POLITICS MAKES STRANGE DEVELOPERS

The NPA had its annual general meeting on Saturday. The celebrations were to include the excommunication of board member, Ken Charko, to be followed by a barbecue. Things did not work out as the directors hoped. Charko supporters forced a change in the agenda, defeated the motion to remove him and he was returned to the board along with one supporter. Judging by reports it had a grass roots Kazakhstan flavour to it.

There are those who feel that this could be the end of the NPA. Don't bet on it.Forget the crazy meeting. Many in the past were worse. Much worse! The NPA remains an extremely potent force and a threat to VISION Vancouver and the newly created TEAM.

THE NPA

To understand its future it helps to know something about the NPA' s past. Initially, the Non Partisan Association's main purpose was to protect Vancouver from the Socialist Hordes.

Established in 1937, its board of directors were the pillars of the community. They surfaced before the elections, anointed a slate of worthy candidates, and vanished. During the height of its powers few if anyone knew about or attended their board meetings.

                                                         Early NPA Board Meeting

City elections were held annually. The ballots listed all candidates in alphabetical order without party affiliation. Most candidates were unknown. They remained unknown after their election. The alphabetically advantaged like Atherton, Adams, Alsbury and now, Affleck enjoyed better odds at getting elected.

An NPA campaign consisted of a card mailed across the West side of the City listing its slate. Voters were asked to take their precious card to the poll booth and select the candidates on the list. The voters were comforted by the list. Candidates had been interviewed by the directors and were certified not to be one of the socialist hordes. Independents did not stand a chance unless they were rich or famous.

The NPA was not and did not purport to be a political party. It simply endorsed candidates. It imposed no party discipline. Once elected, aldermen could vote as they wished, provided they did not think about nationalizing a bank .


The NPA's campaign expenses were limited to the cost of printing and distributing the candidate list and advertising a picture of a candidate a week or two before the annual election. It was the perfect political system: simple, elegant and cheap.

THE SOCIALIST HORDES

Fear of the socialist hordes held the whole thing together. Who were the hordes?  At first they consisted of one lawyer- Harry Rankin. Harry ran for Council and lost at least 12 consecutive times. The WW II hero never gave up. On the 13th try he was elected as an independent. Rankin helped created a second electoral organization called COPE (the Committee of Progressive Electors). Harry, the one man socialist horde turned out to be the most popular alderman in the city. Everyone gave one vote to Harry, "To keep the rest of them honest." When Harry died the Council declined to lower the flag to half mast because if they did it for him they would have to do it for everyone. Miraculously, the flag lowered itself.

TEAM- I

In the early 1970s the election of Mayor Arthur Phillips under the TEAM banner brought about a further change. The provincial government amended the legislation so that party affiliations could be listed on the ballot. The NPA's poll sheet, by which its power was assured, was no longer necessary or effective.

From the 1970s onward a primordial soup of political groups burbbled away, evolved, merged, transmogrified died and were born again. These included COPE, NPA, TEAM, VOICE, NSV, RHINOS, COMMUNISTS and others.  Through it all the NPA won some, lost some but remained a power to be reckoned with. Its annual general meetings always seemed scripted by Saturday Night Live.

The attempted excommunication of Mr. Charko was nothing compared to earlier events. In 1962, Tom Campbell was elected as an NPA alderman. Then he split from his party and running as an independent, beat out NPA Mayor Bill Rathie in the 1966 election. In 1970, he returned to the the NPA and again won as mayor.

                                                       MAYOR TOM CAMPBELL 1969

Team and Art Phillips defeated NPA candidate, Bill Street, but TEAM dissolved after a couple of years. Jack Volrich was elected under the TEAM banner and then split from the party and ran as an independent. TEAM morphed into Mayor Harcourt's independent civic electors and formed an alliance with COPE. Harry Rankin in the 90's split from COPE and supported VOICE. Gordon Campbell, whose career began as Art Phillips assistant led the NPA to victory in 1986.

Estranged from Rankin, COPE seemed headed for the dustbin. Instead it was miraculously resurrected. It came to power under Mayor Larry Campbell, re-branded as VISION which metamorphosed into the new developers party replacing the NPA.

And so it goes. Fractious events do not always lead to  adverse results for a party.

TEAM II

A group of people, many of whom were associated with the original TEAM, now hope to see its rebirth  as a centrist party to replace both VISION and the NPA.  Because VISION and NPA are both funded by developers they see the choice as between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Politics makes strange developers.  Land Use Planning and zoning is the responsibility of Local Governments and when those who are regulated fund the regulators, huge towers coincidentally result. Sometimes they are even  named after the City Planner who approved them.

TEAM will not win by moral virtue alone. It must develop a machine and select good candidates. As long as the process encourages packing party meetings with new members to select candidates life  will be full of surprises.

To succeed, TEAM must not sell the NPA short. The split on the NPA's Board was less embarrassing then it could have been. Sure, they did not seem to be able to get many members out to an important meeting but at least they didn't make a martyr out of anybody. People can joke about  the latest neo- Borgia colour scheme for its coat of arms, but none of that matters. The fact remains that the NPA is a formidable political institution with a significant history. It has been able to raise awesome amounts of money from a relatively few donors.  For most of its history it has not depended on huge membership lists.

Local Elections are won by the comparative strength of political machines. The pollsters don't measure this and that is why they got it wrong in the recent provincial election. The NPA has exceptional connections to the Provincial Liberals. Those Liberals will be operating phone banks and knocking on doors to identify the vote in the next election. Even with all of the interest that is expressed in TEAM, it has a lot of catching up to do.

SHALL WE PLAN OR SHALL WE DANCE?

A thrilling event happened yesterday. I received  a little green Louis Vuitton plastic box from the City. It was to recycle my food scraps and to carry bones, egg shells and stuff like that  to the Green Bin all of which could ultimately be recycled into musical instruments. 

A planner published in the  Georgia Straight has criticized our Mayor for diverting attention from important, long term planning issues to Street Parties which she suggests are used to raise money for VISION. There are two sides to the issue: Shall we plan or shall we dance?

As a planner and a musician it is a tough choice. Planning has its moments but I have a higher dream. It is to play a tuba and flute duet.  There is only one piece composed for  that combination. It is the  Titl  serenade. Titl was a composer determined to bring together, the Tuba, an Ill Wind that no one blows good,  and the sublime flute. I would love to have a city wide festival. The Titl serenade could be played at any intersection in Dunbar. The Mayor plays the tuba. I play the flute. We could both play on recycled instruments as they do in Paraguay.

                                TITL SERENADE FOR FLUTE AND HORN

Just after we got our Louis Vuitton hand held recycling box,  my wife, by a strange coincidence,  received a personal email from the Mayor bringing truly glad tidings!

He said that VISION  was at the half way mark and they had another half term to do even more good to us. He explained that street homelessness had declined over 61%.

That's not all. 

They have delivered loads of rental housing much of which will become occupied when they get the landlords to get over their aversion to tenants and actually rent some of it.

He noted that "Vancouver is getting greener every day, but we must work with our partners to invest in rapid transit, including on the Broadway corridor --scope of our cycling and pedestrian transportation networks. We also need to build on VISION Vancouver's record of unprecedented support for the arts and Vancouver's vibrant world-class creative sector...To keep Vancouver moving forward, we're counting on your support, ideas and engagement****HELP US BUILD A PROGRESSIVE VANCOUVER - DONATE HERE."

As I continued my reverie about playing the Titl Serenade duet with the Mayor, on a recycled plastic water-main flute and  the Mayor on an exhaust pipe tuba, all of which was triggered by my green Louis Vuitton   garbage carrier, I was distracted  by a poisonous posting from the  Georgia Straight.

http://www.straight.com/news/388006/vancouvers-new-official-development-plan-lacks-public-input-while-vision-engages-city-wide-block-parties

That ankle biter paper had  the effrontery to run a critical article. The author, a planner, criticised the Council because they were not consulting enough on this or that 30 year official plan or anything else. They were also guilty of turning things over to Metro Vancouver in a "regional context" statement.  (As if there is something wrong with taxation without representation.)  

And then the author even attacked our Mayor because he wants to get everyone out in the street and dance! Not just a neighbourhood dance. A full frontal entire city dance, neighbourhood by neighbourhood. 

For a good example of a neighborhood dance in Paris that we could do here:

Well the planner is wrong. These  stressful times demand release:

•  We all fought for the right to recycle our food scraps in our green bins. 

• For years we have cried out for well designed person-hole covers. Now we have them.

•  We have demanded urban forest removal by means of adorable lane- way houses.  We have 500 already and more trees to go.

• There will be lots more stress on the way to an underground subway to Paradise.  

• And if that is not enough we must Increase the population to 10 million so we can support high speed trains like the French TGV  that could allow the newcomers  to commute to Kelowna in 45 minutes. 

Check out this to appreciate a train that moves at  578 kph 

  

What  the Nabobs of Negativism (to coin a phrase)  forget is that there are solid historical precedents for what our Mayor wants to do. In ancient Rome they offered bread and circuses. More recently, in the Middle Ages after the black plague, the surviving Villagers held what were referred to as "dancing manias." 

They  jerked around in the streets like zombies until they dropped.  Michael  Jackson's, “Thriller” and Harry Bellafontes “Zombie Jamboree” had their roots in Europe's dancing manias of the middle ages. So well choreographed street parties are exactly what  I would expect of a city that leads the world in the arts on top of which happens to be the greenest city in the world. 

The Mayor does not need my advice, but here is my prediction. The Mayor will invite Chris Christie, Governor of ”, New Jersey, (the“Garden State) to the Street Dance.  Christie would choreograph and dance a street version of   George Gershwin's  “Lets build a stairway to paradise”  Christie  could take all the  streets he wanted.  (Gershwin was a New Jersey Lad.)

After that Gregor and Governor Christie, with their invited constituents  would start at opposite ends of the City and join in a chorus line of  our cities' respective songs: “In the Boardwalk in Atlantic City” and the far superior Vancouver Song by local composer Mike Sims.

                                    New Jersey Governor Christie

I would sure rather see all that then sit through another jargon laden, insufferable planning or zoning meeting in which flocks of planners, who don't think because they already  know, tell me how I ought to live. The Mayor is right: Lets Dance.

MINORITY REPORT ON THE BC ELECTION

Twitter

For months prior to the election, a relatively few people had announced that it was time for a change and that the election belonged to the NDP and Adrian Dix. We were instructed that pipelines, oil sands, Site C, cars, suburbs, houses over 500 sq. feet, and carbon dioxide were bad.  Bikes and leafy veggies were good. Anyone who follows twitter just knew that Adrian Dix had to win the election. That is what “they”  said. In Marxist terms, the Liberal Party was destined to “wither away like the state.”

Twitter is an easy way to learn what a relatively small, highly biased sample of  people including pundits and journalists are thinking. When you read week after week about the Mayor Gregor being against  pipelines, but in favour of walking and chickens,  you start to believe that human nature has changed. How profound can you be in 140 characters?  

Pollsters

The pollsters are more accurate than you think if you think they are less accurate than they are. ANGUS REID and IPSOS REID showed, months before the election that the NDP was significantly ahead.  (They are always first between elections.) Then in the last week or so the gap closed.  In a poll the day before the election it was very close but the NDP seemed to be ahead.

I suspect the pollsters themselves could not accept the possibility shown on the graph above that if  the rate of change accelerated the next day the results would be as shown.  Why were they so cautious?   If they are reading,  tweeting and retweeting  each other they were telling themselves that since great minds think alike,  the NDP could not lose. The mutual contemplation of navels on Twitter has limited use in the art of prognostication. I think the pollsters were afraid to follow their data to the last step.

The  Party Machines

The purpose of a campaign is to identify your party’s  supporters and then to annoy them to vote, if not to death. This requires a disciplined cadre of volunteers manning phone banks and knocking on doors.  In some ridings, the NDPs machine did not live up to expectations. In any event the polls do not evaluate the machines so that the main part of the equation is missing..

Campaign Issues

 Dix morphed into the  Apostle of Prissyness,. He felt that politicians were morally obliged  to ignore their opponent’s faults. He was confusing a dirty campaign with a hard hitting one.

The Liberals  ran devastating but truthful adds to wit:  Dix was forced to resign over taking some liberties with an affidavit.  After that he was portrayed as a vacillating weather vane.

Dix had a smorgasbord of mouth watering recent Liberal disasters: the scandal of proposed vulgar offers to apologize  to gain ethnic votes, the agreement to pay Basi and Virk's legal costs,  the cutbacks on the medical Therapeutic Initiative etc.  Dix, instead of attacking, gave a mute performance that challenged the finest work of Marcel Marceau.

MARCEL MARCEAU

Vancouver’s Neo NDP government.

Since Vancouver is trying to win a prize for being the greenest city on earth, it should not come as a shock, that what  happens in Vancouver does not stay here.  Vancouver's ruling council may be accused of many things, but trying to hide their light under a bushel is not one of them.The public is aware of the breakdown of the civic administration, the focus on frivolous projects, the anti-democratic zoning processes,  the sale of zoning through amenity payments, urban chickens,  the policies that seek to induce  people into tiny suites and drive electric cars with short extension cords and subways on Broadway.  Since VISION is seen as the NDP farm team, people came around to the view that the Vancouver Government is what they could expect from the NDP in Victoria. Not that they loved the Liberals but turning Victoria into prime dingbat habitat was not conducive to  jobs, jobs jobs.

The Future

Between now and the next election the NDP will continue to rise in the polls. If they get a bright, young articulate leader, like for example, David Eby,  they might make it next time, providing they do not threaten to genetically modify people so that they can comfortably live in doll houses.

THE STRANGE CASE OF THE INTER INSTITUTIONAL POLICY SIMULATOR

In 1972 I worked as a social planner in Vancouver's Department of Social Planning and Community Development. One day I was asked to start attending meetings of the Inter Institute Policy Simulation Group that had been established at UBC in 1971 by faculty members who were attempting to develop a computer model of the Greater Vancouver Regional District. These were the days of electronic handheld calculators and adding machines equipped with cranks like oars on Phoenician vessels. True, NASA had landed men on the moon in 1969, but most laymen had no idea how "artificial brains" really worked. If they were able to get a rocket ship to the moon using ones and zeroes, we all were sure they could do much simpler things like predict the future price of turnips or make transportation models.




The first Meeting I attended was held on UBC's campus. A senior member of UBC's computer science department introduced himself. I asked him if he had a computer in his house and how many rooms it occupied. He smiled and said, "Whenever people ask that question, I tell them that computers are for calculations. Whenever I need to make a calculation very fast I go to the computer lab and do it. I rarely need to do difficult calculations around the house that can not be handled by a slide rule."

The meeting came to order and a young man in his twenties lectured on the latest FORTRAN computer language which, he said, was even more powerful and intuitive than the earlier one it replaced. There was no automatic update button in those days. Updating was a big job. Vancouver's Social Planning Department represented by Mauice Egan and I were introduced as the latest addition to the IIPS organization.

Peter Leckie, the Director of Finance, explained the model that the Vancouver Finance Department was creating. It would prove useful, he said, in predicting things some of which would be revealed in the near future.

A UBC transportation Planner said that his model had already proved that if one allocated resources to ordinary buses rather than trains operating in right of ways, " It seemed that a stable mathematical complex developed such that it was always preferable to invest in buses than trains."

Someone from the health department summarised their finding that if mothers could only be required to delay the birth of their first child to the age of 27, the population would drop precipitously. Persuading Moms to do this sounded like a good job for the Social Planning Department. Social planning tended to deal with abstract values that were not easily quantifiable,  like the value to be placed on violins in an orchestra when they all play the same tune. From an accounting perspective only one violin was needed. The others could be eliminated and the savings could be distributed to things like bicycle pumps for those less fortunate with flat tires. Today of course you would only have to ask your IPhone and it would explain the importance of orchestral colour.

The Inner Institutional Policy Simulator group sailed along from meeting to meeting. Suddenly it all seemed to pay off. It was announced that the Ford Foundation had contributed ONE MILLION Dollars to match UBC's and Vancouver's contributions . This had an immediate effect on the Committee members' lifestyles. Instead of brown bagging it we were served a very nice, well garnished spread for lunch as we listened to the computer programmers reveal the many things about which they would soon make startling predictions.

The High point of the IIPS program was the night it was discussed by America's most trusted anchorman, Walter Cronkite. Vancouver, which to this point was described as a setting in search of a city, was going to be a "world class" centre of predictions.



The Town Planner, Mr.Graham, said that he was thrilled with the results to date. (He would have been taken down a notch if the Computer had predicted that he would be fired when Mayor Phillips took over.)

I attended these meetings for about a year. The Engineers and Accountants were happily awash in calculations. Bill Curtis, the brightest civil servant I ever met and who was later promoted to head of the Engineering Department, expressed doubt that we were capable of modelling a region as large as Metro Vancouver. He thought they should start with something simple like the weather or religion.

It all came to an end after TEAM had taken control. Alderman Walter Hardwick, attended a meeting and a few days later,  announced that the City was withdrawing its support of the program. He said that this emperor had no clothes. The Ford Foundation borrowed the technique advocated by the group concerned about population growth: - It pulled out  in time.

One of the two professors who were closely identified with the project took off for warmer climes and joined a faculty in Florida. Another one explained that he was not really a supporter of the project and continued to have a stellar career at UBC.

Today if you Google the words "IIPS and Inner Institutional Policy Simulator" you will find that there is almost no public record or mention of it. It was early vaporware.

MAYOR ART PHILLIPS 1930 - 2013

Art Phillips truly was a colossus. He surrounded himself with brilliant people. His TEAM Council was a mix of the best and the brightest across the political spectrum and included academics,  professionals and community activists. In the first election, in1968  Phillips and Walter Hardwick were elected. 

In the next election May Brown, Marguerite Ford, Darlene Marzari and Mike Harcourt, physicist, Fritz Bowers, Traffic Engineer Setty Pendakur and Architect Geoff Massey.  

They were a team that had more collective intelligence and talent  than any level of government in Canada since. 

Unlike so many politicians who turn to Machievellian principles, Phillips achieved control through a combination of blazing intellect, wit and charm.

He was also tough, sensible and decisive and not afraid  of changing his mind.

Phillips and his council are remembered for a series of major initiatives that set the tone for the next forty years. 

·        Flexibility was introduced into the planning and design process;

·        planning became  neighborhood based

·        cultural institutions flourished including the Vancouver East Cultural Centre  (the "Cultch"), the Academy of Music, the Contemporary Art Gallery, the Childrens' Festival; heritage areas and policies; the Orpheum theater was created from a movie house that would have been demolished.

·         the bureaucracy was overhauled;  

·        The property endowment fund was set up. 

·        Although Granville Island was an initiative of the Federal Government, TEAM and in particular, Mayor Phillips and Walter Hardwick made significant contributions.

·        Until TEAM the City had no heritage preservation policy. Under TEAM one was introduced.

Phillips and TEAM took control in 1972 (elections were every two years) the old council was mostly turfed and a new TEAM Council was elected.  The two NPA members who remained were excellent Councilors.

There were two City Managers at that time called The Board of Administration. One was an Engineer named Lorne Ryan. The manager in charge of Planning, was the Imperious Gerald Sutton Brown. He  ran a tight ship. He was also a brilliant planner and administrator in his own right.

The first thing Phillips and Team did was to get control of the bureaucracy. They fired the City Manager, Gerald Sutton Brown.  Ray Spaxman, an architect,  was hired from Toronto as Planner.  He was an advocate of neighborhood planning.

Prof. Fritz Bowers, later become the City manager.  Prof. Bowers ran City Hall like a University dean. Power was decentralized.  The morale of the staff greatly improved. 

As to Sutton Brown he told me that being fired was the best thing that ever happened to him.  He was promptly hired by Mobile Oil  as head of its massive real estate branch. He planned new cities all over the world. 

When Mayor  Phillips retired a  roast was held.  I wrote a poem for him  which touched on the unpredictability of life and plans. It was read at the party. The opening three verses were:

“You Never Can Tell”

Remember the day you deposed Sutton-Brown?

The words spread like measles all over the town,.

You were quite ruthless to make him step down

How could you do this

To that helpless old toothless?

But as it turned out his career didn’t spoil

He was hired to plan towns for Mobile Oil

He travels to places wherever its sunny-

The way it turned out, it was funny.

You never can tell, you never can tell

What wonderful fortunes can spring from the well

Of potential disasters

That turn out quite swell

Till the end, you never can tell

The first symbol of the Phillips administration was the information booth in the entrance to City Hall.  Until then  a visit to City Hall was a Kafke-esqe adventure.  There was no way of knowing where you needed to go and once you got there what to do.  There were no signs.  Many offices had no receptionists. After that they opened up Council and Committee meetings so that people could attend outside of their normal working hours.

TEAM produced Vancouver’s first urban core bike network when it closed streets in the West End. It also introduced traffic barriers in Shaughnessy making streets both pedestrian and bike friendly. The plan and the process yielded exceptional results.  

Vancouver became one of the very few Cities with a livable high density core under a plan that was neighborhood based. Similar Official Development Plans (ODPs) were created in Shaughnessy, the Downtown, Downtown Eastside, False Creek, Coal Harbour.  Phillips was not a micro manager but he kept a watchful eye over them all.

God is in the details.

Before Phillips’ TEAM, apartments could not have balconies because the zoning penalized the developer who sought to add them.  Under TEAM there were enormous improvements in design and siting. 

Phillips  recognized that substandard buildings were the markets’ response to substandard incomes.  Policies were implemented to provide affordable housing of a reasonable size and quality.

Phillips set up  the system of discretionary zoning that enabled more control over citing and design including view preservation. 

Before Phillips there were no sidewalk cafes on City Streets.  He led the initiative to lease portions of sidewalks to adjacent restaurant owners.

He encouraged debate on Council. He was confident in his own abilities and those of his colleagues that he welcomed all sides on all issues. He did not impose party discipline because he did not need to.

After 4 years (two terms) the City was on track.  Phillips declined to run again. He returned to his investment business. 

He was a great man.

EMPTY CONDOS AS CURRENCY - THE YAN REPORT

Last week a UBC adjunct professor, Andrew Yan, gave a speech in which he claimed that there were a huge number of condos in Vancouver that were vacant.  Francis Bula reported the story in her blog and in the Globe and Mail. The numbers are startling:

“Downtown, the rate is so high that it’s as though there were 35 towers at 20 storeys apiece – empty!”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/vancouvers-vacancies-point-to-investors-not-residents/article10044403/

The big story in all of this is that it was a story at all.  Everyone knows there is a problem. It is not the Chinese. It is our own government.  Vancouver’s media, mired in political correctness,  have not dared to speak of it.  

China’s Real Estate Riddle

It is, however, no secret in China. An article appeared in the Far Eastern Economic Review in June 2009 by Patrick Chovanec, China’s Real Estate Riddle” http://chovanec.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/chinas-real-estate-riddle/] Chovanec,  a professor at Tsinghua University's School of Economics and Management in Beijing, China describes a phenomena that is all too familiar in Vancouver:

[Why] the seemingly endless rows of luxury megaliths you can see sprouting up in every provincial capital or third-tier Chinese city worth its salt, with nary a resident in sight. Beijing has no monopoly on ghost-condos.

One possible key to this riddle occurred to me after I heard about the Chinese tour group that recently (and famously) traveled to the United States hunting for post-bubble real estate bargains. I heard that one of the reasons they returned empty-handed was that they were shocked—shocked!—to discover that in the U.S., property is taxed annually on its value. China has taxes on real estate transactions, but no recurring tax on holdings. The group’s discovery, and their disappointment, got me thinking.

He observed that the U.S. tax system creates strong incentives for residential property owners to either use it to live in or to generate income by renting it to others to live in, and penalize them for letting it stand idle.

That is not how it works in China. Chovanec continues: “In China,  real estate—occupied or not—offers them a visibly reassuring place to park their money, sheltered from inflation. *** with little or no holding costs, Chinese owners are unconstrained by the need to make the property “pay” in cash or in kind. For them, an empty condo is a store of value, much like gold, another asset that performs no practical function besides retaining its worth.”

Apartments in China aren’t for living in, they’re for investing. That is the real source of demand.

 A  year ago in the Courier on April 5, 2012 Alan Garr set everyone straight:

"Blaming Chinese  high house prices  is racist"

If you believe that house prices are being driven up in Vancouver because realtors are catering to wealthy offshore Chinese you are living in a fictional world. It is happening in our city's housing market, but it's statistically insignificant.

http://www.vancourier.com/columnists/Blaming+Chinese+high+house+prices+Vancouver+racist/6417310/story.html

Yesterday, Gary Mason opined on the Yan report that there just isn’t enough evidence. [I trust he accepts that Japan was hit by a Tsunami without demanding further studies.] In a paragraph that gives meaning to the term fatuous, he said:

“I also find it amusing that we get so up in arms about “foreigners” buying up our real estate but think nothing of the thousands of Canadians who have poured into the United States in recent years to take advantage of the housing mess down there. Does anyone doubt that many of those same Canadians are buying those condos as investments in the hopes they’ll cash in once the market returns to normal? Do you hear Americans crying foul?”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/the-great-unoccupied-condo-scandal-get-over-it/article10251782/

Vancouver residents may not be so amused. It is one thing to buy into the depressed market in Phoenix or any other part of the Arizona desert to have a vacation home.  It is quite another to block the  views of existing residents with an inflation hedge.  Buying houses in neighborhoods where mortgages are in default has a different impact on a community from what has happened to Vancouver.  Here investors have bought up well-established,  heritage areas, demolished the houses to put up even larger ones. Home  owners have been forced to increase density, by building houses in their own back yards so they can afford to live in their own neighborhoods.

It is time to deal with it.

It does not matter whether it is the Danes or the Chinese who are bringing about the change. What matters is that the government should address the issue. They may conclude that every cure is worse than the disease but they still need to look at it. 

When the resort municipality of Whistler was developed in the early eighties, it was anticipated that wealthy Europeans and Saudis would aquire all of the units. They would remain empty most of the year and the retail stores could not survive.  Covenants were therefore placed on title to require them to be placed in a rental pool to ensure that they were occupied.

All three levels of government need to review the possible interventions.  We will need a home-grown solution but a good start would be to study what other countries are doing. 

The French government under President  Hollande is threatening to requisition vacant apartments.

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-11-01/desperate-french-government-threatens-%E2%80%9Crequisition%E2%80%9D-vacant-buildings

The following summary comes from the CBC.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/03/17/f-real-estate-foreign-ownership.html

China imposed new restrictions on property sales in 2010 —

• Foreigners can own only one residential property for their own use (permanent residents are restricted to two properties).

• Foreigners must reside in the country for one year before they can buy property.
• Foreign companies who buy commercial real estate must use it themselves.

Australia

The following restrictions apply to foreigners:

• Foreigners — regardless of whether they are temporary residents of Australia or live abroad — are prohibited from buying existing housing stock (homes that have been previously owned or occupied for more than 12 months) for investment purposes — i.e. as a rental or vacation property.
• The exception to the above rule is if a foreigner buys existing housing stock that they plan to demolish and redevelop. The property must be redeveloped within two years, and the redevelopment must increase the number of housing units. The property cannot be rented out prior to the redevelopment. The new property can be rented out, sold or used by the owner.
• Foreigners temporarily residing in Australia can apply to buy one piece of existing property to use as a residence provided they sell it when they leave Australia. This provision was meant to address complaints that Asian investors buying property for children studying in Australia were outbidding locals and holding onto property after their children left the country. These are some of the same complaints being raised currently in Canada.
• If foreigners buy vacant land for residential development, they have to build on it within two years and are allowed to rent out, use or sell the built properties.
• There is no limit to the amount of newly constructed real estate foreigners can own as long as the property has not been marketed exclusively to foreigners overseas. Such property can be used as an investment.

Switzerland

Swiss real estate is some of the most coveted in the world, but the country also has some of the strictest rules when it comes to foreign ownership.

• The government assigns annual quotas to the country's cantons limiting the number of houses or flats that can be sold to foreigners who do not reside in Switzerland. Each sale must still be authorized by the canton in which the property is located, and the cantons can set their own additional restrictions. Many limit foreign property sales to tourist regions, for example, or allow foreigners to purchase only property that is already foreign-owned.
• Foreigners can buy only one property to be used as a holiday home or a secondary residence. They cannot purchase a property for the sole purpose of renting it out, although holiday homes can be rented out periodically on a short-term basis.

• In some cantons, foreigners are barred from selling their property for a certain number of years after purchasing it — generally between five and 10 years.
• If foreigners buy vacant land, they must build on it within a year.
• Foreigners who live in Switzerland do not need to get prior authorization to purchase real estate that will serve as their main residence and can rent out the property or use it as a holiday home if they move to another part of the country.

Douglas Todd observed in a Vancouver Sun article yesterday that "one of the strongest factors working against coming up with a working solution is there is no solid data on which to base a strategy."  

He is partly right. Both truth and lies can be presented more effectively when grounded in statistics backed up by studies. I note, however, that Mr. Todd in his columns on religion can be very effective based on faith alone.

http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2013/03/23/vancouver-real-estate-the-fog-of-foreign-ownership/

THE COMMUNITY INFORMATION MEETING

Last night I made my way to the Dunbar Community Centre to attend an information meeting about the rezoning of Stong’s Grocery – Dunbar’s favorite store.  

The Developer’s architect explained to 15 or so people that this was one of a series of meetings that he was carrying out to determine the will of the people.  

Democratic traditions die slowly.  

Earlier meetings had shown that based on similar numbers, the community of about 20,000 Dunbarians considers it most important to keep Stong's in Dunbar.  According to the Architect, the people also wanted higher density because that would be good for business and the environment.

The presentation consisted of a tasteful matrix of issues presented in pleasing, mostly greenish, colours.  The most important thing we needed to know was that what was good for the developer would be good for the community.  Keeping Stong’s grocery presented special challenges though since it didn't own the land.  It was a sub-tenant  from a larger food chain, but mysteriously,  it could only be done by adding more stories to the building.

The architect said that he would answer questions and that his staff would then reduce the comments to a new set of  pie charts to smash into the faces of the audience at the next community meeting.  I took it that he thought the brighter members of the community were inexorably marching along to the drummer of increased density.  

The building had not yet been designed.  The good news was that whatever its size, it would it would be on the Suzuki side of climate change, carbon footprints and endangered species. While geothermal energy was not yet planned, they could recycle energy from refrigeration to supply heat.  One of the residents was annoyed  that all of the landscaping would be in shadow and therefore would quickly die.   The architect dismissed a suggestion of fake plastic flowers and trees after noting that they are actually doing that in some places, but evergreens are better. 

The City Alchemists

The baseline for the building he explained was the present C-2 zone.  That allowed a four story building.  However, a development in compliance with the present law, i.e. 3 stories above what was already there could not possibly happen.  It is important to understand why.

Vancouver bureaucrats have achieved a tremendous breakthrough in the technology of  spinning soil into gold.   They zone land, say Dunbar Street, to allow a 4 story building.  Then when the Developer proposes a 4 story building the City says, that although 4 stories are permitted they cannot allow it. The Developer has to build to 5 stories or more.  The bigger the better.  We will up zone you to make this possible, but – you will have to pay us about $800,000 for the up zoning.  The kick back is called a community amenity charge. 

Zoning Bylaws have become like politicians - negotiable instruments that are regularly bought and sold. 

The meeting moved along briskly.  The architect asked what amenity we wanted.  He needed to know so he could fit it into his amenity -floor space ratio- matrix chart for the next meeting.  One of the younger neighbors said, “the best amenity would be the one we are losing by your development. We would want that back.”