Vancouver

Waterfront development and market democracy  

A good battle between elites is a spectator sport 

By Reed Eurchuk  

I love a good fight between elite groups, and Vancouver has one brewing right now between two groups fighting over the proposed Whitecaps Stadium above the waterfront railyards. Residents in Gastown and the Downtown Eastside are involved, but the real players to watch are the big developers and their respective allies who are lining up on both sides of the question. First off, there can be no doubt that the planned stadium would negatively impact Gastown, the waterfront, and the Downtown Eastside. Imagine a huge concrete block, a giant parking lot by its side, abutting quaint Gastown. It would be analogous to putting a Wal-Mart at 1st and Commercial or 4th and Yew. The project, its scale, its function, and the lack of continuity with its surroundings, would overwhelm any neighbourhood. As reported in The Vancouver Sun, Hotson Bakker, independent consultants hired to provide evaluation of the Whitecaps' first proposal, "said the scale of the development is not in keeping with the heritage of Gastown and doesn't take into account" possible future development in the port areas. Respected architects Arthur Erickson and Bing Thom have both weighed in, opposing the project.

The stadium will impact the interests of residents and landowners in Gastown most directly, and the Downtown Eastside less directly, but significantly also. Together with the adjacent Convention Centre now under construction, the stadium will bring huge amounts of people into the area. While proponents try to make hay of the fact that the Skytrain station could serve the stadium well, the fact remains that sports fans are SUV drivers, not public transit users. So an access road will be built. Landowners in Gastown may see their land values drop if they are set next door to a huge stadium and a desolate parking lot that will inevitably accompany it. Many residents have already begun to complain that if the stadium goes through they will have a view of the massive cement side of the stadium, not of the harbour and north shore mountains. Gastown could become less appealing to condo buyers; developers could see their projects wither.

Jon Stovell, manager of Reliance Holdings, a major landowner in the Gastown area, and a long time key player in the Gastown Business Improvement Society, has been the outspoken leader of those trying to stop the construction of the stadium. In a moment of high drama, Stovell broke the news to a hushed crowd at City Hall last fall that Vancouver Whitecaps owner Greg Kerfoot had purchased not only the land on which the stadium will stand, but a large piece of additional land surrounding it. The fact that the stadium will sit on a bit more than two hectares of the 10.5 hectare land leaves many wondering what Kerfoot has planned for the rest of the land.

Once again, as this column has argued in the past, the sports, entertainment and tourist industries overlap with real estate speculation. The Gastown developers have traditionally been central to the NPA's coalition of business interests. Jon Paul Shason, Grant Longhurst, Bryce Rostich, among others, have owned land in Gastown and worked hard within the NPA. And there are other connections. According to Vancouver Courier sports writer Bob Macklin, the anti-stadium group has hired Reputations Corporation to run its campaign. Reputations Corporation's principal owner, Wayne Hartrick, is a personal friend of Mayor Sam Sullivan, and he was the NPA spokesman during the last campaign. Stovell and related anti-stadium groups have argued reasonably that any development of the port lands should be part of a comprehensive plan for the whole area.

But the other side has just as heavy a bunch of hitters, if not heavier. Ex-Mayors Philip Owen and Larry Campbell held a news conference recently to trumpet their support. The loud-mouth ex-mayor, now Senator Larry, suggested to a reporter that he had thought of the idea first: "During my tenure as mayor it became abundantly clear that we lack a midsize outdoor stadium in the heart of Vancouver,” and according to the reporter, Campbell “approached the Vancouver Whitecaps owner in 2003 asking if he'd like to build a stadium on city-owned land,” which gives you a good idea of how Campbell thinks democracy works.

Of course, Owen is Sullivan's mentor, and he stood solidly behind him throughout the NPA's fractious nomination process last year when many took it for granted Christy Clark would get the NPA candidacy. Other developers, like Arthur Griffiths, have also voiced support for the project.

In our market democracy, the government makes decisions in the best interests of the most powerful and wealthy groups in society. Often times, as in the stadium decision, powerful interests stand on both sides of the matter.

Sullivan is in a tough position. His business-oriented coalition is pulling in opposite directions. Whichever way Sullivan and council vote, for or against, it will be couched in the language of “democracy,” and what's best for the “community” and residents. But the residents' needs will be secondary, and a choice between competing paths of development will determine the decision.

Dispossessing Vancouver's Boat People.

While I never quite got my mind around all those theories I read about in university, I did learn a useful method from the exercise: always look for the often unspoken ideas, interests, principles and patterns underlying words and actions. Using this method, the City's move to grab control of the waters in the harbour and areas immediately surrounding the city has little to do with safety; it has much more to with expropriating previously "common" space from all of us. The City will force boaters who want to moor in False Creek to acquire a permit to do so. The permit will stipulate how many days per month the boater can stay there. The allowed time limits correspond with tourism cycles, so in the summer the boaters’ stay will be shorter.

Dispossessing people of previous entitlements to food, land, work, and security has been a key part of the process of turning these items into commodities for the last 600 years. With the breakdown of the feudal order, the lords, aka the landed gentry, dispossessed the peasantry of the "common lands," that is, the land used in common by the tenant farmers for foraging, wood gathering, hunting and grazing. The lords claimed exclusive, private control over the land. This process, known as the “enclosure movement” is thought by some to be a one-off "big bang," one of the keys kick-starting capitalism. But, in fact it constantly reoccurs in many different forms throughout modern history, right to this day. So for example, Greg Grandin, in Empire's Workshop, explains that in 1997, “the World Bank informed Bolivia that future debt relief was dependent on unloading [privatizing] its water company as well, which it duly did, to Bechtel.” Overnight, water bills jumped by 200 per cent. Grandin writes, Bolivians “were even outlawed from capturing rainwater for their personal use.” In fact, much of the globalization process over the last 35 years has been accompanied by the privatization of previously universal, public services and entitlements.

The city's grab is aimed at controlling the waterways so that, during tourist and corporate events, like fireworks or boat races, there will be room for the "right types," the wealthy with their yachts, and the private, pay-for cruises. At the same time, travelers and boat dwellers will have to seek expensive private moorage. Eventually the new city-issued permits, which will be free at first, will come with a charge. And another free, universal entitlement will be commodified, a piece of property bought and sold.

City Police Department's empire expands.

Ever eager to exploit fear as an opportunity to grow itself, the Vancouver Police department used the immediate aftermath of the arrests of the so-called terror suspects in Toronto to unilaterally announce the VPD will create its own counter-terror unit. Last year, a week after the London bombings, VPD police chief Jamie Graham and Bob Kind, the police chief of the "Greater Vancouver Transit Authority" basked in the bright lights of the media and warned, “now is not the time to be complacent.” In regards to the city police terror unit, Vancouver RCMP Staff Sgt John Ward told Vancouver Sun reporter Neal Hall that two VPD seats in the RCMP's Integrated National Security Team, which is paid for by Ottawa, not Vancouver, have sat vacant for some time.

VPD inspector Rob Rothwell explained to Hall that “because of a shortage of resources,” officers were called back to the VPD. But that doesn't explain how the VPD can suddenly come up with the four officers it says it needs for the unit. Guess who pays for this bureaucratic self-aggrandizement? You do! Hurray!