LISTEN TO PUBLIC ON SKYTRAIN

Aconstant complaint from many during the near-decade that Vision controlled city hall was there wasn’t much real consultation about significant city projects that affected their neighbourhoods.

“Consultation” was typically little more than information sessions, where bureaucrats told residents what was going to be done, with little apparent concern for incorporating their views or modifying plans. It became so bad — and a real political risk to the Vision brand — that former mayor Gregor Robertson issued an extraordinary apology to Vancouverites in 2014, just before his last election, for not listening to them.

Re-elected, there was little improvement by Vision in genuine public consultation, which contributed significantly to the party’s decimation in last year’s municipal election.

Vision’s rise and fall is a cautionary tale to other city politicians who might think that getting elected once every four years is the only engagement they need to have with citizens about changes to their neighbourhoods, which many residents care about deeply.

A refreshing aspect of Kennedy Stewart’s election as mayor has been his commitment to doing things differently. The former Burnaby MP and SFU public policy professor understands that council is there to serve the public — not the other way around. That taxpayers are not just a deep wallet to pay for pet projects.

All this must be kept in mind as the city moves into a two-year public consultation related to the nearly $3-billion SkyTrain Millennium Line Broadway extension from VCC-Clark Station to Arbutus Street. Council has already started to make some very significant decisions that will affect neighbourhoods, including “rental-only” zoning near future transit stations, refusing to consider almost all new rezonings until the area plan is complete, protecting tenants from “renovictions” and trying to limit land speculation by telling developers what they will be expected to pay for community amenities. The overall approach is to preserve and expand rental housing along the route.

Meanwhile, Green Coun. Pete Fry says he would like similar area planning in the wide swath along the proposed extension of SkyTrain from Arbutus Street to the University of B.C. through some of the city’s wealthiest neighbourhoods. Council has asked staff to look into his idea and come back with a report.

This is the kind of grand thinking that makes residents nervous, especially when such broadbrush strokes are announced before public consultations have even begun.

“What we’re concerned with in this motion is the definition of the area along Broadway west of Arbutus as a Broadway ‘corridor’ ... as opposed to looking at the neighbourhoods that are affected along that street and dealing with the neighbourhoods as unique,” Kitsilano resident Larry Benge, co-chair of the Coalition of Vancouver Neighbourhoods, told CBC. “We would like to see the area defined as the Kitsilano neighbourhoods, the West Point Grey neighbourhoods, as opposed to a corridor.”

There is often tension when changes are proposed to neighbourhoods, especially the kind of large-scale change being proposed with onesize-fits-all, area-wide planning. People move into particular neighbourhoods, often investing in property, because they love their unique qualities. Naturally, they will resist planning changes that will wipe that out and they resent politicians who do it to them. They may also be concerned that their property value — for most people, their most significant investment — will be harmed by city-imposed change.

Such concerns are real and council needs to tread carefully and thoughtfully with its Broadway plans. The project can be a win for Vancouver, but only if council and city staff listen to everyone, consider what residents have to say, and incorporate their views. Only then will city hall be properly serving the public interest.