COPE-Vision Coalition is a Bad Idea

COPE’s Executive announced today that it has negotiated a coalition deal whereby COPE will limit the number of council members it will run in the upcoming November 2011 municipal election in order to support Vision Vancouver. Under the proposed deal, yet to be approved by the general membership, COPE would run only three members for Council, four for the School Board and two for the Parks Board.

Leading up to the 2008 election, a similar deal was made to prevent a NPA majority. It was argued at the time that Vision, having split from COPE, shared similar principles. However, since the 2008 election the differences between the two parties have become even clearer.

Vision maintains a deceptive stance, claiming to support transparency and affordability, when in fact it does neither. Led by businessman Gregor Robertson, Vision is a pro-business party. Just last week they shifted property taxes from businesses onto residents for a third time. Vision staffers are closely connected with the BC Liberals and Christy Clark, while COPE is still a left-wing, working class party with connections to the NDP.

The coalition may have made sense in 2008, given Vision’s promises to end homelessness and increase transparency at City Hall. But Vision hasn’t delivered. There has been no new social housing built or planned. Neighbourhoods are suffering as lax zoning at City Hall leads to speculative property value increases. There was outrage last week as Vision passed a bylaw limiting public expression and shelter rights. Meanwhile, COPE has spent the past two years speaking out against Vision’s policies. The two parties couldn’t be less compatible.

Looking at voting records from the past two years, it would be more appropriate for Vision to form a coalition with the NPA. Both parties systematically eliminated most of the promised social housing from the Olympic Village and supported tax shifts from businesses to residents. They both refuse to use tools available to them to limit gentrification and skyrocketing housing costs.

Neighbourhoods across the city have been frustrated by City Hall’s current pro-developer stance, and have begun organizing against processes that put developers before people. Through this coalition deal, COPE is significantly limiting its ability to represent, and win victories for, the poor and working class in the midst of an affordability crisis.

There are more than enough votes in East Vancouver, COPE’s traditional base of support, to elect a legitimate working class party. The recent surge in popularity of the federal NDP is a sign of what’s possible when people start paying attention to politics and showing up at the polls.

Community Unanimously Against Mount Pleasant Tower

The results from the March 20th hearing were displayed last night at a City-hosted open house. The Heritage Hall on Main Street was full of concerned citizens giving feedback on the modifications that City staff have since made to the Rize Development’s rezoning application. Most of the changes had to do with the height and scale of the building. What had been a 26 story tower has been downsized to 19 floors. The massing has been decreased on Watson and 10th Avenue, but increased on the side facing Broadway. A huge majority of residents said that a building between 6 and 12 stories would be more appropriate for the location – the smallest option on the City’s feedback forms. The drop in height reduced the density from 6.44 FSR (Floor to Space ratio) to 5.33 FSR. This is still significantly higher than the standard 3 FSR for the neighbourhood. Another new development containing social housing was talked down at City Hall from 11 stories to only 8 last July.

The massing and form are now set to be similar to those of the Lee Building on the North-West corner of Broadway and Main. The developers have been trying to spin this new tower as becoming the “signature” building for Mount Pleasant, but most see the historic Lee Building as already filling that role.

While the City has lowered the building by a few floors, as proposed it is still almost twice as tall as anything else around the Main and Broadway hub. To meet the concerns of the community, the development will still have to change significantly. The City will also need to find a way to address the neighbourhood’s affordability concerns. As it stands the development would still be very detrimental to the socio-economic makeup of Mount Pleasant.

Most of the residents were also against the Community Amenities and Benefits that had originally proposed. People are concerned that even the STIR (Short Term Incentives for Rental) housing would not be affordable to people who currently live in Mount Pleasant. STIR units rent at market rates. Mount Pleasant has traditionally been an affordable, working class neighbourhood, and STIR rent in a luxury tower would likely be much higher than most in the neighbourhood could afford. In combination with the market rental, some community art space and public art have also been proposed to compensate the community for the developer’s gains from rezoning. Many were concerned that the proposed artist space would be too expensive for artists, and that artists are finding it increasingly difficult to afford to live in the neighbourhood.

At the open house, there was an opportunity for residents to express further concerns. The sense in the room was that 19 stories is still much too high. Height is being framed as the major issue for this development, but there are also serious concerns about who will be able to afford living in Mount Pleasant. Residents are worried that this development will have a domino effect, leading to further large luxury condos being built in the neighbourhood.

The council meeting for this development has not yet been announced. More information is available on the City’s website for the rezoning here.

Five Shelters to be Closed

B.C. Housing has declared that by the end of the month at least five shelters will be closed throughout Vancouver.* According to the province, the closures are justified because the Station Street housing project has opened this spring. Station Street contains 80 already-full units of housing, but is apparently enough to compensate for the couple hundred people who will be made homeless when the shelters close.

It is significant that Station Street is being used as a basis for closing shelters, because as a perpetually-delayed project Station Street is at the heart of the Vancouver housing crisis. The construction of the Station Street housing was promised in the 1990s but killed by the BC Liberal government when elected in 2001. After one full decade of a freeze on the construction of social housing, combined with frozen welfare rates and a frozen minimum wage, Station Street will not be capable of housing the vast number of people made homeless in these past years.

City wants to regulate political expression in public space

The City has announced modifications to a city bylaw that will make it much more difficult for people to exercise their democratic right to political protest. The proposed change would regulate the use of any “structure, object, substance or thing” for a political purpose on City-owned land. Those who wish to protest will need to apply to the City for permission, at a cost of $200, and put up a deposit of $1000. Most activists and citizens movements are not funded, and these monetary requirements would essentially prohibit protests or expression by groups who could not afford it. Also, no structures would be allowed before 8am or after 8pm, eliminating the possibility for extended protests.

The City claims that the change in bylaw is a response to the long-lasting Falung Gong protest that was erected outside the Chinese Embassy in 2001 and forcibly taken down by the city in 2006. The protest consisted of a small structure and several billboards with information on civil rights abuses and religious persecution taking place in China. Not only did the protest last for five years before the City ordered it taken down, there was someone at the site 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

After the city’s injunction, one protester, Sue Zhang, began an uphill legal battle against the City, arguing that the removal of the structures, which had allowed the protest to proceed safely and continuously, went against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. She eventually won the case in October of last year. The BC Court of Appeal argued that the city’s action was unconstitutional and its bylaw on political structures was too vague. The protest was not allowed to continue, but numerous other forms city street use were allowed for other commercial and non-commercial uses. The City’s proposed bylaw changes would mean that, despite the court ruling that it was unconstitutional to remove the original structures, no further protest would be allowed outside the Chinese Embassy. Public expression will only be allowed on commercial and industrial zoned City land. The Chinese Embassy is zoned as residential.

Over the past few years, there have been several other protests that have included the use of structures. As Vancouver becomes increasingly unaffordable, grassroots organizations have campaigned for controls on development and a stop to the gentrification of the city. Often these protests have taken the form of occupations of space. Notable examples include the 2005 squat of the Woodward’s buildings and the 2010 Olympic Tent City, both of which called for more social housing to be built in the Downtown Eastside, and involved people camping out to ensure their voices were heard. While some are saying that the policy will only be used to prevent the return of the structures outside the Chinese Embassy, many protests do use “structures, objects, substances and things.” The bylaw as proposed is so vague that should the police or future governments decide to limit citizen protests, they will have an easy bylaw to use. It’s difficult to imagine a protest or gathering of people that doesn’t include “things.”