NEWS

NEWS Colleen Hardwick promoter plugs her vision for the city

by Carlito Pablo

Neighbourhood advocate Jak King has made up his mind about who he thinks is the best next mayor of Vancouver. That would be city councillor Colleen Hardwick.

“She’s got the right ideas for city governance,” King told the Straight in a phone interview. e longtime resident of GrandviewWoodland is part of TEAM for a Livable Vancouver, the new civic party Hardwick joined last fall.

King said that what attracts him most to Hardwick is that she “understands that elected o cials and the [city hall] sta have to listen to the residents of Vancouver”.

“She’s a great believer in bottom-up ideas, and I think she will help strengthen the neighbourhoods to allow the neighbourhoods to have a much greater voice in city planning than we’ve had at least for the last 10 years,” he said.

Some have blamed neighbourhood associations for the supposed delay in the delivery of new housing in the city. ese critics o en describe local residents as NIMBYs (the acronym for Not in My Backyard, which refers to community opposition to new developments).

“NIMBYs and YIMBYs [Yes in My Backyard], they’re just insulting names,” King said.

King said that people simply use those phrases in order to “not engage in the conversation that they should”. He added that it is “foolish to suggest that residents of the neighbourhood should have no say whatsoever in the way their neighbourhoods develop”.

“I know that there are parties like OneCity [Vancouver], which believes that there should be just one neighbourhood in the city and that everything should be the same,” King said. “ at’s just nonsense to me.

“I mean when I rst came here in the ’70s,” King continued, “the thing that attracted me to Vancouver was that this was a city of villages.

“You know, Kits was di erent from East Side, and East Side was di erent from Southlands, et cetera, et cetera,” he said. “And I think that one of the joys of the city is that you can go from area to area and they’re di erent. We don’t want them all looking the same.”

King came from London to make a lm in Vancouver in 1978 and ended up staying for good. In Grandview-Woodland, King said, his neighbourhood “accepted change over the last 30 years”. “But it’s been nice, gradual change,” he added.

Last year, King released a book that chronicled the community’s battle against city hall in the dra ing of a new development plan for the East Vancouver area. His book is titled Battleground: Grandview— An Activist’s Memoir of the Grandview Community Plan, 2011-2016.

“Developers push on us massive changes, which people object to,” King said. “And I think if we have a better relationship between the neighbourhoods and the city, where a real, genuine conversation can happen, that would help a lot.”

One thing TEAM for a Livable Vancouver promises to deliver is a ordable housing, whether ownership type or rental.

“ ere’s no point in building $2-million condos or $2-million single-family housing,” King noted. e city’s o cial pro le, based on the 2016 federal census, shows that the median personal income in Vancouver is $39,000. e accepted measure of “a ordability” is 30 percent of income for housing costs. Hence, applying this 30 percent standard, someone earning an income of $39,000 should pay only $975 for a one-bedroom unit or studio in Vancouver.

TEAM for a Livable Vancouver also promises to stabilize land values by “ending in ationary spot-zoning”. “What we’ve seen is that the upzoning they’ve done over the last few years has done nothing but increase land values, and that’s increased the una ordability,” King said. “We have to break that cycle,” he added. g

There’s no point in building $2-million condos or $2-million single-family housing.

– local historian Jak King Coun. Colleen Hardwick supports Vancouver as a “city of villages”, says local historian Jak King. January 13-20 / 2022

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