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Community groups in Vancouver influencing neighbourhood change

Public engagement means different people and organizations will mobilize to have their own views heard. Nate explores who some of these groups are and the state of high profile city developments

Building on our last article about the City of Vancouver’s community engagement processes, we wanted to delve further into the role of community interest groups, advocating against and in favour of certain developments and neighbourhood changes.

To explore the arguments and impact of community groups in neighbourhood change, Vancity Lookout spoke with two local organizers who, respectively, are advocating for the development of housing, and street use changes to improve transportation safety. We also highlight several other high-profile developments that have been opposed by various community groups in Vancouver.

Abundant Housing Vancouver

Rielly Wood public engagement

Rielly Wood, leading an Abundant Housing neighbourhood walking tour in Strathcona / Submitted by Rielly Wood.

Rielly Wood is one of the founding members of Abundant Housing Vancouver, (AHV). Formed in 2016, AHV advocates for the development of housing throughout the city. The group – which has an active membership of about 15 people, Wood said – helps organize residents to speak at public hearings, write letters in support of housing proposals, and hosts walking tours to educate participants on the types of housing allowed in different neighbourhoods. 

Wood, a self-described urbanist, was inspired to get more involved in local planning processes after living in Japan for several years, where he’d enjoyed affordable housing and great transit. Returning to Vancouver, he found housing was more expensive, with fewer options, and reduced access to transit. 

He started going to public hearings, where he met the other founders of AHV. However, Wood said that when he began attending public hearings in the mid-2010s he was one of the only people saying “yes, let’s build this, let’s allow it.”

“This was during the days of Vision Vancouver, and I actually chatted with a couple of the councillors who said they were really thankful to us for coming out, because, before us, they were exclusively hearing from people who didn't want to change in their neighborhood,” Wood told Vancity Lookout. 

Wood characterized most of the other participants as “fairly well-off homeowners” who would generally come out in opposition to new developments. 

“They were typically people who had been in their neighborhood for a long time and just didn't really want to see a change, and weren't too concerned about the experiences of people who hadn't bought a house like 30 years ago,” he recalled. 

Wood explained that when changes are proposed for a specific area, there’s a really strong incentive for the people who already live there to pay attention to what’s being proposed and attend those public planning processes. Conversely, many of the people who might live in a new building don’t necessarily live in the immediate area and probably don’t even know about the proposed building at that point, meaning they don't have “that visceral incentive to come out and say, yes, please build this,” he said. 

Wood said AHV puts a lot of effort into getting city planning policies and zoning bylaws changed, and has been impressed by the City of Vancouver’s new Director of Planning Josh White. 

Specifically, Wood likes White’s commitment to rein in onerous city processes that make it difficult and slow to build new housing. You can read more about possible changes to those processes in this Storeys article from July. 

“I think the city's planning processes [are] definitely trending in the right direction,” Wood said, adding he “really appreciates what the BC NDP has been doing on housing during this last term”, referring to a suite of legislation that allows for multiplex housing and secondary suites on most single-family lots, restricting short-term rentals, and mandating minimum allowable building heights within a certain proximity to transit hubs. 

Case Study: Supportive Housing

At least two community groups — Kitsilano for Inclusivity and Abundant Housing Vancouver mobilized in favour of proposals for a supportive housing development beside the Broadway Subway’s Arbutus station. 

“We came out in strong support of that building, in part, because we think people need housing,” Wood said. 

The Kitsilano Coalition opposed the development during the six-day public hearing and through a judicial review, but that was blocked by the provincial government through a legislative amendment, which specifically validated the bylaw amendment passed by city council in August 2022. “Despite any decision of a court to the contrary made before or after this section comes into force, the public hearing on the amending bylaw ... is conclusively deemed to have been validly held,” the amended legislation states. 

The provincial amendment came after the current mayor and council requested the province intervene in the case, according to Global. The Coalition brought another case challenging the legislation, but the B.C. Supreme Court dismissed the case. 

The Kitsilano Coalition, which was created in 2021 according to court documents, say they support social and supportive housing in Kitsilano, but not “for a failed low-barrier supportive housing model which would be unsafe for occupants and residents,” according to their website.  

This low-barrier approach is known as “Housing First,” which emphasizes the need to house people experiencing homelessness in stable, long-term housing, with supports, and without preconditions. This approach has been adopted by both the federal and provincial governments. 

According to a 2017 SFU study, including interviews with Housing First providers and clients, the approach has been shown to “achieve remarkable success,” for previously homeless people with mental health and/or substance use problems. However, the authors also note that, at the time, the way Housing First was being delivered in Metro Vancouver didn’t align with best practices, which compromised the value of the program. However, these concerns were primarily related to program funding and heavy workloads for providers, rather than safety.  

“I think one of our big takeaways was that we need to be more active, and housing groups need to be more active at the provincial and federal levels… at some point, the higher levels of government need to step in and say that, yes, housing is not just a city specific problem,” Wood said. 

  • Dive deeper: The push and pull between providing supportive housing in accessible locations while dealing with the concerns of neighbourhood groups is not an issue exclusive to Vancouver. The province recently paused plans for a supportive housing facility in Richmond, drawing criticism from Richmond’s mayor and a city councillor, according to Global.

Case study: Year-round Comox school street and bike lane

Lucy Maloney public engagement

Lucy Maloney, standing in front of Roberts Elementary in 2023 / Nate Lewis

Lucy Maloney is a spokesperson with Vision Zero Vancouver and former chair of the Roberts Elementary Parent Advisory Council (PAC). 

For at least three years, Maloney organized, advocated for, and was one of the primary volunteers for the Comox School Street program, a before and after school program that closed one block of Comox beside Roberts Elementary to vehicle traffic. They were one of three schools that participated in a month-long pilot program in 2021, which was expanded to operate throughout the school year from 2021-2023.

But the program relied on dedicated volunteers, like Maloney, to staff the school street everyday, making it difficult to sustain in the long term. That was the stated reason why the PAC, led by Maloney, and the city, advanced the idea of a year-round school street that could operate without volunteers.

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