I’m so sorry all. I thought I had posted this weeks ago, but apparently not. This is too good a story to go uncommented.

Here’s the story. I can’t do any better than I did here, except to say kudos to whoever raised the question about the glass changing originally on my blog a few months ago. (I think JJJ?)

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I started out doing a quick, simple story about the trend I’ve noticed locally of smaller hotels being converted to either higher-end rental apartments or social housing.

As it turns out, it’s a national trend, according to the CBRE report that was issued while I was in the middle of researching this story.

But an aspect I found that was just as interesting: the problems that renters are experiencing with owner-investors renting out condos, which makes new apartment stock a precious commodity.

Housing commentators frequently talk about investor-owned condos as though they’re the same thing as purpose-built rentals, when it comes to assessing the size of a city’s rental housing stock.

But as became very clear to me when I researched this story, people renting from investor-owners feel a lot more insecure about how long they’ll get to stay.

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Big cities like Vancouver and Toronto have embarked on their own development projects over the years.

But now we’re starting to see places like Surrey and New Westminster put cash on the line to try to make money from the real estate they hold or invest in development to spur more private-sector interest.

My story here.

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The Beach + Howe tower, developed by Ian Gillespie and designed by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, went to urban design panel for a second review earlier this week. Some information in my story here.

Couldn’t capture everything that happened at the meeting, though.

An interesting point that several panel members made, worth noting: They admired the efforts to create a public market/festival/ceremonial street area under the bridge. And the design team assured them that the city’s engineering department was collaborating enthusiastically.

As architect Mark Ostry noted, if the team’s design plans are going to work, the city needs to agree to joint management of the space. And, while the engineering department might on-board now, that could change.

The city “can’t pull the plug at the last minute when the legal agreements come out,” he cautioned.

People also liked the way pedestrians, cyclists and drivers on the bridge will be able to look out over an interesting set of roof gardens, because of the way the roofs on the lower buildings have been shaped to slope upwards from the bridge rails.

I’ll be interested to hear what the public makes of all this. (Open house next week, Feb. 21)

I’ve seen the design panel praise the occasional building that the public has been less than enthusiastic about. This tower is very tall, which is going to bring out the anti-tall building people. It also has quite an unusual design for glass-pointe-tower Vancouver. One civilian who looked at it commented to me, “I’ve never been a fan of buildings that look as though they might fall over.”

A few panel members also raised the issue of the need for rain protection, saying that the slanted glass building walls that come down below the bridge are going to create a depressing sheet of water that will also bounce all over pedestrians below.

One point that an engineer brought up. This building is likely going to require the deepest “concrete-raft foundation” the city has ever seen, likely going down six stories and into the False Creek water table.

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Any municipal lawyer types want to weigh in on this opinion? I have the utmost respect for Jonathan Baker, whom I have called frequently in my reporting career, but he has quite a Vision hate-on thing going in his Twitter stream and lawyers are known to have different interpretations.

So far, one of my background set of experts I rely on, a longtime municipal politician, told me that it wouldn’t be left to the city manager at his council. Instead, a motion like that would be presented and it would be council that would decide whether it should be moved to an in-camera session.

On the other hand, I have seen previous city managers and even city clerks provide advice/warnings to councillors about whether their motions were in order or not. It’s not unheard of for a bureaucrat to offer that kind of advice. Former Vancouver city manager Judy Rogers was far less visible than current manager Penny Ballem, but she maintained pretty strict control of what could and couldn’t be put on the agenda, to my knowledge.

A lot of stories I’m hearing seem to be misreporting that the board voted to take all the revenue. That is certainly what was originally proposed and it may be the end result of the negotiation, but here is what the board actually voted on.

That the Park Board endorse in principle the key elements for the proposed
framework for a new partnership agreement as described on page 20 of this
report.
2. That staff be directed to continue the process and complete the negotiations
with all the community centres interested in moving to a new Partnership
Agreement based on (1.), and take any steps necessary to prepare for its
implementation, effective July 1 2013.
3. That staff initiate a consultation across the city, working with the Community
Centre Associations, to share with residents the framework and receive input
on:
• Priorities for moving ahead toward a more accessible and equitable network of
community centres
• Opportunities for the allocation of the new $1,000,000 annual fund made available to
the Park Board by the City commencing in the 2013 budget.
25

Ainslie Kwan, president of the Killarney CCA, sent me this letter to help clarify some points I had raised in an earlier post. Thought it would be helpful for everyone to see this, as it does provide helpful new information.

Hi Frances,

Thanks for continuing to cover the story about community centre associations. I appreciate this is a complicated story without much clarity on several important items. I’m also finding it complicated to respond since the slide deck we see from Park Board changes on almost a daily basis.

I was reading your blog post and thought it would be helpful to try and offer some additional information on a couple of points you raised.

Killarney was one of the community centres who signed on to present a counter proposal and negotiate. We have always been open to being part of a transparent and amicable negotiation process. Even with recent developments, we are still fully supportive of proper negotiations. We removed ourselves when Mr. Bromley announced on Jan.28^th that he was willing to negotiate for up to three weeks. From our point of view, this only further reinforced Mr. Bromley’s previously documented stance that that the plan was not negotiable. Despite his revised presentation on Monday evening, we continue to feel that timeline isn’t reasonable based on the magnitude of the negotiations that need to take place.

My thoughts on a couple of your points:

Point 2 Grants – Our treasurer contacted the Ursula Cowland – Executive Director – Licensing and Grants Division for the BC Government via email to confirm that CCAs would no longer be eligible for grants if the PB operated the programs (including designing the programs, negotiating wages of instructors, setting the fees for public to use the program and receiving the revenue from the program).

Her response was:

“What you have said is true – if the community centre association is not in control of the program operations – we cannot fund them for that program.  HOWEVER:  I have also been in contact with the Parks and Recreation folks and we will be working together to solve any issues:

– The General Manager has committed to work with each Community Centre to ensure that they can continue to provide those programs funded by gaming grants.

From our side:

– We are honouring all of the applications received from community centre associations prior to November 30, 2012 and will be providing appropriate grants

– Then, over the summer, we will be working with the Parks and Recreation staff to determine how the new arrangement will roll out – so that we can provide you with good information for the 2013 applications.

I am not sure who from the Parks Board is working on this but I stand by the statements I made about the grants not being available based on the information that was available at the time.

My evaluation is that Park Board has finally realized that it can’t afford to lose $3 million dollars a year in grants so they have now moved away from their original position of “all programming will be done by the Park Board”. I feel they will now look as ways allow the associations to run the programs that would be grant eligible.

Point 3 – Budgeting

Most associations including Killarney have indicated that we are willing to look at a collaborative model for revenue sharing like perhaps “cost sharing”. We believe that this will help community centres who do not have a lot of programming space like bigger centres. What we do not agree with is pooling them together and having the PB distribute the funds as they see fit. There is no specific guarantee that all of the pooled money will stay within community centres and could be used for other city initiatives.

I agree with the comments that you made in point 5. I believe all associations are on board with sharing costs or a model like you are suggesting. Now what remains to be seen is if the PB will give up on the “Non Negotiable “plan to take all of the $$. Mr.Bromley did say Monday night he believes his plan is the” best one”. When Commissioner Jasper spoke in favor of the motion he said it was because city staff says it is the best plan. This could perhaps lead the public to believe some have already made up their minds before the negotiations even start.

Fundraising

I am not sure how the impression was given that collecting revenues from programs and room rentals etc. is fundraising.  This is certainly not the case. A fact presented at Monday’s meeting is that the total cost to run all community centres is approximately $36 million per year. Associations pay 55% of these costs from revenues generated. In some cases, such as Kerrisdale, the CCA pays significantly more of the operating costs, which is supposed to free up the Park Board to better assist other centres with public money.

As I sat at Monday’s meeting until 3:30am I was struck by the fact that I believe more than ever the group of 6 community centres were right to bring this matter to the public’s attention. It’s my firm opinion that Mr. Bromley has now moved from “Non Negotiable” and “take it or leave it”, from “willing to negotiate for three weeks” to a five month facilitated negotiation because of public pressure.

Thank you for continuing to tell all sides of this very complex story. I really appreciate you trying to fully educate yourself. We are all hoping that the Park Board will now enter into genuine, transparent negations so we can all get back to what we do best… Volunteering in our communities.

Many thanks,

Ainslie Kwan

President – Killarney Community Centre Society

This was posted as a comment on another post. I’ve pulled it up to make sure everyone gets a chance to see it. Some of you who posted comments in response may want to cut and paste those also into here.

I know many of you are concerned about future changes of the Joint Operating Agreements (JOA) between the Park Board and Community Centre Associations.

I hope to answer some of your questions and address some concerns.

At this time, no final changes have been approved by the Board. At the last meeting, we have directed staff to undertake further negotiations with the Community Centre Associations to try to solve the serious issues we have under the existing JOA. At this time, a majority of the CCA’s are going to be sitting down with us to figure out a financial model that will work.
The process of attempting to update the JOA began over ten years ago – as various past Commissioners have tried to work on the issues that the current model has created. For example, some of the items we would like to be able to implement are:
– one pass for all Community Centres in the City;
– an acceptance of the low-income pass on the same terms at every centre across the City;
– some ability to operate more as a network of centres while maintaining local boards to represent their community; and
– some method of sharing costs or redistributing revenue to equalize services at centres much like public schools, libraries, and even ice rinks.
The volunteers who contribute their time at our Community Centres do amazing work. We don’t want that to change. They’re part of what makes our community centres what they are. That’s why after a year of over 50 meetings, we are continuing to negotiate with them over the next few months to reach a fair agreement.
From our discussions to date with CCAs, it appeared that we could not agree on a financial model that would help to equalize the system. How do we figure out a method to share across the system, while maintaining the independence of the Associations? So we decided to continue negotiations with the CCAs to try to agree on a better way forward. I believe that both sides would like a new agreement with principles of access, equity, accountability, and sustainability.
There’s been a lot of misinformation out there. So let’s be clear: Under any new partnership agreement:
– ALL programs and services offered by your community centres will continue.
– Community Centre Associations will still continue to fundraise, and determine local programming.
– NO buildings will be closed down.
– NO equipment will be taken away.
– The money that Community Centre Associations have currently raised – roughly $12 million – will remain with the associations. “Cash grab” claims are completely false.
– we have not made a decision to centralize the system, we made the decision to negotiate with the CCA’s to try to find a financial model that works
We will be having public consultations on this issue and would be happy to let you know when they will be so you can provide us with further input.

If you have any more questions feel free to call me 604 377 9415

Sarah Blyth

As mayors continue to press the provincial government to come up with some kind of solution for funding that will allow TransLink to expand services, the chair of the mayors’ council sent out an open letter yesterday with suggestions for short-term and long-term funding solutions.

Short-term:

– 0.5 per cent sales tax, which would pull in $250 million a year

– a vehicle-registration levy, which at $38 average per vehicle would bring in $50 million a year

– a regional carbon tax (taxes on gas at the pump and in furnaces, machinery operation, etc.), which would bring in about $90 million

Long-term:

Road pricing.

My short story here and the letter appended below. Unfortunately, the transportation minister seems to have responded by saying the mayors need to develop a long-term plan for transit first. Guess she didn’t read the letter, where the mayors said the region has spent years developing exactly that plan, as well as doing extensive public consultation.

Letter to Minister Polak 2013-02-04-100042-2

Just to say it one more time for everyone who has had a hard time understanding who is where in this rugby game of park board versus community-centre associations: There is actually a group of community-centre associations that has been ready to negotiate with the park board and that did not take to the streets to declare emergency, as Kerrisdale and Killarney did.

That group, originally 16, put in a counter-proposal mid-January to the park-board “presentations” that general manager Malcolm Bromley had been delivering. In the ensuing uproar, it looks as though three have bailed from that group, not sure which ones. But 13 are still on board.

In any case, the Associations Presidents Group, whose chair is Kate Perkins of Trout Lake, is still willing to give it a go, based on the public declaration from Bromley at the crazy meeting Monday night that he is willing to negotiate about the revenue sharing.

My story on this, along with Daniel Bitonti’s accounts from said crazy meeting Monday, is here. (Pasted below the fold, as they say)

Also, as a handy guide to what is actually under negotiation, this is what I have been able to work out thanks to input from various people. If I still have some things wrong, please let me know.

1. The association counter-proposal said all the associations were willing to accept the park board flexi-pass, the park board leisure access pass (for low-income users), and membership cards from any centre equally at all centres. There is some language about figuring out how to get compensation for some of that.

2. Non-profit societies will continue to exist and continue to apply for federal and provincial grants. It is not the case, as some have said, that they’re all going to be lost. Kate Perkins said there does have to be some care taken to make sure that association staff are supervising those programs and not park-board staff or there could be a risk of ineligibility.

3. The on-board associations are willing to do collaborative budgeting and actually see it as helpful.

4. Still not at all clear to me where things stand re the park board taking over all staffing and collecting all revenue. As above, programs that rely on grants seem to be excluded from that.

5. Really, the biggest sticking point seems to be the model for sharing revenue. It appears to me that the park board wanted to take over all staffing in order to collect all revenue. If another model could be worked out, that might not be necessary. I had suggested in a Branch discussion and I see Stuart McKinnon also suggested something similar that the park board could start charging a rental fee, based on the fees charged and the volume of activities booked. That way, a centre that ran a lot of programs and charged a lot of fees for them would end up paying a bit more. A centre that ran a lot of programs but charged low fees would pay less. A centre that ran many or few programs but charged no fees would pay nothing.

However, as mentioned in my story, Perkins didn’t want to talk about potential financial models, saying there has already been so much misinformation flying around (the natural result of trying to explain complex contract issues to thousands of people in the public who are paying varying levels of attention) that she didn’t want to add to it by negotiating in public.

6. Many of us here in the media are still baffled by the divergence in information presented by the park board and the centres on some issues. The most striking one for me was when Renfrew Park former president David Sexton pointed out that Renfrew did NOT, as Bromley’s presentation stated, only contribute $50,000 to various capital costs at the centre. Instead, the association, which he said fundraised half a million in the community, contributed around $627,000. That made me wonder about all of the math in the park presentation.

7. There’s still a lot of missing information. Bromley’s presentation said taxpayers contribute about $18 million a year to community centres and revenues bring in about $19 million. But I didn’t see anything that said how much revenue the associations collect (and keep) and how much the park board already collects and keeps, since it runs all the rinks and pools.

8. I think I can safely say, on behalf of all of us, that a productive solution is worked out.

It’s kind of cool, when you think about it, that a government operation and a bunch of little volunteer associations jointly run a multi-million-dollar community-centre system. I was impressed by what I heard from association presidents about what their groups do — running childcare programs, raising money to build pools, outfitting their own fitness centres and more. That’s a system to be admired and emulated by others.

But I can also see the point of view of those who say that it’s a bit off for centres to claim they are “fundraising,” when what they are doing is collecting the revenue in buildings built, maintained, heated, lit, and insured by the park board aka all taxpayers as a whole, and then saying that they have no obligation to share with anyone.

It would help all of us, and the negotiating process, if both sides would clarify some of the wrong information they seem to have put out.

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