Election 2018

Vancouver Civic Election 2018 Slate

This is a critical election. There is finally an opportunity for a big change at city hall with most incumbents not running again. We need a new direction from Vision’s failed decade in power.

The challenge is that there are too many people and parties running for office. Many have good intentions, but will not likely be elected and are only splitting the vote. Unfortunate.

Many people have been asking what to do. Here is a slate with rationale that I support below.

The Character House Network has people from across the political spectrum concerned about the unsustainable and wasteful demolitions across the city. This is a root cause of the affordability crisis: demolishing of the older more affordable housing stock and replacing it with more expensive new construction.

The current Vision council has failed to do anything about this and their policies have only made it worse. Growth and improved affordability could be achieved much more sustainably while retaining neighbourhood character and allowing new development where appropriate. People who live and work here need to be properly and meaningfully involved in the process.

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 Election Candidates 2018: Character House Network Slate

The following slate for the Oct. 20, 2018 civic election is intended to guide those who care about saving character houses and the neighbourhoods throughout the city. Below is a basic slate for consideration with rationale.

MAYOR:   SIM, Ken (NPA)  

COUNCIL (10):

• CARR, Adriane (Green)
• FRY, Pete (Green)
• WIEBE, Michael (Green)
• WONG, David (Green)
• HARDWICK, Colleen (NPA)
•  NOBLE, Penny (Independent)

PARK BOARD (7):

• MACKINNON, Stuart (Green)
• DEMERS, Dave (Green)
• DUMONT, Camil (Green)

SCHOOL BOARD (9):

• FRASER, Janet   (Green)
• GONZALEZ, Estrellita (Green)
• CHAN-PEDLEY, Lois (Green)

Rationale:

Current city councillor Adriane Carr (Green) has been an early and consistent supporter of character house retention. Greens recognize that the greenest policies are those that allow for adaptive reuse of existing character buildings, including for more affordable suites, strata and infill. Because of this record, we support the whole Green slate.

The Vision dominated council has had a decade to stop the demolitions, but instead has just made it much worse. And recent rezonings without any community consultations show this would continue. The two “independent ” mayoral candidates, Kennedy Stewart and Shauna Sylvester, are both related to Vision and their policies reflect more of the same, so not viable options. One City is also the same.

The other front running mayoral candidate is Ken Sim (NPA). He has confirmed that he supports policies that meaningfully retain character houses. He would revise zoning and building bylaws to make it easier to retain character houses or renovate, and that the recent rezonings would be reconsidered with character retention as part of community consultation and planning.

Colleen Hardwick (NPA) is strongly committed to character house retention as part of planning for growth within a sustainable city, supported by a more affordable surface electric transit network than the unsustainable subway and towers.

Penny Noble (Independent) has been part of the Character House Network and is committed to the cause.

Slate Options:

The above is a small base slate so that those who want to can either vote just for these candidates or there is room to add more from the NPA, other parties, or independents. Lots to choose from. Be mindful of vote splitting. At minimum, please vote for all the Greens.

But mainly it is important to vote. Advance voting is until Wed. Oct. 17, with election day on Sat. Oct. 20.

Find out more here.

Please consider signing the Character House Network petition here.