Opinion: Housing the homeless in city parks Vancouver Courier August 6, 2015

Warning: this column may upset some readers.

A B.C. Supreme Court decision is expected later this week on three Abbotsford bylaws that make it illegal for homeless people to camp in public places. The lawsuit was filed by the BC/Yukon Association of Drug War Survivors after city staff issued tickets and removed people and their property from an Abbotsford homeless camp in 2013. The group argues that the city infringed on the basic human right to a safe place to sleep.

Some readers may recall a previous trial in Victoria when the B.C. Supreme Court upheld the Charter right to sleep and shelter. The municipal government was forced to change its bylaws to allow people to camp out in city parks overnight after that 2009 court decision.

I find myself very conflicted on this matter. On one hand, I deplore the thought of homeless people setting up camp in city parks and other public places. On the other hand, I empathise with many chronically homeless people who claim to not have other safe alternatives.

By way of background, in the 1970s I was CMHC’s Program Manager for social housing, approving housing for the homeless and hard-to-house. At the time, CMHC provided 100% funding for new Downtown Eastside facilities designed the city’s top architects including Arthur Erickson.
Many of us questioned why we were spending so much on fancy new buildings and ultimately convinced our masters in Ottawa to fund more modest projects including the renovation of run down Single Room Occupancy (SRO) hotels.

Fast forward to today. The federal government has withdrawn from most social housing funding and the province has indicated it no longer wants to fund new projects after disappointing experiences with 14 projects on city-owned sites and certain renovation projects. These buildings have taken much too long time to plan, approve and construct. Due to excessive design and construction standards they have also been very expensive. The Pennsylvania Hotel renovations cost in the order of $1000 per square foot of living area.

There have been other problems. The projects tend to be large with more than 100 units, and when filled with formerly homeless and hard-to-house residents, serious problems erupt generating repeat visits by police and ambulances. The Marguerite Ford House, which I described in an August 2014 Vancouver Courier column http://www.vancourier.com/opinion/columnists/better-solutions-for-ending-homelessness-1.1296645 is just one example. 

While the province continues to assist the city by funding existing and new homeless shelters, these too can be surprisingly expensive to operate, and are an unacceptable solution for many homeless people. They are often unsafe, and do not provide an address which is a problem for those wanting to find work. Rather than fund new construction, the province now prefers to offer rent supplement programs that allow people to live where they want, often away from the Downtown Eastside, in more conventional housing. 

Unfortunately, as a result of the closing of institutions for those suffering from mental illness, and an overall reduction in funding for mental health both in B.C. and elsewhere, there is an increasing number of homeless people suffering from mental illness. This is not just happening in Vancouver. It is happening in many cities and countries around the world where homeless people on the streets are becoming more visible. 

A number of studies have indicated that when one looks at the problem in a more holistic fashion, it would be less expensive to house the chronically homeless than continue to accommodate them in hospitals and courtrooms. However, we rarely look at these things holistically, especially at election time. 

In real estate, we often say the three most important things are location, location, location.

Consequently, if the court rules the homeless have a right to sleep in parks and other public places, I have a suggestion. To draw attention to the need for more housing, the homeless should set up their camps in front of Parliament Buildings in Ottawa, the B.C. Legislature, and City Hall.

Otherwise, we may soon find homeless people sleeping on our front porches; something that is starting to happening in Los Angeles and other North American cities.

Lessons we can learn from Seattle: Vancouver Sun August 1, 2015

An example of the Seattle 'four-pack' which cleverly places four townhouses on a 50 foot lot. While many will worry about juxtaposition of new and old, with design guidelines this could work in Vancouver

In July 2009, a Vancouver Sun op-ed headlined Vancouver and Seattle: Which is Greener? commented on two debates in Vancouver and Seattle on the topic of which had the better built environment.

The debates featured former Vancouver Councillor Gordon Price, Director of SFU’s City Program and Peter Steinbrueck, a Seattle architect who had also served as a city councillor.

Particularly stimulating and entertaining was that Price spoke in favour of Seattle, while Steinbrueck praised Vancouver.

Each acknowledged the difficulty of being a booster for a competing city. However, the two urbanists had little difficulty identifying the shortcomings of their respective hometowns.

Steinbrueck thought Vancouver was better because of its absence of downtown freeways, its extensive SkyTrain network, more downtown residents (especially families), our thin high-rise towers on townhouse podiums, and extensive public waterfront access.

Price praised Seattle for its expansive Pike Place Market, distinctive character neighbourhoods, beautiful downtown office buildings, ferries, streetcars, free downtown buses, and more varied and dramatic architecture.

Fast forward six years and most would agree that each city can offer lessons for the other.

Some were offered earlier this year, when the Planning Institute of British Columbia held its annual conference in Seattle. Appropriately titled “Beyond Borders”, the conference examined important topics including financial tools to create affordable housing, the correlation between good planning and health, and planning for climate change.

Given that Vancouver City Council recently created the Vancouver Affordable Housing Agency (VAHA), I was particularly interested in the activities of the Seattle Housing Authority. Established in 1939, it provides long-term rental housing and rental assistance to more than 26,000 people in the city and owns and operates a variety of buildings on more than 400 sites.

One of its current undertakings is the regeneration of Yesler Terrace, a 22 acre (89,000 m²) public housing development which, at the time of its completion in 1941, was Washington State’s first public housing development, and the first racially integrated public housing project in the United States.

Since Vancouver copied Seattle when it allowed woodframe buildings to go above 4 storeys, will we copy this cost effective arrangement too?

It is now the last of Seattle’s public housing projects to be converted into a mixed-income neighbourhood, and I was surprised to see new 8 storey wood-frame buildings under construction. In reality, the buildings comprise 5 levels of wood-frame above 3 storeys of concrete construction.

Given that Seattle allowed 5 storey wood-frame construction long before the British Columbia Building Code was amended to allow 6 storeys, I wonder how long it might be before we consider this cost-effective building system.

That afternoon I set off to explore what are derogatorily referred to as Seattle’s ‘four-pack’ and ‘six-pack’ developments. These much maligned infill townhouses have replaced older character houses on 50 and 60 foot lots around the city.

The units are built in two rows; one fronting the street, and one fronting the lane. In between is a paved auto-court that leads to garages under each unit. Sometimes the homes have their principal entrances off the auto-court. Alternatively, the entrances are off the street and lane.

While the paved area between the units can oftentimes be narrow and somewhat bleak, the concept is clever in that it allows four to six more affordable infill townhouses to be built on small formerly single family lots.

Given zoning regulations, the housing often appears boxy since it maximizes bulk and density, not unlike the ‘Vancouver Specials’ of yesteryear. It can also be out of scale with nearby single family houses. However, with design guidelines, I believe this type of infill housing could be appropriate for many Vancouver single family neighbourhoods.

Vancouver could also learn from a recent report released by the Seattle Mayor’s office.

Not unlike Vancouver, Seattle is facing serious housing affordability challenges. Just as Mayor Gregor Robertson established an Affordable Housing Task Force in 2012, last fall Seattle Mayor Ed Murray’s created a 28-member Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA) committee. It too included developers, urbanists, housing activists, lawyers, and architects. 

Last month, the Mayor released his committee’s draft report.  Although it sets out a comprehensive housing action plan proposing 50,000 new housing units over the next 10 years, 20,000 of which would be affordable, one of the recommendations has attracted considerable public debate: a potential end to single family zoning.

The report notes that 65 percent of Seattle is currently zoned for single family dwellings, and given housing demand, the committee considers this neither realistic nor sustainable.

It therefore recommends that properties along the perimeter of single family zoned neighbourhoods, as well as single family neighbourhoods near transit and village centres be up-zoned to accommodate new housing forms. They would be scaled to fit with adjacent single family properties and include small cottages, courtyard housing, rowhouses, duplexes, triplexes, and stacked townhouses.

The mayor also proposes to enact a real estate excise tax of 0.25 percent on real-estate transfers in the hopes of capturing some of the value from rising land prices and redirecting it toward affordable housing. 

Other proposals include reforming parking policies in frequent transit service neighbourhoods, and streamlining the city’s regulatory and design process.

As I reviewed the Seattle Mayor’s committee proposals I could not help but think back to the recommendations that came out of Mayor Robertson’s Affordable Housing Task Force. While the city did act on the recommendation to create the VAHA, many of the other recommendations await implementation. 

I'm hopeful Vancouver and other BC municipalities can learn from our neighbour to the south and revise zoning to create new housing choices for those of us seeking alternatives to single family

houses or apartment buildings.

Here we go again: the search for another Director of Planning Vancouver Courier July 29, 2015

While the city’s outgoing Director of Planning Brian Jackson successfully oversaw approval of new plans for the West End Plan and Marpole, according to columnist Michael Geller his plans for Grandview-Woodland Plan and the Downtown Eastside can hardly be considered successes.  Photograph By Dan Toulgoet

On Sunday afternoon I received some interesting news from the City of Vancouver’s Communication Office: “The General Manager of Planning and Development Announces Retirement.”

When I posted on Twitter that I found this resignation and the timing of its announcement disturbing, a fellow civic affairs columnist asked how I could be disturbed by someone else’s career decision.

While I will leave it to fellow columnist Allen Garr to comment on the unusual timing of this announcement, here is some background.

Brian Jackson was appointed GM of Planning and Development (a.k.a. the Director of Planning) less than three years ago. I remember the day since I spoke on CBC radio in his defense after he was unfairly criticized by former city councillor Ellen Woodsworth for his work in Richmond, where he was acting GM of Development Services.

Jackson’s appointment followed a major international search necessitated by the firing of the previous planner Brent Toderian. I also remember Toderian’s appointment since it too followed a major international search and extensive public discussion that included a May 2006 panel discussion at SFU.

I participated in that event titled “What To Look for in a New Director of Planning,” along with May Brown, Ray Spaxman and Bing Thom. Many noted at the time that only in Vancouver could the selection of a Director of Planning be regarded as major news.

But then again, it always has been.

Gerald Sutton Brown, the city’s first planning director, was fired in 1973 after 20 years, when TEAM, a new political party led by Art Phillips, swept into power. He was replaced by Ray Spaxman who arrived from Toronto.

Spaxman, who now lives in West Vancouver and continues to take an active interest in planning issues, transformed Vancouver’s approach to city planning with a focus on community consultation and a concern for “neighbourliness.”

I served for many years on the city’s Development Permit Board Advisory Panel during his tenure and developed a great respect for his desire to make Vancouver a more beautiful and walkable city, with continuous weather protection and “pedestrian interest at grade.”

Spaxman resigned in 1988 following ongoing disagreements with then mayor Gordon Campbell.

Most people have forgotten about his successor, a fellow named Tom Fletcher who lasted five years.

According to Sunday’s press release, Jackson spent the last three years “leading the most ambitious planning agenda the City has ever experienced.”

Many old-timers, me included, would strongly disagree with this, noting that during Spaxman’s term of office, the character of the city transformed dramatically. He oversaw the planning and development of new communities along False Creek and Coal Harbour, Champlain Heights and the Fraser River, and incorporated housing in many areas of the downtown.

While Jackson successfully oversaw approval of new plans for the West End Plan and Marpole, his plans for Grandview-Woodland Plan and the Downtown Eastside can hardly be considered successes.

The Downtown Eastside is particularly disappointing. Rather than encourage a broader mix of households and housing types, I fear his plan reinforces the core of this neighbourhood as a low income ghetto for years to come.

When Jackson started his position, one of his promises was to greatly improve the city’s approval process. However, as noted in the recent Fraser Institute report on municipal red tape, Vancouver remains near the bottom of the list when it comes to approval times and uncertainty.

What Sunday’s press release did not say is why Jackson is leaving after only three years.

During a CBC radio interview on Monday, he said he decided to leave during a recent holiday in Paris. At the age of 60, he wanted more personal time for himself.

He also acknowledged his decision to leave was partly influenced by ongoing criticism, including a letter signed by former city planners, planning professors, consultants and associated professionals, myself included.

We were concerned about a number of inappropriate development approvals and what we saw as a diminishing respect for the importance of urban design and planning within city hall.

While I wish Brian a happy retirement, hopefully the next Director of Planning can more effectively address these concerns.

Postscript. I am now advised that the Sunday afternoon press release was precipitated by the fact that Frances Bula had learned of the resignation and was doing a Globe and Mail story Monday morning.

Fellow columnist Allen Garr also shares some valuable insight into the story behind this story here: 

http://www.vancourier.com/opinion/city-s-head-planner-brian-jackson-s-departure-no-surprise-1.2015311

While the city’s outgoing Director of Planning Brian Jackson successfully oversaw approval of new plans for the West End Plan and Marpole, according to columnist Michael Geller his plans for Grandview-Woodland Plan and the Downtown Eastside can hardly be considered successes.   Photograph By Dan Toulgoet - See more at: http://www.vancourier.com/opinion/here-we-go-again-the-search-for-another-director-of-planning-1.2013290#sthash.GjGFoCqM.dpuf