Transcript
Speaker: I'm Jane Williams. This is the Red Eye Podcast. You can hear our live broadcast on Saturday mornings from 10 till noon at 100.5 FM in the Lower Mainland.
Speaker: Coming up in this episode, City Beat with Ian Mass for November 1st. With us now to talk about Vancouver politics is Red Eye's Ian Mass with his City Beat Report. Hello, Ian.
Speaker: Hello, Jean. Now, we missed talking about the last council meeting because you were back in Ontario visiting your grandkids. It's a great excuse, isn't it, to go back and do Halloween with grandchildren.
Speaker: But there was a lot happening in your absence, and now you're going to try and catch us up on it and talk about what Vancouver politics is going to give us in November. Let's start with the Parks Board.
Speaker: Just three weeks ago, and NDP Municipal Affairs Minister and former Vancouver City Councillor Christine Boyle announced that the province was going to support Mayor Ken Simms' request to abolish the park board, but only if Vancouver voters supported that option by voting in a referendum.
Speaker: And initially that option seemed to have support, but it became clear this week that support has quickly evaporated for that plan, so much so that Minister Boyle has withdrawn the bill.
Speaker: What all happened there? Well, it turns out that one of the key points of contention is a specific provision that would allow future city councils to transfer control of parklands to the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations without requiring a public referendum.
Speaker: In addition, ah just to pile on a little bit, Minister Boyle received a formal letter from these three nations with concerns about the proposed bill, and asking for more time for consultations.
Speaker: And naturally, the finger pointing started immediately with Sims saying that the province failed to consult adequately with both the local First Nations and the city even in advance.
Speaker: Now, in response, Minister Boyle said it was the city's fault. They've got lots more work to do, including working with the Indigenous Nations. So everybody gets on the same page.
Speaker: So the legislation has been withdrawn and we'll see if it can be resolved in time for the 2026 municipal election next November.
Speaker: Halloween was ah just yesterday and the streets were live with kids, trick or treating. And Vancouver City Council was considering a motion on Wednesday that hopefully would make kids safer next Halloween.
Speaker: What was being proposed? Well, one city councilor, Lucy Maloney, introduced a motion she called, and i quote, safe streets for trick-or-treats, creating ah safe pedestrian areas to make Halloween a little less scary.
Speaker: And she pointed out some alarming statistics. Halloween is the day of the year with the highest number of child pedestrian traffic deaths and injuries especially with kids aged four to eight.
Speaker: They're 10 times more likely to be killed by a motorist on that one evening between 5 and 9 p.m. than any other day of the year. So Councilman Maloney points out that many cities allow simple permit processes on Halloween that allow residents to block off residential streets and have a Halloween block party.
Speaker: But the permit process in Vancouver is complicated and requires applicants to demonstrate, for example, the support of 65% of the households on their block to have a block party, which is an onerous task at any point, especially on streets with apartment buildings.
Speaker: So, Councillor Maloney's motion calls for a creation of a simple, free, and inclusive Halloween permit for next year, while also studying the feasibility of providing free street barricade rentals and all of that kind of stuff for parties.
Speaker: The motion itself seemed non-controversial until ABC Councillor Brian Montague, who I need to remind people, actually lives in North Vancouver, not Vancouver.
Speaker: He decided to oppose it, saying that staff had already too much to do given the Filipino Lapu-Lapu tragedy. And after much disbelief from Councillors Frye, Orr, and Maloney, the ABC Councillors, minus Mayor Sim, who was again absent, all voted against it.
Speaker: Wow. Wow. What else happened while you were away? Well, going back in history a little bit, back in 2021, the city of Vancouver unanimously endorsed lowering the voting age to 16.
Speaker: Now, when there's a different council, council has to reaffirm that kind of endorsement. So, Green Councillor Pete Fry wanted this council to reaffirm that support.
Speaker: And he had allies with Councilors Maloney and Orr, but the ABC majority decided they were opposed and voted this one down too. In another motion, Councilor Orr moved a motion called No More Developer Handouts, requiring the full replacement of waived SRO occupancy conversion fees.
Speaker: SROs are commonly known as the hotels of last resort for people ah before people become homeless. ah They're not great places to live, apparently. I've been in many of them, and there're they're small, and often the hotels are dangerous, but it is a step up from the street.
Speaker: Now, the city has a policy. If any ah developer wants to convert these ah SROs into something out, and they won't replace them, the developer needs to pay $300,000 room into the city's replacement reserve fund, and the city will spend the money to replace these But ABC Council has started to let the developers out of these fees, saying it impedes redevelopment.
Speaker: And again, just despite support from Councilors Maloney and Fry, ABC voted this motion down. So it looks like that left progressive coalition has lost all three last week.
Speaker: Well, let's talk about what's coming up this next week. There are two reports focused on the downtown east side coming before council. Let's start with the review of the downtown east side local area plan that was passed by the city back in 2014.
Speaker: What did the city hope to achieve back then? Well, they had lofty goals. I think they're called aspirational goals. They wanted to improve the well-being for all.
Speaker: They wanted healthy homes for everybody, improved safety, a vibrant local economy, and a few more of those, all of which unfortunately have not been achieved. What we know is it's increased homelessness, drugs, gangs, poverty, COVID funding have all played a role in, in fact, the deterioration of the downtown east side in the decades since this local area plan was adopted.
Speaker: And city staff even admit, and I quote, that the implementation of the local area area plan has been fragmented across departments, and it is now clear that some policies have not been achieved and perhaps even worked against their intended outcomes.
Speaker: So that's even a self-criticism of what they've done. So what is the city proposing to do now? Well, this first report, really, i call it tinkering with policies. They want to spend about a million dollars to buy an one old ah SRO hotel they appear to have their eyes on.
Speaker: They want to expand the eligibility for grants for these SROs. They want to be able to give them to private owners, not just nonprofits. There's a lot of commercial space down in the downtown east side That is vacant.
Speaker: And so they want to loosen up some rules to get people to rent those places, especially artist studios. They continue to plead with the provincial government to continue funding daytime respite and storage services.
Speaker: And naturally, they want more law enforcement, federal reforms to bail and sentencing. Now, you mentioned that there's a second report going to Council. is Is that report any more substantial than the one you've just been talking about?
Speaker: it sure is. This report is a real blockbuster, both in size. It's 213 pages long. It was just released yesterday. And in significance, in 2023, Council passed a controversial motion And I quote, uplifting the downtown east side and building inclusive communities that work for all residents.
Speaker: And this report outlines how council can achieve that goal, which is, at least from the downtown east side, residents is really about gentrifying the downtown east side.
Speaker: So this report says if you want to do this council, you have to amend the zoning bylaw to allow less social housing and more rental. So they've got it now that only 20% opposed to needs to be social housing.
Speaker: with the other 80% being market rental. There's also watering down the definition of social housing, lowering that bar even further. And they want to drastically increase the building heights and density up to 32 stories in the downtown east side.
Speaker: And it also includes what's called the Thornton Park area on Main Street. where the new St. Paul's Hospital is being built, where the Ivanhoe and the American and the Cobalt Hotels are.
Speaker: So it's also going to reverse a present policy of developers tearing down an SRO and having to replace each one of these units by giving cash to the city.
Speaker: So the new proposal waters down that provision significantly. And probably it's only nod to people renting SROs is they're going to be included in the city's tenant relocation and protection policy, which I won't go into.
Speaker: But just to say it's a good policy on paper, it's not so clear how it's going to be applied so well, especially in the Broadway plan or the downtown east side. But it will apply to all people and SROs would have to move.
Speaker: And as you can imagine, there's lots more. The report goes on and on, over 213 pages. So what do the residents of the downtown Eastside think of all this?
Speaker: I'm going to let former city councilor and longtime downtown Eastside advocate Jean Swanson ah speak to this. She's written that the 2014 policies that council is considering changing actually worked in the downtown Eastside.
Speaker: She writes, and I quote, "'We got the rules that kept the condos out of the downtown Eastside.' which kept most market rentals out of the downtown east side, meaning that property values stayed low so that nonprofits could afford to build for lower income people.
Speaker: And we get lots of non-market housing. In fact, the downtown east plan calls for 1,400 units of social housing over the next 10 years from 2014. And we'll actually have over 2,200 when all the projects that are finished.
Speaker: In other words, that part of the plan worked. She goes on to say that this report could result in condos, expensive rental towers in the downtown east side.
Speaker: It could exchange the definition of social housing so that would it would exclude low-income people. And if the city allows condos or expensive rentals, property values will go up and the nonprofits, the downtown east side, community land trust that supports those non-profits and governments won't be able to afford the land we need to house people who are homeless and to acquire or rehab or rebuild these SROs.
Speaker: So if the definition of social housing is changed, it could exclude low-income people and we'll have more homelessness. That's the end of her quote. And that was written a couple of months ago and clearly This new report that council is going to consider has all of her concerns, all of her fears included in it and So those new fear changes will be sent out for public hearing relatively soon and likely passed by Mayor Sim and his ABC majority sometime in the new year.
Speaker: If you want to hear more about this from downtown Eastside residents, there are two events in the heart of the city festival, a great festival that's going on right now in the downtown Eastside.
Speaker: Now, the first is happening this afternoon. So if you're listening live, it's called Ending Homelessness Walking Tour. It starts at 2 o'clock at the vacant lot that used to be the Balmoral Hotel at 159 East Hastings.
Speaker: And the second heart of the city event is called Return of the Blob, which isn't a Halloween thing. It's called Better Landlords Organizing Buildings. And so this whole event is described as a town hall and a community skit where you'll learn about the city's plan to gentrify the downtown east side, what the community members want,
Speaker: that would actually improve the downtown east side, how the current zoning keeps land values low and enables the social housing we need, and the city's consultation report, the document I just talked about that documents community concerns about this gentrification plan.
Speaker: That happens next Thursday, November 6th at 6 p.m. at the Japanese Language School, 487 Alexander Street, number 503. What else is the council going to consider next week?
Speaker: Well, there are three important motions that council will consider. First comes from Councilor Oren Maloney, which acknowledges that tenants not only have heating rights for their apartments, but also cooling rights.
Speaker: So the motion is intended to prevent landlords from prohibiting or preventing tenants from using portable cooling devices when no air conditioning is provided.
Speaker: Come next June, July, and August, as the climate emergency... warms us up here. Those are important things to have. The next two motions are brought forward by independent counselor Bly.
Speaker: In the first motion, she's concerned that the 10-year women's equity strategy passed back in 2018 is being deprioritized.
Speaker: The equity office, which was a champion of that, was closed a few months back as part of the upcoming 2026 budget cuts. So she's called this motion ensuring the continuity, I'm quoting, of the women's equity strategy following the closure of the equity office.
Speaker: And she goes into detail about how she thinks counsel should handle this. Her second motion is called Advancing a Gender-Based Violence Prevention Strategy. She points out that 34 women have been killed, murdered in British Columbia since August 2024.
Speaker: as a result of intimate partner violence. And she asked Council to get up to date on what's happening around this issue. Clearly, she doesn't think Council's really up to date or put much priority that.
Speaker: And she wants to reaffirm Council's dedication to end gender-based violence. And she wants us to be coordinated virtually right away around the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence. It's a campaign that starts on November 25th, which is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and goes all the way to December 10th, which is Human Rights Day.
Speaker: And she also wants Vancouver to actually put together a strategy to prevent gender-based violence. It's a prevention strategy. She wants that to be put together by a gender-based violence prevention task force.
Speaker: And we'll see how that all goes. Now, there's lots more. We've talked a long time. There's another budget deficit for the police. This time, the city needs to come up with about $17 million dollars to cover it.
Speaker: Mayor Sims plans to start a city-run property development company that was defeated a couple of weeks ago, huge budget cuts that the park board has to manage, an attempt to open up democracy at the school board that failed, and lots more.
Speaker: But Jane, that's enough for today. Well, we'll have to catch up on some of that in a future City Beat Report. Thanks so much, Ian. You bet. I've been speaking with Red Eye Collective member Ian Mass. He was here with his City Beat Report.
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Speaker: And you can follow us on Blue Sky at Red Eye Radio. I'm Jane Williams. Thanks for listening.
