Part 2: Written answers to questions from DNV Mayor and Council Candidates

 

This post offers written answers to the remaining five questions from the Delbrook Community Association to District of North Vancouver Mayor and Council candidates. Wednesday we provided answers to the first four questions that can be found here:

https://delbrookca.wordpress.com/2018/10/11/written-answers-from-dnv-mayor-and-council-candidates-part-1/

While some of these questions were similar to those asked at our All Candidates Meeting on October 4th, several are new. We did not have time at the meeting to ask 22 candidates nine questions.

We felt we had a very good response to the questions however we did not receive a response from mayoralty candidate Dennis Maskell. We also did not receive response for council candidates Carleen Thomas, Sameer Parekh, John Harvey, Betty Forbes or Mitchell Baker. We realize how busy these candidates are and are grateful to the people who found time to respond.

Mayoral candidate Ash Amlani submitted her answers late and we were not able to include them in the earlier published first four questions. Her answers to the last five questions are included here.

In this blog post, we are posting answers to the last five questions dealing with demovictions, a moratorium on development, traffic, small business and the candidates’ vision for North Vancouver.

Today’s Questions are:

Would you oppose “renovictions” or “demovictions” which permitted new developments that forced existing residents out of the area? 

Answers (Press hotlink below)

5 – Demovictions

Would you support a moratorium on major developments until such time as a review of the OCP had taken place focusing on both housing and transportation and which focused on consultations with residents and community associations? 

Answers (Press hotlink below)

6 – Moratorium

Would you instruct the RCMP to commit more resources to traffic enforcement, particularly speeding enforcement, on streets such as Delbrook Avenue?

Answers (Press hotlink below)

7 – traffic

Some major developments in the District have caused financial hardship to local small businesses. Would you support measures to compensate these businesses for proven loss of revenue due to the projects?

Answers (press hotlink below)

8 – Small Business

What is your vision for the District of North Vancouver.  What is the municipality that you would like to leave behind? 

Answers (Press hotlink below)

9 – vision

If you are interested in watching the video from our all candidates meeting On October 4th you can find it here: https://delbrookca.wordpress.com/2018/10/07/watch-first-north-van-district-all-candidates-meeting-in-video/

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Delbrook CA questions for DNV candidates

The Delbrook Community Association has sent a list of questions to candidates for mayor and council for the District of North Vancouver. While some of these questions are general in nature, several are specific to our own part of the District.

The questions are listed below, and we hope to post the responses on this page beginning the week of October 9^th. We have sent the questions to all of the candidates who provided email addresses on the district web page https://www.dnv.org/our-government/candidate-profiles-and-contact-details as of September 26^th.

The DCA went through a similar process for the 2014 election and posted the results here https://delbrookca.wordpress.com/2014/11/ . There were several separate articles dealing with different questions relating to traffic, child care, parks, local government transparency, and, yes even back in 2014, the Delbrook Recreation Centre and the need to engage the public.

The DCA is not the only group with questions for the candidates. The North Vancouver Community Association Network (NVCAN) (nvcan.ca) also has a list of 13 questions here http://nvcan.ca/wordpress1/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Questions-for-All-Candidates-2018.pdf. They too will be making the answers public.

Here are the DCA’s nine questions.

1. What is the single most important issue facing the DNV, and what do you intend to do about it if elected?
2. In 2016 the single largest priority for participants in the Delbrook Dialogue, both Delbrook residents and residents of the larger community, was for park space on the Delbrook site. Since that time, more than two years later, Council has taken no action on the park other than promising to “discuss” it as part of the 2019 Budget process. If elected, will you commit to making a park on the Delbrook site an immediate priority for Council?
3. The Delbrook Community Association and individual members of our community have found DNV staff and Council either do not respond to correspondence at all or only respond after many months. We find this disrespectful and lacking in accountability. What would you do to deal with this issue?
4. Some local governments, such as Nanaimo, have a policy of regularly publishing the full contents of in-camera meeting minutes only redacting specific issues still needing redaction. Minutes of these issues are added to the published minutes as quickly as possible. Do you believe the DNV should follow this practice?
5. Would you oppose “renovictions” or “demovictions” which permitted new developments that forced existing residents out of the area?
6. Would you support a moratorium on major developments until such time as a review of the OCP had taken place focusing on both housing and transportation and which focused on consultations with residents and community associations?
7. Would you instruct the RCMP to commit more resources to traffic enforcement, particularly speeding enforcement, on streets such as Delbrook Avenue?
8. Some major developments in the District have caused financial hardship to local small businesses. Would you support measures to compensate these businesses for proven loss of revenue due to the projects?
9. What is your vision for the District of North Vancouver.  What is the municipality that you would like to leave behind?

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Delbrook Decision Delayed

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The decision process on the Delbrook Lands project has been delayed following the adjournment of the public hearing at District of North Vancouver on Tuesday, September 18^th.

A nearly full gallery listened to 25 speakers give their opinions on the project. The promise of adult daycare and respite services on the first floor of the building received nearly unanimous support and appears to be something the community would be proud to be a home for.

Only three presenters, all from the North Shore’s Community Housing Action Committee, offered full support for the planned six storey building which will also include one floor of ground level parking and four floors of apartments.

The remainder of speakers focused on concerns such as that the height and mass of the building which was described as too large for the neighbourhood and an inappropriate precedent for more buildings along Queen’s Road. Other issues included the lack of parking spaces and the fact less than 30 per cent of units would be for families with children despite the presence of six schools within walking distance. The District proposes to slash parking requirements for the building by 45 per cent. Speakers argued this would force the glut of parking overflow onto neighboring streets possibly necessitating permit parking.

Speakers also questioned the fact that while the district wide Delbrook Dialogue consultation had focused on park space as the most important priority, nothing whatsoever had been done to achieve this. On Friday, September 14 the DNV distributed a package of frequently asked questions about the project which said, “the draft 2019 budget includes a request to develop a conceptual park plan based upon the preliminary public feedback through the Delbrook Deliberate Dialogue process.” However, the Draft 2019-2023 Financial Plan for the District lists proposed expenditures of only $2000 for capital and $100 for operating costs on a proposed park plan for the site in 2019 and 2020 (https://www.dnv.org/sites/default/files/edocs/Draft-financial-plan-workbook.pdf) 

Speakers also expressed concerns about the process of consultation with the community. The Delbrook Community Association was not even notified when the plan went to first reading at Council on June 25^th.

Three non-incumbent candidates for Council, Peter Teevan, Barry Forward and Betty Forbes, were among the group raising questions about the project.

After hearing the 25 speakers Council debated what to do next. Mayor Walton after consulting with staff said 40 questions had been raised that needed answers. Councillors Bond and Hicks voted to continue with the hearing until everything was complete while Councillors MacKay-Dunn and Muri, supported by Mayor Walton, voted to adjourn the meeting until the questions could be answered. This will mean that the public must once again be notified before the hearing continues, a process that takes two weeks

At this point, it is likely the public hearing will continue after the October 20 election.

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The Delbrook lands strategy laid bare

Perhaps I am a little too suspicious.  Perhaps the District is not so strategic.  Perhaps we should recognize that the District is merely playing a part in a national conversation.

But doesn’t it seem a little more than coincidental that exactly one month before the Delbrook Lands workshop, the District released a survey on affordable housing?  Could this be designed to raise the question of affordability to the top of our consciousness?

Asking if you would like to see more affordable housing in the District is akin to asking if we should keep drunk drivers off the road.  Of course we want more affordable housing!  We want places where young families can afford to raise our grandkids; we want homes so our senior friends can continue to live in our community; we don’t want to lose our neighbours to Langley just because they got a divorce.

The Delbrook Lands questionnaire is bullish on non-market housing, and I expect the facilitators will be too.

The most important factor to consider when evaluating this idea is:

Affordable non-market housing is identified as an important community need in the Official Community Plan

It would provide up to 40 units of lowrise apartments for low- to moderate-income households

The project could not happen without the District contributing land

The site is within walking distance of schools, parks, recreation facilities, and shops, and is located on a public transit corridor

The Province wants to partner with municipalities on affordable housing projects

A rezoning and Official Community Plan amendment would be needed, as the site is not zoned for residential and is not in a town centre

It could not proceed without external funding for capital and operating costs, which is not guaranteed

So there is a real danger that the workshop on Saturday is going to be designed to ride this wave of affordable housing, and the result will be a recommendation for some of the site to be set aside for this use, even though it will not solve the problem at all.

Of course, the only negative factor in the question about affordable housing lays out the next step: we can proceed with non-market housing only if we find capital and operating funds to pay for it.  So, if you want to use a portion of the site for non-market housing, then you will also sign up to develop the rest of the site for market housing.  The sale of the asset will pay the capital cost of construction, and the tax revenue will pay for the operations.

At the end of the day, if the District and developers have their way, we will get half-a-dozen non-market bachelor suites in the basement of a monstrous complex of foreign-owned empty mini-palaces.

I’m sorry, but I had really hoped for more.

Delbrook Dialogue – What About Parks?

Following on the success of last month’s dialogue on public engagement, I hope you will join us for our second one.  This one is about parks, and is once again open to all:

Polishing Parks

7PM, May 29th (Doors open at 6:30)

District Hall, 355 West Queens Road

by donation

As last time, we have invited a panel of engaging speakers to tell us their thoughts and experiences regarding parks.  The panelists will be,

Jack Belhouse
Successful Park Planning & Community Parks and Open Space
“one of the most creative planners in the region,” Jack is the former director of planning for Burnaby, and oversaw a number of green space projects including Barnet Marine Park, the Burnaby Mountain conservation area, Deer Lake Park and Burnaby Lake Regional Park.

Douglas Curran
Using the right tools for the right job: Reclaiming the public realm for the public
Since 2010 Douglas Curran has been a prominent figure within the planning for renewal of Lower Capilano.  With the May 2013 adoption of the Lower Capilano Implementation Plan, Curran has been leading and building context for the community dialogue surrounding the public realm and creating a public space driven by an informed community vision.

Jeff Musson
Inclusive Play for Communities
Jeff is one of the Principal Partners of Habitat Systems, a Burnaby company that encourages the development of healthy communities by selecting park and playground products that are innovative, kind to the environment, and offer superior technologies.  He represents the North Shore and Lower Mainland.

 

Whither Community Associations?

At an in-camera vote this spring, the District of North Vancouver Council cancelled its oversight of the 18 community groups operating in the district. Council’s decision has caused concern among the District’s Community Associations.
In response to this decision, the Federation of North Vancouver Community Associations has established a Task Group of FoNVCA representatives to recommend and implement a process for consulting community associations and the public on what community associations should be.
The Task Group [D. Curran, D. Ellis, S. Hertz, C. Kost] is currently working on a process to fully engage the community associations and the public. More details to follow – stay tuned!

Metro Vancouver Joint Water Use Plan

see the Metro Vancouver website for details and for a feedback form

Tonight I was one of perhaps 100 at the lightly attended public meeting regarding Metro Vancouver’s Draft Joint Water Use Plan for the Capilano and Seymour watersheds. While the process has been under way for 20 months, it seems that we are still quite early in the process. As Capilano is the bigger change, and closer to Delbrook, I’ll concentrate on that watershed.

My understanding is that Metro is planning to seek approval to change its water use license from drinking water only to multiple uses. Primarily they want to add electricity generation to both facilities. Once they get the approval from the province, they would dig in deeper on the consultation process, engineering due diligence and planning.

In the case of Capilano, the generation capacity would be up to 57 GWh, and this would come online in about 2022. That amount is trivial compared to BCHydro’s total energy needs, and there were numerous questions as to the viability of this project, given the small capacity. The anticipated costs are up to $100 Million for construction. This actually sounds small to me, given that what they are proposing is to build a new intake at the surface of the lake, a vertical shaft through the mountain to a new generation facility underground near the foot of the Cleveland Dam.

Somehow, Metro will also find an operator who is willing to take a back seat to drinking water supplies. The speakers were adamant that drinking water will be the top priority. In a year when we have had almost no rain from July through mid-October, and the reservoirs are sitting around 60% full, one wonders just how much power generation we will be able to pull out of the dams if drinking water is the priority.

One of the principle benefits the region is using to sell the idea is that if we even out the flow to 2.3 cubic meters per second, we will not only generate some electricity, we will also maintain a good level for recreational uses, Furthermore, evening out the flow is better for fish. Pulling the intake to the lake surface also means the water will be warmer, making it a better habitat for fish.

One interesting statistic from Mayor Mussatto’s presentation was that water consumption has dropped significantly this year. FRom an average of 2 billion Litres per day last year, we are apparently sitting at 1.56 billion Litres per day this year. I guess all those low-flow toilets are starting to pay off.