——

Rapid transit: cheap politics instead of $

When the thunderblust, baf-
flegab and deception had cleared
“the air at Bill Vander Zalm’s
celebrity breakfast two Saturdays
4g0, Greater Vancouver had mov-
ed not one inch closer to achieving a
Tapid transit system.

Correct,”’ said an exasperated
‘Mayor Ian Young this week. ‘‘Van-
der Zalm said nothing.’’ The head
of the Greater Vancouver Regional

ct’s transportation commit-

_ tee had been trying for a week to
Puncture Vander Zalm’s hot air
- balloon, but no one was listening.

It was typically Vander Zalm
When he gathered 300 municipal
Officials and media people to tell
them that he had chosen for
Greater Vancouver

automated light rapid transit
system” (ALRT) and that it would
be built with a target date of 1986.

But the GVRD and the Urban
Transit Authority already had a
1986 target date, and a study about
to be completed to determine if the
Conventional LRT or the ALRT
was the superior system. What they

_ Needed to hear from Vander Zalm
was that the province would make
It financially possible.

And that is where the
thunderblust and deception took
Over . Vander Zalm offered not one
Cent in financing for rapid transit
Which had not already been com-
Mitted. In fact he confirmed that
the system would be financed

_ Housing

For the past two years, as the
housing crisis in Greater Van-
COuver grew steadily worse,
municipal councils, labor, tenants
groups, social service agencies and
4 myriad of others cried out for

_ Provincial government action. But
_ the Socreds did nothing. —-

__ They did nothing because the
housing industry was making a kill-
Ing out of the limited but lucrative
Market and it didn’t want any
Change in the situation.

However three months ago the
Private developers decided they
wanted the provincial government
to take action. And two weeks ago

cred lands, parks and housing
Minister James Chabot went to Bill
Vander Zalm’s breakfast party to

-announce that he would do exactly
as the developers had told him.

In September, Ian Beveridge, ex-
€cutive director of the Housing and
Urban Development Association
(HUDAC), the voice of the private
developers in B.C., complained
that the bottom was about to fall

_ Out of the boom in housing profits
because the Lower Mainland was
Tunning out of land and what was
left was becoming too expensive,
€ven for the developers.

Every available lot in the whole
Tegion had been snapped up in the
Tush for spoils in the first seven
Months of 1980. The squeeze had
Inflated land prices by 30 percent

and house prices by over 50 per-

Cent...

_Beveredge therefore told the
Provincial government that time
had come for the province to act, to
Take sure the developers didn’t
Tun out of land to exploit. He had

€e specific suggestions: release
for the private market the several
_ thousand acres of provincial land

5 at Westwood Ridge in Coquitlam,

the 320 acres of provincial land at

Riverview and additional provin-

Clal land on Burke Mountain in
Port Coquitlam.

_ That, in essence, is what Chabot
_ announced. The province will open
about 7,000 serviced lots in Co-
S quitlam and another 1,000 at

the.

under the cost sharing formula of
theUrban Transit Authority, the
same fimancial straight-jacket
which had made rapid transit im-
possible.

Instead of a capital grant
towards the estimated $290 million
(1979) capital cost, Vander Zalm
said that the government would
release $55 million to the UTA
from its special transit fund. But
that money was allocated in the
1979 provincial budget to provide
for upgrading of the bus system.
And according to Ian Young, the
Socreds consider even that $55
million to be ‘‘an interest free
loan.” :

Where will the Urban Transit
Authority get the money to build
the rapid transit system? By bor-
rowing, and the province will,
Vander Zalm said, ‘‘guarantee the
loans.”’

The problem with that is that the
cost of financing a $290 million
project is enormous, and under the
Urban Transit Authority legisla-
tion, financing costs for capital ex-
penditures are rolled into operating
costs, that is operating deficits.

Then Vander Zalm slipped in the
hook. “The one final step before
we start moving on rapid transit is
reaching agreement with the
GVRD on a long term contract for
deficit sharing.”” And if the GVRD
doesn’t accept that agreement by
February 1, 1981, it will be respon-

Riverview. More lots will be put on
the market at Burke Mountain, but
spaced over several years. It will
mean an extra 8,000 or so lots on
_the market in the next two years..
The rest of Chabot’s statement,
which raised his tally to 19,000 lots
was basically puff. It included the
long term plans for Burke Moun-

tain, 15 years away, several pro-.
jects already underway and a pro- "

posal to finance the city of New
Westminster to take over the 67
acre federal B.C. Penitentiary site.

’ However city administrator Doug

Manning told the Tribune this
week that the matter has hardly
even been discussed, and the
federal government is completing
its own study of what should hap-
pen with the land.

The other component of .

Chabot’s housing plan was certain
unstated revisions to the building

ee
Wy

2 : 4 4

Rankin, chairman of the GVRD

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Fort Langley Club

sible for killing his initiative.

To make it all more palatable,
Vander Zalm issued with his pro-
nouncements on transit yet another
glossy, printed promotional
booklet which extolled the govern-
ment’s vision in choosing ALRT
and claiming great benefits for all
concerned.

According to that booklet, com-
plete with very official logking
graphs and tables, the expected
deficit to share in 1986, including
the cost of the present bus system
and ALRT, would be $70 million.

The fact is that the deficit this
year for the bus system only is just
under $70 million.

Bafflegab or deception? It is
likely some of both. A senior of-
ficial with the Urban Transit
Authority confirmed to the
Tribune that the UTA played no
role in preparing the material
released by Vander Zalm’s
ministry. And Doug Spaethe,
senior transit director for the
GVRD, also claimed no respon-
sibility for Vander Zalm’s material.
Spaethe did say that the projections
are “‘totally unrealistic.””

The real costs of the transit
system by 1986 are about double
Vander Zalm’s figures. The bus
only system can be expected to have

_ an inflation rate of about 12 per-

cent per year, and that alone will
bring the deficit to about $123
million in 1986.

code which supposedly will allow
for renovation and conversion of
older homes, warehouse and com-
mercial space in Vancouver into
new housing. The unanimous con-
sensus among people who know
about the housing crisis in Van-
couver is that whatever the changes
will be, they will have almost no im-
pact on the housing situation.

The serviced lots that will come
on the market in Coquitlam and
New Westminster will be sold, ac-
cording to Chabot, at ‘‘10 percent
below market value.’’ Some will be
sold: by a draw and others will be

sold to developers. Most will go for-

house construction; little, if any,
for rental housing.

“That won’t stabilize land
prices, and it won’t produce affor-
dable housing,’’ said Harry

CPC

The best and most preferred in-
terest rate available today for the
provincial government (which

would guarantee the loan) is 13.5.

percent. To finance a $290 million
project over, say, 20 years would

- add annual payments of $42.5

million. That would make a total
deficit of about $165.5 million in
1986. That figure compares
favorably to projected deficits with
LRT made over the past two years
by both the GVRD and the city of
Vancouver.

Such a deficit shared 66-33- bet-
ween the province and the GVRD
will have two unacceptable results.
First, it will necessitate the use of
property taxes in the GVRD to pay

-the local share, and second, with

transit fares set at 35 percent of
operating costs, the fare would
have to rise to at least 90 cents by
1986, and possibly much higher.

Ian Young is genuinely mad at
Vander Zalm. ‘‘It was all
premature — he doesn’t know
what he is talking about,’’ Young
charges. But the anger is no doubt
motivated more by the political set
up which Vander Zalm is trying to
manoeuver the GVRD into, where
the price for rapid transit will be
financial ruin for the transit system
and an ever increasing tax burden
on local taxpayers.

’ However, as is often the case

when one charges ahead of good
sense, Vander Zalm has left his rear

housing committee and president
of the Greater Vancouver Housing
Corporation.

“Of course if they were in-
terested in producing housing for
ordinary people they would give at
least some of the land to us to build
non-profit housing — but they are
interested in serving their developer
friends, not people,” said Rankin.

According to Bob Hall, ex-
ecutive director of the regional
housing corporation, the province
hasn’t indicated that any of its land
either in the north east sector, or at
B.C. Place on False Creek, will be
offered to the GVRD to build non-
profit housing.

“We can build housing that peo-
ple can afford if we can get land at
a reasonable price,” said Hall. A
reasonable price would mean land

at about $12,000 per unit. Current

_. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—DEC. 19, 1980—

unguarded. Ian Young and the
GVRD could turn the tables on the
minister and force him to live up to.
his commitment to bring rapid
transit to the region, by laying
down their conditions for a new
transit agreement.

Good sense would call for a
capital grant from the province and
the federal government to cover the
full cost of the construction of the
rapid transit system, avoiding the
costly interest charges. After all,
would the provincial government
borrow money to build a highway?

And the province must assumea ~
larger share of deficits, if not the
total deficit. The only alternativeto
that is for the GVRD eventually to
resort to the property tax, which
would not only be unjust, it would
be used as a political pretext for
cutbacks in the transit system.

As Vancouver’s Harry Rankin
has repeatedly stressed, develop-
ment profits from land along the
right of way and at station stops
can help pay deficits. But the first
step has to be to acquire the right of
way and as much land around sta-
tion stops as possible.

Rapid transit can be a reality by
1986, but only if the GVRD and
municipal councils challenge the
demagoguery of Vander Zalm and
force the Socreds to negotiate a
new deal for transit.

crisis: relief for the developers

market’ price is anywhere from
$25,000 to $35,000 per unit. The
Socreds offer of selling lots at 10
percent below market price is a
useless gesture, at least in relation
to building affordable housing.

When the GVHC, one of two
non-profit housing corporations in
Western Canada, gets land at
$12,000 per unit it can rent three
bedroom townhouses at an average
of $400 per month. And if it got the
land free, it could rent at $60 less
than that.

For areal solution to the housing
crisis in the Lower Mainland, pro-
vincial and federal support is need-
ed for non-profit housing, but in a
much bigger way than the meagre
2,000 units that Rankin and Hall
have been able to secure so far.

But that kind of solution is, un-
fortunately, no where in sight.

ety, a