Planning and development in Vancouver should be among the top issues deciding this fall’s civic election.
That’s according to Larry Benge, co-chair of the Coalition of Vancouver Neighbourhoods. The coalition, which has representation from 24 resident associations, formed in October 2013 over discontent and frustration about the City of Vancouver’s planning process, including community plans and developments around False Creek, Norquay, on the Pearson-Dogwood lands and Mount Pleasant’s Rize project, as well as what organizers called the “downtownification” of Oakridge through the redevelopment of the mall.
The coalition is hosting a two-hour, pre-election townhall meeting Oct. 15 called, ‘Planning, Development, and Community Engagement: Putting the Community Back in Community Planning.’
All municipal parties have been invited.
“I would put [planning and development] either at the top of the list or very, very close to the top of the list [of importance in the election] because planning and development affects all sorts of things in the city — planning and development affects the greenness of our city, planning and development affects the sustainability of our city, planning and development affects transportation issues in the city in a major way,” Benge told the Courier.
“It affects neighbourhoods and their character because these are being changed. I’m not saying that’s a good or a bad thing, I’m just saying planning and development is such an over-arching issue that affects so many different aspects of city life — how it’s run, how it operates, how people operate within the structure of the city, so I think it’s an incredibly critical element in this election and one that isn’t being paid enough attention to and talked about enough.”
Benge said the objective of the townhall is to bring the discussion about the relationship between neighbourhoods and the city more into the public eye and more into the election.
“Another one obviously is to have the different candidates exposed to the public more so that the people can come out and not just listen to policy statements through press releases, but to listen to a discussion, as much as you can do in the limited amount of time these meetings have, of these issues.”
The meeting will centre on the coalition’s principles and goals document released in April, which talks about a more collaborative relationship between the city and neighbourhoods in terms of planning and development, according to Benge.
“We have made every effort to make this a meaningful document, which lays the groundwork for better relations with the neighbourhoods and the city.
This is regardless of who is in power. This is not targeted to Vision. This is a document which intends to lay the basis for future relations between neighbourhoods and the city,” he said.
Benge said the coalition doesn’t plan to endorse particular candidates or political parties because it’s non-partisan and it’s still in the discussion phase of what “we can, should, would or want to say about the different candidates.”
“We are discussing different ways of, I suppose, voicing our opinion. But we have maintained from the beginning that we are a non-partisan group because we are a group of individual resident associations who may have quite different opinions amongst themselves. So as a coalition, we don’t feel that we’re in a position to take that kind of stance,” Benge said.
Coalition organizers have announced that the NPA, COPE, the Green Party, the Cedar Party and independent mayoral candidate Bob Kasting have endorsed the group’s principles and goals document.
The townhall is at 7 p.m., Oct. 15 at St. James Hall, 3214 West 10th Ave.
Market places
Dunbar’s Stong’s Market will remain in its location at 4560 Dunbar St. until Feb. 28, 2016.
Stong’s landlord posted a notice of its development permit application on the building, which raised employee and community concerns about the grocery store’s future. Henriquez Partners Architects has filed a revised development proposal at city hall for the site. City staff rejected an earlier proposal in October 2013.
Stong’s plans to move back on to the site if and when the property is redeveloped.
Cori Bonina, Stong’s Market’s president and owner, also intends to open at a new location on March 1, 2016 in the 4200 block of Dunbar. That site is being redeveloped.
Plans are still under development, but the intention is for the two locations to offer different services — one as a grocery store, the other may include a restaurant, expanded health and wellness and other services, according to Lesli Boldt, a spokesperson for the company.
Stong’s Market, which opened in 1931, currently has 130 employees.
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