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, Ian Mass with City Beat for March 28th. Oak Ridge looks like it's getting another massive development. More festivals are turning to the city as they struggle to survive. And the East Van Cross, move it or not. And lots more. Here to tell us about all of this is Red Eye Collective member Ian Mass with his City Beat Report. Good morning, Ian.
Speaker: Good morning, Lorraine. So good to talk to you. Now, Vancouver Council rezoned the Heatherlands back in 2022, but the developers are back before Council looking for major changes in the plan. What is this all about?
Speaker: Well, this is ah an especially important rezoning since it brings all three levels of government and the three Vancouver First Nations, Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh. They own Heather Lands along with the federal government. Now, for people who don't know where it is, it's about 21 acres, which is a big piece of property.
Speaker: almost smack dab in the middle of Vancouver. It's kind of south of West 33rd and West 37th and between Oak and Camby.
Speaker: Now, the new proposal calls for more childcare, 125 spaces up from 74 in 2022, a slightly smaller cultural center.
Speaker: Some retail, but that giant Oak Ridge Mall, it's supposed to be opening sometime fairly soon. That'll take up most of the retail space in the neighborhood and beyond. The parks and open spaces are about the same in that existing Francophone School at 37th and Willow would remain.
Speaker: And in addition, the city staff say this rezoning application represents an opportunity to deliver on both the city and the local nation's objectives ah around reconciliation. because it's contributing to the three nations' economies and the cultural representation on the land. And that's a quote from the city. And so we don't forget, the city would get over $100 million dollars for infrastructure, community amenities, and public art.
Speaker: But the big piece here, the really big change, is the housing. They still have a lot of buildings that they want to put, 16 on the whole site with building heights ranging from four to 46 stories. So it's a big development.
Speaker: And the new rezoning would ah permit a small increase in social housing. It's going to eliminate the rentals and reduction in the market strata by almost 50%. And all this slack will be taken up by close to 3,000 what's called Attainable Housing Initiative Units, AAH, in the trade it's called.
Speaker: Okay. So what is the Attainable Housing Initiative and what are AHI units? Well, in a nutshell, they're discounted leasehold strata units. And so what does that mean? So back in the fall of 2024, not really well publicized, the province of BC and the three nations announced what's called the Attainable Housing Initiative for Heather lands. They should do something a little more ah catchy with it, but that's what it's called.
Speaker: The idea is to provide affordable home ownership for middle-income homebuyers. So how they going to do that? We've heard this a lot. Well, these 3,000 strata leasehold homes ah will be sold only for 60% of their market value, not 100%, 60%.
Speaker: And then qualified middle-income purchasers will receive a low-interest payment-free second mortgage for the other 40% of the value of the home.
Speaker: And they don't have to pay that back until either they sell or after 25 years. So this it's essentially 40% discount on the on the price.
Speaker: Yet they don't have to put as much money down on their mortgage, just 5%. And all of this means lower monthly payments, which theoretically makes homeownership more accessible.
Speaker: Despite that, there seems to be very little local enthusiasm or opposition, for that matter, to this rethinking of this massive development. So this will likely pass easily, and we'll see how this 60-40 mortgage thing works its way out.
Speaker: Now, each of the last two meetings, council has a approved financial bailout for the Festival of Lights, a million dollars there, and car-free days at $30,000.
Speaker: Council has another ask this meeting. Tell us about i Ian. I'd be glad to, although I have to change one of my facts here. So actually $2 million dollars the Festival of Lights got. So it was pretty good. So we've got the 2026 Vancouver Visaki Parade and the festival.
Speaker: It's scheduled for Saturday, April 11th, and it's come to council looking for help. It's a big celebration down here in South Vancouver. A quarter million people attend it every year.
Speaker: And I can tell you firsthand, it's a great place to eat. All the food is free along the street and just generally be joyful. So they've changed the route, the organizers, they've changed the route of the parade.
Speaker: It won't go down Marine ah Drive, as it always has. it They really heavy security costs there around policing, around going down Marine Drive. So now they're just going to go north from the Temple on Ross Street.
Speaker: But still, they're about $45,000 short. So Mayor Sim coming to the rescue is asking council to cover that shortfall this year.
Speaker: Well, Vancouver seems to be the funder of last resort, which is an expanded role for the city. But there's talk and now motion from Councillor Frye asking for council support in establishing a festival support fund. How does he think that would help stabilize that sector, which is on rocky ground?
Speaker: It is on rocky ground with ah all of the ah the jazz festivals in trouble. There's many festivals in trouble here in Vancouver. So the motion is designed, and I'm going to quote, to provide stable, transparent music.
Speaker: and multi-year financial support for qualifying festivals, community celebrations, and just major public events. And what they want to do, and is this is the important part of it, to insulate these free festivals from the rising cost pressures.
Speaker: In other words, get out in front of this collapse. ah So they want, you know, the province to step up. There's an ongoing festival funding that was going quite well, apparently. the It's called the BC Fairs Festivals and Events Fund.
Speaker: But now they are only giving out one-time grants. there There's no certainty next year that this program's even going to be in place. So they want to press the provincial government to keep that But they really the motion really talks about the city committing a lot more financially upfront for these festivals.
Speaker: The challenge with this motion is that Councillor Frye is running for mayor, and this would be a pretty good thing for him to put together as ah as a position, which he has in the motion, So he's running for mayor against Mayor Simm, and this motion, if it passes, is going to cost a lot of money.
Speaker: And Mayor Simm's already said there's not going to be any property tax increase in 2027. So I'm not sure how they're going to square this. If at all, we'll see what council does with this next Wednesday.
Speaker: Ian, the Vancouver Aquarium has asked the park board to allow them to reconstruct the BC Wild Coast pool at no cost to the park board. What's being proposed there?
Speaker: Well, back in 2021, lot of us forgot this. I had forgotten it until I looked at this particular issue. The Park Board approved the takeover of the aquarium in Stanley Park.
Speaker: The Ocean Wise Conservation Association, which is a nonprofit, ah was losing a lot of money. And so they transferred their lease to the for-profit Hershend Family Entertainment Corporation. It's a big American corporation that runs all kinds of operations, mainly in the States, including Dollywood, which it co-owns with Dolly Parton, and the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team, which was just actually in Vancouver.
Speaker: So they want to ah rebuild the aquarium's BC Wild Coast Pool Exhibit, which is apparently ah quite a significant cost. But since their lease that they got from the park board runs until 2054, if the park board says, okay, they'll do the work, it's not going to cost us anything at all, so let's go ahead with it. So park board's very happy with that arrangement and asking the board to go ahead.
Speaker: I brought this up not only because the park board, the aquarium is obviously pretty popular, but these kind of things used to have a political storm behind them. And this time it seems like it's just going to move through fairly easily.
Speaker: And you've got ah some short ones to wind up with today. Yeah, I got a fair amount of short ones. There's an interesting report giving out about $1.4 million dollars in grants in the downtown east side, and they call it to support the life, safety, and livability. it goes to nonprofits and privately owned SROs, single-room occupancy hotels, ah to redo kitchens and bathrooms and elevator repairs.
Speaker: but it's also a new piece called the SRO Cooling and Warming Room Retrofits. and What that is, is they did a pilot for what they call these retrofits last year, and they equipped one room, just one room in an SRO with a heat pump, a water filtration system, and communal space to hang out.
Speaker: And apparently it worked quite well and provided ah quite a practical building level climate adaptation and when there's difficult weather events happening.
Speaker: So they want to expand that to six other SROs this year. and see how that works out. Now, the city's goal is still the longer-term replacement of SRO stock, but until then, they want to provide at least some level of support from climate change for the tenants.
Speaker: Lots more noise about the municipal elections. It's still not coming up until October 17th. That hasn't moved. But the parties are gearing up. The Greens announced seven candidates running for council nomination this past week. The Vancouver Liberals, with a Kareem Alam running for mayor, an announced three more candidates for council, including former provincial cabinet minister Dr. Moira Stilwell.
Speaker: And one city has landed Francis Bula, a well-known retired journalist here in town, to run for them. So there's some big names coming up, and it should be an interesting election.
Speaker: No real word about unity yet. I think we're going to have ah two ah mayor candidates on the left and probably somewhere around 15 candidates for council running for 10 spots. So unity is is as united or as disunited. Is that a word, Lorraine? Disunited?
Speaker: I think we can use it in this case. Yeah. It's going to be as dysfunctional as it has been for about the last three or four elections. Some bad news, CUPE Local 15, which represents about 3,500 city of Vancouver inside workers, has been placed in trusteeship.
Speaker: The paid executive has been fired, and the interim staff will be hired to run the union. The CUPE National says, and I quote, the local executive has ceased to function appropriately and Local 15 is not carrying out its duties in a manner consistent with its obligations. End of quote.
Speaker: Lots of rumors to follow. I don't have any at this point, but this is ah certainly a big deal for the inside workers. A bunch of motions that different councillors are putting on. Councillor O'Rourke of COPE has a taxed the wealthy property owner motion, which is long and involved, and I'm not going to do justice to it. So I'll just move on and say he's got that. and You can go have a look on the city's website about that.
Speaker: Counselors Fry and Maloney have what's called a Strengthening Vancouver's FIFA World Cup 2026 Human Rights Action Plan with measurable standards reporting and a monitor and monitoring. That's a motion they have. ah Lots of words in there.
Speaker: And obviously, they don't feel like... The human rights plan that that Vancouver has is adequate. They want to to FIFA to add specific protections for the unhoused and precariously housed residents. and again, you can see the details for that motion also on the city's website.
Speaker: Councillor Bly, who's also running for mayor, has a motion called reversing the costly ban on supportive housing. ah You may remember about a year or so ago, Mayor Sim and ABC put that ban in place and promotes it even now as improving public safety by supposedly making other municipalities to take their share of the supportive housing.
Speaker: you You may remember from past city beats, Burnaby's already said no to two of these. So it's not getting spread around very much, but that's what they want. ABC thinks this is a real vote getter.
Speaker: And finally, The East Van Cross isn't moving. Councillor Clausen back in 2024 wanted staff to see if there was a better place for the cross other than at 6th and Clark there. And staff ah have come back with a hard no. They looked at 13 alternate sites.
Speaker: And along with the expense of moving the cross, apparently half a million dollars, Sixth and Clark remains still the best place. So I waved to it last night as we went by in Skytray.
Speaker: There you go That's all that fits. ah Thanks, Ian. That's a lot of very interesting stuff I expect we'll hear more about in the future. We will. We've been listening to City Beat with Red Eye Collective member Ian Mass.
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Speaker: I'm Jane Williams. Thanks for listening.
