Friction between developers and city planning departments remains high given the sharp critiques that the heads of several large development companies voiced about city planners at an Urban Development Institute luncheon January 22.
Aquilini Development Group president David Negrin went as far as to compare developers to lambs and city planners as wolves.
“I know [City of Vancouver general manager of planning and development] Brian Jackson is here,” Negrin said before launching his attack.
“I say this sincerely. I walk into the planning office and it’s like five wolves and a lamb in a room. The wolves turn to the lamb and say, ‘What’s for dinner tonight?’”
Negrin’s main beefs were that it takes too long for proposals to be approved and that the city’s system of community amenity contributions (CACs) is convoluted. His stressed that his concern was not only about the City of Vancouver but also other cities across the region.
“I really believe that there should be just a single CAC,” Negrin said before lengthy applause from the hundreds of development sector insiders in the room.
The City of Vancouver currently tends to take about 75% of the value of any increase in land value after a rezoning provides for more density. That levy, which it calls a CAC, goes to fund social housing, arts and culture space, daycare centres and heritage restoration. The rate varies across the city based on land values.
The City of Vancouver, for example, also charges development cost levies (DCLs), which are fees based on square footage and pays for parks, childcare facilities and social and non-profit housing.
“We feel it’s exactly the opposite, where we’re the lamb and they’re the wolves,” Jackson told BIV.
Developers have teeth, he explained, because the city’s capital plan cannot provide for all of the facilities and services that the city needs to pay for without developer input.
He added that of the 1,400 development applications that the city receives every year, only 3% involve rezoning and hence are subject to CACs.
However, that’s little solace for Negrin.
“The CACs have been a big problem in the approval process,” he said. “It took us almost two years to get through a CAC [negotiation and project approval] at East Second Avenue and Main Street.”
Those delays cost money, he explained, and that extra cost then gets passed onto home owners in the form of higher prices – something that flies in the face of achieving greater housing affordability.
Other developers similarly believe approval processes can take too long in various municipalities.
Polygon Homes president and CEO Neil Chrystal praised the approval process on the University of British Columbia endowment lands because it tends to only take about six months to go from submitting an application to getting approval.
“If you go to any other jurisdiction in the Lower Mainland, my estimate, and I might be wrong, but it’s between 12 months at best and 30 months to get approvals,” Crystal said. “It’s taking way too long.”
Jackson explained that the difference between quick approvals at UBC and delayed approvals in the rest of the city stems largely from the fact that there is more complex integration outside of UBC.
“This is about integration in the urban fabric of a very complex interesting beautiful city that has an extraordinarily high quality of life and we want the development to fit in with that quality of life,” he said. “To do that, it takes time.”
