It could also be more critical than a “rendering farm,” the massive computer hardware installation that makes data-heavy industries like digital special effects firms happy to be here. (The VEDC is working on one of those as well.)

Lee Malleau, who was unveiling the VEDC’s Economic Action Strategy, said Vancouver is emerging as a key hub of the video and digital special effects sector, along with Los Angeles and London. But unlike those two cities, Vancouver lacks reasonably-priced housing.

Creating that housing will be essential, Malleau said, if the city is to continue to attract international talent, whose wages will go much further in cities with cheaper homes.

The latest summary, circulated last week by the BIA’s Charles Gauthier, shows that the benefits continue for downtown businesses, with incidents of street disorder trending down as shelters open.

Two commentators pursue this argument in today’s real estate section of the Vancouver Sun, where columnist Bob Ransford points to “hidden taxes” in the form of community amenity charges as a key cost driver. But when the public creates value in the form of a rezoning, shouldn’t the public get most of the benefit?

Ransford is feeling the pain of developers who pay top dollar during land assembly only to find that the amenity charges levied by the city push their final selling price too high. Should the public guarantee profits by reducing its take? Would that help reduce prices?

(Ransford’s column includes some incisive commentary along another line from UBC commerce professor Michael Goldberg, who has long argued Vancouver’s densities are far too low to support cheaper housing. This is an issue that I agree needs to be confronted. Current community expectations are so restrictive, if public hearings are any indication, that most future major housing development will be built outside Vancouver.)

Not to be outdone, Peter Simpson, CEO of the Greater Vancouver Home Builders’ Association, takes the space right above Ransford to finger red tape for high housing costs. Of course, approvals should be timely and fees should be limited to cost recovery. But surely we’re not talking about cutting quality and safety standards, are we?

Ransford and Simpson like one thing the mayor has done: his appointment of Olga Ilich to co-chair his task force on housing affordability. (For some reason, the Sun identifies her as “multimillionaire developer Olga Ilich,” presumably to signal her trustworthiness to Sun readers still stinging from Robertson’s victory.)

Ilich’s qualifications for the post, including her work on social housing, were outlined in more detail by the Courier‘s Allen Garr, but the folks over at The Mainlander aren’t fooled: Ilich is not only a multimillionaire, she’s a leader of the city’s “real estate oligopoly.”

Clearly, this task force project will not be dull.

Former city planner Nathan Edelson did a remarkable job of summarizing Jim’s planning career, one of several major careers he’s had so far, for the audience at the award ceremony. To his credit, Edelson reported the controversies as well as the achievements. His conclusion:

“In my view and that of so many others in the Downtown Eastside, throughout the city of Vancouver and indeed across Canada, Jim Green is seen as an incredible community builder who makes efforts – sometimes extraordinary efforts as with the Woodward public process – to engage local residents in decision making, but who at the end of the day gives  priority to concrete results.”

Read the full text of Edelson’s tribute here.

Just three years ago, as voters headed to the polls to elect Gregor Robertson for the first time, the global economy was in free fall. The October 2008 numbers reflected the end of the city’s long building boom. A few months later, building permit activity had dropped by at least half and the new Vision council was scrambling to find $50 million in savings to balance the 2009 budget.

Four hundred and twenty-eight residential units were approved in October this year, compared to 130 three years ago. (By January 2009, the number had dropped to 34, of which 18 were replacements)

Today it’s hard to find a city block in many parts of the city without new construction or renovation. Vancouver specials are being tossed out for a 21st century update: much larger, centre-plan, two-storey homes with full basements, quality stucco exteriors and much finer finishes. (The granite front steps on many of these homes are notable for the observant canvasser.)

Laneway homes, a controversial aspect of 2008 campaign, are routine now: 162 have been approved so far this year, but they weren’t even listed in 2008.

The global economy is still in deep trouble and the US housing market is so grim that cities like Cleveland are bulldozing foreclosed homes to “save” neighbourhoods. Here, in Lotusland, we’re still building, but fewer and fewer residents can afford to buy. It looks like existing homeowners are responding with a quiet housing expansion program right under our noses.

But I heard little about:

1. The crisis for renters

Although half the city rents, few meetings had the intensity we experienced in 2008 with “renovictions” soaring and vacancy rates near zero. The situation for renters has not improved, but the very significant launch of  a new rental housing coalition got little coverage last week. Only Vision Vancouver is making specific commitments to help renters and has generated significant new rental housing construction since the last election.

2. The crisis in the global economy

Although Greece’s economy imploded since nominations closed and Italy has gone to the brink, the economy almost never arose. Meetings generally stayed close to local issues like zoning and housing prices. (Many discussions centred on the impact, if any, of mysterious “foreign” investors.)

But Vision’s platform does lay out specific proposals to support job creation and innovation in Vancouver. I spoke hopefully, in an early-campaign news release, of “economic recovery,” a prospect that seems to be fading in light of the latest news.

3. Climate change and global warming

Perhaps because support and engagement around the Greenest City Action Plan is so broad, there were few arguments about the need to work harder to make Vancouver green.  But the decision to delay approval of the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline means that the push to export bitumen from Metro Port Vancouver will intensify. Vision is the only party with a comprehensive environmental program and convened a special council meeting last year to shine a light on growing oil exports from our port.

Without a strong Vision team at all three levels — council, school and parks — Mayor Gregor Robertson will be hard-pressed to deliver on these commitments, despite their obvious importance.

Mayor Gregor Robertson’s platform announcement yesterday set out VisionVancouver’s proposals to tackle the problem, including a key pledge to begin work on affordable market housing.

After a scant three questions, however, reporters turned to more pressing issues, like the possibility of rats at the site of Occupy Vancouver.

Nonetheless, Robertson spelled out what Vision Vancouver will do if given a new mandate Nov. 19. Here’s exactly what the Mayor said:

“It wasn’t that long ago that people thought Vancouver’s toughest social problems were permanent fixtures.
Homelessness… unaffordable housing… Too bad, some people would say, but you’d better get used to them. They’re just part of the backdrop, like the mountains and oceans.
Well, three years ago, homelessness hit the crisis point. And the people of Vancouver decided it was time to start moving mountains.
We knew Vancouver could do better. We knew we have to do better. It’s what led me to run for Mayor.
And it’s what led the people to elect the Vision Vancouver team – with a strong mandate to tackle homelessness and the cost of housing.
So we went to work. For the past three years, this has been our core focus: addressing homelessness, and the issues surrounding and underlying it, like drug addiction and mental health.
We opened new shelters – and tonight there are 650 fewer people sleeping on Vancouver’s streets than there were three years ago.
We worked with the BC government and secured an investment of a third of a billion dollars, creating more than 1,500 low-income homes. And since last year, for the first time in more than a decade, overall homelessness actually dropped.
That’s more than 100 fewer homeless people.
We put tenant issues front and centre, and about time. Because this is a city where more than half of our residents rent their homes.
We cracked down on slum landlords, ending the NPA’s free-ride policy. We used the first-ever legal injunctions to force owners to clean up low-income hotels in the Downtown Eastside.
Our rental incentives program created the first new market rental housing in four years. And we created the first new co-op homes in False Creek in a decade.
That’s genuine, tangible progress. But we all knew going in that this wasn’t going to be a single-term problem.
So let’s get back to work.
Today I’m releasing Vision Vancouver’s agenda for the next three years on affordability, housing and homelessness.
The heart of our agenda is the 10-year affordable housing and homelessness plan that the Vision Council approved earlier this year.
It includes measures to bring 38,000 new affordable homes to Vancouver. A task force to find ways to strengthen renters’ rights. And a strategy to maintain low-barrier shelters for our most vulnerable citizens.
We’ll build on that plan over the next three years. And we’ll start by making the most of a simple fact: one of the largest property owners in Vancouver is the city itself.
We’ll work with private and non-profit partners to use city-owned properties to increase the stock of affordable housing – from co-ops and affordable rental right through to affordable home ownership.
I’ll say that again. Affordable home ownership in the city of Vancouver.
And while the only durable solution to homelessness is homes, we can’t tell people sleeping on the streets to wait for partnerships to form and construction to finish. So we will continue to support shelters in critical neighbourhoods, including a 24/7 women’s shelter in the Downtown Eastside.
We’ll work with community partners like SUCCESS to increase our support for our seniors, especially in immigrant communities, to help them meet their growing housing needs.
To protect renters: we’ll continue the hard line on landlords who refuse to bring their properties up to even the most basic standards. That will include a new apartment registry, so you can publicly track work orders and property violations on a searchable web site.
If you’re a renter looking for an apartment, you’ll know instantly which landlords are holding up their end – and who the bad apples are.
We’ll help make rent more affordable, with strategies to build more rental housing, and to help tenants realize their dreams of home ownership.
And we’ll work with business, government and organizations like Streetohome to develop a rent bank for renters in crisis. These are people in danger of losing their homes because they’ve been laid off, or been hit with a huge expense.
They’ll be able to get a loan to cover their rent – one they’ll repay as they get back on their feet.
The policies we’re putting forward stand in sharp contrast to the negative, out-of-touch ideas championed by Suzanne Anton and the NPA.
When it comes to affordable housing and homelessness, for the past three years the NPA have opposed us every step of the way
Only one councilor voted against the City’s affordable housing plan: the NPA’s Suzanne Anton
Only one councilor said no to the city supporting emergency homeless shelters: the NPA’s Suzanne Anton
The NPA are not a party that is willing or able to face up to the challenge of homelessness and affordable housing – quite simply, they have the wrong priorities.
And it reinforces the important choice voters must make on Saturday, November 19th.
In the past three years, the progress we’ve made so far makes me proud. But it doesn’t make me content.
The job will not be finished until nobody, not one person, has to sleep outside at night.
The job will not be finished until everyone, every family, senior and student, can find affordable, quality housing.
And if you believe as I do, that this job is at the heart of what city government should be about… then I ask you to support this agenda, and Vision Vancouver, on November 19.
Thank you.

The CCPA analysis is the first to look carefully at the social justice side of energy pricing to create a program that could reduce poverty and global warming at the same time.

It’s entirely consistent with Mayor Gregor Robertson’s Greenest City Action Plan and a challenge to make such a plan province-wide in scope.

The Stock Exchange project is just one of a new wave of construction of office and job space projects in the Downtown Core that will exceed two million feet very quickly.

The announcement should raise confidence about four key council policies:

• the decision several years ago to impose a moratorium on condo construction in a key section of the downtown core so there would be room for the jobs needed to make the city economy tick;
• the decision to adopt other jobs-friendly land use policies of the Core Jobs Review;
• the requirement for green building construction at LEED gold levels, which this project will exceed; and
• Mayor Gregor Robertson’s drive to commit the city to “green jobs” as a strategy to move Vancouver forward.

The result is a rash of office construction exceeding two million square feet that is riding these policies as well as the wave built up by the city’s very competitive tax structure, rapid transit and our general economic stability.

The only cloud on the horizon? Housing prices, which more and more employers are learning can be a deal-breaker even when recruiting high priced help that can work anywhere but earn much more where housing costs are lower.

This policy, which transfers clients to “shared living” arrangements akin to foster care, has seen developmentally disabled adults bounced from one home to another or even into acute care hospital after years of stabled, supported living in group home settings.

The Community Living Action Group, a broad-based coalition of organizations seeking full funding for CLBC, estimates the actual need is closer to $70 million.

A motion Councillor Kerry Jang and I are taking to next week’s council calls for a moratorium on the group home closures and calls on the city to take steps to do what it can to help affected families. One solution: creation of supported housing in Vancouver where parents and children of such families could live together.

So far, however, Victoria has not agreed to fund clients who live in such settings, even if parents are able to create them. Money is available, however, for “shared living.”