Gordon Price: Vancouverism should cut both ways for city, Squamish Nation
Credit to Author: Hardip Johal| Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2019 02:00:55 +0000
Earlier this month, Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart referred to the Squamish Burrard Bridge project known as Senakw as “a real gift to the city.”
He promised: “Everything we can do to make this project be successful is at the top of my list.”
The mayor might want to be careful how he characterizes Senakw. If this is a gift to the city, he should be prepared to expect, if not welcome, other proponents who will come bearing gifts for similar considerations.
From Expo 86 to the 2010 Olympics, the city has seen almost a dozen mega projects appear on the skyline — developer-driven, comprehensively designed and built, beginning with Concord Pacific in the late ’80s. All through the ’90s, mega projects sprouted — from Coal Harbour to Collingwood Village to Fraser Lands.
They all had to meet standards for complete communities, based originally on what the city had learned from the development of the South Shore of False Creek, followed by Granville Island.
We now call it Vancouverism. If a developer came to the city with a mega-project proposal, they were expected to come with a plan that met the council-approved mega-project standards.
The city extracted huge wealth from the value it created through those zonings and approvals: lots of parkland and seawall extensions, in addition to the basic infrastructure — pipes, cables and roads. As well: social amenities and necessities — a school, a community centre, child care as a priority; housing percents for families with children, for social equity. There were design standards: for cycling, for sustainability, for the arts. And more. That’s what we meant by “complete communities” — and you can go walk around in the results.
The site of proposed apartments beside the Burrard Bridge.
Developers paid for all this through direct provision of the benefits, like a child-care centre, or through “contributions” — those CACs (community benefit contributions) you hear about without quite understanding how they work.
In the case of Senakw, it could be the other way around.
Ginger Gosnell-Myers, Vancouver’s first aboriginal relations manager, said Senakw will give future Vancouverites the chance to live in the city and it’s up to the city to respond to concerns about infrastructure and capacity.
Stewart says he is up to the challenge, including working with the park board, the school board and the province to ensure community services are available when the neighbourhood’s new residents arrive.
At 10,000 to 12,000 residents, there is no way Senakw could meet some of the established standards. Concord Pacific, for instance, had to provide 2.75 acres of park for every thousand residents. Senakw would need more than twice the area of its entire 11-acre site to meet such a requirement.
The design for Senakw incorporates the areas beneath the bridge.
While it’s not yet clear what Senakw will provide, it isn’t obligated. Nor is it clear, or even negotiated, but the city looks like it’s committing itself to providing significant amenities and necessities — accepting density and paying for impacts.
So if the development itself — the thousands of market-rental apartments — is the gift, then why would the city not be open to receiving more gifts from other developers? Yes, Senakw is unique given its status as a reserve, so developers wouldn’t expect the same deal. They’d just expect the amenity bar to be lowered.
How the relationship develops and negotiations occur is what reconciliation is seriously about — a relationship based on mutual interests levered for maximum value. One of the values of the city is the building of complete communities. Squamish would point to their own history for examples. It shouldn’t be hard to come to a consensus.
Squamish has an interest in a successful development in every respect. The city has to demonstrate respect. Together, they’re negotiating our collective interests.
This is the reality of reconciliation. It’s not about gifts, or reparations. It’s about building the latest version of a complete community, together.
Gordon Price is a fellow with the SFU Centre for Dialogue and a former City of Vancouver councillor.
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