Vancouver’s new City Council meeting for the first time, l-r: Councillors Rebecca Bligh, Christine Boyle, Colleen Hardwick, Pete Fry, Adriane Carr & Mayor Kennedy Stewart + Councillors Melissa De Genova, Jean Swanson, Michael Wiebe, Lisa Dominato and Sarah Kirby-Yung, where in City Council chambers 10 motions will be presented for a vote
Tuesday, November 13th, 2018 marks the first day that the newly-elected Mayor and 10 City Councillors get down to business, with a raft of motions due to hit the floor, either in late morning, or after the lunch break — it’s going to be a busy day at Council (which doesn’t sit well with retired City Councillor George Affleck, as may be seen in his cautionary tweet below).
Even so, there’s work to be done, campaign promises to be kept, even if such does occur amidst the 30-day intensive orientation process to which our new Mayor & Councillors continue to be subject through December 7th.
Did we mention that former Park Board Chairperson Sarah Kirby-Yung is our favourite newly-elected City Councillor — which takes some doing, cuz we just sorta love all of our new City Councillors (and Mayor), and what a great communicator we’ve long known Councillor Kirby-Yung to be, and of how much she is on your side, and how much she wants work to “work across the aisle”, for you, to bring good governance to City Hall, as she knows our Mayor and all of our new City Councillors intend and will strive for …
At Tuesday’s first official “business meeting” of the new City Council, there are controversial motions, and some not quite so controversial.
On the relatively non-controversial side of the ledger (at least, let’s hope the motion emerges as non-controversial) is Councillor Pete Fry’s motion on the creation of A Renter’s Office at the City of Vancouver, long overdue, an idea that all three of our new Mayor, Kennedy Stewart, Councillor Fry, and Councillor Christine Boyle (who has seconded Mr. Fry’s motion) talked about on the campaign trail, and intend to represent the interests of renters.
Councillor Colleen Hardwick’s motion seeks to eliminate duplexes across a large area of Vancouver currently zoned for single family residences. Duplexes: eliminating this form of “gentle density” ameliorates Vancouver’s affordable housing crisis how? The Straight
On the more controversial side of the ledger, unsurprisingly given what we know of the mover of the motion, there’s Councillor Colleen Hardwick’s motion to dump the duplex, which strangely and perversely seems to have some support on both sides of the aisle at City Hall, the near unanimous “duplex motion” passed by the previous Council designed as one of many measures to create “gentle density” and increased affordability in single family neighbourhoods throughout the city (full disclosure: VanRamblings’ daughter, husband and two grandson’s live in & own a duplex in Kitsilano).
Before continuing, VanRamblings’ readers may want to look at Jennifer Bradshaw & Albert Huang article in The Straight, which reads in part …
“Duplexes were the first step city staff recommended under the last council toward increasing “missing middle” multifamily homes in the city, as part of an affordable housing plan. Before this, all multifamily homes, including duplexes, rowhouses, social and co-op homes, were banned on 75 percent of Vancouver land, and only the most expensive type of home, single-detached houses (historically known as “single-family houses”) were allowed.
The new councillor’s move to reinstate the ban on duplexes is the polar opposite of the direction Vancouver should be going for …”
At the very least, response to Councillor Hardwick’s motion oughta be interesting (which, as we all know, constitutes the old Chinese curse).
Social Housing. 58 West Hastings. What the site could be (left), what it is now (right).
Again, before continuing, it’s worth reading Nathan Crompton, Steffanie Ling and Caitlin Shane’s June 19, 2018 column, Battle for 58 West Hastings: Broken Promises and Co-optation in The Mainlander.
Here’s the bottom line: after years of activism by Jean Swanson, Wendy Pedersen, Ivan Drury, residents of the Downtown Eastside, and activists citywide, in 2011 Gregor Robertson and the members of his Vision Vancouver Council team “purchased” 58 West Hastings from developer Concord Pacific, swapping 58 West Hastings for another site at 117 East Hastings. Soon after the swap, on the steps of the Carnegie Centre, Mayor Robertson announced that it was his intention and the intention of Council to develop 130 units of social housing on the 58 West Hastings site.
Seven years on, regrettably and egregiously no such work has begun, as Vancouver’s homelessness housing (and opioid) crisis continues to burgeon.
To begin the process of addressing that appalling situation, at Council on Tuesday, newly-elected Vancouver City Councillor Jean Swanson will introduce a motion to “recommit (Council) to the community vision of 100% welfare / pension rate community controlled social housing and the former Mayor’s promise for the site at 58 West Hastings Street.”
Now, there are seven more motions that are due to come before Council on Tuesday, ranging from a motion by Councillor Swanson to protect woebegone renters from renovictions and aggressive buy-outs by developers, to a motion by Mayor Kennedy Stewart to strike an emergency opoioid task force, all of which motions (and more) may be found here.
Here they are: your new Mayor & City Councillors, in chambers and ready to get to work
Vancouver City Council meetings are live streamed here, and are available online afterwards. Tuesday’s Vancouver City Council meeting will begin at 9:30am, with all of our electeds chipper, in place and set to get to work.
This is your city, folks, and your new Vancouver City Council — who mean to do well for us. It’s worth taking a boo at the work in which our new Mayor and Council mean to engage, to break down your sense of isolation, anomie and cynicism, and to engender hope for our future.
