Posts from — February 2009

Vancouver Sun columnist Miro Cernetig is dumbfounded,  as I am, by the cost overruns for affordable housing at the Olympic Village. He discerns a watershed moment in Gregor Robertson’s administration, not yet 90 days old.

The whole problem, Cernetig feels, is the idea that anybody but rich people should enjoy waterfront views.  In the real world, poor folk don’t get such amenities. He thinks Mayor Robertson should tell the non-rich there’s no room for them on the water, but it won’t be easy. Cernetig writes:

“How does Mayor Robertson sell that hardball without creating a revolt within the hard-left elements of his coalition? They are the vocal minority who so often spout the nostrum that the poor must have the right to live on the waterfront, just like the rich.

“Perhaps by showing he understands that such mushy, utopian thinking — and the past politicians of the left and right who felt pressured to put green-plated public housing in a high-end waterfront development — is what got us into this hobbling financial mess.”

Of course, back in the 1930s, False Creek waterfront was reserved for the poor, who worked in polluted industrial facilities or squatted in shacks or boats. That was then, this is now. As Cernetig sees it, everyone should give their heads a shake and realize that today’s poor people must stick to realistic, low-end housing goals, well back from the beach.

It’s a fitting bookend to the view that only those on income assistance should live in the Downtown Eastside, based on “social housing only” redevelopment. To hear these folks tell it, if everyone stuck to their own neighbourhoods, this city would be a better place.

Black Top driver and owner Amrik Mahil looks for a fare.

Last October, city council voted across party lines to defer a decision to add 122 taxicabs to Vancouver streets. Industry representatives questioned the need for new permits in the middle of an economic downturn. That report is due to return to council this spring, but drivers remain worried.

Despite the perception among some passengers that “you can’t get a cab in this town,” the reality is often very different. Last week, Black Top driver and Vancouver Taxi Association director Amrik Mahil picked me up at 7 a.m. to monitor the down town rush hour.

Here’s how it went:

7.o0 a.m. Sunny Tuesday morning as Amrik picks me up in my False Creek neighbourhood. Computer shows 63 cabs available in the downtown core. We review the cab equipment: despatch system, phone, GPS, security camera soon be upgraded at cost of $1,400.

7.10 Holiday Inn on Broadway: four cabs available from two companies. Mahil reports tremendous decline in business in past six months. A year ago, a cab waited five minutes for a fare at morning rush hour. This year, you can wait 40 minutes. “This is a slow month, but this year is extraordinarily slow.”

7.17 The entire zone, about one quarter of the downtown area, has produced a single fare so far. Malik outlines his career: six years driving, eight years as a manager, stints as a despatcher, now an owner. Value of half-shift cab licence today (12-hour shift) is about $230,000. Value of full licence: $400,000. Value of 122 licences if issued by city: $48.8 million.

7.23 Second fare shows up in zone! Two cabs waiting outside train station on Main St. We ask drivers about more licences. They are not in favour. More cabs will mean too many drivers chasing too few fares. If earnings remain low, no one will drive anyway.

7.30 Two cabs waiting at Georgian Court Hotel, two at the Sandman. Mahil spends $80 a day, 365 days a year on basic costs: insurance, taxes, GST and other charges.

7.31 There are now 58 cabs waiting for a fare in the downtown core. Mahil: “In the last half an hour, only 10 cars got a trip.” We discuss the Olympics. Drivers expect earnings will not change, given the dramatic reductions in road capacity. They are willing to see cabs from the entire region serve the city during the Games to ensure service. “We’ve said we don’t care if we don’t make a lot of money, as long as everyone gets service.”

7.37 Bayshore Hotel. Five cabs waiting, one just leaving with a fare. Mahil charges a driver $110 a shift to take his cab. The driver must pay his own gas charges. “If you can’t make $200 in a shift, you shouldn’t be driving.” Around the West End: cabs everywhere. Yet Mahil concedes “the West End suffers when we’re busy. The cabs can’t move around quickly enough.”

7.40 “This is prime time, but 42 cars in the downtown are waiting.” Why would anyone drive for next to minimum wage? “You dictate your own hours, take time off when you want. We have writers and singers, who drive cab when they aren’t writing or performing. There are a lot of songwriters in the taxi business.” Today, they must be singing the blues.

7.50 Wall Centre, four cabs; Davie, six cabs pooled up.

7.48 “This is truly the peak period.” Of 180 cabs on the streets citywide, 70 are working.

8.00 a.m. Coffee at Tim Horton’s, Burrard and Davie. We meet driver A. Dhillon, driver for 16 years, who has done two trips since 6 a.m. “Very slow.”

8.20 Check out Black Top lot under north end of Burrard Bridge. Six cabs not even on the road. Wait time for a cab anywhere in downtown zones during rush hour has never been more than five minutes this morning. There have never been fewer than 40 cabs available.

8.40 City Hall. I say goodbye. 40 cabs available across the downtown core. I’ve met about 12 drivers. None favour more licences.

The battle for affordable housing swept through City Hall Thursday night as tenants at 4550 Fraser St. appealed for council action to save their homes. (Read the report here at item 4.) Council has no legal power to stop demolition, more than 120 low-cost rental units will be eliminated and the remaining 30 to 40 tenants have nowhere to go. Council adjourned at 10 p.m. with a number of residents still be heard from, but check out Derek Lennie for a very moving and human account of the insecurity faced by tenants.

All this in the same week that council learned of massive cost overruns in the affordable housing section of the Olympic Village.

The now-legal Nishan Sahib at Khalsa Darbar Gurdwara on Prince Edward St.

The City of Vancouver’s demand that the BC Khalsa Darbar Society remove a 100-foot Nishan Sahib from its Vancouver gurdwara because it exceeds the neighbourhood’s 35-foot height restriction has been overturned by the City’s Board of Variance.

But it took the use of a peculiar and near-secret weapon in the city’s policy arsenal to turn the trick. City officials appeared before the Board of Variance Feb. 18 to say that the city’s director of planning “can and does” support an apparent violation of city bylaw in this case. The Khalsa Darbar gurdwara is in the 7700-block of Prince Edward St.

The board’s decision averted a potentially serious crisis in the city’s relations with the Sikh community, because none of the gurdwaras in the city has an explicit permit for its Nishan Sahib.

A negative decision could have spilled over to the gurdwaras on Ross St. and Skeena St., despite the fact that the city’s director of planning has the discretion to allow exemptions to the height bylaws.

All that was known for sure is that once a Nishan Sahib goes up, it does not come down except for maintenance or religious observances. Any attempt to remove the Nishan Sahib would have been news — bad news — from here to India and around the world.

But sanity prevailed when the Board of Variance heard appeal submissions by the Khalsa Darbar executive, led by Indermohan Singh Sohi.

In a strange turn of events, a city planning officer was on hand to indicate his support for the Khalsa Darbar presentation, effectively supporting their appeal of his own department’s decision. Citing new submissions by the society and previous “misunderstanding,” he said the city “can and does” support the height violation.

Behind the scenes, Vision Vancouver councillors Raymond Louie, George Chow and I had worked to find a solution. City staff found the exit strategy in their “can and does” submission.

The bizarre saga began when the gurdwara committee installed the religious symbol during the 2004 civic strike as conversion of the former church was completed. With City Hall behind picket lines, no permits were available, but the society believed none was required for this vital religious symbol, as important to a gurdwara as a cross is to a church.

Using the services of a professional engineer, the committee build the Nishan Sahib to the standards in place at other gurdwaras. Even when lowered, it remains within the gurdwara property lines.

Later, when city officials objected to the Nishan Sahib’s height, the gurdwara committee immediately applied for a permit. Neighbours were advised of the application and few, if any, expressed any concern.

But the city planning department refused to approve the application in a decision issued in August 2008.

The Khalsa Darbar Society appealed to the Board of Variance in September and to candidates for city council, particularly those from Vision Vancouver.

Soon after November’s election, Meggs and Chow urged city staff to hear additional submissions from the Khalsa Darbar Society. Sohi and other committee members assembled  photos and documentary material for review by staff and the Board of Variance.

The result was a quick and simple end to a complex bureaucratic tale, more proof, if any is needed, that navigating city rules “can and does” require patience and a sense of humour.