Adolescence, for a regional plan, is a death watch.
And so the revered Livable Region Strategic Plan (LRSP) of 1996, an unsung tribute to Gordon Campbell’s municipal leadership, is coming to an end. The intent will still live on – Protect the Green Zone; Build Complete Communities; Achieve a Compact Metropolitan Region; Increase Transportation Choice – along with a new goal, a first, to “support a sustainable economy.”
This is the final week of public hearings for the new strategic growth plan, now in its third draft. Municipalities, regional staff and stakeholders have been wrestling for two-and- a-half years and have finally achieved a watered-down consensus.
Metro Vancouver says we have enough land zoned residential and commercial to take care of the next wave of 1.2 million residents and, hopefully, 600,000 jobs, even with 72% of the region locked into the green zone. But industrial land has been shrinking, so, like agricultural and green-zone land, it is now deemed to be of “regional significance.” That means that any municipality that wants to get land out of an industrial zone needs to get the approval of the Metro Vancouver board. Metro Vancouver’s initial efforts to protect industrial land raised a lot of hackles. While the port still wants more protection, the development industry wanted to let the market have a stronger say, and the municipalities wanted the freedom to flex boundaries. As a result, the plan now breaks up what used to be “urban” lands into industrial, mixed employment, general urban and rural (as in rural residential, also known as “rural sprawl”).
Everyone cringed at the initial draft’s proposal for many more red- tape-bundled approvals by the region to prevent municipalities from taking dysfunctional shortcuts to new tax revenue. The latest draft reduces the number of zoning changes needing regional approval. It also proposes a simple majority (formerly two-thirds) approval for most that do and adds that new “mixed employment” category on what used to be exclusively industrial land – think data processing and, yes, big-box retail, versus the traditional industrial land functions of production, distribution and repair. This will open up more commercial-style development in industrial lands around rapid transit stations, helping TransLink to one day cash in on bigger real estate developments around new stations.
The new plan is much more specific about defining urban centres and frequent transit development areas as it struggles to ensure dense residential development and “major trip generating” land uses are in areas well served by public transit.
Transit priorities in the plan put the Evergreen Line first, then south of the Fraser improvements, then a UBC line. TransLink has a lot of power for an unelected board: it will be able to veto amendments that aren’t consistent with its plans.
One contentious designation added to keep municipalities happy – and making agricultural land advocates unhappy – is “special study areas.” These include seven municipally chosen agricultural properties in the agricultural land reserve (ALR) coveted for other uses – including the Garden City lands in Richmond and undeveloped land in Aldergrove. The Agricultural Land Commission has made it clear that it will still have the ultimate say over the use of these lands, as well as some ALR land that has been slipped inside urban containment boundaries.
Once this plan is approved by all the Metro Van municipalities, the Tsawwassen First Nation and TransLink, each municipality will have two years to come up with “regional context statements” showing that their official community plans are “generally consistent” with the regional growth strategy goals – and with TransLink and provincial plans. If they’re not, the regional board can reject them.
This plan may well achieve its noble goals even with its dulled teeth. Much will depend on the willingness of municipal councils to resist the paybacks from big-buck residential and commercial developments that push industrial and agricultural responsibilities onto other municipalities.
Don’t bet on that willingness.