British Columbia

Privatization charged in housing plan

Vancouver city council adopted a con-
troversial housing plan for middle-income
earners and seniors in an 8-3 vote Tuesday
amid charges that the plan constituted polit-
ical grandstanding, ignored the input of
housing groups and bypassed regular city
procedures.

The plan, announced at a press confer-
ence the preceding Thursday and handed to
council for debate six days later, commits
the city to eventually sell city land to a
private developer which has controlling
interest in the project.

Under questioning from Ald. Libby
Davies of the Committee of Progressive
Electors, Mayor Gordon Campbell admit-
ted that he did not consult the three COPE
aldermen prior to releasing the information
the preceding week. And he acknowledged
the plan does not set rents or settle questions
such as the salaries paid to the managers of
the new company controlling the project,
VLC Properties.

Housing activists who appeared at the
meeting said the plan does nothing for low-
income renters, fails to prevent demolition
of low-rent housing, and ultimately privat-
izes city-owned land.

John Tufts of the Concerned Citizens for
Affordable Housing/Kerrisdale, Elaine
Duvall of Columbia Housing, and Tenant
Rights Coalition representative Brett
Haughian — who also read a letter from
the Downtown Eastside Residents Associa-_
tion — said the plan came as a complete
surprise.

Campbell and aldermen from the domi-
nant Non Partisan Association defended
the plan on the grounds that it shows lead-
ership and commits the city to do some-
thing about the housing crisis.

The plan calls for $200-million per year
to be spent on building 2,000 units housing
yearly, funded by a combination of union
and management pension funds, and start-
up money of between $3 million and $7.5
million from the city’s property endowment
fund. The city may buy up to 25 per cent of
the shares, but is limited to 10 per cent of the
voting rights. Funded as it is from union

pensions, the project is to be built by union
labour.

After 21 years of operation, the privately
owned company — headed by business
executive Jack Poole — can buy the city
owned land on which most of the units are
to be built, provided the city realizes a 14-
per-cent annual rate of return.

Duvall in her presentation told council
she feared the proposal amounted to the
privatization of city-owned land. Haughian
said the plan does nothing about demoli-
tions and “actually condones continued
land speculation.”

Davies charged that Campbell’s plan was
“deliberately done up as part of your politi-
cal agenda to appease people in this city

about housing...and what it really is, is
helping your friends out.”

Unknown is whether the developer can
produce the housing or what rents will be,
Davies said. “It seems to me we're buying
pie in the sky and we’re facilitating the may-
or’s agenda to help out his friends.”

She also charged that the city land and
resources used will be at the expense of
needed low-income housing, noting that the
city’s involvement in the non-market hous-

ing sector has markedly declined since 1986.

Davies and the housing activists noted

_ that the plan was not aired ata city housing

symposium on May 8. And Davies said it
contravened the usual city procedures by
not going departments such as finance,

housing and planning first.

COPE Ald. Harry Rankin called the
proposal “a pig in a poke” and one that
leaves more questions unanswered than
answered. He called instead for a “shirts-
leeves session” with Poole and city depart-
ments before any model is approved, and
for alternative models to be considered.

The mayor and NPA councillors claim
leadership on the housing issue, but prop-
osals from COPE for an anti-demolition
bylaw and a tax on offshore investors who
are fuelling skyrocketing housing prices
have all been “shot down” by council, Ran-
kin said.

A motion from Davies that the plan be
deferred was defeated, 8-3.

NPA scheme ignores 40,000 poor

Vancouver is desperately short of affor-
dable housing. Rents have zoomed upward
out of the reach of most renters, and are still
going up. A survey carried-out by the city
revealed that no less than 40,000 people are
in need of low-cost housing, or social hous-
ing as it is sometimes defined.

Private developers are not interested in
building this type of housing. The only way
to meet this need is through a program of
non-profit or co-op housing. This is what
the labour movement, tenant groups and
others have been demanding for years. This
is what Committee of Progressive Electors
aldermen have been pressing for on city
council. This was the central theme that
emerged from the May 8 housing sympo-
sium called by city council.

But Non Partisan Association aldermen
have refused to do anything. Their
approach is “if the developers don’t wantit,
the NPA isn’t interested.”

On May 25, Mayor Gordon Campbell
called a press conference to make a surprise
announcement. A new company, VLC
Properties, has been set up to undertake a
$200-million program to build 2,000 units
of new housing units a year. The company is

headed by millionaire developer Jack
Poole.

Its board of directors includes Ken Geor-
getti, president of the B.C. Federation of
Labour, the city manager and five people
connected with real estate, including former
NPA alderman and president Brian Calder.

The company will be under the control of
developers. The city will have 25 per cent of
the shares but only 10 per cent of the voting
rights.

The housing units will not be social hous-
ing. Rents will be based ‘on current market
rates and will go up every year.

The company will use union labour, but

wants a no-strike clause for the duration,
whatever that may be.

The city will lease the land for the devel-
opment and commit up to $7.5 million from
the property endowment fund to get the
scheme going.

The establishment of this company,
which must have taken many months, was
carried out in secret. No mention of it was
ever made in city council. Tenant groups
and the labour movement were kept in the
dark. The democratic process has been
thrown out of the window in favour of
behind-the-scenes manoeuvering that will
give the developers what they want.

That, of course, is why the scheme was
cooked up in secret. Those involved didn’t
want it subjected to public scrutiny before
they had the whole thing set up to suit
themselves. It’s an NPA-developer scheme
to sidetrack the demand for social housing.

The scheme will provide housing for
those who can afford high rents. The build-
ings will make a handsome profit. So will
company shareholders. But it will do
nothing to meet the needs of the people of
Vancouver for low cost housing. Their
plight will remain as desperate as ever.

By JOHN HILLRICH

NANAIMO — A city alderman urged
more than 350 residents attending a public
meeting on a controversial metals recy-
cling plant May 26 to stack city council
with requests to speak and thereby tie up
the issue for several months.

Ald. Bill Holdom told the meeting

Association that he had changed his initial
support for the ferrochromium smelter
proposed for the Duke Point Industrial
Park by New Jersey industrialist Jay
Wooding.

Other speakers, including U.S. chemis-
try professor and environmentalist Dr.
Paul Connett, criticized so-called envir-
onmental studies supporting the plant as
being one-sided, and pointed out that
Wooding’s technology has a bad track
record, while the businessman is unknown
in his home state.

Connett, of St. Lawrence University in
upper New York state, said the compound
Chromium 6 produced by the smelting
process is highly toxic and carcinogenic
and that this substance would constitute
about 20 per cent of the plant’s emissions.

The method of filtering the emissions is
a “bag house” process that has a large and
tragic history of accidents, Connett told
the meeting in the Departure Bay Firehall.

He criticized the environmental impact

firm, which accompanied Wooding’s
application to the federal Western Canada
Economic Diversification Ministry.

organized by the Citizens Public Affairs ~

report of Norelco, a Vancouver consulting .

Connett termed it “an advocacy docu-
ment telling only half the story. It serves
only Mr. Wooding’s interest and not
objectivity or science.”

Despite this, the federal and provincial
governments have pledged a total of $10
million in start-up funds for the ferroch-
romium plant, and B.C. Hydro has
offered a rate discount of 35 per cent. An
additional $30 million is to come from the

Elders Corporation, an Australian trans- -

national.

Lawyer Calvin Sandborn of the West
Coast Environmental Law Association
noted the province’s sorry track record in
enforcing pollution violations. During the
past four years fines have averaged only
$20,000 per year, despite the massive
environmental damage from toxic spills
and illegal dumping, he said.

The Norelco report has been criticized
by both Environment Canada and the
federal Fisheries Department. The former
has also pointed out that slag from the
plant would threaten local waterways with
runoff from toxic metals, and since the
nearest dump site is in Oregon, shipping
costs are prohibitive, Sandborn related.

Sandborn called on the prime minister
and all premiers to establish a task force
on the environment patterned after the
United Nations body that produced Our
Common Ground, the renowned Brun-
tland Report.

Nanaimo city council initially gave the
green light to the project when Wooding
proposed it in January. But citizens

addressing a council meeting last March
pointed out the dangers of the plant, the
failure of the technology in a factory in
Luxembourg several years ago, and the
fact that the Chamber of Commerce in
Wooding’s home town of Bear Bond,
N.J., has no record of his enterprises.

They also complained that public input -
had consisted of a couple of open house
sessions at the Coast Bastion Inn in which
Wooding and his associates moved
through the crowd chatting with small
groups of people.

In response, council agreed to support
calls for full environmental impact studies
before the project is allowed to proceed.

Wooding’s first made his proposal to
the Vancouver Island community of Mill
Bay last year. But when some 500 people
packed a rezoning meeting demanding
that full environmental impact studies be’
undertaken, the industrialist withdrew the
proposal.

Residents criticized the entire political
process at the May 26 meeting, and levelled
some fire at local New Democratic MP
Dave Stupich for supporting the ferro-
chromium plant in an article. His col-
league, NDP MLA Dale Lovick, declined
to criticize the federal member on the
grounds that the piece was written before
all the facts were known. But he said later:
“It is obvious that the environmental
review process is flawed and that no one
can ignore what happened here tonight.”

“Promises have been broken by federal,
provincial and municipal politicians,”

Residents urged to oppose ferrochromium plant

SANDBORN

Ald. Pat Barron said later.

The meeting circulated petitions de-
manding full environmental impact stu-
dies on the project, and participants were
urged to write elected officials on the issue.

John Hillrich is an environmental activist
in Nanaimo. -

2 « Pacific Tribune, June 5, 1989