One year down: Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim urges patience on tough issues

One year down, three to go: Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim urges patience on tough issues

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim (Daily Hive)

A full year since the inauguration ceremony of Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim and the ABC Vancouver party-led City Council has elapsed.

Well over 2,000 supporters attended the November 7, 2022, ceremony held at the Orpheum Theatre, which replaced the usual ceremonial venue of the gymnasium at Creekside Community Centre for about 200 people at the most.

And lest we provide a reminder that it came on the heels of a historic victory, giving Sim and his party a clear mandate to effect change by wielding their newly found source of power — something the previous highly fractured City Council and his predecessor could not achieve.

For supporters who were promised there would be a markedly different approach at Vancouver City Hall, the expectations have been exceedingly high. But with full control of City Council and other elected municipal bodies, what does “Sim City” look like so far?

In a sit-down interview with Daily Hive Urbanized in the Mayor’s Office at City Hall, Sim said his team’s policies and strategies on numerous fronts on a range of issues are still very much a work in progress, and painted a picture of the need for some patience.

In the early months of their term, they halted and reversed course on long-running priorities and objectives established by City staff and their predecessors in elected office. There was an immediate focus on addressing the ignored cries for help from the Chinatown community, increasing policing and mental health staffing resources, and tackling the Hastings Street decampment, with the controversial move deemed to be necessary for safety reasons.

In more recent months, ABC pushed initiatives and strategies that were already in progress across the finish line, and introduced their own directives, especially in relation to tackling the housing affordability and supply crisis.

Just over a week ago, City Council approved its “Strategic Properties” document for its remaining three years in office — a list of 111 things to do before the term comes to an end.

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For brevity, this is an edited and condensed version of the interview questions and Sim’s answers:

During your inauguration speech at the Orpheum exactly one year ago, you said it is inevitable that there will be some mistakes and false starts made along the way. Do you think you’ve made any mistakes over your first year? Would you do anything differently?

You know, there’s been a lot of micro mistakes along the way. But I think the big one is, and I take full responsibility for it, we did not — or, I did not — communicate the property tax increases effectively.

And so, you know, people got this impression that it was this massive thing. And, you know, what we should have described was, in fact, that most of the property taxes that we collect have nothing to do with the City of Vancouver and are not affected by the 10.7% increase. You have TransLink, Metro Vancouver Regional District, and the provincial school tax, and so when you look at our 10.7% property tax increase, it equated to 33 cents per day for the average condo owner and 83 cents per day for the actual single detached homeowner.

When you look at that, we actually made life more affordable. If you live in a condo, and there [are] two of you, and you go to Tim Horton’s every single day, we saved you 50 cents a day [by removing the single-use cup fee]. And then we charge you 33 cents a day.

What you got from that is you got more police, you got a fully funded fire department, we had potholes filled, and we replenished or we’re starting to replenish our capital fund. We’re starting to replenish our depleted reserve fund.

I bet you if we presented it that way, almost every single condo owner in Yaletown would have said, “Can we please spend six cents a day because this neighbourhood is getting decimated right now?” And we would like that. So my bad, really bad job communicating this, and not really fully presenting the full picture to the residents of Vancouver.

So in a few weeks from now, you’re going to be discussing and finalizing the 2024 budget. What’s your outlook in terms of what we could see in the 2024 property tax rate change?

That’s still a work in progress. What I can tell you is we have the same challenges as everyone else. We have inflation, high interest rates, and we have collective agreements that are getting renewed, and we’re price takers in the market. Basically, what happens in the region happens in Vancouver, as well. So those are things that we don’t really control.

But what we have done is we have the Mayor’s Budget Task Force, which is a collection of maybe 24 of the smartest financial minds in the country. And they are ripping through our financial statements in a good way. With no guardrails, we told them, “Look, surprise us.”

And so I will be as surprised as everyone else in the city when we finally get the report, and then we’re gonna have to deal with it.

This task force will show us what things are actually running really well, so that validates what we’re doing, or it can show us there [are] a lot of areas of opportunity that we should focus on. So either way, it’s going to be a great answer, and it’s going to be incredibly transparent.

What I can also tell you, in the meantime, during the last year, we’ve done a lot of things that are fiscally responsible, while still making sure that we take care of, you know, the social side of things as well in an empathetic way.

We stopped the road tax (road tolls), which was a real thing. That would have been [a] $250 million setup fee, and $50 million to $100 million in user fees, which would have equated to a 5% to 10% property tax increase. In addition to the setup fee, we got rid of building a fifth bike lane within 200 metres of Broadway. I’m a cyclist, we love cycling, but I don’t think we need a fifth bike lane within 200 yards, and that would have been $20 million to set up and that money can be deployed better elsewhere.

We got rid of the Vancouver Economic Commission. That was a duplication of effort with the regional district’s new Invest Vancouver agency. Put it all together, including the cup fee, and we’ve saved about $24 million a year. We’ve done all of these things to make life more affordable for residents in the city. We’ve done and we will continue to do more while making sure we take care of the social side of things.

To clarify, the Mayor’s Budget Task Force report will also come out sometime over the coming weeks coinciding with the 2024 budget debate?

Yeah, we’re super stoked about it. I literally can’t wait to see what they say.

There’s a lot of chatter on the apparent tension you have with OneCity councillor Christine Boyle, based on the formal complaints you’ve made against her. What’s going on there?

I don’t think there’s any tension. I actually really like Christine. We like each other, I like her, so there’s no tension.

I think it’s important that people realize that, as far as I’m concerned, the office of mayor and council is bigger than any one person, including myself, and so there were two instances where I thought the integrity of the office of mayor and council could have been put in jeopardy.

The first one was this whole notion around what we can disclose [on] camera to the public. That’s super important because if that is not a safe room, we can’t have meaningful confidential conversations that have to be calm and confidential for the best of the City of Vancouver and the residents of Vancouver. And so I thought there was a conflict there or, you know, there was a line that was crossed.

As we went through the integrity commission, I have to be careful what I disclosed. What we found was, there are two sets of rules, and so it was unclear. Once we found that out, I was willing to walk that back.

But for the record, there were a bunch of recommendations that said “Let’s just see this one through,” and I spoke to Councillor Boyle as well. And she agreed. So we created an action plan to make sure that we set up the rules so there aren’t two sets of rules anymore.

The second one was the comments made about a staffer here that were inappropriate. She even agreed, so we just saw that one through.

None of this is personal, we have to make sure that we maintain the integrity of the office. And I hold myself to the same standard. If there’s a line that I cross in the future, I would expect our councillors to hold me accountable. If I make a mistake there, I’ll be the first one to admit it. To Christine’s credit, she admitted that she had crossed the line. So you know what? It’s great. I really like Christine, there’s no energy around there.

Crime and public disorder continue to be major issues. We’re also hearing from businesses, even London Drugs, that some of their locations are seeing huge losses and that has, of course, forced them to speak up, which is really rare and not something they do from a corporate public relations standpoint. So we know it must be really bad at some of these locations. Last year, the real hurdle was to even acknowledge that crime and public disorder are issues at all, but is there more the City can do to turn the tide?

Depending on the data that you look at, the city actually has gotten safer. Now, that means a hill of beans to the people who are affected by crime, who have been victims of crime, and who have been victims of assaults.

I want people to realize that even though the stats are going in the other direction — and by the way, we still have a lot of work to do — I fully understand and can empathize with people [who] are affected, because the effects are, you know, they’re brutal, right?

The concerns by London Drugs and retailers are incredibly valid. So what we’ve done is, and we made a very big point of it, as soon as we’re elected, we said, we’re going to hire 100 additional police officers and 100 mental health workers.

I’m happy to say that as of about three weeks ago, we had already hired 104 additional police officers. So people didn’t think it was possible. It is possible, we did it.

Now there’s been some attrition, so we have to obviously hire more.

We’ve done a lot with cleaning up the streets in terms of graffiti and garbage removal, and other things as well. And what we’re doing… is we’re working with our provincial and federal partners because when you look at the root cause of a lot of these challenges, there’s something else there that could be a mental health issue or substance use disorder issue. And there are challenges with our catch-and-release policy in the court system.

So we’ve been lobbying and working very closely with the provincial and federal governments to address these issues. These things do take time, but I wish that can happen overnight. It’s not an excuse, it’s an explanation. And we’re working really hard to make sure that we get to the root causes of these issues.

What I can share with people is, once we get to some of these root causes, I think you will see some immediate impact. When you look at the challenges we have in the Downtown Eastside, you could Pareto chart this stuff. It’s not as if there’s like a ton of people [committing crimes], it’s probably 50 to 100 individuals that are creating most of the challenges. With a couple of simple tweaks, all of a sudden, the VPD will have the tools to deal with these issues, or the health authorities will have the tools to deal with these issues that we currently don’t have.

You’ve achieved and exceeded your goal of hiring 100 additional police officers, but what about the progress with the 100 mental health workers through Vancouver Coastal Health?

We have a lot of work to do on that file. While we’ve made the significant progress with policing. When it comes to the nurses, we rely on Vancouver Coastal Health. They’ve been great partners. They took our plan and they tweaked it. So instead of hiring 100 mental health nurses, they said the plan that works is 58 mental health workers.

We’ve hired about 10 people right now so far. This includes one person who is actually working in the VPD command centre to triage and reroute calls that would have been police calls. So, there’s more work to be done there.

But what you get from the City of Vancouver is our unwavering support for the health authorities and the funding. And by the way, they’ve been doing a great job. I want to stress that it is a hard environment to hire people in certain areas. We’re also thankful to the province for supporting us as well on that file.

A year ago, in your inauguration speech, you emphasized the need for the provincial and federal governments to come to the table and really make a real effort to help address the range of provincial and national issues focused in Vancouver. What’s your relationship with both senior governments?

They’ve been great partners. The province has been a phenomenal partner.

I think a lot of people were concerned, you know, it’s kind of funny, the province, or I should say, the premier and all of their ministers endorsed the other candidate (Kennedy Stewart).

And I think people were… a little concerned, “What’s going on here?” But, you know, true to our word, we just tell people exactly how we’re going to act. And we said, “Look, no harm, no foul, it’s our goal to be your best partner ever. If there’s anything that you needed from the City of Vancouver to be successful, we will completely support you.”

They tested us on a couple of things, and I can tell you, we have a great working relationship and I couldn’t be happier. We wouldn’t be able to do the mental health workers without them. We’ve worked together to provide 90 units of modular housing, which was something we turned around in a couple hours at City Council. They’ve been helping us on the housing and police files, they’ve been great.

The federal government has stepped up as well. There are some things I can’t disclose right now, but I can tell you, on Chinatown, for example, they came in with about $1.9 million. They’re helping us on Sunset Community Centre. Don’t be surprised if you see a bunch of help on housing. We have great working relationships with our partners, and we’re excited about them.

What do you say to people who think you haven’t done enough on the housing front in the first year to get more policies rolling and implemented later on in your term? Or rather, you’ve waited a year to roll out your key housing moves? Is there more that you can and will do beyond what you’ve already announced?

What I would share with people is things take time. We can launch a bunch of things immediately, which we have, but the City of Vancouver is not in the business of building housing. We are in the business of making it easier for homebuilders to build housing. That’s the distinction.

If we waved a magic wand tomorrow and made everything perfect, the builders still may not build because interest rates are at 7.2%, the economy’s going in a certain direction, and they need to find the workers to build those homes. So I’ll preface it with that.

What I can also tell you is we’ve actually moved a lot on the housing file. So we’ve embedded it into the bylaws [of] our 3-3-3-1 strategy.

We’re going to densify and we support density along main arterial roads and especially along SkyTrain. There [are] four stations we’ve identified that effectively have very low density right now.

We’re reviewing our building shadowing policy and our view cone policy.

We’ve passed the whole Missing Middle initiative.

We’ve accelerated the Broadway Plan implementation.

We got rid of the pace of change [in the Broadway Plan], which would have slowed things down. We said, “No, that’s completely ridiculous.”

We’ve done the 26 village nodes.

We’ve talked about bringing BRT to certain neighbourhoods.

We went from nine RS zones to one RS zone.

In the next couple of weeks, you’ll see a couple hundred bylaws come off the table.

All of that was in the first 365 days, and I’m probably missing 14 other things. There [are] also CACs, where we’ve changed the formulas.

That is the benefit you’ll see in three, four, seven or eight years from now. I think the better thing to do is to question ourselves that in five, six, or seven years from now, are we still having conversations around how it still takes six to 12 years to get a permit? Maybe we’ll be talking about how permits are now so easy and we’re building a lot or not building a lot because interest rates are so high.

The job we need to do as the City is clear all the regulatory red tape, make it super simple, and prioritize housing over a couple of shadows or some obscure view cone that no one actually looks at for two seconds while driving down Granville Street.

On that note, the view cones. The motion recently approved by City Council was to direct City staff to only target “obsolete” and/or “no longer functionally relevant” view cones for removal. Is there a reason why this is more limited and why a wide-spanning panoramic view cone like the Queen Elizabeth Park view cone isn’t being considered for the chopping block given its impacts on much of the downtown Vancouver peninsula and Broadway Plan area?

I’m waiting for the results first [from City staff] to see what they have, and then we’ll make our determination after. But what I can tell you is, anything that is completely ridiculous is going to be gone.

Let’s just call it what it is. You look at some of these view cones, and you go, “Really? That’s the view? Are you kidding me?” That little sort of box, when you’re standing within like a seven-foot area, is stopping us from building a couple of buildings. Some of them are completely ridiculous. And so with those ones, we’re going to toss out.

What would you say to someone who is thinking about moving out of the city due to rising living costs? That’s a growing reality for many.

That’s why we were elected — to deal with it. And so frankly, it sucks. So many people are affected.

What I’ve seen, from when I ran in 2018 to when we were first elected in 2022, I think in 2018, people were angry about how they couldn’t find housing. Now, they’ve resigned to the fact that their friends and themselves are not going to have a future in the City of Vancouver.

What I can share with people is we hear them, and we feel the pain. These are our friends, our kids as well. Some of this stuff is going to take time.

If people are looking for an abundant housing solution by you know, next January, absolutely not. But what I can tell you is we’re clearing a bunch of roadblocks out of the way so we can build more housing faster.

We are prioritizing housing and density over, and I say this respectfully, the NIMBYs and people who are more concerned with a little photobook view cone over having people living in our city. I couldn’t be more clear — we support density and we support building faster, and whatever we can do to help home builders build more and want to build more in the city, we are going to do.

There have been some suggestions that you aren’t fully onboard with supporting the UBC SkyTrain extension. We know that these big projects funded by senior governments and TransLink only happen if the City demonstrates that it really wants it. What are your thoughts on this? For the record, do you support UBC SkyTrain?

I 100% support SkyTrain out to UBC. There’s no question whatsoever.

It makes sense on so many different levels. It’s the second biggest employer in all the BC, and we can connect our university to the tech and healthcare corridors.

Just from a housing perspective for students and people who work out there, when you connect it, there [are] about 80 reasons why we want to do it.

I’ve also talked about how Vancouver has to be a great partner to the entire region. This region success doesn’t stop at Boundary Road and the bridges.

So as a good regional partner, when we look at the City of Vancouver, if it makes sense for the region, if the next piece of transportation — and I’m not saying this is the case, I’m giving you an illustrative example — is South of the Fraser, Port Moody, or wherever, we will support it because by default it actually helps the region. And so it helps us.

If people get a mixed message on this, well, we’re going to be great partners because if you want to sustain a business in Vancouver, not everyone’s going to be living in Vancouver. We need people to be able to access the city from different places.

If you go to UBC, well maybe you don’t live there but you need to access it. And maybe you live in the South of the Fraser… the list goes on and on.

Will the Vancouver Canucks win the Stanley Cup this season?

Will they win? I think they’ll win some more games. They look really good. Will they win the Stanley Cup? Well, you know what, every year I think they will. So I’ve been alive for 52 years! At some point, we will be right. Knock on wood!

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