small, often no balconies, minimally finished &, badly planned with to high rents. There is lots of other far better quality product [read rental condos] @ lower rents available [see Craig’s List]. I see these projects failing 2 to 3 years after they are on the market. At that point the developer / investor will come begging to Council to be released from the STIR obligations.

Don’t believe me. Just wait. I’ll put money on it but, I wouldn’t put a nickel into a STIR unit.

The thing that bugs me is that there are now ways to move beyond the “My mom went to council and all she brought back was this t-shirt” consultations processes. What community groups need is not to be given the opportunity to be heard , but to be given the opportunity to come to the table as equal partners.

One way this can happen is that the data they need becomes more readily available and usable. One example I mentioned in the blog is the healthycity.org site which provides users with the ability to access and use and work with a whole range of spatial and demographic data for the Sacramento/Bay area. This is similar to the open city work that the city is doing, but goes many steps beyond. The city doesn’t need to do this all themselves – there are many groups out there that are already collecting and using this data — but the city needs to assure that “the many” have access to what currently is only accessible by “the few”. (Perhaps this is a role VitalSigns should play in partnership with the city)

If the Mayor and council want to turn this incident into a positive they need to move in this direction. Not as sexy as chickens and bikes, but the long-term impact would be huge.

Doug, thanks for your insights and most constructive suggestions. There is a local research group working on developing a similar type of online information/consultation model that can be used by neighbourhoods for these purposes. Once set up, it would streamline the 100s of volunteer hours of research and organization that goes into each issue, and give each neighbourhood a central site to reference and raise awareness through.

There’s no doubt that taking this process (at least partly) online will provide for greater access to information throughout the process, a higher level of public education, and a much more efficient and cheaper process than is currently in place. (Of course, empowering citizens in this way may be Duany’s worst nightmare, and not exactly embraced by City Planners and developers, though one would hope they see the value in it.)

With a 50% increase in population density projected in the next few decades, there is clearly a need for neighbourhoods to become educated and active in the planning process, otherwise these types of us vs. them battles will continue to be hugely contentious no matter who’s in power. Density increases alone are clearly not going to make our neighbourhoods sustainable AND liveable without comprehensive neighbourhood plans guided by good urban design principles being developed and kept up to date.

I call it O.T.C.—Openness, Transparency & Consultation. The most important of the three is figuring out what it is that we are going to consult the neighbours about.

1. As Geller points out, we can’t keep on planning one-site-at-a-time. Further, the behind-closed-doors negotiations of spot zoning threaten the integrity of our political system.

2. As Frances writes, this process must keep one step ahead of spending by developers. This fabulous blog, and the talents of its hostess, provide an interesting demo for the next point…

3. Samis says we can go on-line to streamline, educate, raise awareness, save money… even get the Director of Planning to join in as he has done here before.

4. As Urbie knows, it is about the human experience of place.

5. David hits the nail on the head again suggesting neighbourhood plans guided by “good” urban design principles is what the consultation should be about.

If the urban design principles identify things we all can agree about—concrete and verifiable stuff like: safe crossing distances; how far is too far to walk to shop; what is a practical population target for a particular place, and what does that build out look like; etc.—then, the urban design principles may just help us achieve something more.

Maybe we can use the fact that urbanism trades on concrete and verifiable facts to identify common ground, and build consensus.

A consensus vision of change for our neighbourhoods—written in clear language and graphically presented—that would begin to look like “good” urbanism to me.

If I could link to that “here”, then that would represent a material shift in planning paradigm.

@Bill
@Bill Thanks for the clarity – I jumped ahead a bit. I agree 100% that we need to take this one step at a time, and have a high hill to climb.

@David I am excited to hear that there is a research group working on developing an online information/consultation model”. Love to hear more about that.

I look forward to the day when Mayor Tsakumis has every bicycle in the City – down to that of the smallest child’s – confisicated and melted down into giant ramp so he drive his Mercedes up to the Mayor’s office.