Stephen Rees's blog

Bob Ransford in the Vancouver Sun

He was a real estate developer. He now calls himself a public affairs consultant. Either way I am astonished to find myself writing this.

Regular readers will have noticed that posts have been scarcer in recent times. Partly that is because I found myself saying the same things that i had already written. So I decided not to write stuff just to make sure that there was a regular flow, but more to respond to issues where I felt I actually needed to write something.

So I read this Ransford piece with a growing sense of disbelief – but it does seem that he has at least diagnosed what the problem is, even if we can disagree about the prescription he wrote. He starts with a good description of what is wrong and then says that he thinks we need to reform regional government. Up to that point, I agree with him. But I do not think it is the first thing that needs to happen.

The real problem is the attitude of the provincial government. Not what they say, but what they do. And not just this particular government either – since the last lot were no better. They have to allow the region a measure of autonomy. The province has to stop micromanaging this region. It has to accept that the people of this region and their elected representatives are the right people to be making the decisions. Yes the provincial government is elected by those same people – but they are also elected by the rest of the province – and to do a different job.

There will always be places where overlapping jurisdictions grate against each other and no system of government is ever perfect. But just as there is an appropriate sphere for federal and provincial jurisdiction, so also is there a need for both local and regional jurisdiction. And each level has to have its own representative and responsible government with an adequate tax base to support its activities. Right now, in the lower mainland, all the important decisions about transportation have been imposed by the province onto the region. They have very little respect for the regional growth strategy that the municipal and provincial governments both signed onto. Far too much is being committed to roads, and not nearly enough to transit. While the province pretends that it is not interested in influencing land use, that is obviously a sham. We are being built into car dependent sprawl – and mostly because that suits the real estate interest who pay the BC Liberals bills. And the car salesmen, and the oil companies. The Premier seems to have forgotten all about his recent interest in climate change and there is absolutely zero interest in delivering any kind of affordable housing strategy.

So I cheered when I read

At best, provincial policies have contradicted the current government’s talk about making housing more affordable and addressing urban growth’s environmental impacts that are contributing to climate change.

The current provincial government has completely neglected its role in establishing effective and workable ground rules for local and regional governments when it comes to coordinating land use and transportation planning.

It is this coordinated planning and growth management that is so desperately needed to address the supply side of the housing supply-and-demand equation and keep housing prices within an affordable range. It is also this kind of regional and local planning that is required to shrink our urban ecological footprint and begin reversing the climate-change trend.

But I do not think that changing the boundaries of metro, or fiddling with 50/50 representation is the answer. What is needed first is a provincial government that actually gives a damn about environmental impact, affordable housing, and shrinking our ecological footprint. And that for sure is not Gordon Campbell and the BC Liberals.

It does not change anything if you do all kinds of local and regional chopping and changing – yet leave that problem unaddressed. Could we extract from this government a commitment that they will provide for an adequate local tax base and then refrain from deciding how it is to be spent? And if we did get such a commitment from this bunch – who in their right minds would believe them?

Peace Arch News

This issue has been bothering me for a while now – as posts to this blog will attest.

The cause in the Fraser delta is that dikes, constructed to prevent flooding, force the river to carry its sediment load out into the Strait of Georgia so that none accumulates on deltaic lands. The delta is also sinking one to two milimetres each year under its own weight.

The survey data suggest that, by the end of this century, it will have sunk by more than a metre (130 centimetres), with the effects reaching as far upstream as Maple Ridge and Fort Langley. As elsewhere, a rise in sea level will accentuate the problem.

The warning about the Fraser river delta is coming from Canada’s Geological Survey but is replicated by  satellite data, coupled with historic records, on many of the world’s deltas. Add rising sea levels due to global climate change, and our vulnerability to seismic activity and we have a recipe for disaster.

Roy Strang raises the same questions I have been asking

If these data are accurate and reliable, and one adds in the consequences of seismic liquefaction in the event of an earthquake, what is the future for the Vancouver airport and Richmond? Were such eventualities considered when expansion of Deltaport or the controversial South Fraser Perimeter Road were being planned? Are there contingency plans, or is the horizon too distant to be a concern for today’s politicians?

He does not answer these questions and the article then drifts off into other things. The only official comments I have seen recently came from Malcolm Brodie, the Mayor of Richmond. Which were simply a recitation of his complacency about the strength of our dykes.

I rather suspect that the boosters who have been so keen on expansion of the port and the airport have been deliberately quiet about these risks. But I do know that when emergency planners at the then GVRD assessed these risks during the period when the LRSP was being drawn up, advised that development should be directed away from flood risk areas. That is why Richmond was not part of the Growth Concentration Area. And of course the fact that the land was of very high agricultural quality was also a reason for not building on it. Indeed, protection of the Richmond farmland which had not already vanished under subdivisions was one of the main reasons for the creation of the ALR.

Of course ALR designation means nothing to the Port of Vancouver, who are happily buying up farmland to store containers on or to sell for industrial development. And the province is so taken with the huge land development profits consequent upon the SFPR that any considerations like food security, critical habitat or even carbon capture by bog lands have been steadily ignored. Or even denied. So flood risk is just another one of those tiresome objections to be swept under the carpet so the BC Liberal party supporters can go on making lots of money – which is all that matters as far as they are concerned.