Fern Jeffries, a spokesperson for the Coalition of Vancouver Neighbourhoods, hopes Vision Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson’s last-minute pre-election apology translates into an improved relationship with resident associations.
The coalition, which is comprised of 25 resident groups, has been critical of city hall’s handling of planning and development in Vancouver. It has drafted its own principles and goals document that pushes for a more collaborative relationship, but Vision has refused to endorse it. At a candidates’ forum before the election, councillor Andrea Reimer cited concerns such as a lack of language around inclusion to ensure groups such as renters and minorities are represented.
Mayor Robertson was re-elected for a third term Saturday, along with six Vision councillors, including Reimer. Three NPA and one Green councillor will fill the remaining seats.
Earlier this week, the coalition requested a meeting with Robertson to talk about neighbourhoods’ involvement in planning and development.
“We’re hopeful that the mayor will meet with us and we’ll be able to talk in a productive dialogue about how neighbourhoods can participate in planning. It’s no secret that there’s a feeling that this administration has ignored neighbourhood associations and we want to ensure there is good, open dialogue and a good opportunity for us to pursue mutual objectives,” Jeffries told the Courier. “The mayor has apologized and made a commitment to do better. We certainly take him at his word and want to give him an opportunity to live up to his word.”
Jeffries, who said she’s optimistic the meeting will happen, said the group still wants the mayor to endorse its goals and principles.
“We are proposing a 100 per cent household survey, so I’m not sure how you could be more inclusive than 100 per cent. But we would take that as our starting point in discussions. If they had other issues with our principles and goals, they certainly haven’t communicated [it] to us. That’s the only comment they’ve made — that it isn’t sufficiently inclusive and we want to make it inclusive. If they have a better way to do that rather than a 100 per cent household survey, terrific.”
Kevin Quinlan, director of policy and communications for the Office of the Mayor, told the Courier that since the election the mayor has received dozens of requests for meetings and the office is still sorting through them.
Reimer told the Courier Tuesday that she wasn’t aware a meeting had been requested. The Vision caucus hadn’t met yet since the election.
“Certainly, it’s been an ongoing issue that we’ve heard from people — that while they support the agenda and the goals, they’re looking for ways we can include more people, a broader spectrum of people, within each neighbourhood. We hear the message loud and clear. Figuring out how to do that is a challenge. Certainly, the Engaged City Task Force, with 22 of the brightest minds in the city on engagement, they too were perplexed,” Reimer said. “Just because you live next to someone doesn’t mean you agree with them about any number of different policy issues, so figuring out how to get residents feeling like they’re included, but also having residents with differing viewpoints and differing ideas about where their neighbourhood should go — how they can sit down and hear each other and find ways to collaborate is going to be the challenge moving forward.”
Reimer said that the city’s approach to planning and development has evolved over the past six years, and she expects it to continue evolving, noting quite a few action items from the Engaged City Task Force still need to be implemented.
“A lot of the biggest disagreements have come where there’s just been confusion over where and how you [can provide input] into a decision and that’s a fair criticism,” she said. “We had some of our opposition complaining about how many [communication] people we have, but the reality is for a big city like ours, we don’t have a lot and that makes it a challenge to get out messages around how you get engaged in something, but message heard that we need to find a way to do even better.”
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