A park board bombshell

Vancouverites are getting the opportunity to vote on the future of the elected park board. After nearly two years of this issue dogging local politics, the province announced on Thursday that it would give Vancouver city council the authority to dissolve the park board if a majority of residents approve the decision in a city-wide vote. 

This is massive news and a huge step forward in resolving the made-for-TV saga that’s played out over the past two years, which has polarized the park board, community centre associations, and become a staple of local political discourse.

Beyond those who value the park board for its independence and narrow focus on the city’s parks and recreation assets, there has been strong criticism of Mayor Ken Sim for the unilateral it was rolled out. That approach has plagued Sim and ABC, which lost its majority on the still-functioning park board and provided ammunition for their political opponents and detractors. One of those former political opponents on city council, Christine Boyle, is now the person bringing forward the province’s proposal as the Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs. 

“We appreciate Minister Boyle’s decision to move forward with legislation this fall that would enable the City of Vancouver to transition the elected Park Board under the oversight of City Council, following a positive outcome from a public referendum,” Sim said in a statement, adding the Mayor’s Office will be reviewing the legislation to “determine timing and next steps.” 

Today’s long-awaited announcement by the province stands in stark contrast to ABC’s approach. By allowing the city to hold a binding vote, they are taking the rare step of allowing the electorate to decide a consequential and divisive issue about how the city is run. 

“Ultimately, I really welcome this decision to require a referendum,” Park Board Chair Laura Christensen, a former ABC member who left the party in late 2023 due to Sim’s move, told Vancity Lookout. However, Christensen feels that a referendum should also include an option to increase the park board’s independence over its budget, which is currently controlled by the city. 

“If we’re going to change the [Vancouver] Charter… I think there should be a third option of ‘how do we improve it?’” Christensen said.    

Separate from the vote itself, the provincial legislation would also require a unanimous vote from council, and a public referendum, to remove permanent park designations, regardless of the outcome of the vote. That additional provision would strengthen protection for many city parks and make it more difficult for any administration inclined to carve up and develop parkland. 

However, Christensen pointed out that nearly 70 parks in the city don’t have permanent status. “These parks aren't going to be afforded the same protections. Why [does the legislation specify] just permanent parks and not all parks?”

It will ultimately be up to city council to decide if and when to hold a vote on the future of the park board, but it will almost certainly be a matter of when, not if, given the political interest in moving the issue forward and the optics of empowering direct democracy. 

Moving toward a new park in Champlain Heights 

In June, we reported on the efforts to protect a little-known trail network in the Champlain Heights neighbourhood in deep southeast Vancouver. The advocacy, led by local stewardship group Free the Fern, sought to have the area – which has had no formal protection as park land or otherwise since the neighbourhood was established in the late 1970s – protected from future development. 

The group’s work got the attention of Green Coun. Pete Fry, who visited the trail network and worked with Free the Fern to develop a motion at city council to address the issue, according to the non-profit’s executive director Grace Nombrado. 

The motion, which recognized the importance of maintaining the trail system, asked staff to explore different ways to preserve and protect the area, including by establishing it as a designated public park. 

Nombrado said she and the motion’s many supporters were “incredibly surprised” when it received unanimous support from council, including from Mayor Ken Sim, who shared a personal story of growing up in the neighbourhood and catching tadpoles in nearby Everett Crowley Park to incubate into frogs at school and release back into the park. 

“Because you voted yes, we'll have even more children being able to connect with nature in our area,” Nombrado told Sim after the vote. 

Non-profit arts centre to cut programming, lay off staff after rent hike in city-owned building 

In July, we wrote about how Vancouver’s art scene is reaching a breaking point, with increasing costs and stagnant funding creating big operational challenges, especially for smaller organizations. 

Now, VIVO Media Arts Centre – a non-profit exhibition space, resource hub, and archive for digital arts in Vancouver – has had to temporarily lay off three of its staff members after its rents were raised by 30 per cent at VIVO’s city-owned building earlier this year. 

“Our expenses are getting higher and we haven’t had a [funding] increase,” from the city, province, or Canada Council for the Arts in years, VIVO’s general manager Carla Ritchie told Vancity Lookout. 

The $30,000 increase in annual rent by the city early this year eats up most of the $37,500 operating funding that VIVO receives from the city, Ritchie said, adding that VIVO is now two months behind on its rent payments. 

In addition to the temporary layoffs, every VIVO staff member has taken cuts to their hours, and the Centre will be cancelling its exhibitions and most of its workshops for next year, Richie said, adding that the priority is to maintain VIVO’s extensive archive of video tapes and digital history that they’ve been building since the 1970s. 

“We're one of the biggest archives of this type in Canada, and we have to protect it… so we’ve had to make sacrifices,” Richie said. 

VIVO is running a fundraiser to support its operations, which has currently brought in around $12,000 out of a $50,000 target. 

Kits co-op makes difficult decision to cut decades off its lease to avoid provincial tax 

In May, we reported on a co-op housing group in Kitsilano that was asking the province for an exemption to the Provincial Property Tax (PTT) that would be charged as soon as they signed a new long-term lease with the city. 

In late May 2025, NDP Finance Minister and South Granville MLA Brenda Bailey told the group there would not be a tax exemption. That was after Bailey, whose riding includes the Kits co-op, and Premier David Eby said during the 2024 election campaign that a PTT exemption for non-profit co-ops would be a priority, according to co-op members who met with Bailey and Eby. 

That “betrayal,” as co-op member David Diamond called it, meant they had a decision to make. Either limit their lease renewal to under 30 years – the bar for triggering the PTT – or sign a 40-year lease with the opportunity for a 20-year extension and pay just over $1 million in tax now. 

Ultimately, members decided to sign a 30-year-minus-one-day lease, avoiding the hefty tax bill but giving the co-op less long-term stability. 

“We do not have confirmation from the City either way about what will happen at the end of the ~30 years. It will depend on the politicians and housing policies at the time,” co-op member Carla Pellegrini told Vancity Lookout.