The Board of Variance. A History and Background.
Since the mid-1950s, every village, town & city elected body / City Council on the North American continent with a population of 10,000, or more, has been required by law to empower a quasi-judicial body of its citizens to constitute a Board of Variance, a lay body of five or more persons who are vested with the authority, and required under the provincial or state Act governing their conduct, to review — and should Board members deem it necessary, make changes to or even reject — any development application that in its conception requires a relaxation of the existing zoning bylaw applicable to the zone or neighbourhood where a developer, or homeowner, has made application for development or re-development of a property.
In Vancouver, as in most jurisdictions, the Board of Variance also oversees all applications concerning parking, signage, and tree matters, as well as — on occasion — licensing of a business for proper use.
As such, as an independent lay body overseeing all development in, say in this case, the City of Vancouver, the Board of Variance is seen by City Council, and the development services and planning departments at City Hall, as well as developers and homeowners requiring a relaxation of an existing zoning bylaw, as the most powerful creature of City Hall.
In point of fact, there are few Boards of Variance that are not regularly sued by the city or town government relating to a decision made by the Board to which city councillors, and more often administrators in development services or planning, have taken umbrage.

If you’ve seen the Oscar award-winning 1975 film Chinatown, which showed development decisions taking place behind closed doors and in smoke-filled rooms — more often than not with payoffs to elected officials, or city administrators — you can see why Canadian and U.S. Courts ruled that state and provincial governments must enact legislation empowering an open to the public and utterly transparent lay body, called the Board of Variance, to review all development decisions requiring a zoning relaxation.
The Board of Variance. A Raymond Tomlin Tale. Part One.

In early 2005, Aaron Jasper, Gary Kennedy, Quincey Kirschner and I had taken on the position of co-campaign managers / organizers on Mel Lehan’s Vancouver Point Grey provincial NDP campaign.
Terry Martin, a contractor and longtime NDP member, had — in provincial and federal NDP campaigns, and in municipal Coalition of Progressive Electors campaigns — taken on the task of building a workable office for campaigns, creating a volunteer phone bank centre, as well as taking responsibility for creating the office, locating desks, filing cabinets and all the materials required to run a functioning political campaign.
Over a number of weeks in January, February & March 2005, Terry and I became friends. One March afternoon, Terry informed me that he was a member of Vancouver’s Board of Variance, explaining what the Board did and his role on the Board, informing me that a Board vacancy was upcoming and he would like me to apply to fill the vacancy. Terry was very complimentary about how he saw me as a person of integrity, an individual committed to social justice, and someone with whom he would like to work on the Board of Variance. After some persuading, I filed my application.
At the time, there were three members of Vancouver City Council who constituted the Selection Committee responsible for filling all vacancies on the 33 advisory committees to Council, including the Board of Variance: the late Jim Green, then COPE Councillor Tim Louis, and NPA Councillor Sam Sullivan. As it happened, I knew them all. Terry arranged for me to meet with Jim and Tim, separately, to promote my application to the Board (there were 200 applicants, most more qualified than I). Both Jim Green and Tim Louis (the latter to whom I became very close for the next decade, and to the present) were welcoming of my application to fill the vacant Board of Variance position, and told Terry and I each would cast a ballot in my favour to fill the vacancy. I knew Sam Sullivan through friends —&#32we spoke, and I’m given to understand that he, too, cast a ballot in favour of my, now successful, application to the Board of Variance.
[Side note. At present, the Chairperson of Vancouver City Council’s Selection Committee is OneCity Vancouver Councillor Christine Boyle, who is joined her Council colleagues, the Non-Partisan Association’s Rebecca Bligh, and the Green Party of Vancouver’s Michael Wiebe.)
Long story short, my time — what would turn out to be truncated tenure on the Board, as all members were fired by Mayor Sam Sullivan on July 1, 2006 (a story for another day) — on the Board of Variance remains one of the highlights of my life. There is not one block in the city on which the Board of Variance on which I sat did not make a life-changing decision, for homeowners, for developers, and more importantly, for citizens.
Terry Martin, Jan Pierce, Quincey Kirschner and Bruce Chown were, and remain to this day, the finest, most thoughtful, hardest working people of wit, intelligence, conscience & integrity with whom I have worked in the collective endeavour of city building, in the interest of Vancouver citizens.
Each member on the Board of Variance on which I sat was a rugged individualist committed to the common good, and responsible conduct that best served the interests of citizens — and we were damn good at our job.
As chaired by Terry Martin, the meetings — which began Wednesday afternoon at 1:30pm — often lasted until two or three the next morning. Twelve to fourteen hour Board of Variance meetings were not uncommon — the public wanted to be heard, and we heard them. Of course, at the time the Board was empowered to hear Third Party Appeals, empowering any citizen in a neighbourhood where the development was taking place the opportunity to be heard before the Board — and citizens, often strumming guitars, singing, putting on little skits and otherwise addressing the members of the Board — appeared in droves. Everyone was heard, and all decisions were citizen driven, in the finest, most celebratory act of respectful citizen engagement in which I have ever been a participant.
The Board of Variance. A Raymond Tomlin Tale. Part Two.

Here’s how the Board worked, the standard process for decision-making:
The Board of Variance met to adjudicate appeals every second Wednesday. On the Friday before the Board meeting, a 300-page binder was delivered to each of the Board members’ homes, containing all the relevant materials from the 30 appeals that would be heard the following week.
Much of the Board member’s weekend was spent reading the documentation contained in the binder, and performing whatever research tasks a Board member felt was relevant to the taking of a fair and just decision. On the Tuesday, at noon the day before the Board of Variance meeting, the five members of the Board met with the Secretary to the Board, Louis Ng (who still acts in that position) at the bottom of the steps at the back of City Hall, whereupon we all climbed into a van acquired from the City by Louis, to ferry the Board members around to the sites of applicant appeals, with Louis providing a narrative concerning each appeal, the history of the appeal, the position of both the Planning and Development Services departments at City Hall respecting the appeal, answering any and all proper and judicious questions put to him by Board members. The “drive around” was generally completed by 7pm.
The Board met the next day at 1:15pm in Committee Room 1 — the largest meeting room on the third floor at City Hall, situated in the southeast corner of that floor. As Board members were forbidden to discuss any appeal prior to its hearing, we greeted one another, and place our binders in front of us, as well as any relevant materials we felt necessary for us to properly take a decision on any given appeal. Each Board member had a sheet in front of them listing the order in which all the appeals would be heard, with a suggested time frame for the hearing of each appeal.
The Board of Variance meeting began on time at 1:30pm, with Board members situated around the east end of the massive oak Board table, with a citizens gallery on the west end of the Board room. Louis Ng introduced each appeal, stating the technical facts. Representatives from development services and planning, sitting on chairs in the southeast corner of the Board table presented the position of their departments on the efficacy of the appeal, giving indication as to whether the City opposed or approved of the applicant’s appeal. Once the City had been heard, the appellant was asked to take a seat at the far west end of the Board table & begin their appeal.
Within the first minute of being heard, most (okay, okay — make that all) applicants burst into tears, inconsolable, and more often than not fearful of the process, and / or the position taken by the City opposing their appeal.
Once the appellant was calmed, the appeal continued. Upon completion of the statement / presentation of the appeals applicant, as well as input from neighbours and citizens opposed to the appeal, at the end of each statement by appellant or neighbour / citizen, the Board members were provided the opportunity to ask questions of the appellant, or the citizens opposed to the appeal. The focus of the meeting was then returned to the City, where administrative development and planning staff assigned to present the City’s position on an appeal re-iterated their position on the appeal. Each Board member queried city staff on issues that had arisen during the appeal — with City staff very much wanting their way, and Board members uncertain as to whether the enunciated position of staff best served the interests of Vancouver citizens, and just city building.
More often than not, the members of the Board of Variance voted contrary to the wishes of city staff — not because Board members harboured any ill will towards city staff, almost all of whom were dedicated and accomplished civil servants, with years of experience in city building, and advanced Masters, PhDs, urban planning and architectural and engineering degrees.
As lay citizens dedicated to an open and transparent development appeals process, the members of the Board — again, among the finest and most accomplished persons with whom I have ever had the opportunity to work — cast a vote, separately, individually and without any external pressure exerted on the Board decision makers, votes that we as citizens believed best served the interests of those of us who reside in Vancouver, and who are committed to a fair and just city, a livable city, a city that serves the interests of all. I will write another day on a few of the decisions taken by the Board, for which all Board members remain justly proud today.
The Board of Variance. Raymond finally gets to the point. Why it is important for Vancouver City Councillors to read the following …

One particular spring afternoon in 2006, the senior administrator in development and planning with the City, a particularly avuncular fellow, always smiling, always of good cheer, a sort of Wilford Brimley type, clearly a very bright and accomplished man, a good-natured but no nonsense type of fellow, the second in command in development and planning services at City Hall, and for very good reason one would have to think upon meeting him. There was about this fellow, as well, something … well, sinister, nothing you could put your finger on, but you knew upon meeting him that you wouldn’t want to get on his bad side, or some night find yourself in a dark alley with him — now, that’s a prospect no one would look forward to.
The particular day in question, this senior City official turned up at the Board meeting to present the City’s position on an appeal by a developer — an appeal that the City made abundantly clear they were in full support of. The developer presented drawings for a 90-foot high, 25-foot wide backlit “blade sign” that was to be placed above the parking entrance next to the Starbucks in the Paramount Centre / the Scotiabank Theatre complex.
From the tenor of the questions put to the developer respecting this massive backlit sign, and more specifically to the avuncular senior City official speaking in support of the sign, indication was Board members’ were in strong opposition to the sign, which it became clear in its “massive scale” was inappropriate for the downtown neighbourhood, or any city neighbourhood. But me being me, I came into these sorts of appeals with an open mind, even more so because I believed in the integrity of the City official — there must be a reason he supported the appeal.
I wanted to know why. Our give & take dialogue went something like this …

Me. Mr. (Avuncular), I would like to welcome you to this Board of Variance meeting. Your attendance at our meetings is rare, and I want to go on record as stating that I am pleased that a senior City official is taking time out of his busy day to spend a half hour with the members of the Board of Variance.

Mr. A. Mr. Tomlin, I am always pleased to meet with the members of the Board, although as you say, my schedule is often very busy, and I am not afforded the opportunity as often as I would like to attend at the very important Board of Variance meetings.

Me. Mr. A, you speak very much in favour of the appeal, and I am wondering from where the genesis of your support arises. As I sit around the Board table this afternoon, I wonder about your prior involvement with the developer, if any, and whether such involvement, if such is the case, plays any role in your support of the appeal, as presented to the Board today.

Mr. A. I assure you, Mr. Tomlin, that the only reason I am here today to present the appeal arises from an opening in my schedule this afternoon, and my heartfelt desire to sit in this sun-filled room with you and your Board colleagues, to spend an afternoon with people for whom I hold the highest regard, and arising as well from my commitment to the democratic process, particularly as it is practiced by the very fine members of the Board of Variance, present here today.