Endorse Land Sales and Exchanges Audit Recommendations

Statement Watch

I'm for three. My name is Lewis Villegas. I am a Vancouver resident practicing urbanism in the U.S. and Canada for 40 years. I support the report and all recommendations. Next slide, please. By presenting evidence of malfeasance in an internal report, the Auditor General offers a systemic signal that we have reached a structural ceiling. Next. Rather than dive deeper into the report, I will widen the scope to include analogous conditions I find in the planning system. You paint building towers as providing housing, but there is no public benefit. in perpetuating a crisis in housing affordability. Next. Putting the focus on the Broadway tunnel, a prohibitively expensive SkyTrain builds less root, limiting resident mobility. Plants concentrate population in the core, making residents prey to the housing price inflation. Next. Because high cost per kilometers concentrate capacity inside the urban core, affordability is driven into the periphery and into the neighboring regions, where the SkyTrain is just too costly to reach. Looking to generate returns on transit investment rather than ending the housing crisis, government gives away density and height, limiting housing outcomes to tower plans. and unwittingly perpetuating a government-made housing crisis. Next. If the future you are planning requires people to leave before it arrives, then it isn't really much of a future or a plan at all. Good planning isn't what works best on day one. It's what still works long after the planners and the urban designers are gone.

Statement Watch

My name is Stephen Wilson. I live and work in Vancouver. I support the work of the Auditor General. This is excellent work. The work needs to continue and have support, and the scope needs to be broadened. There's also a need for more accountability. What you see here is the area under the Granville Street Bridge where CAC was not delivered. Next slide. The $6 million figure in the referral report is stated there, but this is just the tip of the iceberg where the CAC was not delivered. Next slide. For 1412, 1450 House Street, now called Vancouver House, the 2014 sale of city land was $96 million below market value, and the city owned 87% of the site in areas A and B. Another potential buyer would have offered more, but the city turned it down. This sale of land also needs to be audited, and sales of land can take place after a rezoning is approved and often due. Next slide. You've heard a lot about the other side of the Granville Street Bridge with the $13 million error, key information being withheld from council on the CL601 beach, and key information has been withheld on multiple occasions from council by staff. The city decided to waive the $12 million CAC, and there are many issues here. But in terms of the transparency toolkit, things like wealth audits, people actually need to be held accountable for their actions, and maybe this should involve federal agencies.

Next slide. The former city manager discharged a $1 billion mortgage that the city held on several properties back in 2011, and an extended audit should cover this as well. And I'm showing here the 21-story tower at Alexandra English Beach at the Davion Bidwell. Next slide. The city just walked away and had nothing. And finally, let's look at the sale of the land for the 40-story tower at 1477 West. Broadway and the city's purchase price of $3,795,000. This is grossly under market value. Maybe it was around $7 million, but someone should look into that, get a proper appraisal. There was no appraisal done on this site. Appraisal was used a couple of properties over mid-block. adjusted, and I'm really concerned about the statements that were released under FOI, under a long protracted FOI, which was, I need to be able to defend the sale as market value, going back and forth with the developer and senior staff. That's not the way I'd like to see land sales done. Land was sold at well below market value, and we need accountability, and there is no... way of dealing with the culture of secrecy we have here. Many things cannot be FOI'd with the PAEF, so excellent work by the Auditor General. It needs to continue, and please broaden the scope. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Thank you so much.

Statement Watch

Thank you. Colleen Hardwick speaking, assuming you can hear me. I'd like to say thanks to the Office of the Auditor General for conducting this audit and producing these reports. Thank you to Robert Renger for being a whistleblower in the area of real estate disposition. We would not be here with them today without them today, which is testament to the importance of independent oversight in the City of Vancouver. Quite literally, it is the land, the 114 square kilometers from Boundary Road to the university endowment lands that is the foundation of the city, its real estate assets, as well as its financial well-being. This was formalized through the city's real estate department and property endowment fund going back to the days of Mayor Art Phillips and the original team council. Mr. Phillips expressed his concerns to me personally about land disposition and the long-term implications. Once it's gone, it's gone. So today, the city's real estate portfolios are primarily overseen by real estate services, as we've discussed with the real estate and facilities management, which includes the capital fund, the PEF, and VAHEF. And I have personally observed changes at City Hall over the years covered by this report, and I've watched key land transactions and shifts in the so-called culture of the organization. I sat on the Development Permit Board until 2008 when Gregor Robertson was elected with a vision majority that affected an equivalent to a corporate turnaround at City Hall. I also sat on the Mayor's Task Force on Housing Affordability in 2012 and watched the creation of VAHEF. The auditor showed that the City could not demonstrate that it maximized value for land sale and exchanges. And that being the case, I would appreciate it if the Auditor General would reveal whether the individuals who made these decisions are still employed at the City. Specifically, were there any changes in senior staff in real estate once they began their investigation? Did anyone resign or retire right around that time? There have been a lot of significant turnover in the last number of years together with a loss of institutional memory. And the legacy of community-based planning has been replaced by a development promotion approach, which has put staff in lockstep with the industry in terms of their success metrics. It's clear to me today that real estate services is largely in step with the development industry as opposed, I would argue, to the larger public good. I just have a final thing I want to say.

You know the rules in terms of respectful presentation. Go ahead. I'll give you a few more seconds.

Right. And I've been very careful in the way that I've constructed this, and I've lost a bunch of time there. But mistakes have been made. And whether they were intentional or not, there is no question.

Sarah. Respectfully, if you listen to me, I said I will give you a bit of extra time for that. Please go ahead. Thank you.

Okay. Well, mistakes have been made. And whether they were intentional or not, it seems clear that we need to have accountability, whether that's with former city staff or elected officials. And having been an elected official, I often hear the routine rubber stamping of saying that this is what's put before us.

Thank you very much, Colleen. That's time.

We cannot undo the past, but we can put checks and balances in place for the future. And I look forward. Thank you.

Statement Watch

Good morning, counsel. My name is Sean Nardi, and I live in Vancouver. I would like to start by thanking the Auditor General and his team for diligently investigating REFM. Furthermore, I would like to thank former City Councillor Colleen Hardwick for spearheading the Auditor General role. If it weren't for Hardwick's integrity, persistence, and courage, the City wouldn't have daylighted this massive financial loss, nor have the opportunity to correct it. We owe her a debt of gratitude. The AG's office reviewed 16 real estate transactions and revealed a loss of approximately $60 million. If the AT were to examine all transactions over the past 15 or 20 years, it's easy to imagine this figure quickly growing into the many hundreds of millions. These losses were attributed to systemic errors and process gaps within RAFM, a lack of diligent management by city managers, and an absence of good governance by successive mayors and councillors. However, some of the errors border on the dubiously incompetent. Given that the city just did somersaults trying to find $120 million to fulfill Mayor Sims' 0% tax increase goal, I suspect that these losses might have come in handy. I reviewed a large amount of staff correspondence and assure you that this is just the tip of the mismanagement iceberg. Vancouverites have been trying to bring your attention to questionable real estate transactions and many other questionable staff actions for years, but no mayor or council paid attention except Colleen Hardwood. The AG is shining a light on some of these errors, proving not only that residents were right, but the council's chronic dismissiveness towards residents, unhealthy deference towards city staff, and milquetoast oversight enabled these activities to go on for as long as they have. I fully support the AG's 10 recommendations and encourage you to implement them post-haste. Moreover, given the obscene amount of money lost in these errors, a full and vigorous inquiry into RAFM's operations, conduct, and all transactions... as well as the lack of oversight by multiple city managers, mayors, and councils going back at least a decade, would be the absolute minimal reasonable response. You owe a statutory fiduciary duty to the City of Vancouver and to the residents of the city. The public has warned Council about these discrepancies for years, and Council knew or should have known that something was awry. It is now your responsibility to fully investigate and fix this problem. Make no mistake, this is Metro Van grade mismanagement, and you are holding the hot potato. In this election year, I trust you'll find yourselves as furious as I am about these revelations and that you will focus the entirety of your energy to fixing them, doing everything in your power to ensure that the employees whose lapses permitted these errors to occur are disciplined and that hard stops are put into place to ensure that the city never experiences catastrophic, avoidable financial losses like this again. Thank you for your time.

Statement Watch

Thank you. The city could not demonstrate its maximized value. First of all, I want to applaud the officer general's office for the great work that it has done, along with the whistleblowers. The report revealed serious past mistakes and systemic failings, including how frequently... Council approved major land sales and other decisions while being poorly informed. Examples include appraisal assumptions not being disclosed, sales below appraised value not clearly documented and explained, and contract extensions went forward without returning to Council despite the policy. Once the land is gone, it's done. It's forever. The report also shows that most land sales were initiated by external buyers, not the city. That means the city is losing out on opportunity to get as much value as it can. And this is seeing money in terms of when we're talking about tens of billions of dollars in land assets to do the things that you guys claim that you care about. I think the city, I think the council needs to act on it, even though many of you likely won't be back after the election. At the same time, while I know the city's debt broke, I hope you guys don't use real move zero as an excuse to get rid of the office. Thank you.

Statement Watch

I'm Robert Renger, a resident of Vancouver, and I support the report. I'm a retired longtime City of Burnaby development planner with knowledge and experience related to public land sales. The people of Vancouver should be very grateful to the last council that instituted the position of auditor general and now to the auditor general for this report, which I must say is devastating. Sadly, it shows that the public has lost many millions of dollars. due to the outlandish approach of selling land ignoring the higher density that it has been rezoned for and it's very disturbing that the instruction staff routinely give to the appraisers to achieve lower valuations were not disclosed to council or the public a number of people including myself had been trying unsuccessfully to point this out to council for years but now that you have the recommendations from the auditor general you will hopefully put a business-like system in place for land sales. I'm gratified that this report acknowledges the $13 million adjustment price calculation error for the sale of 601 Beach Crescent, which I pointed out to staff last March. I was truly shocked how staff and council totally refused to respond about the error for many months. after which we found out that they had secretly in camera given the purchaser the discount from the error right after i had pointed it out and also added another 12 million dollar cac's discount to that That particular land sale of a prime development site has been a disaster from the start and every step along the way. Ten years after it was sold, it's still vacant with 90% of the purchase price still owing, interest-free until now. And we're still waiting for the 152 units of promised and sorely needed social housing. I sincerely hope staff and council will take better care of the public interest in the future and do so with more transparency and accountability. Thank you.