Monday, 10 December 2012

Onni #5 Onni's Empire Strikes Back

The Onni official statement that they made in a letter to Council was a lie. They stated they were pulling out in 48 - 72 hours over six days ago. Instead Onni launched a full out offensive on Councillor Clark claiming a conflict of interest as Clark works for a cement company which is contracted on another Onni site since May 2012.

Ignoring the absurdity of the concept that Clark strongly opposed the Onni project was motivated as he could financially gain from Onni. From the work on a building he voted not to occur? When our citizens pointed this out on Twitter, websites, letters to the editor and many other ways, Onni came out with another story. Clark might have had a negative incident while working on a Onni site and became so bitter that he opposed Onni in a fit of revenge.

I think I saw this on an episode of South Park where Cartman makes outrageous statements in the form of a question as to avoid any legal action. Onni, are you still beating your wife? Pathetic.

Onni makes public noises that their public reputation is important to them and are quite distraught that people are questioning their honesty and conduct. How do people who read all the articles where Onni made a strong definitive promise one day and breaking it shortly after, think of Onni now?

The motion to hold a second public hearing is in force unless Councillor Bell again folds to the heavy pressure that the Mayor is bring down on him. Citizens will give their opinion of whether Onni should be trusted during this public hearing. It will be more negative then last time. I hope Onni's gentle demeanor can handle it, their reps may run out the room crying this time.

Really, this is the first blows of the next election where Clark and Mussatto will go head to head for the Mayor's chair. I wonder if Onni is smart enough to realize that their election donations actually diminish the chance of their projects being approved?

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By going to http://www.cknw.com/news/audiovault/index.aspx and putting in the time indicated for the one story you want you will get the actual broadcast.

CKNW Story Dec 10th 1pm 0.28

Mayor Mussatto 10 Dec 1pm 6.03 Mussatto lies says vote went against Onni when Council just passed a motion to have another public hearing in January. This motion is still active and if the applicaton

Onni VP Beau Jarvis 10 Dec 1pm 19:30 Jarvis surmises that Clark might of had a negative incident on Onni site that causes him to seek revenge on Onni

Wednesday, 5 December 2012

Onni #4 A New Hope (Onni states application is withdrawn)

For those who are unclear on how Council has worked for years to rig the development approval game for developers when they bring their monster projects to Council, the below Twitter exchange exchange clarifies it.

Since Council has made a density bonus part of the OCP it's unlimited use is not part of the OCP limits on density. So you can a have a project density 2 or 3 times what is allowed by the OCP since most of it doesn't get officially counted. The developer can slide projects out the public view if they can stick to the height limits. We are lucky that Onni needed the extra profits so badly that the 18 story limit wasn't good enough for them or we'd be in Extra Foods situation.

This is like putting a tall building on a platform on a six story platform but only counting the floors above the platform as the height of the tall building. Next we will see a rule that every floor over 12 is not officially counted so every 50 floor building is actually only counted as 12.

This whole zone (Lonsdale downtown) should be limited to 12 floors which counts all floors.

During the current OCP review, rules on density bonusing and transfers have to put in place to prevent games like this. Councillors have every right to vote against or amend sections of the proposed new OCP and if a Councillor votes to ratify the new OCP, they should be held accountable for what they are approving. A former Council let this through and it could be amended with four votes.

Ron Polly has a letter in the North Shore which calls for rules to put in place which would increase the return the City gets for increased density. It's a good starting point for discussion but there has a be a line drawn that cannot be crossed.

Sunday, 2 December 2012

Court forced CNV out of Federal jurisdiction

It's Toronto for the moment but an Ontario court has struck down a bylaw of Toronto banning shark sin soup.

As the article points out, North Van has this bylaw as well. While we don't have the extent of the problem of the big cities, far too many Councillors in Canada want to do the job of their MLA or MP usually when they are of a different party than that person.

The media spotlight that politicians crave doesn't shine on the job of fixing our roads and sewers and the grandstand awaits. When you have a Councillor who is running to abandon his Council seat, grandstanding becomes a regular occurrence at the expense of the City.

Of course, since the way they have encroached federal jurisdiction and the Council has put the City at risk as businesses may sue.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/1296372--toronto-councillors-outraged-after-shark-fin-ban-struck-down

A column by Trevor Lautens in July just after the passage of the bylaw.

http://www.nsnews.com/news/soup+regime+puts+democracy+shame/6963034/story.html

Kudos to Councillors Bookham and Heywood for voting against this.

Personally, I think it is wrong if the whole shark is not being used for food but the cutting off of fins and tossing a body overboard is wrong. I did notice in the Star article that they had a picture from San Francisco and one from Dubai so I doubt there is a big problem in Canada. But of course, Councillor Keating got he wanted, his name in the papers and a few TV clips.

Monday, 20 August 2012

A good article on growth

Growth is a choice, not our destiny

Vancouver can lead the way by bending the population curve

BY GORDON GIBSON, VANCOUVER SUN AUGUST 13, 2012

The currently received wisdom is that Vancouver should be the greenest place on earth. Very good. Hold that thought. But then dig further and consider real green leadership.

The underlying motive from this point of view is the limitation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It goes without saying, though it is hardly ever said because it is so politically incorrect, that the basic driver of human-caused greenhouse gases is the number of people.

Fewer people, less gas. More people, more gas.

In particular, more people in the developed world means way more gas because of our higher standard of living. Each new resident of Vancouver is going to use a lot more carbon than a new resident of China or Egypt.

The United Nations says that the world population is going to grow another 50 per cent before peaking out (maybe) at nine billion. Any way you slice it, that is going to mean a lot more greenhouse gas. It is obvious: a way needs to be found to deal with population growth.

Now, most of this population growth is not coming in the developed world. Europe and Japan are actually shrinking in natural growth and the United States is barely holding its own. The less developed world is exploding both in numbers and in carbon use per capita. There is where the real greenhouse challenge lies. Our little Canadian contribution is hardly even a rounding error.

There is a real exception to the growth patterns of the developed world and it is right here in Metro Vancouver. Our high-carbon population is growing very quickly. Is this a "green" contribution to the world? Hardly.

Add up all of the above and it is as simple as this: We are going to have find ways to change the fundamental growth assumption of recent civilization and invent a viable path to an economically and culturally sustain-able steady state world. Why shouldn't Vancouver do that?

Inventing a "soft landing" response to growth cannot be done in shrinking Japan, or Sweden or Russia. It is too late. The population changes there pose terrifying challenges, both in financing the care of the old and maintaining the dynamism of the young.

But because we are still on an upward path in Vancouver, we could realistically plan ways to gradually bend the population growth curve down to a steady state over the next few decades without building a demo-graphic time bomb.

Showing that kind of leadership would mean starting now, and it would mean a plan - because it would not happen by itself. Left to current trends, current philosophies, our growth curve will continue rising. And that has serious implications.

Anyone who travels out of Vancouver on the Trans-Canada Highway cannot but be awed by the scale of the work being done on that route. Any-one who watches TransLink agonizing over how to finance the response to growth has to worry. Anyone looking at the scale of condominium development in Metro Vancouver has to be astounded. Anyone looking at the recent announcements on new hospital financing and extrapolating to the future has to be some worried. Bending the growth curve down makes financing much, much easier.

However, it also has industrial implications so important that it will have to be done gradually. We are a region hugely dependent upon construction employment. That will need to slowly change as younger workers gravitate to Alberta or to different occupations. But if we plan this well, current tradespeople need not lose.

Most construction work, by definition, is not "steady state." We - the private sector mainly, but incented by governments - are going to have to develop new sorts of production and employment if we truly want such a world.

None of this means challenging the "green" thinking of the current crop of politicians in control of metro city halls. Rather it calls upon them to think much more deeply and much further into the future - bending down that growth curve - if we want to show real leadership.

Who particularly needs that? Not the developed world, which will increasingly be faced either with the unpleasant problems of actual population decline, or such major immigration as to change the shape of their societies and again bump up green-house gas production.

It is the developing world that could use such an example, because - for different reasons than Vancouver - they are early enough on the greenhouse curve that a comfortable bending down of growth remains an option.

It comes down to this: With our municipal control over zoning and density, population growth is a choice, not a destiny. It is something that we must control, or it will control us. It is time to replace green lite with deep green.

ggibson@bc-home.com Gordon Gibson is a public policy commentator based in Vancouver.

Tuesday, 3 July 2012

Ivan Leonard on the increase of Citizen Engagement

Consider this unique idea folks, a Government with no opposition. Unthinkable? Yes! Yet that is exactly what our City Governments are. What they decide becomes law. The difference being each Councillor is, or should be; free to express his or her own individual independent opinion, where the majority vote counts. With the intrusion of the ‘Slate,’ partisanship has removed a full council of independent voices. But, whereas senior governments face an elected opposition each time an issue is voted upon, Municipal Councils only face the very Citizens that elected them when an opportunity is specifically afforded the public to be heard. While much of that opposition is expounded in letters to the editors or in local coffee shops, there are associations, groups in most neighbourhoods that become the voices of the citizens, and who confront Council as the unofficial opposition.

For instance, The Lonsdale Citizens Association (TLCA) was formed practically overnight, in 1987, by citizens outraged with shock that their ‘City government’ approved 30 towers of 29 storeys to be built in the lower Lonsdale area. The Council backed down in the face of furious opposition from the community. Only one tower managed to be built. The Association maintained an active role from then on. Another momentous occasion occurred in 2008 when they led community and stopped the “iconic” 450 ft tower from darkening the waterfront and the whole of the Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood.

Associations are kept simmering by a strange breed of citizens that attend Council meetings and have been named Council Watchers. But, when a community feels pressured by Council and becomes aroused, Associations come alive, as is presently happening right now. The communities feel threatened by all the construction and density erupting around them, so the Council Watchers suddenly become activists, educators and protectors of their communities. Recently the Low Road Project alarmed the community to such an extent that the project was delayed by two years and almost redesigned. Without the formation of a well organized community Association one can only wonder what the new road would have done to the neighbourhood.

The largest project yet to come before our City government came before Council Monday night, June 18th. The North Shore News had headlined a letter to the editor days earlier “Mega Project needs Mega Opposition”. Without these Council Watchers cum Activists informing the communities and lighting the torch of action, Council would have just approved the developer’s request, and no one would have been aware of any of the issues the City will face when 2000 more people become residents of our little city, all the result of just a single vote of yeas and nays. No one would have known how the councillors voted. That is often the reason why the same names end up in the Council seats election after election.

Councillors are constantly confronted with projects where the developer has attached councillor’s pet ideas forcing discussions to focus on minor incidentals and ignoring the greater needs of the community. Associations will aggressively refocus the discussions to the citizen’s point of view where livability is their major concern.

Citizens face new buildings blocking their view, casting shadows across living rooms at midday and vehicles plugging their street. They suddenly notice it’s taking half an hour longer to get home, construction slowing more and more traffic and their favourite store is gone or their quiet green space isn’t quiet any more. They face the realization that their mortgage is only half paid while their view is also half gone and their taxes keep going up. The next rent increase will mean having to find a cheaper place to live.

Because these Council Watchers helped to keep the Associations members informed, last Monday’s Council meeting was held before a packed Council Chamber and a full lobby. The Public Hearing of the Harbourside project lasted over 4 hours with more than 30 well prepared and knowledgeable speakers presenting many important and unresolved issues, offering sound opinions in opposition to the project.

As in all governments, some members will respond to citizens documented and informed opinions, while others will reject them. Such was the case in this instance. The opposition was defeated 5-2. This was the vote they had expected. But whereas the Chambers would have been empty without the opposition, the Citizens are now fully aware of all the issues and how the Councillors voted. They now feel connected with a greater awareness of their own Community and the thinking of their City Council. What was most enlightening was that the Council Chambers were still half full of citizens when the vote was taken at 11:15 p.m.

The Mega Project did receive a Mega Opposition. Sadly, the decision was made long before the doors ever opened.

Ivan Leonard

North Van Council Watch

Voter Media