Nine years after discussions first began, on Friday Metro Vancouver Directors finally approved the next iteration of the Liveable Region Strategic Plan, now called a “Regional Growth Strategy” as required by provincial law.
The Regional Growth Strategy (or RGS) has been at public hearing since last November during which time decision-makers were not able to speak to their opinions or correct matters of factual inaccuracy that others may be speaking to publicly. Since I have plenty of the former and there have been several of the latter put out on a website, I thought it was important to be on the record on both.
First, let me say that I have an ambivalent relationship with Metro Vancouver as I have a hard time with the idea of people making decisions that they aren’t directly elected to do. True the appointments to Metro can only be people who are elected to member local governments but personally, I would like to see direct elections to Metro.
Nonetheless, despite my ambivalence, it’s the system we have and I do the best job I can within the provincially mandated structure. It’s not unlike my relationship with city budgeting: I don’t agree that modern cities should be financed by an archaic tax (property tax) but it’s the tool the provincial government has given us and it doesn’t negate the need for me to work hard on the best budget that can be made.
In the context of the constraints the provincial government has put on local governments, the RGS is a good document that has been strengthened this past 18 months by collaboration between local governments, stakeholders and the public.
I understand some of the criticisms and have personally struggled with some of them. Chief amongst these are the RGS’ relationship with the UBC Line, the “Special Study Areas”, the inconsistencies between the Agricultural Land Commission and RGS’s land designations in three areas that collectively are about the size of Stanley Park and Translink’s role.
Taking these in order:
- the UBC Line issue has been resolved by including a Vancouver amendment that clarifies that it is Translink that makes decisions (under provincial law) around transit planning and that the decision on whether to do a UBC Line will be based on their ongoing study. The RGS is a land use plan and leaves the transit planning to Translink, and does not preclude a UBC Line.
- There are several “Special Study Areas” in the RGS which could, and have been, misread as a land use designation. However, after many months, many questions and recent clarifications in the text of the RGS it is clear that these areas have no change to land use designations at this point but rather that the local municipality is studying land use in the area. While I may personally prefer that studies that may result in a request to change the zoning not be done, especially where agricultural land is involved, I can’t deny the study is happening which is all the Special Study Area indicates. I and all directors still have the same vote available to us to refuse to remove that still designated agricultural land should the study result in a municipality making that request
- The inconsistencies between the Agricultural Land Commission’s designation of certain areas as ALR and the plans designation as general urban (229 hectares in Richmond, Aldergrove and Abbottsford) have been a bigger challenge to understand and accept. The back story is long but the highlight of it is that these areas have had this same inconsistency since the Liveable Region Strategic Plan was adopted 15 years ago. More compellingly from my perspective, in the case where designations are inconsistent the ALC designation takes precedenceThe functional impact is that should the ALC agree to remove those areas from the ALR, it doesn’t come to Metro for decision. But as Metro had already agreed to the change in designation 15 years ago, that would be the case regardless.
- Translink’s role was a pretty easy one to resolve. The provincial legislation is pretty clear: Translink is considered an “affected local government” under the provincial government's Local Government Act that requires the region to have an RGS in the first place. I may not agree with it, but it is an inherent constraint not of our making. I have worked hard, alongside many others at Metro, to negotiate the smallest possible role for Translink in land use decisions (they can comment but will not have a decision-making role) and they have agreed to accept that diminished role.
There are two criticisms I’ve heard that I don’t understand.
The first one is the contention that there has been a lack of public consultation, which is a bit astounding. In the most intensive phase of the RGS development there have been 46 public meetings, including nine in Vancouver. In addition there are Regional Planning Committee meetings every month that the public can present to – and the RGS has often been on the agenda – and Metro held over 50 meetings with local government staff and councils, which in turn results in consultation between councils and their local community. In Vancouver for example, we’ve had the RGS come to committee three times in the last 18 months and staff have gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure the public had an opportunity to provide feedback to Vancouver City Council.
The second criticism I don’t understand is the contention that the RGS fuels urban sprawl. This land use plan has all the green and agriculture protection that the Liveable Region Strategic Plan did AND also adds in protection against job centre sprawl. We’ve paid a heavy price over the last 15 years for not having those protections: half the industrial land in the region has been up-zoned and billions have allocated to highway expansion to try and make goods movement work in increasingly far flung storage and manufacturing areas.
Clearly, from this post you can see that I’m not in love with 100% of the plan but a plan that requires the unanimous acceptance of 22 municipalities is highly unlikely to be 100% embraced by any one councilor or even one municipality. However, it does protect and preserve green space, agricultural land and job space for the future which, in my opinion, is a tall order given the constraints we were working under and I’m proud to have been a part of the efforts to make it the plan it is.
The process has also highlighted for me how much stronger we are as a region when we are working together, not for the sake of it but towards the strongest possible consensus we can seek. My strong hope is that we use the relationships and processes we’ve strengthened through the RGS development to be more in control of our own destiny, to deal with issues we collectively find egregious, such as an appointed and private Translink board being considered an “affected local government”, so the provincial government is responding to us and not the other way around.
When I’ve raised these kinds of sentiments on the Regional Planning Committee, the oldtimers on the Metro board roll their eyes and tell me I’m hoping and dreaming. But somebody has to if we’re going to have a liveable region for the long term.
A final note: the RGS does have to go to all member municipalities for ratification which is required to be completed in 60 days by the provincial legislation that imposes the regional growth process on regional districts. Ratification happens by council resolution and, at this stage in the process, the legislation allows only one of two answers, yes or no. If the answer is no, the specific sections of the plan that the council opposes must be stated (ie. councils can’t just say “we don’t like the plan” but can say we don’t like strategy # whatever). The provincial government then leads a dispute resolution process to see if the disagreement can be resolved.
