Pie in sky or timely idea?: Debate reflects stance of opposing candidates on financing and city assets
Frances Bula
Sun
CREDIT: Stuart Davis, Vancouver Sun Files Coun. Raymond Louie displays a model of the industrial land to be renewed as part of the redevelopment of the Southeast False Creek lands.
The Non-Partisan Association’s criticism of current plans for Southeast False Creek amounts to telling Vancouverites that they should go to Mission if they want to find affordable housing, says Vision Vancouver.
And the NPA counters that the Coalition of Progressive Electors and Vision Vancouver are sneaking money out of the city’s most valuable asset — its property endowment fund — to pay for its utopian plans for Southeast False Creek instead of asking voters if they want to take on debt.
Those were the heated charges in the past two days over what is likely to be the city’s most ambitious development project for the next 20 years, the 32 hectares of city-owned land that is the last major chunk of developable land near the downtown.
It also clearly defines a major difference between the two parties: One that says the city’s savings fund should not be sunk into city assets without getting a financial return; the other that community facilities are exactly what the city’s savings fund should be used for.
NPA council candidate Colleen Hardwick Nystedt says the the property endowment fund, started in the 1970s by then TEAM mayor Art Phillips and TEAM councillor Walter Hardwick, was meant to be an asset base whose principal was never touched.
Instead, the Vision/COPE council has decided it will put $50 million from the fund into the site to pay for the parks, community centres, child-care centres and affordable housing it wants to see there. It has set out a plan to have the housing on the site be one-third social housing, one-third “affordable” mid-level housing, and one-third market housing.
Unlike any other major project in the city that has been financed with endowment-fund capital, it will not demand a return from that money unless it makes more than $50 million on the development.
“If you want to spend the taxpayers’ money for those kinds of things, you should be putting that to a vote,” said Nystedt, pointing out that voters are typically asked if they agree to take on debt for building community centres or other capital improvements at election time. NPA mayoral candidate Sam Sullivan has said he wants to see the development operate by the same rules as other megaprojects in Vancouver — 80 per cent market housing, 20 per cent social housing.
But Vision Vancouver candidates say they believe city residents deserve to see some of the city’s money invested in the city assets, especially affordable housing.
“This really underlines the choices voters have,” Vision mayoral candidate Jim Green said Monday. “They can go forward to make this the best sustainable community in the world or we can make it an NPA 1990s project.”
Coun. Raymond Louie, who sits in the city’s SEFC steering committee, said the city is not throwing that money away. It’s transferring its assets in the endowment fund to city assets like community centres and parks.
“It’s crucial to our development as a city. Sam Sullivan doesn’t get it — not everyone is a millionaire. They’re saying, ‘If you want to live in affordable housing, try Mission.’ “
But Nystedt claims that is financially unsustainable and shows that her political opponents don’t even understand how market housing works.
“When you build market housing, 50 per cent will be lived in by owners and that’s the high end, but the middle and lower floors in buildings and the units facing the back will be more affordable and those get rented.”
© The Vancouver Sun 2005
