Business in Vancouver's series on where municipal politicians stand on business and economic issues continues with an interview with Adriane Carr. Carr is a current Vancouver city councillor, running for re-election with the Green Party.
Read our previous interviews with the leaders of Vision Vancouver, the Non-Partisan Association (NPA) and the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE).
BIV: When you talk to businesses, what is the biggest concern you’ve been hearing?
AC: Affordable housing. That’s what they say. I’ve talked to so many employers, people who run businesses, who say they can’t keep their employees because of a lack of affordability in this city. They get young grads, they train them, they’re fabulous, they’re bright, they get married and they decide to leave Vancouver because they can’t afford a home here and raise a family. That is tragic. I think Vision’s done a lousy job on affordable housing. They spin numbers that are based on a definition of affordability that’s completely out of whack with reality.
BIV: Your platform specifically mentions supporting small business, but one of the things we’ve been hearing for years is that incomes in Vancouver tend to be lower than in other Canadian cities. Attracting larger business to the city would seem to be important in addressing that wage gap. Do you think focusing on small businesses is going to be enough?
AC: It’s not enough, but it’s the first place that efforts should be made because many of those small businesses have been long-term businesses in Vancouver, and attracting new business is of course important but it should not be at the expense of focusing effort on those long-time small businesses.
I do think we need to attract a greater range of businesses … particularly in the manufacturing sector.
We have not been a manufacturing city for some time … I talk to people in construction, in the trades. We’ve set a goal by 2020 to have zero net emission houses. We’re never going to get there. Vision simply hasn’t done enough practical measures in order for us in five years to achieve that. … The standard for carbon-neutral buildings is the passive house, which is well-used in Europe, and it’s an incredibly efficient form of housing, but it also includes energy production so it’s zero net. … People have said to me, ‘why aren’t we transitioning more rapidly toward that because it’s needed?’ … We should be developing a manufacturing sector right now that looks to produce the components of passive house: the wall segments and windows that are needed. It’s very hard to get hold of them. People here in the building trades have told me it’s feasible for that to be an avenue where we could excel.
BIV: When you’re talking about setting up a manufacturing centre, you’d think it would gravitate toward Surrey or Burnaby where land costs are cheaper. How involved could a city government be in setting something like that up?
AC: We can only attract … we can’t do anything but provide the taxation base to attract industry to locate here, and we do have a fairly competitive taxation system. We’re not out of line with other municipalities, but we could do more, and I think it’s important to attract to our industrial land base more manufacturing. It’s critical in diversifying our economy … [to] create resilience and sustainability.
Many citizens have been complaining that there have not been investments in community amenities, so there is overcrowding … if we lose those amenities that give us our quality of life, we’ll lose that … attractiveness in Vancouver in terms of people who would want to locate their businesses here.
BIV: A lot of developers and residents complain about how the community amenity contributions (CACs) system is run. Do think there needs to be changes made?
AC: Yes. I think that the system that we’re planning by now is overly focused on spot rezoning. Spot rezoning is no way to plan. What we need is a new community plan, and we haven’t had a comprehensive official development plan since 1928. There was a start made with the CityPlan process of a decade and a half ago. It was a good plan, it engaged citizens, it led to some very exciting local area plans which are still in place … but it was never completed, and it never changed the zoning map. I think we need to kick-start a revamped city plan process … and in the end have a city-wide zoning map that would supplant the need for piecemeal spot rezoning.
Spot rezoning and CACs go hand in hand. The process of offering increased density in exchange for amenities is fraught with problems. There is no level playing field. Developers have said to me many times that they are frustrated by the negotiation process, which tends to drag on, and tends to lead to some pretty hefty price tags which inevitably end up driving the cost up for housing. I believe that process spurs on speculation because there’s this feeling amongst investors and among those who hold property that it could end up being developed at a much higher density, no matter what the current zoning is or what the current community plan says.
BIV: Let’s talk about transportation. Your plan for the Broadway Corridor is a bit different from what Vision or the NPA have been pushing for.
AC: It really is very annoying and frustrating that there doesn’t seem to be a lot of transparency on the part of Vision on the costs associated with and the form of development that would be spurred on by the Broadway subway. In the Mayor’s Council plan for transportation over the next 10 years they have highlighted a Broadway subway, but that is only to Arbutus, and beyond Arbutus it’s surface B-line or bus rapid transit. The language in that MC plan is very ambiguous … and to me it points to the fact that even going underground from VCC Clark to Arbutus is not the standard approach that the whole region and Metro Vancouver would pursue, and therefore Vancouver’s on the hook for paying the incremental costs of going underground. That’s not getting talked about.
The building of any rapid transit west of Arbutus, it’s not being discussed as to the cost … and what it would mean for the form of development. All of the plans I’ve read … there are two really statements of intent. One is that investment in rapid transit would be only considered if a municipality provides the zoning that would provide high density development. And I can tell you the people who live west of Arbutus, who live in the neighbourhoods of Kitsilano west to Point Grey, are worried about that and that public discussion is not happening.
BIV: So do you support a subway along Broadway? Or would you like to see other options considered?
AC: Our party would put what I’ve just described … to the public because that needs to happen. … If you asked me and the Green Party what we might favour … it makes sense to us to take our scarce dollars from TransLink in transit development and apply them to a more fulsome system city-wide that would provide north-south east-west links that would serve every neighbourhood better. That would include new routes, electric trolleys on routes, upgrading the system in terms of efficiency … and would expand opportunities for growth and development far more than a $3 billion route that’s focused on one corridor.
BIV: I think most people would guess that, like Vision Vancouver, you’re against fossil-fuel-extraction industries. Where do you differ from Vision?
AC: The Green Party of Vancouver doesn’t believe that the expansion of the Kinder Morgan pipeline and increased tankers in our harbour is the right way to go because of the commitment we have to do everything possible to mitigate global warming and the threat of a spill is a threat to the city’s current economy, mainly tourism.
B.C. is well-known as a timber province. We think that it is so much smarter to develop in terms of housing a priority on three- or four-storey wood-frame apartment houses that would be cheaper to construct. We’ve seen input from the developer sector that ranges from 25% to 35% less expensive. But at the same time we would be encouraging the use of a product which is home grown. There’s a thinking process there that is about reducing costs of construction, because affordability isn’t just about government subsidy.
The focus on resource sector yay or nay misses the point that the vibrancy of Vancouver’s economy has to do with the whole range of very diverse sectors. Sustainability is all about diversity. I look to the fact that we’ve got a very strong tourism industry. … I look at the education sector, downtown I think there are more jobs in teaching English as a second language, and [it’s important to make] sure that sector is well-supported in terms of housing. We should be looking to the arts and culture sector — that sector is highly undervalued by too many people as a real economic driver.
