The banner stretched along the perimeter of Vancouver’s Little Mountain social housing site around the corner from my place reads: “GREAT STORIES TAKE TIME TO WRITE.”
INDEED, THEY DO, and now an important chapter in this one can be written. At this stage in the tale, it reads both tragic and troublesome.
The relinquishing a week ago by Holborn Properties Ltd. of its protracted legal fight to protect disclosure of the site’s purchase contract with the B.C. government of Gordon Campbell was sudden and stunning. Absorb the 99-page contract and you see why neither party would have wished it made public.
The top-line numbers on the deal for a lucrative 15-acre parcel adjacent to Queen Elizabeth Park are that Holborn negotiated a purchase price of $334 million in 2008, given a “credit” of $88 million toward eventual construction of non-market units, a loan from the province of $211 million and a nearly 19-year interest-free holiday on that loan that only kicks in after December 31, 2026. It needs to pay up by the end of 2031, a 23-year affair.
We should all have such benevolence at taxpayer expense.
Beyond that were the further provincial obligations: demolition of the households, environmental remediation of the site, resolution of First Nations claims, payment of the real estate fees, and, of uppermost importance, the relocation of residents from their neighbourhood.
We should all have such logistical assistance at taxpayer expense.
People were moved out and the buildings razed quickly, presumably to proceed with the project to build back and bring people back. But as the contract makes clear, the project has no provincially negotiated deadline.
We should all have such forbearance at taxpayer expense.
The NDP government left to explain this all away says $35 million has been paid by Holborn to date and that 53 of an initially proposed 234 social housing units are built, with another 62 under construction. In the end we will see 282 social housing units built, including 48 owned by the city and 10 by the Musqueam Indian Band, as part of a 1,500-unit complex on the L-shaped property between 33rd and 37th streets and Main and Ontario streets.
The BC Liberal government of the day intended to use the proceeds from the sale to build more social housing – former housing minister Rich Coleman once called it his “line of credit” to do so – but there isn’t much leverage when only a small fraction has been paid and interest payments won’t even apply for more than another five years.
Only with that payment deadline does the project takes shape, it appears, but it doesn’t take an economics degree to appreciate that the appreciation in land value over what will be close to two decades will make Holborn happier than if it started hammering nails a decade-plus earlier. That was when the residents were promised their homes back, and they have proved to be the tragic part of the story as pawns in a pricey chess game in which government looks for ways to secure its supportive housing policies but doesn’t always make the best move.
If there is blame to place on the BC Liberals of yesteryear, the BC Liberals of today are not exactly owning it. Interim leader Shirley Bond said last week the deal hasn’t worked out as planned, which is certainly true but hardly helpful. The Campbell administration did many solids for the province, but its successors would be more credible to acknowledge this mess of its party’s making and offer to help effect whatever outcome can emerge as an improvement over the existing one.
Of course, that might not be possible. A contract is a contract, and Vancouver-based Holborn was simply a superb negotiator.
In the days ahead the BC NDP government will have something to say, although it is hard to see whether there can be anything more than coarse words.
Public land parcels have gone into private hands without profound vigilance over the years, and some are suggesting an inquiry is in order into disbursals. But given the province’s dependence on the steady stream of real estate revenue, this is a political can of worms no administration might wish to open. The findings of any probe might be humiliating for previous regimes but prescriptions might hamstring future ones.
It was one of the NDP’s former MLAs, David Chudnovsky, who spent three-and-a-half years under the province’s infernal freedom-of-information law to liberate the contract paperwork. We were about to go into a judicial review of his request when Holborn quit the fight. Which makes me wonder why. It just doesn’t feel like it fits into the narrative of the yarn. Nor does the initial political silence from the province and the city serve the plot.
Which still makes me think there is something afoot to write a better next chapter in this GREAT story the fence’s banner promises will come. As it stands, there seem too many characters who won’t experience the happiest of endings. •
Kirk LaPointe is publisher and editor-in-chief of BIV and vice-president, editorial, of Glacier Media.
