Matt Todd's Pursuit of Idyll Minds

These are some notes I took today during presentations on different housing strategies in BC at the Union of British Columbia Municipalities conference in Victoria.

Judy Villeneuve, City of Surrey Councillor
Surrey established a charity foundation to manage and distribute funds collected from developers for affordable housing.

There is funding available from BC Housing for measuring the community’s housing needs and determining options for addressing those needs.

Felice Mazzoni, Ucluelet Planner
In Ucluelet, they’ve incorporated LEED and affordable housing design guidelines into their OCP.

They require that 15-20% of units in a development be affordable, as defined by CMHC. It is achieved through the Development Permit process, not rezoning.

They require an appropriate quantity of staff housing to accompany commercial developments. The occupancy permit is held until the staff housing is ready for occupancy.

Crown land might be used if the city has no land of its own.

The developer doesn’t necessarily have to own the land. They could be allowed to build affordable housing on crown land or donated land as part of their density bonus.

He recommends lowering the base density allowable and then allow bonusing. “Don’t give away your density for free.”

Agreements are set in place that allow locals an opportunity to purchase SFD and condos at a discount before they are available on the open market.

Recommended to take cash. Cash provides options.

“You are the leaders of your communities, so be bold with your policies.”

Housing Management Plan drafted by non-profit with assistance from the City. It specifies targets for sizes and types of housing. The City partners with non-profit societies to manage the housing.

UDI
Challenge is how to measure/count private rentals.

Until recently, 25% of the project cost was land. It is now 50%

Lowering parking standards greatly reduces construction costs.

If public land is available, a long-term lease might be an alternate option to selling.

a grandiose view of one’s own talents and a craving for admiration; self-centeredness arising from failure to distinguish the self from external objects. – Apple dictionary

This is exactly what I am trying to not be. I’ve seen it happen to other people who have been elected. It would be easy to do. Elected people are privy to a lot of privileged information. We are expected to learn about the issues we deal with. We are provided packages of background material, workshops, and expert advice. We talk with people outside our normal social circle. All this extra input can change an elected person’s perspective. It can also make us feel as though we have a perspective that is more knowledgeable or more enlightened or more important than the common Joe. It becomes a self-perpetuating trap – the more we buy into the pomp and privilege of the responsibility, the more isolated we become.

From observing others over the years in the same role that I am in now, I know it is important to not define myself with my title. It is also very important to understand the difference between colleagues, associates, and friends. But most important is to always remember that it would be highly unusual to be the smartest person in the room, and likely always possible that my assumptions could be proven wrong. I’m hoping that remembering this will inoculate me from two debilitating political diseases: distended ego and narcissism.

I stumbled across this blog last night: Talking about Vancouver

Naomi is a singer working in food service. She’s from Edmonton and came to White Rock earlier this month. It was her first time seeing the ocean. Her account of the trip is well-detailed. She talks about the traffic, food, weather, and homeless.

I enjoyed reading the unfiltered impressions and unbridled opinions of the area from someone visiting for the first time.

Naomi, I’m glad you had such a great time.

The fear of losing customers is so blinding for some business interests in White Rock that they seem to have lost focus on reality.

I completely understand the instinct to protect our ability to earn a living, and to defend someone else’s livelihood. What I don’t understand is how it has created fear to the point that rational thought is lost.

Over 85% of people in this area do not smoke. Statistically valid polls have concluded that this vast majority of people would visit restaurants and bars as often or more often if they were completely smoke-free. Only 4% said they would go less often. This is supported by the well-documented experience of cities all across North America. There is no evidence of negative impact from smoke-free regulations. In fact, the studies show that many places experienced an increase in business as the number of people who ate out more often outweighed the number who ate out less often.

It seems strange to me that local business advocates would cling so tightly to the status quo. Given such an overwhelming body of market research that says smoke-free bylaws are beneficial to business, neutral at worst, why are we hearing such a counter-productive stance from local restaurants?

Tobacco use is bad for our economy, locally, regionally, provincially, nationally. Is our society so addicted to short-term cash that we can’t see the long-term costs of health care and productivity losses? And in the case of our local businesses, are they so blinded by the sales generated from a small minority of smokers that they can’t see the potential of increased sales from the huge majority of non-smokers, many of whom avoid places with tobacco smoke?

When are we going to snap out of our denial of the fact that tobacco smoke is highly toxic? Despite science placing tobacco smoke beside asbestos and benzene as being poisonous even at barely detectable levels, we seem to cling to the illogical argument that tobacco is a legal product so therefore everyone should tolerate it.

I realize that a business doesn’t want to offend any potential customer so they don’t want to make their smoking customers feel unwelcome. But what they seem to be missing is that a larger number of people are offended by tobacco smoke, and that smoke makes them feel unwelcome.

Going smoke-free will be good for our economy. While I empathize with the passionate fears of those concerned about their livelihoods, all the local facts and the experience of other cities say that there is no reason to be afraid of smoke-free bylaws. In fact, the evidence suggests that economic boosters should embrace clean-air legislation.

What is “economic development”?

Wikipedia says “economic development is a sustainable increase in living standards that implies increased per capita income, better education and health as well as environmental protection.”

In White Rock’s experience, many if not most projects touted as being in the interests of economic development have actually been cultural, social, or environmental initiatives. So, I wonder why so much time, attention and resources over the past year has been devoted to creating an “economic development strategy”? Admittedly I am not an economist, but it seems to me that this is a very inefficient delivery method.

Isn’t much of economic dogma about seeking greater efficiencies? Wouldn’t those resources be more efficiently invested if applied directly to cultural, social and environmental policy development and projects?

Why are the heritage inventory, communications strategy, and tree protection bylaw taking a back seat to 2010 day-dreaming and economic development strategizing? These are things that we know are key to our community’s identity and economic success. And we’ve seen those same policies be very successful in supporting the economies of cities all around BC. So it seems ironic to me that what is now standing in the way of those initiatives is the diversion of resources into developing an economic development strategy. Yet, over the past year, the resources dedicated to talking about how the city needs an economic development strategy could have been used to actually implement initiatives we already know would be good for our local economy. It appears to be terribly inefficient wasting all that time and money on talking about the things that should have been done instead of doing the things we know should be done.

I hear from conservative capitalists that all that warm fuzzy stuff gets in the way of making cold hard cash – and that’s what’s most important. And yet, economic development strategy in White Rock usually ends up talking about beautification projects (cultural), housing development (social), and parks improvements (environmental).

I’m tired of the opinion that funds invested in cultural infrastructure, social services, or the environment is lost money. The things we most pride ourselves on in this community as being important to our economic well-being is our artsy atmosphere (culture), hospital (social), and waterfront park (environment). I say our best economic development strategy would be to not let all the talk about branding, increasing development, and the Olympics stop us from celebrating our culture, building stronger neighbourhoods, and improving our environment. Isn’t that the purpose of economic development anyway?

Besides, branding is a cultural exercise and expression, development is for social advancement and improvement, and hosting the Olympics is about showing off our cultural heritage and environmental stewardship.

In this respect, I agree with many economists, it looks like the best thing the City could do for the economy in White Rock right now is to stay out of the way. Instead, invest all that time, energy, and money in cultural infrastructure, social services, and environmental improvements.

It looks like I probably won’t get where I wanted on tobacco control in White Rock. But it is looking more likely that we will be making some incremental progress… so that’s a good thing.

Yesterday, the Social Committee recommended to City Council that smoking be not permitted at the entrances to public facilities and on patios of bars and restaurants. I was hoping to have parks also be smoke-free, and wanted to have tobacco products hidden from view of minors in corner stores and pharmacies. But one member of the committee noted that society needs time to adapt and making incremental change is progress – better than where we are now. They were concerned about going further than the community is ready for and then having problems with compliance.

They stated that it is the committee’s vision that White Rock become a smoke-free city and that their recommendation should be seen as another step towards that goal. Hopefully council will share that goal and that intention.

I have been asked by people in the past, “how do you sleep at night?” They are implying that I should feel guilty for not agreeing with them or forcing a decision against their will.

My answer is that I often don’t sleep well. The decisions I make often keep me up at night. But it’s not guilt. It’s worry and second-guessing about the decisions I’ve made. And the horrible feeling of having people angry or disappointed in me.

I’m always open to the reality that I don’t know everything and there will always be someone smarter with a better idea. So no matter what my judgment, no matter how much research or thinking I’ve done, I could be wrong – someone could present something I hadn’t considered before that changes everything. I have to keep an open mind, even if I’m confident I’ve made a good decision.

I care about people. That’s why I do what I do. I’m a councillor because I want to help make life better for my neighbours. And I’m human – I want other people to like me. So it’s stressful when I’ve let down or angered someone. It’s a gut wrenching feeling. It doesn’t matter whether I agree with them or not, or think they shouldn’t be upset, just knowing that someone doesn’t like me feels terrible.

I would sleep better at night if I absolved myself by following the direction of the people in the audience or a staff report. Then I could just dismiss any criticism by explaining that I was just following someone else’s advice – I was just doing what I was told to do. If that advice turned out to be faulty, it’s their fault, not mine. If the result of my decisions weren’t my responsibility, I could make decisions based solely on making people like me.

But I can’t do that. I believe the short-term results of my decisions need to be balanced against the long-term outcomes. And I think that means taking responsibility for my decisions which, to me, means making up my own mind and trusting my judgment – I need to truly believe that it is the right decision.

If I didn’t take responsibility for my decisions, I wouldn’t have to worry about making the right decision. If I could let someone else make the decision for me, I wouldn’t have to take responsibility for my decisions. But I don’t believe in pass-the-buck decision-making, so sometimes worrying about making the right decision, and taking responsibility for that decision, makes it hard to sleep at night.

I felt paralyzed by indecision at last night’s council meeting. I found myself in an impossible place between two types of democracy – direct or representative. The neighbourhood was unanimously opposed. I asked them to explain their fears, and they did so very well. But in my review of the application and the communications from the neighbours, I wasn’t opposed. I wasn’t necessarily in favour either – I could easily argue both sides. So how do I make a decision when there’s a group of people who think something will be bad for them, but I am confident that it won’t be?

If it were simply a question the applicant making money, that would have tipped my scale in opposition – all else being neutral, I would rather please the neighbours than allow someone to bend the rules to make some money – but in talking with some of the neighbours and walking the street, it seemed the subdivision might actually be better for them than the status quo. The house across the street would retain a view of the ocean and the rhythm of the houses would be more consistent with two houses than one.

I came to this conclusion because I’ve been learning about urban planning and design and seeing the impacts of applications I’ve had to vote on for four years now. I’ve learned a lot.

That’s why I’m elected – so that others in the community don’t have to do all that reading and testing of assumptions and ideas. I do that on their behalf. The challenge with that is sometimes the people I’m elected to represent won’t understand the decisions I make. Does that make the decisions wrong?

In direct democracy we trust the wisdom of the collective of whomever chooses to vote and allow them live with the results of their choosing. In representative democracy we trust a group of representatives to study the information and perspectives and objectively render a judgment, then replace them if we are not pleased with the results of their decisions.

So, faced with a group unanimously opposed to a project in their neighbourhood, do I vote against the proposal even though I don’t believe their fears would materialize? Or do I vote for the proposal because my conclusion is that it would benefit more people than the alternative? For the first, I would make a lot of people happy and they would probably vote for me in the next election. For the second, I would actually be implementing the vision expressed to me by the neighbours… but they wouldn’t see it that way and would probably not vote for me in the next election.

In the end, I chose the second… but only after I spoke to the first. And so I ended up with the worst of both options. Everybody walked out disappointed with me, and the project was defeated anyway. But worse still, my last minute change of mind created a confusion that is probably worse than anything else. Voters hate surprises. They also hate overt indecision.

I voted for the choice I believed, based on my experience, would be best for the neighbourhood. I chose to trust my judgment. Unfortunately my attack of conscience last night benefited no one and likely cost me several dozen supporters.

Just because an approach is “common sense” does that make it right?

“Common sense” ranks high on my list of most hated words. It’s up there with “the public”. Like my reaction to disrespect, they trip triggers that turn off my ears and put me on defensive, even if I agree with what’s being said.

It takes deliberate effort for me to stay focused on listening to someone’s concerns rather than building arguments that disprove the common-ness or sensibility of their assumptions. I think I’m getting better, but I know I have to keep working on it.

To say that something is common sense is to dismiss ideas or perspectives that might disagree with your conclusion. It can be used to intimidate, as if to say that if a minority disagrees with the majority, the minority is obviously wrong. It also ignores the possibility that new things can be learned. The assumption is that there is nothing more that could be said, discovered or understood that would change the perceived majority’s view.

Implying that someone whose ideas do not conform with the majority must therefore be wrong, serves to humiliate them into accepting something different. Maybe their idea isn’t correct, but the simple fact that the majority doesn’t see things the same way isn’t what makes them incorrect. What if one person sees something before anyone else? What if they got a new idea that no one had considered before?

I look for quality of ideas, not quantity of believers. So-called common sense has severe limitations. Much of what I’ve been told is common sense over the years, on thinking it through, I find is either not common or not sensible.

My discomfort with “the public” is rooted in the same observations. It is too often used to make broad sweeping judgments about society or our community. Just speaking those words creates an us-versus-them confrontation. Of course, sometimes it’s completely within context to refer to a large population as a single entity, but that seems rare in my experience.

Just as with “common sense”, “the public” is too often used by those attempting to pressure someone into accepting their way of seeing something by intimidating or humiliating them rather than trusting the strengths of the ideas offered.

The City Council of Calabasas unanimously adopted an ordinance that declares the whole city non-smoking. Instead of listing places that are non-smoking, it lists places where smoking is allowed. The intention is to protect people from secondhand smoke.

The ordinance is very bold and innovative. It recognizes tobacco smoke as a toxic air pollutant and declares exposing someone to smoke a “public nuisance”. Smoking in open places is allowed only when there are no people close by that are not smoking. Smoking is not allowed on sidewalks. There are specific rules about where people are allowed to smoke in public. And, there are hefty fines for cigarette butt litter.

Calabasas is a suburb of Los Angeles, beside Malibu and Santa Monica.