BRAMHAM: HOW WILL NEW MAYORS GET ALONG?
After nearly a decade of alignment on crucial issues of housing and transportation, B.C.’s two largest cities are now at odds. Vancouver is yin to Surrey’s yang, while Burnaby (the third most populous city) straddles the divide.
Housing dominated every race in Metro Vancouver and the civic election results indicate a deep divide over how to maintain afford ability for low-and middle income earners, how to house the homeless and how not to destroy neighbourhoods’ character and livability in the process.
Vancouver’s Independent mayor-elect, Kennedy Stewart, will lead a council that seems ready to take some aggressive measures to deal with affordability.
Of course, it may take some skilful negotiation since the council includes five Non-Partisan Association councillors, three Greens and one each from COPE and OneCity.
But it’s likely the majority will leave in place the controversial (and last-minute) decision of the Vision-dominated council to allow duplexes in every residential neighbourhood as well as agree to use city-owned land for more co-ops and social housing.
Regionally, Vancouver will find allies in Coquitlam, New Westminster, North Vancouver City, West Vancouver and in Port Coquitlam, where mayorelect Brad West talked about possibly banning foreign homebuyers.
Surrey’s mayor-elect, Doug McCallum, wants to pause development of new highrise condos and focus more on gradual densification.
So do Port Moody’s new mayor, Rob Vagramov, and the new mayors in Burnaby and North Vancouver District — Mike Hurley and Mike Little.
Hurley, in particular, wants time to figure out how to stop demovictions — the eviction of renters from affordable apartments that are being demolished to make way for highrise condos.
Hurley won because for years Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan dismissed affordability and homelessness as problems that are the responsibility of the senior levels of government and refused to do anything about the two issues. This year alone, the city is on track to approve close to $1.4-billion worth of highrise condo construction.
In Maple Ridge, mayor-elect Mike Morden has vowed to get rid of the homeless by tearing down the 18-month-old tent city and possibly giving temporary, modular housing that was built to house them over to seniors and low-income earners.
But any pauses on growth will only increase pressure on neighbouring municipalities, signalling difficulties ahead for Metro.
The regional government — its chair, boards and committees — is comprised of mayors and councillors with the number of positions weighted to reflect the population in each.
Through compromise and consensus, Metro has a regional growth strategy aimed at creating a compact urban area to meet its goals of economic and environmental sustainability.
Co-operation on the Mayors Council led to the federal and provincial governments’ commitment to spend $7 billion on regional transportation, including the $1.65-billion, light-rail line in Surrey and the Broadway Avenue subway in Vancouver. But that’s now at risk.
Both McCallum and incoming Langley City mayor Val van den Broek pledged to stop the LRT construction.
They want SkyTrain and are willing to risk losing the LRT funding to get it.
Delta’s incoming mayor, George Harvie, also wants to put a wrench in regional transportation plans. Delta’ s recently retired chief administrative officer wants to revive plans for a 10-lane bridge to replace the four-lane George Massey Tunnel.
The bridge isn’t part of Metro’s plan, but it was promised by the B.C. Liberal government before the 2017 provincial election.
Just as Vancouver’s new mayor must build support, Metro will also need strong leadership to avoid having its hard-won growth and transportation strategies left in tatters.
That task may fall to the few incumbent mayors — Coquitlam’s Richard Stewart, New West’s Jonathan Cote or Richmond’s Malcolm Brodie
— to provide that leadership.
What’s at risk are billions of dollars in infrastructure money. Without consensus on the regional needs for housing, transportation and dealing with the opioid crisis, it will be even harder to wrest money from senior levels of government, even though most of these bigcity and regional issues are their responsibility.
Finally, some stray thoughts on Saturday’s results.
After the councils are sworn in on Nov. 5, Metro will have as many mayors named Mike as female mayors.
Vancouver’s council will be the first in 32 years to not have a single Chinese-Canadian councillor. It’s also now been 46 years since a South Asian councillor has been elected.
There is still value in the NPA brand despite its stumbles.
As for Vision Vancouver and Surrey First? Not so much. School trustee Allan Wong was the only Vision candidate to be elected. Surrey First got one seat on council, but swept the school board.
And, while there was a lot of whingeing in Metro about too many candidates and too much choice, dozens of B.C. municipalities couldn’t field enough candidates to have a race. In Lions Bay, Lytton, Radium Hot Springs and Zeballos, all of the councillors and mayors were acclaimed.
Without consensus on the regional needs for housing, transportation and dealing with the opioid crisis, it will be even harder to wrest money from seniorlevelsof government.