In the weeks leading up to the November 15 municipal election, Business in Vancouver will interview the mayoral candidates for Vision Vancouver, the Non-Partisan Association (NPA) and the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) to find out where they stand on business and economic issues.
BIV spoke to Mayor Gregor Robertson, who is running on the Vision Vancouver slate, on October 10.
BIV: What are the most pressing concerns you’re hearing from businesses?
GR: I hear concerns about affordability, about companies looking to locate and hire into Vancouver and having challenges with the cost of housing. That’s a consistent concern for a number of years now. Generally our business environment is healthy, we’ve got very low taxes and the lowest property tax in the country and second lowest major city in the world for combined corporate taxes.
BIV: Why doesn’t Vision support high-paying jobs in coal and gas expansion?
GR: We don’t have that many coal and gas jobs in Vancouver … Resource jobs built the city for generations, and we do have successful resource industries based here in Vancouver, mining in particularly has a strong position in the city’s economy … We’ve had extraordinary success becoming one of the world’s hottest technology cities. We’re attracting great companies around the world now with enormous momentum. Attracting tech companies and growing our own entrepreneurs has been at the core of my economic game plan.
BIV: You don’t see Kinder Morgan as an upside?
GR: I see it as a downside. Vancouver has a thriving tourist industry, almost 30,000 jobs in tourism that are put at enormous risk if there’s an oil spill in our waters. Vancouver’s livability and green credentials would be hammered by an oil spill in our harbour. A seven-fold increased risk in oil tanker traffic is an unacceptable risk for the economy of the city as well as the environmental impact.
BIV: You’ve done some good work in terms of cultivating technology companies, but how about industrial land that’s being steadily eroded? How will you preserve industrial land to make sure there’s enough room for the port to expand, for instance?
GR: Vision’s certainly protected industrial land in a time when the pressure’s enormous, and we’ve seen past councils rezone large swaths of industrial land, and frankly we have precious little left to erode. We strongly support Metro Vancouver’s regional growth strategy to protect industrial land. Vancouver will have to be careful into the future. Our council’s demonstrated our commitment there by protecting industrial land … A future council could take a different tack but they’d have to get approval for changes to the regional growth strategy.
BIV: Do you think more needs to be done to support local small businesses that are facing rising rents and development pressures?
GR: There’s more work to do support local business. The Vancouver Economic Commission is undertaking a small business roundtable, working with the business improvement areas and local businesses to look at next steps where the city can improve its support. That’s taking place this fall, and I expect there will be recommendations back to council this fall for next steps. We have an incredible array of independent, locally owned businesses that set us apart from all of North America … that we need to support and protect.
BIV: We’ve heard from builders that they’re facing very long delays in getting building permits. What are you doing to speed that process up?
GR: It’s been a challenging year for permits and licensing. We’ve had the busiest year in our history, which is great news for our economy, but it’s coming just as we’re shifting our permits and licensing into more online process and have switched offices around at city hall. It’s created a backlog. Council approved more money for dealing with the slowdown back in early summer. We’re hopeful staff work through [the backlog] this fall.
BIV: Another development issue is the community amenity contributions (CACs). Some developers have complained that they’re arbitrary, and developers don’t know in advance what they’re going to be.
GR: The last two years have been record [development] years in our history so we’re not seeing any evidence that people are backing away from the opportunity to develop in Vancouver. The CAC contribution is a successful formula that’s generated enormous benefits for the neighbourhoods surrounding developments and we want to make sure there’s a solid contribution from the land lift that developers get from rezonings.
We recognize that some shift into a more predictable formula may be warranted in some parts of the city. We have a pilot program in the Cambie corridor that’s set a CAC rate to test the theory. Unfortunately we’ve seen market prices driving ever higher, and with a fixed CAC formula much of that benefit went straight to developers rather than being shared with community. It’s important that we’re careful where a formula applies, and we don’t want to end up with an imbalance.
BIV: Reporters are finding it increasingly difficult to get access to city hall and are often getting email responses instead of interviews. Meanwhile, the city was recently reprimanded by B.C.’s privacy commissioner for not releasing information under freedom of information requests. How do you respond to those concerns?
GR: We’ve made huge strides with 311 and social media in terms of citizen access to the city and being able to talk to someone and get service. The technology has really helped to connect citizens to city staff and get help. That’s been a key piece. The open data initiative … has put a ton of city data out there.
We’ve seen a massive increase in FOI requests in recent years. It has spiked. There’s a load there to process, but that’s what needs to be dealt with.
The goal was to ensure that requests for media came through a communications department versus going direct through an array of staff so city staff could focus on their jobs … That’s the rationale that other governments and companies have followed that allows more efficient use of staff time … I’ve heard the concerns about this and understand the frustration, so there’s obviously room for improvement on that front as well. But I don’t see going to the old model where staff across the city are having to juggle their own duties with responding to media requests.
Definitely the communication department has put their focus into social media and other channels that weren’t there a few years ago. There’s more effort to get the word out directly to citizens.
BIV: Vancouver residents tend to have lower incomes than their counterparts in other cities, while we have some of the highest real estate costs in the country. What are your thoughts on narrowing that gap?
GR: It is a big challenge. It’s a big reason why I’ve been so bullish on attracting tech companies here because there are lots of well-paying tech jobs. Right now we have over 1,000 job openings in film and TV and over 3,000 job openings in digital entertainment and interactive, which is great for job opportunities, but we don’t have enough people trained to move into those positions, which are good paying jobs. So there’s work to do with our post-secondary [institutions] to make sure our young people can move right into good paying jobs. We’re now well ahead with companies creating jobs and trying to fill them … This is an expensive city to live in and our income has lagged way behind the cost of living, but we address that by creating good jobs in industries that are thriving, and that’s where I’ll keep my energy.
BIV: What are your thoughts on recent calls to address high housing costs through taxation?
GR: There’s lots of anecdotal evidence that there are empty homes and empty condos. I’m not going to take action on a new tax until I see the hard evidence. We created the affordable housing agency to go out and gather the data on empty homes and report back to council. We need to see how big the problem is and what tools are used most effectively in other cities where this is an issue. Right now we don’t have enough hard data. But I’m very concerned about the impact of empty homes on neighbourhoods and the housing supply.
BIV: If you are re-elected, what are your main priorities for the next term?
GR: Housing is still a huge priority, getting more affordable housing … and transit is another huge issue that has an enormous impact on the economy and the city’s business community. I’ll keep championing that and the referendum that we’ll see in March. Because the business opportunity on Broadway is very significant and the movement of people and goods in the region is really needing the completion of the east-west access.
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