‘Vancouver

Councils back Squamish
call for nuclear-free B.C.

North Vancouver City council voted 5-1
Monday to become a nuclear-weapons free
zone, bringing to 58 the number of such
zones in British Columbia.

The vote followed that of Coquitlam dis-
trict council, which voted 5-1 last month to
ban the shipment, storage, manufacture,
stationing and testing of nuclear weapons
on its territory.

More than 60 per cent of British Colum-
bians live in nuclear-weapons free zones,
notes a resolution circulated throughout
B.C. by Squamish district council.

Squamish has been seeking the endorse-
ment by other local councils of its resolution
for the Union of B.C. Municipalities’
upcoming convention, urging the provincial
government to declare British Columbia
free of nuclear weaponry.

The motion asks the province to either °

make the declaration or submit the question
to a referendum.

The North Vancouver motion, from
New Democrat councillor Barbara Sharp,
also requested that the province urge the
federal government ask the United States
and Soviet Union “in the name of all
humanity, to intensify their efforts to
achieve mutual and verifiable nuclear arms

mac

NU

Map lists nuclear-weapons-free zones.

reductions. ...”

A second motion adopted in 4-2 vote
asked neighbouring North Vancouver dis-
trictand West Vancouver to participate ina
committee to publicize the resolution.

Another resolution backed the Squamish
appeal.

A former Vancouver parks commis-
sioner has hailed as a victory the Greater
Vancouver regional district’s decision to
reject a privatization move and to keep
Camp Capilano in the public parks sys-
tem.

Pat Wilson, a three-term commission
with the Committee of Progressive Elec-
tors, credited a campaign by the public
school community, community centres,
groups and individuals for the decision
to retain the park for young people in the
district as a publicly-run facility.

“We’ve won this one, and it feels
good. Butit’s still not over,” Wilson said.

She said those who fought to keep the
park from going out to private adminis-
tration will be monitoring future devel-
opments,

Citizen groups — which have twice
blocked a proposal to privatize Camp
Capilano in North Vancouver — were
on hand when the GVRD directors
voted 40-39 to keep the camp in the pub-
lic parks system April 27.

The Vancouver park board operated
the children’s camp adjacent to Capilano
Canyon Park for 46 years, until it
dropped funding at the end of 1987 and
turned the facility over to the regional
district.

That decision followed a. cut of
$35,000 — which essentially paid the
camp director’s salary — by Vancouver
city council during its controversial and
hotly contested cost-cutting measures
last spring.

The GVRD assumed responsibility
for the camp, at first voting for a $44,580
budget but later cutting that by $24,000
and eliminating the director’s position
and the environmental program. It was
considering a proposal to privatize the
facility by leasing it to the Elks Club, a
private society which would have run the
camp on a fee-for-service basis.

Opposition to the privatization was

GVRD vote retaining
camp Called victory

sparked by the Hastings Community
Centre which struck a committee led by
Wilson and long-time Hastings-Sunrise
community activist Betty Greenwell.

The centre’s appeal to save the camp
was supported by several Vancouver
schools including McDonald, Charles
Dickens, Trafalgar and Lord Roberts,
along with the Council of Senior Citizens
Organizations. Faced with growing pro-
tests, the GVRD twice deferred a final
decision on the camp.

GVRD staff told citizens that the pri-
vatization was considered to overcome
budget problems arising from a $1-
million commitment to the new Science
Centre at the former Expo Preview Cen-
tre. :

“Camp Capilano is a unique facility
for urban kids, and it should be kept in
the public park system,” Wilson asserted.

The camp was used by children from
all social and economic backgrounds.
But Wilson, a resident of Vancouver’s
working-class east end, said the camp
— which is nestled in the seclusion of the
Capilano canyon dividing the municipal-
ities of North and West Vancouver
— obviously was of great benefit “‘to
those children whose parents could oth-
erwise not afford to give them a camp
experience.”

She said it was wrong to sacrifice
Camp Capilano for the Science Centre,
which should be supported on its own
merits.

Wilson charged that privatization
“destroys valuable public services and
undermines the quality of life in our
community.”

She said opposition to the move “‘is an
example of real, grass-roots organizing.”

Community members will be on hand
when the GVRD’s parks committee
meets May 11 to discuss staff recom-
mendations on the camp, Wilson said.

2 « Pacific Tribune, May 4, 1988

Affordable housing
at Expo site demand
of labour, community

The acquisition of the former Expo 86
lands by developer Li Ka-Shing means
there are no guarantees Vancouver resi-
dents will get either adequate social housin g
or accommodation affordable to working
people.

Additionally, a conditional $180 million
on top of the $320 million purchase price
may be construed as a kind of bribe to get
the city of Vancouver to grant the developer
the zoning required to realize the full value
of ambitious $2-billion proposal called
Pacific Place.

Those are some of the fears raised along
with the charges by community, city and
labour representatives in the wake of the
announcement of plans by the Hong Kong
developer, who beat out several rivals ina
secret bidding process to sell off the Crown
lands.

Aldermen Libby Davies and Bruce
Eriksen of the Committee of Progressive
Electors are two voices on city council who
have argued that the entire process of devel-
oping the lands, held by the B.C. Enter-
prises Corp., is undemocratic and oriented
towards profits for mega-business.

Labour, which saw its proposal to build
housing on the part of the lands summarily
rejected by Premier Bill Vander Zalm, is
also angry over the lack of democracy and
the fact that much of the construction is
likely to be non-union.

Organized tenants, meanwhile, insist that
the project contain adequate affordable
housing for Vancouver’s lower income resi-
dents.

Davies said the project, hailed as “breath-
taking” by Vancouver mayor Gordon
Campbell, appears to contain densities far
in excess of city guidelines laid down for the
north shore of False Creek back in 1982.

That was when a city staff report recom-
mended more housing units, far less office
space, much lower buildings and much
more park space than that contained in a
Socred government proposal for what was
then known as B.C. Place.

“That was when we had policies on the
site. We haven’t any official ones now,
because Mayor (Gordon) Campbell has
Stalled on the question every time we’ve
raised it,” Davies said.

“The first thing we'll fight for is that this
must go out to the public for discussion,”
before any decision on zoning is made, she
said.

The Provincial Council of Carpenters
was among those Building Trades and other
unions that proposed developing a section
of site between the Cambie and Granville
street bridges, utilizing some $400,000 —
about 10 per cent — of private sector union
pension funds. Council president Bill
Zander said Vander Zalm’s rejection of the
trades’ proposal means the premier “had
bigger fish to fry.”

“The big developers will build as much as
they can at non-union rates, thanks to pro-
vincial legislation. But it isn’t just union
workers who will suffer,” he said.

“The taxpayer won’t save a dime or real-
ize, as a resident of B.C., the true value of
that land,” Zander charged.

The Carpenters’ president called the
Socreds and the developers “high rollers
(who) deal with the property of the people
of the province as though it was their own
private preserve.” —

The premier had in fact told the union
representatives that their bid was too
late — even though it was made last

October, and had been announced during
the civic election in October, 1986. _ f

That prompted B.C. Federation ©
Labour president Ken Georgetti to ask: “1
the (union) proposal was too late. . .how IS
that (businessman and Vander Zalm
acquaintance Peter) Toigo’s bid was not too
late in December?” Be

In a recent statement, Georgetti said
Vander Zalm should resign for his interfet-
ence within the cabinet and the BC
board of directors in trying to procure a
favourable response to Toigo’s ultimately
unsuccessful bid. ‘

“Mr. Vander Zalm dissuaded the unions
from proceeding. In effect, he told them the
door was barred but
he opened it for Mr.
Toigo and ushered
him alone into the
inner sanctum Of
BCEC,” he charged.

Community 8
oups, meanwhile,
have hit the PrO-
vince for refusing to
guarantee affordable
housing on the site.

In a_ letter to
Vander Zalm April 28, Tenants Rights Coa-
lition co-ordinator David Lane and Jean
Swanson of End Legislated Poverty stated:
“There are almost 40,000 people on welfare
in Vancouver and tens of thousands TES
working at substandard wages who don't
have adequate housing. -

“Housing for those in need should be the
number one priority at Pacific Place — not
luxury condominiums for the rich,” the let-
ter stated.

The groups noted there was only a
“token” mention of social housing for
Pacific Place, and called for at least 50 per
cent of housing on the site to be available to
low-income earners.

Details of Pacific Place so far announced
include 10,000 dwelling units — there is
some mention of about 20 per cent afforda-
ble housing — 20 hectares of parks and
commercial buildings as high as 45 stories. —

“That would mean there would be build-
ings there higher than anything we noW
have in Vancouver,” Davies noted.

“T believe that the people of Vancouver —
don’t want a concrete jungle on the north
shore of False Creek.”

Davies said Pacific Place plans appear to |
put all social housing in one place, “but —
instead of creating a social housing ghetto,
we would rather see it scattered throughout
the site. And all social housing shouldn’t be |
aimed strictly at the poorest people. There |
should be units available to working people —
who can’t afford a house right now.” .

Davies hit the proposal whereby some of —
the additional $180 million — conditional —
upon appreciation of the land over the 15- _
year development period and, according to
the premier, if Ka-Shing gets the desired
zoning — would accrue to the city to pay
for, possibly, the proposed Cassiar connec-
tor.

“That sets a dangerous precedent,” she
noted, recalling that the city refused a pro-
vincial government offer to pay the lion’s
share of the new Cambie bridge construc-
tion costs in return for rezoning of the land
for B.C. Place back in 1982.

Davies said the Non-Partisan Associa-
tion dominated city council must allow for
full, open public discussion on the desired
development for the site before it changes
any zoning.

DAVIES ,