This is Mayor Ken Sim's proposal to abolish the Vancouver Park Board

INTERVIEW: Mayor Ken Sim confirms proposal to abolish Vancouver Park Board

Vancouver Park Board headquarters office in Stanley Park (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive) and Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim (ABC Vancouver).

If all goes as planned for Mayor Ken Sim’s new strategy, the current group of seven commissioners for the Vancouver Park Board will represent the final elected makeup of the separate municipal body overseeing the City of Vancouver’s parks and recreation facilities.

It would mark the end of one of the only two Park Board entities in existence for a major city in Canada and the United States, with the other elected body being the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board.

In an interview with Daily Hive Urbanized, Sim says he will be putting forward a member motion to abolish the elected body. If his motion is approved, it would begin with formally asking the provincial government to initiate the dissolution process.

Such a move would require the provincial government to agree to a change in legislation, specifically making the necessary amendments to the Vancouver Charter outlining the municipal government’s authority and jurisdiction.

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Sim said instead of having a separately elected municipal body, the governance of Vancouver’s parks and recreation system would be transferred to the mayor and Vancouver City Council, and the Park Board would be folded into City of Vancouver operations.

The Park Board was created in 1888 to oversee the management of Stanley Park when the federal government agreed to enter into a lease of the former military reserve for municipal public park uses. Over time, supporters for retaining the Park Board have argued that the separate entity protects parklands from potential development interests.

To address such concerns under City Council governance, Sim says, the policies overseeing and protecting parklands will be strengthened with additional safeguards. If there is a consideration on the change of use for parklands, the mayor and all 10 city councillors must unanimously agree to such a direction. This would then lead to the requirement for a public referendum for the final decision, which can be conducted either as a standalone vote or, more likely, as part of the general election ballot every four years.

A plebiscite question on the general election ballot is already the established practice whenever the City borrows money to fund infrastructure projects.

“Make no mistake about it, as long as I’m mayor of Vancouver, parks will always be parks, and golf courses will always be golf courses. We’re going to ask the provincial government to actually strengthen the protections,” Sim told Daily Hive Urbanized.

“The only thing that would pass is something that’s so glaringly obvious to everyone. Aside from that, the bar is going to be set way higher than what it is now. So for people who are worried about parks not being parks, they should be applauding this.”

The mayor notes that there have been ongoing discussions between the Mayors’ Office and the provincial government on abolishing the Park Board and other potential various changes to the Vancouver Charter. Under the best-case scenario, he suggests, the legislative amendments relating to the Park Board could be made within six months.

“I can tell you that the province has been a great partner and they want to do what’s in the best interest of Vancouver. We feel good about it, and it won’t be a surprise to them,” he said.

This very idea is not entirely new, however. In 2021, before the formation of the ABC Vancouver party, Sim first proposed the abolition of the Park Board by recruiting candidates who would be committed to being the last elected commissioners.

He backtracked on the idea of abolition in early 2022. Instead of abolition, ABC decided to focus on fixing the Park Board from within by fielding six commissioner candidates to run in the civic election.

In October 2022, Sim’s ABC party won supermajorities in each of the three elected municipal bodies, including six of the seven commissioner seats on the Park Board.

But after a full year of governance, Sim asserts the Park Board’s issues are far too entrenched — impossible to fix.

“We actually tried to fix the Park Board. As you know, we actually have a supermajority on the elected Park Board. With the positive intent and spirit to try fixing it, the reality is the structure is broken, and it just doesn’t work. You could literally drop seven superstars in there, and it wouldn’t matter. It’s just too dysfunctional,” said Sim.

Although the Park Board is seen as a separate entity from the City, under the current structure, the commissioners must receive City Council’s approval for the Park Board’s purse strings.

The Park Board’s budget — both operational (e.g., level of services and programs) and capital (e.g., building new and expanded parks and recreational facilities) — largely depends on City Council’s final approval for inclusion in the overall City of Vancouver budget.

The Park Board manages 250 public parks and beaches, the VanDusen Botanical Garden, the Bloedel Conservatory, six golf courses, and 24 community and recreational centres, including facilities with swimming pools, ice rinks, and fitness gyms.

In a 2022 report, Park Board staff indicated that 11 community centres are either in “poor” or “very poor” condition and will require major renovations or a complete replacement over the next 10 to 20 years. As time progresses, the number of facilities in need of replacement is expected to grow from the sluggish pace of capital reinvestment and the aging of other facilities, with most of the existing community centres built between 1945 and 1980.

Over the past year, the Park Board has come under fire over its poor maintenance practices for the Stanley Park Railway, which resulted in a prolonged closure of the popular attraction. The $650,000 cost of repairing the attraction in time for the Christmas 2023 operating season was largely funded not by the Park Board but by private donations.

There has also been some criticism over the Park Board’s handling of the homeless encampments at Oppenheimer Park and Strathcona Park, which may have prolonged the encampments at the public parks.

But the Park Board’s responsibilities go far beyond parks, beaches, and community and recreational facilities. In fact, almost every city street is partly maintained by the Park Board.

The Park Board plants and maintains trees across Vancouver — not just the trees within parklands but also the 150,000 trees that line city streets and the landscaping on road medians. As the City’s Engineering and Planning departments also oversee road maintenance and design, this particular Park Board responsibility for city streets can lead to confusion and an accountability gap.

In another area of concern, the Park Board is known for making insignificant investments in planning exercises to design new and improved parklands and facilities. Such planning efforts are not directly attached to the pursuit of the significant capital funding needed to reach the construction stage, such as the 2018-approved design for the permanent new replacement Jericho Pier, which carried an estimated cost of $16 million at the time. Due to the lack of funding, there is no timeline or even a guarantee for the construction of a new permanent storm-resistant pier.

In the City’s draft 2024 budget, the proposed annual operating budget for the Park Board is $169 million — up by $12.5 million compared to 2023. This would be covered by $78.7 million in Park Board-driven revenues and $90.1 million from tax-based revenues, with taxation being a direct responsibility of City Council. Additionally, the City is prepared to allocate $45.3 million for the Park Board’s 2024 capital budget.

In 2024, the Park Board is expected to account for about 12% of the City’s total employment of 9,319 full-time equivalent positions.

Sim suggests there are significant costs and operational efficiencies if parks and recreation works are brought under the same roof as the City.

This disconnect between the Park Board and the City was also highlighted by the City’s independent Auditor General in his recent report on the Park Board’s revenue management.

“We found that Park Board strategies established the long-term direction for parks and recreation services and indicated the need for funding to achieve strategic goals. However, beyond the existing capital planning and budgeting processes, the Park Board had not proactively engaged with City Council to align its priorities and funding commitments,” wrote Vancouver Auditor General Mike Macdonnell in his released report on November 20, 2023.

“However, because it cannot make any expenditures without City Council’s approval, ultimately, the Park Board is dependent upon the City for funding. While the elected Park Board is not accountable to City Council, nonetheless it cannot achieve its objectives without City Council’s support.”

In essence, argues Sim, if given the opportunity and ultimate responsibility, City Council will be able to effect real change and drive the policies and necessary reinvestment to improve the parks and recreation system. Furthermore, he suggests, City Council would align the objectives, policies, and strategies of the parks and recreation system with those of the municipal government.

Such a shift in governance would motivate City Council to expand and wield its far greater political capital to improve the parks and recreation system.

Sim also noted that recent City Council-led directives set aside the necessary funding to achieve a new artificial turf field at Moberly Park and a new spray park at Ross Park in South Vancouver. But City Council otherwise practices a high degree of restraint to avoid interfering with the Park Board’s jurisdiction and responsibilities.

“If you hold more than one group or person accountable for something, then no one’s really accountable. That’s what we’re seeing at the elected Park Board. It just doesn’t make any sense. It adds too much confusion; things get either delayed for a very long time or don’t happen at all,” Sim told Daily Hive Urbanized.

“When you streamline the process, and you have one group accountable, more things can get done faster.”

The measure of adding parks and recreation governance responsibilities to City Council’s umbrella would follow the existing systems in place in almost every other jurisdiction, such as the major municipalities of Burnaby, Surrey, Richmond, Coquitlam, Victoria, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and countless others.

For instance, parks and recreational facilities are a key priority for Burnaby’s mayor and City Council; the City of Burnaby has set aside nearly $900 million in their multi-year capital budget through 2028 to build four new and expanded major community and recreational centres.

“I can tell you I have not seen an example of a single city in North America that’s rushing to get an elected Park Board because I think they’ve all figured out it doesn’t work,” he said.

Sim asserts community sports clubs and leagues, the volunteer-driven organizations that help operate Park Board community centres, and other stakeholders are “incredibly supportive” of the abolition of the Park Board.

He brought up the specific example of Trout Lake Little League being denied the ability to improve their baseball field, even though they were willing to cover the cost of the improvements through private fundraising.

In another instance of red tape, film and television productions face two layers of municipal permitting processes whenever they film on parklands — one permit from the Park Board and then a second permit from the City to park their trailers on the street next to the park. In another jurisdiction like Burnaby, only one permit would be required in such a scenario.

“It’s those little things, but they actually add up to big things,” he said. “We’re getting rid of that extra layer of bureaucracy. When it’s fragmented, it just adds a lot of confusion or operational inefficiencies from people going back and forth.”

When asked about City Council’s ability to handle an additional major area of responsibility, the mayor suggested the Park Board’s workload is manageable to absorb.

Currently, the Park Board’s elected body holds public meetings on Monday evenings, with such meetings held as frequently as every week to up to once every three weeks for some months, based on the 2023 calendar. This is in addition to in-camera (private) meetings, community and stakeholder meetings, and other responsibilities, including public-facing events and attending to the concerns of constituents.

Unlike the full-time roles of mayor and city councillor, the compensation levels for the Park Board are based on part-time work. As of 2022, Park Board commissioners are compensated at least $18,743 annually, with the board chair for the year earning $23,429.

“We’ve already improved the workflow of City Council. We’ve streamlined the process. We have the capacity to take on a lot more, but make no mistake about it, right now there’s a lot of operational inefficiencies when you have two different groups running around,” said Sim.

Public surveys by Research Co. leading up to the 2022 civic election suggest there is growing support for the abolition of the Park Board.

In June 2022, 52% of likely voters believed the Park Board’s elected body should be eliminated and replaced with the expanded responsibilities of City Council. This is up from 44% in November 2020.

“As a City Council, we’ve committed to being bold and making those positive changes that other groups weren’t willing to do,” said Sim. “It is a new era for parks and recreational facilities in the City of Vancouver, and these changes are going to be incredibly positive.”

In a public meeting on December 13, City Council will consider Sim’s motion to formally ask the provincial government to consider the Vancouver Charter changes relating to the abolition of the Park Board.

Daily Hive Urbanized has reached out to the Premier’s Office for comment.

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