Dear editor:
Re: District of North Van Strikes Task Force to Address Affordable Housing, April 3 news story.
I applaud District of North Vancouver council for approving a rental, social and affordable housing task force that would include actual people experiencing housing need.
It's time we give folks with lived experience --a diverse array of the demovicted renter, the co-op resident, the student, socially housed, persons with disabilities, the senior, the single parent-- a voice at the council chamber.
A municipal committee such as the one proposed allows that critical conversation to happen. It serves to bring real shared experience into policy and strategy discussion: policies that may look good on paper but when put into practice, fall flat--particularly in light of a changing market and economy. It aims to involve people traditionally left out of the planning process; urbanist and author of "Happy City" Charles Montgomery remarks that "the more that all people are empowered to participate in economic and cultural life, the stronger we all are."
Take the DNV's Relocation Assistance Policy, meant to "soften the blow" on demovicted tenants, but "unenforceable" when put into a real-life rezoning scenario that involved displacement. Reviews of such policies and plans by a task force will help council move forward to ensure low to mid-income renters, vulnerable and the most needy are protected and that adequate, ample, actual affordable housing is finally built for them when they've been neglected for decades.
Despite "years of staff reports and council studies" on affordable housing since 2011, a 4-3 split DNV 2014-2018 council certainly didn't advocate to retain aging affordable purpose-built rental. That recommendation in the 28-point 2016 Rental and Affordable Housing Strategy was blatantly ignored as four voted to demovict 136 families from existing family rental complexes in the town centre of Lynn Valley in return for hundreds of market purchase condominiums.
Rental vacancies were at critically low levels. Infrastructure was so sorely lacking, even the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure expressed concerns at the unfettered pace of development across the district. Nor did that same four have the political will to allocate community amenity contributions negotiated from market developments toward an affordable housing fund--another RAHS recommendation. Four did absolutely nothing for housing diversity and affordability.
A responsible, discerned approach to development is what's needed after years of uncontested approvals of thousands of small, costly condos in towers and six-plus-storey builds in neighbourhoods across the district. With many neighbourhoods, roadways, and businesses suffering development overload, we must find ways to build exactly what the community needs to be a functional, livable municipality.
Our available land is limited - by sea, mountains, urban forests, trickling creeks. Our earth is groaning its warning. Our decisions have to be deliberate, precise, and fully informed, no longer shaped by those seeking profit over people as has clearly been the case since adoption of our official community plan.
Please give the new council a chance.
Together, we can build a balanced, diverse community we can all be proud of; Divided and hostile, we fall, flounder and fail.
Kelly Bond
District of North Vancouver
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