Latest news with #LucyMaloney
CTV News
5 days ago
- Politics
- CTV News
Motion to bring back Vancouver renter office defeated in tie vote
Vancouver City Hall is seen in Vancouver, on Saturday, Jan. 9, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck A Vancouver city councillor's push to restore the city's tenant advocacy office — and crack down on bad-faith landlords — was voted down by council Wednesday afternoon. Coun. Lucy Maloney, who was elected in April's byelection on a platform focused on housing rights, brought forward the motion, arguing the city must do more to support renters — particularly those displaced by redevelopment tied to the Broadway Plan. 'Renters don't feel like the city has their backs,' said Maloney. 'They don't feel like they're being listened to.' The tenant advocacy office was a city-run service that provided support and resources to renters. It was shut down in 2023 by the ABC-majority council. Coun. Peter Meiszner defended the decision to close the office, citing low usage. 'They were receiving less than one call a day,' he said. 'So what we decided to do at the time, was to transition the funding for that city renters office to a non-profit that can handle those inquiries more effectively.' Funding was redirected to the Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre, and Meiszner also pointed to the provincial Residential Tenancy Branch as the appropriate channel for dealing with landlord-tenant disputes. Maloney argued the city should provide additional protections beyond the province's scope, particularly in areas impacted by the Broadway Plan, where many renters are expected to be displaced through the city's Temporary Relocation and Protection Policy. 'We're going to have increasing volumes of people being moved out of their homes as the Broadway Plan progresses,' said Maloney. 'We need to make sure that we're focused, that we've got the resourcing and staff needed.' Meiszner responded that existing city staff are already working to support renters through these transitions. 'So we're building thousands of new rental units in the Broadway corridor, and there are some tenant relocations that need to happen,' he said. 'But we have staff already within the city working on that.' In addition to reinstating the advocacy office, Maloney's motion also called for exploring stronger penalties for landlords and developers who act in bad faith. Ultimately, the motion was narrowly defeated in a tie vote, with the four present ABC councillors voting against the motion. After the vote, Maloney said she will continue to fight for Vancouver renters, vowing to one day bring the tenant advocacy office back to city hall. A separate motion by Coun. Sean Orr — declaring housing as a human right — was passed unanimously.
The Province
02-05-2025
- Politics
- The Province
Despite voters' rebuke of Vancouver's ABC party, new towers will still be higher, increase density
Douglas Todd: Even though voters elected two progressive candidates last month, council's direction is not about to change in regard to the pace and scale of mega-highrise projects. The two newcomers to council, COPE's Sean Orr and OneCity's Lucy Maloney, voted along with ABC and the rest of council on April 22 to approve the massive plan for the Jericho Lands. Photo by NICK PROCAYLO / 10107669A The dominant centre-right ABC Party was hammered in last month's Vancouver byelection, with its two candidates coming in a dismal sixth and seventh. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Despite voters electing two progressive candidates April 5, the direction of council is not about to change regarding the pace and scale of mega-highrise projects in Vancouver, the most dense city in Canada. The two newcomers, COPE's Sean Orr and OneCity's Lucy Maloney, voted along with ABC and the rest of council on April 22 to approve the Jericho Lands official community plan, which gives the go-ahead to arguably the biggest housing development in the city's history. 'It's going to be beautiful and add so much to the area. It's going to be such an amazing contribution,' said Maloney, speaking of the 65 residential buildings, mostly in the 25- to 60-storey range, proposed by MST Development Corp. for the half-empty former military base in Point Grey. A watchdog group, the Jericho Coalition, has proposed an alternative vision for the Jericho Lands: of mostly six-storey apartment blocks. But when CBC radio host Stephen Quinn asked Maloney if she would have been open to supporting a 'happy medium' of density for the Jericho Lands, she said it's too late. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'Other areas have been bearing the burden of accepting all the population growth. I guess it could have been lower levels of density if we'd been building low-rise apartment buildings in every neighbourhood of the city for decades. But we haven't,' said Maloney, a self-described 'environmental lawyer' who works with the mining company BHP Billiton. Newly elected Coun. Orr, who describes himself as a Communist and dishwasher, also voted for the Jericho Lands official plan. His emphasis has been on affordability and protecting renters, including those being displaced by the 500-block Broadway highrise plan. Despite the historic significance of the Jericho Lands project, three members of ABC were absent for the vote: Mayor Ken Sim and councillors Brian Montague and Peter Meiszner, as well as Rebecca Bligh, who was recently dismissed from ABC. Stay on top of the latest real estate news and home design trends. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. How Vancouver councillors voted – or didn't bother to – on April 22. The small quorum unanimously approved the Jericho lands massive official development plan. Erick Villagomez, who teaches at UBC's school of community and regional planning, predicts little resistance from the two new councillors, or from Bligh and the Green member of council, to the 'monotonous' direction dictated by the ABC majority, particularly in regard to high density. In Villagomez's analysis, the two new council members are 65 per cent aligned on the major issues with ABC, which has been pro-tower and often criticized for ignoring citizen input and reducing demands on developers to provide community benefits. The only candidates in the byelection who do not align with the enthusiastically high-density attitudes of ABC, and who would have offered serious resistance, Villagomez said, were former TEAM councillor Colleen Hardwick and running mate Theodore Abbott. Hardwick, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2022, came in third in last month's byelection, with Abbott fifth. That's despite being endorsed by high-profile professors who specialize in housing affordability, including UBC's David Ley and Patrick Condon. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. CityHallWatch, a group of ecologists, urban designers, architects and former planners who have been monitoring Vancouver politics for 15 years, produced a scorecard before the byelection that detailed how NDP-affiliated OneCity and the Greens have backed ABC on key property development issues. OneCity was represented on council by Christine Boyle before she ran successfully in last year's provincial election, becoming the NDP's Indigenous affairs minister. She regularly lined up with ABC against developer-skeptic recommendations put forward by TEAM. The Greens' Pete Fry and Adriane Carr, who recently retired, did much the same, according to CityHallWatch. The analysis by CityHallWatch, a volunteer organization devoted to 'socially just and transparent' public institutions, shows OneCity and the Greens, and to a slightly lesser extent COPE, had in the past rejected key TEAM ideas, such as: to 'rethink city-wide towers,' 'retain public hearings,' 'pause/replan the Broadway plan' and 'pause/replan the Jericho Lands.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. As Randy Helten, an environmental activist who co-founded CityHallWatch Media Foundation, said: 'OneCity, COPE, Greens, and ABC Vancouver are generally singing from the same song sheet on development, planning, densification and towers.' CityHallWatch produced this scorecard before the April 5 byelection. OneCity, in particular, has been openly endorsed by key players in the pro-high-density movement. They include Russil Wvong, a member of Abundant Housing, a North-American wide, developer-supported organization that advocates for more housing construction. Wvong often posts calls for allies around North America to weigh in to support new highrises in Vancouver. B.C. Premier David Eby has also been strongly influenced by the YIMBY movement, including hiring some of its advocates. The NDP, as a result, has introduced legislation that forces municipalities with at least 5,000 residents to approve four- to six-unit dwellings on single-family lots, and to automatically OK extensive highrise clusters around SkyTrain stations and transit hubs. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Although centre-left politicians in B.C. were in the 20th-century known as staunch defenders of citizens' right to challenge mass property development, that alliance has faded. NDP cabinet ministers have joined left-wing civic politicians in accusing citizens who question the scale and esthetics of building projects of being selfish NIMBYs. The issue of property development has caused ideological confusion among progressives. That's partly because many on the centre-left point to data showing that North American cities that have dramatically increased housing supply, especially Vancouver and Toronto, have not lowered stratospheric prices. Condon and Ley, as well as Burnaby Mayor Mike Hurley and Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West, both of whom have blue-collar backgrounds, say rapid densification is failing to produce the right kind of housing, especially for young families. It's mostly serving investors and land speculators. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Mass upzoning leads to uglier buildings, say many — since Vancouver council and others are allowing developers to build blockier apartment highrises, with less open space and fewer public amenities, in exchange for promising to make up to 20 per cent of their units 'below market.' The trouble with that is, with the real-estate cycle going into a downturn, Vancouver developers who obtained density bonuses are now signalling they need to get out of their earlier commitment to so-called 'affordable housing.' dtodd@ Read More Vancouver Canucks Vancouver Canucks BC Lions News News
CBC
07-04-2025
- Politics
- CBC
OneCity's Lucy Maloney elected as 1 of 2 new Vancouver city councillors
Vancouverites chose two new city councillors in this weekend's byelection. OneCity's Lucy Maloney received the second-most votes and joins Stephen Quinn in studio to discuss her goals.
Yahoo
06-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
City official apologizes for voting delays in Vancouver byelection
Vancouver's city manager is apologizing for the voting delays in Saturday's byelection, after residents faced up to hours-long waits to cast their ballots. The long cues backlogged polling stations across the city, leaving hundreds of people still in line after polls closed at 8 p.m. PT, and delaying results past midnight. The issue was likely largely driven by a January council decision, brought forward by staff, to cut the number of polling stations in half and the number of people staffing them by nearly two-thirds. Paul Mochrie, Vancouver's city manager, on Sunday apologized to voters impacted by what he called unacceptable voting delays in the byelection, especially after a record turnout for advance voting and mail-in ballots."We made a number of assumptions in planning for this election, around vote turnout, distribution, capacity to process votes," he told CBC News on Sunday. "Clearly, from what we saw yesterday, those assumptions were flawed, and we did not have sufficient resources to process the turnout that we received." In total, 67,962 ballots were cast in the byelection, for a voter turnout of about 15 per cent — a 40 per cent increase from 2017, when the turnout was around 11 per cent. The byelection reported around a 15 per cent turnout. (Courtney Dickson/CBC News) Following an inquiry by CBC News, the City of Vancouver said there were 25 polling stations staffed by 265 workers Saturday, down from 50 stations and 631 workers in 2017. Overall, the city's budget for the byelection increased from $1.5 million in 2017 to $2 million for 2025. Mochrie said the election planning fell entirely on civil servants, and not to elected officials, and acknowledged that the turnout was higher than what officials had planned for. He said the next step is to get the councillors-elect sworn in, which he estimated will happen later this month or early in May. Councillors-elect look ahead The byelection was a chastening result for the city's ruling ABC Party, which still maintains a majority on council but whose candidates finished a distant sixth and seventh in the preliminary count. Progressive candidates Sean Orr, of the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE), and Lucy Maloney, of OneCity Vancouver, instead took the top spots. Orr, a housing activist, landscaper and dishwasher, had previously run with VOTE Socialist in the 2022 election. Sean Orr, a councillor-elect with COPE in Vancouver, is seen on Sunday. (Sohrab Sandhu/CBC) He told CBC News he was blown away by having received the most votes in the byelection, and called it a humbling experience. "It just confirmed what I thought about Vancouverites — that they care about the city, we care about the city, we care about integrity and we care about each other," he said. Lucy Maloney, a councillor-elect with OneCity Vancouver, is seen on Sunday. (Shawn Foss/CBC) Orr and fellow councillor-elect Maloney said they would push back on Mayor Ken Sim and ABC's agenda. In particular, the two mentioned a recent move to freeze construction of new supportive housing in the city, as well as a motion to bring back the option of natural gas heating in new homes in the city, which ultimately failed. "It just shows how dissatisfied people are with Ken Sim and ABC, and the direction they're taking in our city, that people were prepared to go to so much trouble to stand in line and participate in our democracy yesterday," Maloney said on Sunday.
