Colleen Hardwick's TEAM party vows to repeal six Vancouver area plans if elected | Daily Hive

Colleen Hardwick's TEAM party vows to repeal six Vancouver area development plans across the city if elected

Colleen Hardwick. (TEAM For A Livable Vancouver)

As many as six citywide and area-specific development plans of the City of Vancouver would be repealed if mayoral candidate Colleen Hardwick and TEAM For A Livable Vancouver form a majority government after the October 2026 civic election.

TEAM announced the major campaign promise today of replacing “top-down planning with neighbourhood-based community planning.”

In the process, if elected, they would repeal the March 2026-approved citywide Vancouver Official Development Plan (ODP), the 2025-approved Jericho Lands ODP, the 2025-approved Rupert and Renfrew Station Area Plan, the 2022-approved citywide Vancouver Plan, and the 2022-approved Broadway Plan.

And if it is approved by the current makeup of City Council later this month, the controversial Villages Plan would also be rescinded.

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However, it should be noted that the creation of the Vancouver ODP is a legal requirement mandated by the provincial government under legislation. Following legislation, the Vancouver ODP approved earlier this year is intended to be an interim solution until a permanent ODP is created by 2030. Moreover, the Vancouver Plan has already been rescinded, as it was formally replaced by the Vancouver ODP, which turned the details and approaches of the Vancouver Plan into a legal document.

As well, the Broadway Plan — a major area plan to catalyze high-density, transit-oriented developments near the future Millennium Line Broadway extension subway stations — is a requirement of the Millennium Line Broadway Extension Supportive Policies Agreement between the municipal government and TransLink, in exchange for the provincial government’s major public transit investment within Vancouver’s borders.

The Jericho Lands ODP — an evolution of the previous Jericho Lands Policy Statement — was created as a measure to help the First Nations property owners secure construction financing for the high-density development project in the West Point Grey neighbourhood.

It is unclear what would happen to the many in-stream redevelopment applications that are based on the prescriptions and stipulations of these City plans, which collectively cost the municipal government millions of dollars in studies and planning work.

Generalized Land Uses, Vancouver ODP. (City of Vancouver)

Broadway Plan, 2022. (City of Vancouver)

Village and Other Low-Rise Residential Areas Map; Rupert and Renfrew Station Area Plan, July 2025. (City of Vancouver)

December 2023 conceptual artistic rendering of the Jericho Lands. (City of Vancouver)

Instead of the citywide Vancouver ODP and other area-specific plans, TEAM’s “neighbourhood-based community planning” model would use “transparent, verifiable, and publicly accessible data” for planning, revisit the previous neighbourhood plans rescinded by the adoption of the Vancouver Plan, re-establish “neighbourhood planning offices,” and ensure that “growth occurs within infrastructure capacity that is planned in parallel with growth.”

Additionally, this model would take into account existing neighbourhood character and prioritize “the kind of housing that residents need,” including affordable homes — such as co-ops and other models — and larger units for families.

As part of TEAM’s policy approach, the party “supports multiplexes in principle,” but not in the manner of the recent new zoning that enables such developments to “overwhelm neighbourhoods.” TEAM acknowledges that provincial legislation requires municipal governments to permit multiplexes in single-family neighbourhoods, but the City of Vancouver still has “the right to impose reasonable restrictions.” The party would require multiplexes to be in “more neighbourly in form,” such as reducing the size and frontage and other new design guidelines.

“City Hall has lost public trust by its approach to development that serves investors but not residents. The results are: a large inventory of investor units that are too small for families and too expensive for local incomes demoviction and displacement speculative land inflation demolition of older more affordable housing loss of neighbourhood character, tree canopy and livability,” reads TEAM’s policy announcement today.

Over the years, TEAM has been highly critical of new high-density allowances and the general concept of enabling growth, especially in traditional low-density residential areas. The party has also often asserted that such planning processes lack adequate public consultation.

The party believes this approach is now coming to a head with the current opposition among some residents that will be impacted by the Villages Plan currently being considered, which calls for creating 17 new areas across Vancouver with low-rise residential developments anchored by neighbourhood-serving commercial space for retail, restaurants, and services.

Villages Plan. (City of Vancouver)

Illustrative concept of what a Village area could look like. (City of Vancouver)

“No wonder people are angry. Residents didn’t ask for this,” said Hardwick, a former Vancouver city councillor, ahead of this week’s first public hearing date for the Villages Plan.

“The surveys and open houses were a joke. And now the Villages plan is being hurried through at the height of summer, when most people aren’t paying attention. They won’t know what’s happened until a six-storey apartment building goes up beside them.”

Hardwick was first elected into office under the Non-Partisan Association (NPA) party, previously serving on City Council from 2018 to 2022. After leaving the NPA midway into the term, she resurrected her father’s TEAM party and was also the party’s mayoral candidate in the 2022 civic election, earning 16,769 votes for a third-place finish — behind Forward Together’s Kennedy Stewart’s 49,593 votes and ABC Vancouver’s Ken Sim’s 85,73 votes.

She also came in third place in the April 2025 by-election for City Council, winning 17,352 votes — trailing OneCity Vancouver’s Lucy Maloney’s 33,732 votes and COPE’s Sean Orr’s 34,448 votes.

None of TEAM’s candidates were elected in the 2022 civic election.

So far, for the October 2026 civic election, the party has named five city councillor candidates. They are also looking to run candidates for Vancouver Park Board and Vancouver School Board.

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