Development and finances dominated a feisty debate between candidates for District of North Vancouver council in the Seymour area Monday night.
The recently completed official community plan and the issue of density factored heavily in the debate between 12 council hopefuls and two candidates for mayor in front of about 250 residents at Mount Seymour United Church, but so did tax increases, amalgamation, traffic, transit and a myriad of local concerns.
Candidates answered questions directed at them by the area's community associations, who sponsored the debate, as well as area residents.
That the debate was held in the shadow of a new seniors' high rise building under construction on Mount Seymour Parkway, which received new zoning and an OCP amendment from the previous council, was not lost on several of the candidates.
Council hopeful Howard Dahl opened the debate by arguing council should be more careful in amending the OCP.
"The OCPs should mean something, they should have some teeth and they should be followed, and it should be very difficult to change them when they are set down," said Dahl.
Council candidate Wendy Qureshi strongly questioned the density in the newly completed official community plan, asking why a referendum was not done, but incumbent councillors backed up the plan, especially Mayor Richard Walton.
"My campaign platform is our official community plan. I think many of the people in this room were actually involved in it," he said.
Candidate John Gilmour, president of the Lynn Valley Community Association said density and a variety of housing types is important for affordable housing, and said he supported development from townhouses to apartments to highrises in the town centre areas of the district.
"When you have a lot of diversity like that you're going to get some smaller units that are going to be affordable for first-time buyers, young people or kids who are at high school, college or university now."
Holly Back, currently a school trustee but running for council, touted a plan for affordable housing that would use surplus land from the school district to build units.
"We have 12 schools that are going to be closed over the next 10 years so there is lots of surplus land coming available," she said, arguing the school district could lease the land for development without selling it, retaining it for future use by the school district. "Leasing the land means housing is more affordable, you're not paying for the (land)."
Council candidate Austin Park, an SFU student, said council should lower barriers and fees for new development.
"We have to give them incentives," he said.
Qureshi argued the district needed to protect rentals by crafting a bylaw that required developers rebuild any rental suites lost to demolition and redevelopment. "There must be something in place where if a rental unit is destroyed and condos are built, that for every one that's taken away it has to be replaced," she said.
At the same time, she said market condominiums and density wouldn't solve affordability.
Mayoralty candidate Margie Goodman was asked early on why she was running but telling people not to vote for her, and said she had successfully raised a number of issues, in particular amalgamation, while running a campaign for only the cost of a pack of Post-it notes.
"(Amalgamation) wasn't an issue prior to this election and some of the candidates now have come out in favour of amalgamation," she said, adding she didn't think it was right that the mayor get in by acclamation.
Council incumbent Lisa Muri, however, took exception to the suggestion that amalgamation wasn't on the radar of the current council, arguing forcefully for joining North Vancouver district as far as Lions Bay and Bowen Island.
"We are over-politicized; we have too much senior administration," she said.
Amalgamation was brought up repeatedly as a solution to the pressure to increase taxes, as was combining services such as fire departments.
The issue of finances got more heated when candidates were questioned on a recent report by the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses that singled out the District of North Vancouver for overspending.
Incumbent Mike Little countered that the district had worked to contain costs already.
"The last two budgets, we've reduced 25 full-time positions and we have commitments to move forward with further cuts. I think we can make some significant administrative savings in the next budget," he said, and was backed up by Roger Bassam, also an incumbent, who noted the tax increase in the last council dropped from 4.5 per cent in their first year of office to three per cent last year.
Doug MacKay-Dunn said the district should focus on "core services, not frills," but incumbent Alan Nixon disagreed.
"Your money is invested in those amenities that make this probably one of the best communities in the entire country to live in, and I don't want to lose those all in the name of fiscal prudence," he said, arguing the district could find savings by freezing staff wages.
Candidates, including incumbent Robin Hicks, said much of the increase on local taxpayers comes from the regional district and TransLink, but Hicks still defended the district's place in Metro Vancouver, saying instead the organizations needed to be reworked.
"In those two cases the majority of government is run by staff," he said.
Former firefighter Kevin Macauley said traffic should be better factored into development proposals, especially in Seymour.
MacKay-Dunn, however, said the best solution was better transit: "If transit was dependable here and frequent, it would cut down the traffic.
"Any development needs to be considerate of the infrastructure impacts and the long-term impacts of it," he said, referencing the "bottleneck" entering Seymour.
While it didn't come up in the debate, incumbent Bassam said in his closing statements that the William Griffin rec centre rebuild is an important issue for him.
"That's going to be an expensive project but one where it will benefit the entire community - but one where the entire community has to be engaged," he said.
Voting day is this Saturday, Nov. 19. Check www.dnv.org and click on the Vote 2011 link for more information.
