The following is part of the June 10 delegation presentation to City of North Vancouver council by Fred Dawkins and Marc Pederson on behalf of North Van City Voices.
WE wish to comment on the City Shaping process for gathering community input into the new official community plan.
We have had misgivings about the City Shaping process since the kickoff event in February 2012. In fact, that was the catalyst that led to our group coming together.
It appeared to many of us that the process was being stage-managed to achieve a predetermined goal: legitimizing this council's drive to accelerate the densification of North Vancouver.
Throughout the public consultation, ever-increasing density has been presented as the solution to every challenge. People want green transportation? Build more density and transit will surely follow, never mind TransLink's ongoing fiscal challenges. We want housing affordability?
Build more density and the increased supply will supposedly keep prices down - even though we've seen the reverse happening elsewhere in the Lower Mainland. A more vibrant street scene? More density means more people strolling the streets. Economic development? More density with stores on the ground floor. And so on.
Citizens were encouraged to participate in the process.
But the discussions have been framed and channelled by the assumption that big density is inevitable. We've been told, in effect, "Let's assume we have to add x number of new units: Where do you think they should go?" At no time were we asked, "How fast should we grow?" Or, "How big is big enough?"
The last City Shaping public event in May was billed as an interactive event that would provide an opportunity to discuss the various scenarios that staff have developed to this point. But there was no public discussion, only a display of information boards. Attempts to have an open Q & A were discouraged by staff.
The information on the boards, which was presented as reflecting back what residents have been saying during the process, was open-ended and aspirational - residents want more green space, more cultural hubs, safe streets, housing our kids can afford, jobs close to where we live - but there has been no discussion of trade-offs or hard choices. The City Shaping information treats all of these aspirations as equally desirable, and equally attainable. The only category that showed specific targets was, of course, housing density and where to put it.
The apparent bias in favour of densification, combined with this council's philosophy on leveraging density bonusing to achieve social objectives, and its
recent track record for approving almost every request to override the limits of the existing OCP - by our count, 15 times over the past couple of years - leaves us concerned that our community is being pushed in a direction that most residents would not support if they were ever asked directly.
City Shaping was essentially a large focus group - it gathered the breadth of opinion. However, there is nothing quantitative or scientific that city staff can point to. No cost/benefit exercises were conducted with the public. The public preferences detailed in the staff's report are based on a very small sampling, and are therefore questionable as a guide to what residents want.
It is our contention that the assumptions about growth that have been driving the City Shaping process are fundamentally flawed and unjustified. They are alleged to be dictated by Metro's Regional Growth Strategy, yet they go way beyond the stated RGS targets.
At the outset of City Shaping we were told that the RGS growth targets are what the city has committed to meeting, and the OCP had to reflect that. City Voices then came back to council and pointed out that, according to the most recent census data and the development projects that are currently planned or approved, we are already close to that 2031 RGS target of 28,000 dwellings and 62,000 in population. Add in the growth of coach houses and secondary suites, which staff don't include in their numbers, and we might already be there.
Now staff appear to be trying to add some wriggle room. They are calling those RGS projections "minimums," and suggest we should exceed them. They have suggested that instead of assuming 2.1 or 2.2 residents per housing unit, as the projections now do, we should plan on 1.8 or even 1.6 per unit, which of course would allow for a lot more units to be built. Now they're saying we need a 20 per cent buffer on top of the targeted growth to make sure we're never caught short of capacity. Why such a buffer is needed, and how it will work in practice, never came up in any public forum.
We have to ask, why? What is the justification for these assumptions? How will North Vancouver be a better place to live by increasing the population so quickly over the next 20 years?
What's wrong with steady growth at a pace we can accommodate, in terms of the increases in services, amenities and infrastructure that we'll need? We're not confident that this council's eagerness to approve more condo developments is matched by TransLink's willingness to increase transit service, or the provincial government's willingness to expand our only hospital. Where will our new parks come from? How long before we get a new recreation centre to serve our aging population?
To sum up, we believe the City Shaping process has been biased in favour of rapid densification. We recognize that the city will grow. But we believe the growth targets and assumptions used by staff are overstated and unjustified. We believe the people of North Vancouver want growth to be at a pace that allows amenities and services to keep up so that the quality of life that attracted us to this place will be maintained, and it will still be a great place to live in 2031.
Some questions we would like staff to answer: ? Are Squamish First Nation developments included in the OCP population growth targets and assumptions? We have heard they are not, yet the RGS states that "all municipal totals" include First Nations communities within their boundaries. Please clarify how you are figuring Squamish developments and population growth in your projections.
? Have there been any traffic studies covering all of North Vancouver - including the district - that examine the traffic impact of the projected population growth under various transit scenarios, including the possibility of little or no increase in transit service? If not, are any such studies contemplated?
? In suggesting a 20 per cent "capacity buffer," has staff looked at what other municipalities are doing in this regard? Who else has a similar buffer built into their plans? Is 20 per cent a standard?
? Will there be an opportunity for residents to provide their input into the development of the city's "regional context statement?"
