Head planner Brian Jackson responded to “vicious” critics, rejected calls for an overall City Plan to guide Vancouver’s growth, and argued the city needs to fix how it calculates community amenity contributions (CACs), not eliminate them, in an hour-long, wide-ranging speech at an Urban Development Institute luncheon Sept. 17.
And he did it with a smile — cracking some jokes, making some pointed remarks and defending his department’s accomplishments during his three-year tenure before revealing his thoughts about the future of urban planning in the city.
Jackson’s candid comments come as he prepares to retire. His last day on the job is Nov. 6.
On his critics
Jackson has been the target of much criticism from Vancouver residents and former planners in recent years, but he maintains much of it has been based on rumour, innuendo and misinformation.
“The criticisms of a few have gone far beyond criticism of council policy. It has become very personal and very vicious,” he said, pointing out he shared some of the newspaper and blog commentary with American planners at a conference earlier this year.
“They were startled at the level that the commentary had sunk and the comments could best be summed up by my colleague — the head planner from Los Angeles, as only a person from Los Angeles could say — ‘Dude, what you’re going through is like an episode of Mean Girls. So give them my suggestion. Get a hobby. Travel outside of Vancouver, hopefully for long periods of time. Try to think positive thoughts. Try.’”
Jackson addressed some specific criticisms, including the controversy surrounding the Grandview-Woodland plan. He argued his critics had become “obsessed” with complaining about the emerging directions, which he described as “planning ideas.”
“It wasn’t a plan. There was no foot stomping, no dramatic confrontation and no political interference,” Jackson said, pointing out that when senior staff realized residents weren’t happy the emerging directions were scrapped and a Citizens’ Assembly was formed.
Jackson said he’s refrained from correcting misconceptions to avoid prolonging the story and that he chose to focus on the work.
He then jokingly asked the audience what his future should hold and if he should just go “gentle into that good night” and retire with dignity knowing he’d made a difference.
“Or, should I write a book about the planners who were so critical in the public about what’s happening, who come now and see me separately on behalf of clients for higher density and bigger buildings for their clients in other parts of the city. Or academics who rally against CACs then approach me privately to use CACs to build academic buildings,” he said. “Don’t you get it? So, so far I’ve been very politically correct. I kept my mouth shut. I kept my head down. But I kind of think there’s a very interesting book here, one that I call, ‘Don’t be so f***ing hypocritical.’”
Jackson added that today’s director of planning faces a “new reality” — there are no federal or provincial programs to deliver affordable housing anymore, there are limited city budgets and no easy land use choices left.
“We need constructive voices, not destructive voices. We need solutions, not criticisms. And we need the truth, not distortions and gossip and innuendo,” he said.
On calls for a City Plan
Jackson’s talk then turned to critics’ demand, particularly during the election campaign, for a City Plan to guide development, which he called a complex process for a city as diverse as Vancouver.
It would require significant consultation and an implementation plan. It would be comprehensive, addressing subjects including land use, as well as social, economic and environmental issues. It would take staffing, money — he estimates as much as $2 to $3 million each year for the duration of the project — and clear direction from council. Jackson guessed completion would take at least three years, during which time the city would have to freeze development, which means house prices would rise even faster if development didn’t meet demand.
Work on a City Plan also couldn’t start until 2016. Since it would take a year to complete the terms of reference, it would shift it into an election cycle when it’s not advisable to deal with serious planning issues.
Typically such plans are undertaken either because there isn’t enough existing policy to guide future development, there’s a change in community values, there’s unbridled growth, the number of rezonings and spot rezonings are out of control or there’s a general inability to accommodate growth, according to Jackson who argues those conditions don’t exist.
He said while there is population growth, the growth rate is dropping decade by decade and that the number of rezonings has remained steady, with a small but not remarkable uptick, while the number of rezonings in surrounding municipalities such as Surrey, Burnaby and Richmond is significantly higher. He also cited only three spot zonings in five years: the White Spot at 12th and Cambie, Shannon Mews and Sixth and Fir.
“People might not like the policies on which the applications are approved but these are policies that have been adopted by council to guide future development, including rental housing and housing,” he said.
“Spot zonings are always contentious and make people nervous because it makes it seem like change is happening in the area.”
Jackson insists that to accommodate the growth the city foresees happening, only a small percentage of the land base has to change.
“While we don’t have one easy document to guide city growth, no large city has one document. All major cities have a complex series of documents to guide future growth,” he said. “Planning by nature is messy and we need a whole bunch of policies to guide us, not one.”
On the need to fix the CACs system
Jackson rejected the notion that the city is “addicted to CACs” to pay for infrastructure.
Of the total number of development applications, he said only a few are rezoning applications to which CACs apply and that CACs from large projects provide services and amenities that could not otherwise be provided by the city without finding alternative funding sources.
But Jackson acknowledged the CAC process was “problematic” and that council, the development community, rental housing providers, heritage advocates and the public need to examine the subject.
“Council has strong policies for wanting more rental housing or more office development and protecting heritage. We have to look at the benefit we’ve gotten from CACs versus what projects in and of themselves have benefited the city,” he said, adding how they're calculated needs to be fixed.
“It takes far too long and it’s far too complicated. It has to be fixed and it has to be fixed soon,” he said to applause.
Jackson said the alternative is to tell people there is no money for community amenities or to raise property taxes or development cost levies. Based on the amount raised in CACs over the last five years, he estimated taxes would have to be raised 11 per cent to collect the equivalent amount of CACs or DCLs would have to be increased by 150 per cent.
“I’ve already talked to the mayor about it and he’s fully supportive of having that dialogue but it has to be a quid pro quo arrangement,” he told the crowd. “If we fix the CAC system, which we want to do, the development industry has to stop going to Victoria asking for it to be taken away because if you do, we will have no choice but in the city to stop rezonings until we find better ways to pay for the amenities and services. That’s not going to be a win for the development community. Let’s fix this.”
After his speech, Jackson told the Courier he plans to travel once he retires and that he will only work on projects he’s particularly interested in, but he won’t work in Richmond or Vancouver.
@naoibh
