For those of you who’ve missed it on the Urban Wonks Events calendar here, the Non-Partisan Association is reviving one of its old techniques for developing some public profile.
It will be holding a community forum on Vision’s controversial STIR (Short Term Incentives for Rental) program tonight, presumably to capitalize on the dissatisfaction that has been boiling there for months, but also to develop more of a presence as the year-long election campaign gets rolling.
Much appreciated would be, besides critiquing the current program, some ideas for what to do about rental construction in the city. Everyone from all sides has acknowledged for a long time that there’s an impending crisis as the apartment buildings in the city, mostly built in the 60s and 70s, come to the end of their lives.
While some people think that the rental market is now being supplied by private investors renting out condos, the reality is that those investors will sell the moment they think they can get a good price to new buyers who willl want to move in. The wave of 50,000-some condos that Vancouver has had in the last decade won’t be replicated any time soon. As those investor condos slowly get bought up and old stock continues to decline, where will the new supply come from?
I’ll be looking forward to the debate on that.
As a side note, it’s a sign of the petty and fractious times we’re living in that poster advertising this event generated complaints to the West End Community Centre.
Why? Take a look at it and see if you can guess why.
Stumped? It’s because the poster includes a reference to “West End Community Centre.” Apparently a member of the public phoned to complain about it, park board chair Aaron Jasper confirmed to me when I called to ask what was going on. He said, in response to rumours I’d heard that it was actually park board commissioners who had called to complain, that that wasn’t true.
While there’s no problem with political groups having events at public community centres (he’s had many there himself), they’re not supposed to put the name of the community centre on any advertising so as to avoid any inference, presumably, that the centre is supporting one political group or another.
The thing is, I can’t imagine any general member of the public even knowing that, let alone having the time to phone up and gripe about it.
18 responses so far ↓
1 Dave // Sep 20, 2010 at 10:33 am
in the words of a famous philosopher….
Rumours of the NPA’s death have been greatly exaggerated
2 Sean Bickerton // Sep 20, 2010 at 11:35 am
To answer Frances’ question, the affordable rental tower to be proposed by Aquilini Group as part of their Rogers Arena development is exactly the kind of rental housing we need.
Unlike all of the STIR projects it wouldn’t cost the taxpayers a dime; would help revitalize the Stadium Skytrain station; and provide a pedestrian walkway over Pacific between the arena and station.
The way they’ve made the rental housing affordable is by eliminating parking. Instead of parking, they’ve placed the tower right next to the Skytrain station. It is exactly this kind of transit-based density I strongly support.
It would be green, affordable, and provide economic diversify to an area dominated by condo towers. And despite some concerns, the concept was endorsed by a majority vote of the False Creek Residents Association at our most recent AGM.
This is the type of development the city needs. I hope when it’s submitted that this council will set aside their ideological STIR blinders and endorse a win-win for renters, the community and the city.
3 Bill Lee // Sep 20, 2010 at 12:03 pm
@Sean Bickerton
Except that everyone would own a car and have to put it somewhere. Hmm. (Quebec snow clearing rules to keep them moving?)
And to fill up “on the Urban Wonks Events calendar here” Add lines of availabilty for
http://www.bcfreshvegetables.com/bcfresh/availability-guide
But the NPA won’t listen to 99 year leases on the whole city, won’t listen to rezoning and razing those 2 person 2 floor bungalows on the West Side for serious infill.
Come the Force 9 earthquake, for example, and martial law declared and a housing crisis, they would pretend that everything is alright and the peasants should stay near their lots.
No mention of the various school grounds of closed schools being filled with rentals.
But the widening issue of reno-victions will come up as it does all over the city by rapacious speculators like Geller.
And what’s happening in ‘affordable’ New Westminster or EastBurn areas?
4 JamieLee // Sep 20, 2010 at 1:08 pm
I would love to hear what Sean thinks is affordable in this City. For example a single person making $2,-000-$3,000 a month what would affordability look like to Mr Bickerton and the NPA?
I’m not a housing expert but I’m not sure all that rental housing built in 60’s and 70’s in the West End is necessarily at the end of its lifespan.
I look at many apartment hotels in the West End built well before the 60’s and 70’s and these buildings still appear fine. They include the Sylvia Hotel, the Buchan hotel,
Rosellen and Ocenside apartment hotels and of course a number of others.
It seems to me as well that a number of West End high-rises were built late 60’s early 70’s and are they also considered to be at the end of their shelf life?
Perhaps Michael Geller could weigh in here and answer this since he is a housing expert.
5 Michael Geller // Sep 20, 2010 at 6:18 pm
Jamie Lee, I’m not really an expert, but I do know that the definition of ‘affordable’ depends on who you talk to. The conventional wisdom is that affordable housing does not cost more than 30% of one’s income, which is why affordable housing is not being built without some form of subsidy….since the ‘economic rent’, namely the rent required to cover the hard and soft costs of a new rental unit is usually greater than what most people can afford.
Eliminating parking is certainly one way to reduce costs and rents, and I disagree with Bill Lee that all renters will have cars. A parking space can cost $30,000 to$ 50,000, which may be equal to 20% of the cost of a smaller rental unit…so no parking could reduce rents by around 20%. This is very significant.
The recent STIR applications attempted to reduce or eliminate the land cost component through higher densities. While the land value for a condominium in the West End might be in the order of $150 a foot, it is difficult to pay much more than $30 to $35 a foot for land and make a new rental housing unit work…even at rents of $2.40 a foot, which is not ‘affordable’ for many renters, but necessary to cover the costs of new concrete units.
So that’s what is going on. Unfortunately, I may not get to tonight’s meeting since I have a longstanding dinner commitment with clients who are in town from Toronto, (where the costs of building a new rental unit are much less), but if possible, I will try and get to the event. I hope it leads to some good discussion, in a truly non-partisan environment. If that’s possible, these days!
6 Diderottoo // Sep 20, 2010 at 7:42 pm
STIR was not a bad idea. Still isn’t a bad idea. The problem is a council and City Manager who meddle with this and other City processes, politicizing them. Meddling the way that is happenign destroys fairness, creates uncertainty in the development community, and breeds cynicism in the public service.
The job of the elected council is to set priorities and high level direction. Period. Not to tell staff to expedite one developer’s application over that of another one who neglected to ask for the favour or to make the right political donation.
In their stumbing and bumbling abetted by a pathologically ambitious City Manager, thes Vision councillors are doing more harm than good.
7 Westender1 // Sep 20, 2010 at 8:51 pm
Diderottoo, STIR itself meddles with existing zoning, community planning visions and development guidelines. That, in combination with the lack of a prescribed density bonusing formula was a disaster waiting to happen, even without the inputs of the folks you mention.
8 Bill McCreery // Sep 20, 2010 at 10:25 pm
@Geller 5. Sorry you couldn’t make it Michael. The Forum was a positive, spirited, inciteful discussion for 2 hours with a range of constructive ideas from across the room. Brief, well researched & thoughtful presentations were made from 4 community groups. Copious notes were taken & we will report in more detail shortly.
9 Morven // Sep 21, 2010 at 7:18 am
re No Name Community Centres Side Note (above)
I assume that this is a city policy not a Parks Board policy since I seriously doubt that the Parks Board would have such a policy by itself (I have seen the same problem elsewhere).
This is just bureaucratic and legal bumbling and if community groups are unable to say the word community centre in advertising a partisan event, then why do we have centres in the first place. After all even politically active citizens are still citizens (we think).
If it is a policy, say so and justify it in writing otherwise it is left to the discretion of individual community centre managers which is even less satisfying.
-30-
10 Martin de Pateshull // Sep 21, 2010 at 8:52 am
We have manufactured so much rental housing that communists in Vancouver and environs (who knows if they really live in Vancouver, anyway) have elected a Watermelon (Green on the outside, Dyed Red inside) who now muses about how democracy is doubleplusungood.
We need to destroy some of the renter franchises so that the people voting in the city are people who’ve put down roots, not transient corporate marxist whores.
Voting franchise should be tied to _land title_, not skybox title. Condo = no vote except for the land. The number of votes should be proportional to the square footage of the lot, not the number of retards that can be put into it if they’re stacked like shipping containers.
11 Bill McCreery // Sep 21, 2010 at 10:52 am
@Morvin 9. It appears this ‘don’t mention the CC’ stipulation is in the fine print of the rental agreement & it was not pointed out to us until after the fact. I’m not convinced that was the real reason for the complaint calls, some of which I believe did come from Commisioners. The NPA was just doing what the Vision Commissioners gave political groups permission to do over the HST petitioners in CCs issue. Sounds like sour grapes to me.
12 Aaron Jasper // Sep 21, 2010 at 3:23 pm
@Bill. The “don’t mention the CC” rule was set up under the NPA’s watch. The CC supervisor said your NPA friend (who sat on the WECCA board) knew the rules and chose to ignore them. Talk about sour grapes!!
13 Bill McCreery // Sep 21, 2010 at 4:19 pm
Good to hear from you Aaron. Thxs for clarifying ‘CC rule’. My ‘NPA friend’ told me immediately after this matter was raised that he was not aware of the ‘CC rule’ until after the fact &, knowing my friend he surely would not knowingly ‘chose to ignore’ same.
Off topic, thanks from me personally &, I’m sure, the whole City, for your decisive Bloedel decision last night. Well done.
14 Dave // Sep 21, 2010 at 4:37 pm
Ahh Aaron
Pity you are so economical with the truth. It doesn’t wear well on you..
Nice attempt at spin though.
Pity you and your cohorts attempted to involve staff into a political situation.
Thats says it all.
15 Dave // Sep 21, 2010 at 4:41 pm
PS…
I wish to congratulate you and your collegues for having the forsight to reverse a bad decision and keep the Bloedel Conservatory open.
I suspect not only are Vancouverites are happy about it but most people who see it as a valuable part of Vancouver’s culture and attractiveness.
Good on you!
16 Aaron Jasper // Sep 21, 2010 at 5:00 pm
Thanks Bill & Dave.
As far as the CC rules, I first learn about them when I organized Save St. Paul’s forums a few years back. As far as this specific incident, I’m happy to take your word for it Dave. See you around.
17 Wendy // Sep 22, 2010 at 10:57 am
I’m behind in my blog reading so just reading this now. I’d love to know more of what happened. Is there a summary of the discussion items at the meeting? Can someone send me an e-mail (docwaters at shaw . ca)
18 Dave // Sep 23, 2010 at 9:07 am
It was a very informative meeting as we had speakers from Sunset Towers, WEN, Arbutus Ratepayers, Seniors (SHAGG) and architect Bill McCreey
Councillor Suzanne Anton and School Trustee Ken Denike also attended.
Those in attendance remarked that the meeting was very instructive and informative rather than a general “Bitch” session.
Topics discussed included:
What STIR is and the City’s report on the effects of STIR including loss of tax revenue, amenities, stresses on infrastructure
The loss of seniors housing and the rapidly decreasing seniors population in the West End
Ideas on how the City could build and regulate rental housing
The actually amount of new units built in the west end over the past 23 years
How the designated buildings would impact the community
The decline personal safety and security of seniors and the general population over the few years
While they were far more in depth this is a brief overview of what was discussed.
We welcome further input from those interested in this topic