Reaffirm Park Board Capital Planning Independence
Motion 17 · Park Board Meeting, April 27, 2026
Vote
Transcript
94 segments
Thank you. I was just informed from... Can those online see the screen now? Okay, great. I'll just introduce it. I'm not going to read it in full, but I will just explain it. There are two parts to this. There is a Part A, which gives direction to staff with a capital planning process, which is... to not include the list of projects of the Council motion of April 22nd, which included a list of projects. And it asked staff to continue with our current plan strategies and previous board directions. And I'll just explain that briefly. So on April 22nd, Council passed a motion, which was back to community, establishing strategic priorities and consolidating Council direction for the 2027 to 2030 capital plan. Within this, it directed staff to allocate funds within the capital plan for the new construction, renewal, or redevelopment, specifically of park board assets, including community centers, pools, spray pucks, turf fields, and park washrooms. However, I think it's unprecedented from as far as I can tell that Council has provided direction for the allocation of funding of assets under park board jurisdiction prior to... and without Park Board's approval. This is unprecedented for Council to direct how Park Board will be, what projects will be included in the Park Board capital plan. That's never, as far as I can tell, has ever happened before. The Vancouver Charter is very clear that we do have exclusive jurisdiction and control of all parks, permanent public parks and temporary public parks. And within that, the authority to determine how that property is used and including what improvements will be made on that land. Improvements being things like pools and spray parks and fields and community centres. So in my reading of the Vancouver Charter, it's very clear that we have jurisdiction of what is built on park land. And for council to pass a motion that directs funding and directs projects that happen on park land, I believe is out of their jurisdiction. Therefore, my part A of this is directing staff to... continue with our plan strategies in previous board directions, which I think were very clear and have been guided by many years of work and public engagement to provide equitable plans to move forward with our projects. And we should be looking to those plans and strategies for our capital planning, not looking to a list of projects that the mayor's office has developed. The second part of the motion is asking to retain legal counsel to look at this jurisdictional issue right now. What happens when city council is overstepping their jurisdiction in these capital plan allocations? And what is the park board's jurisdiction in this versus city council's? And I think that needs to be clear as we move forward to this capital planning process. As for the costs, we do already have legal... fees set aside that we did back in January of 2024. There is money remaining there, so we can draw on that. So this will not require any further funding from our budget. And I'll be happy to take questions.
Thank you, Commissioner. We'll take questions from the other commissioners.
Commissioner Verdi, please.
By moving this, do you think that we would jeopardize this unprecedented amount of $400 million that the park board will receive on projects that are identified as requiring renewal?
I think we'll be continuing to work with city council on this and for them to withdraw funding because they've overstepped their jurisdiction, I think would be petty of them. So I would hope they wouldn't do that. And I hope that they would be willing to work with us to develop their plans in a better way, looking at our strategies and plans that we can find a way forward. that uses our prioritization that this board has developed over many years and use that rather than their list. So hopefully we can collaborate with them and keep the $400 million number or perhaps increase it, but look to our strategies and plans for that prioritization work.
I don't think this is pettiness. This is very clearly about equity, that the park board has generated these plans and strategies over many, many years with public engagement, and that we need to follow those. Because this is exactly why we have inequity in the city, is because you get city councillors or park board commissioners, you know, you get this political draw that is pulling funding to certain areas because we're not following a strategy and a plan that is grounded in equity.
Just to answer the question specifically, further questions, Commissioner Verdi?
No, good.
Thank you.
Thank you. Do you not think that over the years, and I completely understand what you're saying, that the staff and others have worked very hard to see where projects should land and where amenities or... or even recreation centers or services should be so that we could serve the public generally in a much better way. But do you not think that over the years, especially over 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, things change, and the council would have probably looked at how has the city evolved, how has the city changed, especially with the Broadway Skytrain Station going in or other types of... changes that have happened, generally speaking, and densification as well. Do you not trust that the council and the mayor... would have looked at where these amenities might have to go before they would have made these decisions. I mean, $400 million towards recreation centers, towards rebuilding recreation centers that are in dire need of replacement is a hard thing to pass up. And I'm worried, just like Commissioner Verdi, that if we pass this up, we might not get this opportunity again. I hope you're not making this political.
Okay, I wasn't sure whether there was a question there, but I guess I'll say that I'm not sure there was a question.
No, no, I think I'm trying to make this apolitical is exactly what I'm trying to do, which is to look to our plans and strategies. If you're talking about these strategies being out of date, they're not that old. And if your thought and your issue and concern is that our strategies are out of date, The correct course of action is to get staff to update those plans and strategies to reflect reality, just like we asked staff to update van splash based on the changes that have happened over time. That's the correct course of action. I don't think that the action is to override all of staff's work and pick what, you know, someone who has, you know, as a elected official, I would say doesn't have the full picture of all the data in the background. And the years of public engagement that went into those strategies, I don't think that a city councillor necessarily has that background to make those decisions in the most informed way. And I think that that work is best done by the experts that we have on our staff to do that prioritization work, which is exactly what we have. And in short, I think this motion is aiming to make this process apolitical, which is to put it back...
Yeah, I just feel like Commissioner Christensen is raising her voice, and I asked a simple question. I just wish she would speak just softer.
We will leave the tone of her voice to her discretion as long as it's not intimidating or harassing anyone in the room, although I acknowledge Commissioner Hare requests that... We take it down a notch, but that's at your discretion, Commissioner.
Thank you.
Commissioner Jensen.
This motion, I heard like the small, I know it's small, a $400 million amount being mentioned, but... This board passed $1.48 billion as a... at a motion recently that was a kind of a wide net that looked at not just community centers looked at a whole bunch of other investments would that be in jeopardy by this motion or would that be kind of the direction that would be sought is to look at that 1.48 billion as a guidepost for us to move forward with instead of the you know kind of the 40 million dollars which is a 150 million dollar cut
I don't think necessarily that this motion speaks to the dollar value. It does say, without regard to the projects listed, it doesn't speak to that $400 million number, nor does this override our request that we made to City Council.
I would just like to do another point of order. I have a point of order again.
Thank you. Thank you. I thought we had voted to not discuss and move this as an urgent motion.
So why are we discussing this now? Commissioner misunderstood that that motion did not pass. It was... The declaration it was not urgent was overturned by the board and now we're back debating the motion. So you actually need to read the motion carefully because you're going to be asked to vote on it very shortly and ask your good questions of the commissioner who moved the motion. Commissioner Jensen, were you finished?
Yeah, I think like the Commissioner answer my question. Thank you so much. Yeah a hundred and the four hundred million dollars is Totally encapsulated in the one point four eight billion that this board passed.
So thank you So yeah, I think that request that one point four a billion request is not necessarily overridden by this.
Thank you Commissioner Howard you have a question for the mover We can't hear you quite yet and your
Sorry, my mic is now on. I'm just unclear on why we're discussing a motion tonight when we had a four against three vote to discuss it tonight.
Thank you. The procedural rule is that you need two-thirds of the table to sustain the chair. So that required five out of seven in favor of my ruling, and we only had four out of seven. And there were three opposed. It means my ruling could not be sustained. So I was tossed out, and we moved to voting on the motion.
Okay. So two-thirds is 4.66, so it counts as five. Thank you for clarifying.
Thank you for the math. That was very quick.
Now, we'll go to Commissioner Bastiwanski for first round of questions.
Thank you for bringing this is urgent business um so With the council motion like I appreciated like your reasoning can you can you tell me is the council motion?
Aligned at all with any of the growth areas like Oak Ridge Broadway or the can recorder oh I Think some of them maybe but some of them may not be I honestly I haven't I've been working on a mapping exercise But it's it's it's coming
Then okay, my other question was then about you mentioned the equity lens. Yeah, so are there are there high needs?
Community centers over on the east side that are not mentioned in the council motion I Will say that I do know that Renfrew because I'm their liaison is very high on the list and was not included But I think that is not necessarily the point of this motion. It's not to Go through those specific things. I think it's giving staff direction and to work with our plans and strategies that we already have, including the community center strategy, which did provide a prioritization list of community centers.
And so the capital plan has to be approved by the public at the end. And so are you concerned that if the council moves funding that is not actually in line with the community engagement or strategies, that that capital plan wouldn't pass?
I think you mean the borrowing questions.
The borrowing question at the election.
You know, potentially I can't speak to what the electorate may do at that time, but it would be, I think there's a jurisdictional question of, you know, what happens when city council puts funding on something that park board doesn't approve or isn't in line with park board's direction.
So it lacks legitimacy is what you're saying.
If that's your opinion, don't put words in my mouth. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. And I will actually ask a question at this point, which is, yes, I did notice some deficiencies with the council motion April 22nd. There was no mention of the Kitsilano pool. And there was no, which has always been a long priority at this board, there's been no mention of Britannia. Well, it was referred to as we'll work towards a solution. So is that you're suggesting to staff we continue to work on those projects on our side and hopefully bring them up with our council colleagues for funding?
The direction is really to keep working with our current plans and strategies, and I know that Britannia is on that list of things that we're working on. So, yes, I think that it's to continue working on those projects that the board has identified as priorities in the past.
So do you think council highlighting certain things and providing money for it and then park board not agreeing to it, do you think that's a problem in the structure of having two boards?
Think in this case the the point of the park board that was created is to provide a buffer from City Council To you know do things with parks for reasons that might not be in the best public interest And I think what this motion does is does exactly what park board is intended to do Which is to provide that buffer and that protection from a City Council? making actions or implementing projects that may be in a political interest or a for a specific reason rather than being guided by a city-wide, equity-driven, pragmatic decision-making approach that is driven by our plans and strategies. So I think that this is exactly Park Board doing its job by following its plans and strategies and not allowing city council to step in and direct where funding is going.
So if we never receive money from city council and we have different priorities... It sounds like the system's not working the way it's set up.
Well, it's been working for over 130 years, and this is the first time that this happened. So I don't think this is an issue necessarily with Parkward and City Council. It sounds like this is an issue with this specific council.
Do you think, have we received $400 million before? Do you think it's an unprecedented amount? Do you think it'd be usable and wise to accept that money?
I see John Irwin in the back pointing that there was a $400 million. almost $500 million investment in the past. So I don't think it's unprecedented, the $400 million. I think it's a great number, and I think that I'm very happy that city council is willing to put up that number. But where those community centres go should be driven by the community centre strategy and by Park Board's work, rather than I'm not exactly sure where they got their list from, but it's not consistent with what the community centre associations themselves have asked for. So I think that it's great that they've made that investment and I'm very appreciative of City Council stepping up and providing that funding. But the correct course of action in this is for Park Board to be deciding where that money goes because it's our parkland. We are the ones who control the community centres and we should be driving where that investment goes because we are the body that knows best of what those needs are. So we should be driving that and not City Council. But I appreciate them providing the funding for this and stepping up to support parks and recreation.
That would be very unfortunate for City Council, I think, to pull the funding because they feel like they're not getting their way. I think that would be quite petty of City Council to do that.
We're repeating questions here, so thank you, Commissioner, for your enthusiasm. Commissioner Hare, we have one last question, and then Commissioner Jensen. We do have a full, long in-camera portion after this meeting, Commissioner, so please focus your questions and your responses. Commissioner Hare, please go ahead. Can't hear you. Can't hear you, Commissioner.
Sorry about that. I'm concerned, like, are you not worried wasting $20,000, if not more, towards, let's taxpayer money, by the way, $20,000 that you're, we're getting $400 million to build infrastructure, but you want to waste $20,000 plus maybe more on legal costs. Are you not worried that if we... Bring a legal, like independent legal advice. This is going to slow down the whole process of actually building brand new recreation centers here in Vancouver.
A point of order. Yes. Commissioner Herr, will I interrupt you? Commissioner Basu-Vansky?
Commissioner Herr, it appears to be getting angry and her tone is elevating. If she could bring it down a notch.
All right, all right, commissioners. We're not going to play that game, but Commissioner Herr, please ask your question. Is that focused enough?
I can answer that. Before you do that, all the mics are on. Can we just turn all the extra mics off?
If everyone can turn their mics off. It's causing some reverberation. Well, I only have one mic and it's quite loud.
No, no, so I'm not talking about you, Commissioner Herr. It's just that all the mics in the room are on right now. It's causing some echoey issues. To answer your question, that $20,000 has already been allocated to legal advice so it's not any additional money. So we're not spending any more money, no. That money is already been allocated. It's not slowing anything down. This isn't causing any delay in our capital. That can be your opinion, but I don't see it causing any slowdown to our capital plan process. When you bring in legal advice, that's what happens.
Thank you, Commissioner, for your questions. We'll move on to the last speakers. Commissioner Jensen, for one more question, and we'll move to a vote, please.
Yes. The capital planning that the park board does, can you speak to those that are involved with this and kind of elaborate that this is more than simply just the park board commissioner sitting around a table and making these numbers up?
Yeah, from my understanding of the capital plan process, there are many, many staff members involved all across the park board group. So they know what is most needed in our facilities and in our parks. There's lots of staff members who have been doing this their whole lives. They know the park board system very well. and they are the ones who are providing the input into the capital plan. This isn't commissioners coming up with the stuff out of thin air. It's the staff who know the system, who look to our plans and strategies, and make smart allocations across the city that will provide equity to all Vancouverites.
And does this also include the elected commissioners, though, as well as the staff of the park board, the city as well?
Yes, so the park board staff do work in conjunction with city staff, city finance group, to come towards this capital plan. So they will be working together, and then it does come to the board for approval at the end of this, as well as city council after us.
So every single commissioner that is attending this meeting tonight has the opportunity to share their concerns, to raise their voices during our capital planning process. Is that correct?
Yep, yep, there are briefings that we've had about the capital plan where commissioners have had the opportunities to ask questions and talk to staff about capital planning processes.
And do you think that is where the $400 million directed towards community centres came from based upon the last capital planning process that we were involved with, which actually coincided with the mayor's announcement where... commissioners were attending an announcement and not being present at the workshop.
I don't quite follow your question, but I think whatever you're alluding to, I would invite you to make clear during the comment section.
Yeah, so the question is, is that at the last orientation? Is that when recreational or community centers was?
Yes, yes, we did have a briefing specifically on facility planning, and that would have been a great place for commissioners to raise any questions or concerns or ideas they had about the capital plan with regards to community centers.
Thank you.
Thank you, Commissioner Jensen. Commissioner Howard, do you have a question? Or is that, did you withdraw your question?
No, I'm good.
Withdrawn. Okay. Commissioners, thank you very much for your very good questions to a challenging motion. And we will now move to comments on the motion before we move to a vote. So I would be happy to take commissioners online virtually to speak in order. Commissioner Howard, would Commissioner Howard like to speak to this?
Sorry, your name is still on the voting queue.
So comments, as we move to a vote, comments from the speakers?
From the commissioners. Commissioner Verdi, please go ahead.
$1.48 billion is a nice number. I'd love to have that much money. I'd love to have $10 billion. But reality is, where is that money going to come from? We can't raise property taxes to a point where it's unsustainable. $400 million was a great plan. And it's funny, when we talk about the $400 million, we talk about, oh, there's going to be borrowing involved. But when we were talking about the $1.48 billion plan, no one mentioned anything about borrowing or where that money is going to come from. So I think the $400 million is a great plan. And I think this dialogue here highlights... the problem within the system. When you have two boards, ultimately no one is responsible.
We are discussing the issue at hand, and that does not resonate with the recommendation that we are commenting on.
Okay, I'll ask the Commissioner to keep focused on the motion, and please continue. Commissioner Verdi?
Okay. But my point is, Council's not just a bank, and we're treating them as a bank right now. They also have, say, that's where the money is coming from Council, right? It's in order. I think the commissioner is referring to the capital plan part of the motion yeah okay and it's coming from council so my point is council's not just a bank they know what the city needs as well and REFM is ultimately at the city and they know what community centers need renewal so I'm sure with that motion REFM had a role to play to telling us which community centers come first And REFM, in my view, is probably the most expert in the condition of which community centers require money and renewal. My problem here is we're getting a ton of money, which we could do a lot of good work with, and we can fix a lot of community centers. But my problem is that politics is going to play a role in this, and we might not lose that money just the way the structure is set up. And I'm afraid South Van might lose a pool that everyone was excited about, which they didn't have for so long, and they lost two pools recently. And so... You know, these back and forths might cost us a lot. And I think everyone needs to keep the politics out of this and really think about what's at stake here. And that's $400 million for our community centers, for our children, for everybody that uses those community centers. And it's not about election promises or anything. It's about the money and putting it to good use. So I wouldn't like to jeopardize that. So I will not be voting in favor of this motion.
Well, if we're going to talk about the capital budget, first of all, I'm going to thank the Mayor for following my direction of $400 million that I made the week before when I raised the amendment to the $400 million amount. So, you know, I cannot complain about $400 million to community centres because that is the Mayor following direction from the Park Board. I will tip my hat to him and say thank you very much for listening. I will say that our last capital plan was $550 million. So $400 million, if this is what the mayor's promise is, is $150 million cut to capital spending in the next capital plan. the capital plan that was passed by this board was much more inclusive. And so I would direct individuals to look at that, to listen to the robust discussion that happened that night. And again, that was just a stepping stone to allow this board to hear from the public so that we can actually move forward with our capital planning in a non-political environment that looks at all of the needs across the city, prioritizes those needs, and then looks at one number that can be presented to Council on June 2nd for their consideration. This is historically how things have gone in the past. Sadly, I feel that political promises are getting confused and clouded with capital planning. And so when I look at the capital plans, those are not my promises to the community. That's the promises of this board towards this community. And it is driven by strategy. considered by staff and by years and years of expertise. And I think that that's the best way to go to consider the historic way that things have gone in the past. So I will support this and hope that that continues.
Thank you, Chair. So I'm supportive of this. The park board is created as a check and balance. Its role is to include equity as part of its decision-making framework. It looks at following systems and strategies with community input. What Council moved does not do that. In fact, the Chair received a report this week from the Mayor's Chief of Staff, and that report is evidence of how deeply flawed the Council motion was. That report was incorrectly referenced. That list was not provided by staff. The data in that report is was explicitly for preliminary analysis not to determine citywide priorities So this report that we've got from the mayor's office It the usage data shows current activity, but not unmet needs. There's no or future demand It's not aligned with any growth areas follows no strategy And there's even a gap between where the report comes from and how the decision made it into policy There's a big vacancy. There's no transparency of how that was happened. Even the report says that the process should be collaborative and that step was skipped. This council report, it replaces a multi-criteria community informed strategy with a narrow technical filter and a list in areas that aren't aligned with growth or equity. The condition data even tells the stuff that we might need, that might, something needs work, but it doesn't tell you what level of investment the community needs. It makes no difference between renewal or renovation because that is a policy decision. And equity in that report shows up as a footnote. not as a decision driver. And that's why the board is here. The park board listens to the community. It aligned all the strategies. The recommendations are driven by input from the community. And moving away from that means that the mayor and council are at risk of not having their budget asked on the ballot. voted on by the public because if it's too partisan if you're allocating money into neighborhoods that Are not aligned with growth or any other strategy, and they're just some random I mean the CCAs the community center associations that were on the list they were not consulted Nobody was this list was made in the shadows And so I applaud. And you know what? I'm glad that we still have some money left over because the independence of the park board protects the entire city. Thank you.
Thank you, Commissioner, for your comments. Commissioner Hare, you're next on the list.
Thank you, Chair. I cannot support a motion that directs staff to move forward without regard to council and commits public funds towards potential legal conflict. Residents expect us to deliver parks and amenities, not engage in institutional disputes. This approach risks slowing down capital projects, creates unnecessary division, and takes resources away from where they're needed most. We can uphold the park board's role while still working collaboratively to get the results for Vancouver. And for these reasons, I will not be supporting this motion.
Does Commissioner Howard have any comments at this point?
No? Would you like to go first ahead of me? Commissioner Christensen, please go ahead.
Thank you, Commissioner Vasilevsky. Really great comments there. I did want to just make the point that if you know me and you know my political aspirations, you'll know that this is a very apolitical motion. It doesn't have to do with politics for me. I'm not a political person. and I don't have political aspirations. This to me is really about following the process that is going to give the best outcome for Vancouver. This is about following our plans and strategies. that are grounded in equity and fairness that the city deserves. And I said this earlier, but the reason that we have inequity in our city is because we get elected officials who pick and choose where to put projects, community centers or pools based on their view of the city. And that's why we have inequity because that's happened over generations. Our strategies and plans have aimed to correct that inequity And all we need to do is just act on those plans and strategies, and we will solve the problems in this city. So this motion is asking us to do that. You know, we can talk about the park board or not the park board. I hope that council and us can work together. You know, council provides the funding. We say we know best where it goes, and I think that's how it's worked over the last 130-plus years. Let's just keep doing that. I'm optimistic that Council can work with us on this and we can come to a list of projects that meets our plans and strategies. And I hope that we don't have to make this into a fight. It shouldn't have to be. We've talked to city councillors, Commissioner Digby and I, and they are listening and willing to talk. So we'll continue those discussions, and I think that we can continue with this capital planning process in a way that respects the park board's jurisdiction over parks and recreation spaces.
Thank you, Commissioner. I'll finish up the comments by... noticing a couple of points that have not been noted already. Commissioners need to know that for the capital plan vote to succeed, it must have absolute public confidence. And public confidence comes from knowing that we are maximizing the public benefit for these public dollars that are being invested in our community facilities, in our parks and open spaces across the city. And contrary to some of the other commissioners, it's not the amount of money that's the question here. The question is, does the public have confidence in voting for it because they know that a fair and equitable process has been followed? And I can tell you, I know some of the board members of some of these community centers who are deeply embarrassed that they have been put ahead of the front of the line, ahead of community centers with known, known equity needs that are serving hundreds of children meals a day and after school care and preschool care and daycare. And these are underfunded community centers and these other community centers somehow plucked for some reason are, elevated and they are frankly embarrassed to have to look at their colleagues and say yes we are first. So you know and I do acknowledge that several commissioners at this table made every effort to attend and participate in the capital planning meetings that staff hosted. There are several commissioners at this table that did not attend at all. and are here denouncing what we are doing here. It is the public, maximizing the public benefit is our job here, commissioners, and I want to point that this is the at-large system we vote in in Vancouver. This is one of the real benefits of an at-large system, is that you can look across the whole city, and if you're from a different neighbourhood that's not getting in or out of the game, but you're on the sidelines watching, you want to make sure that everything is fair in the city because you want to know that when your turn comes 10 years from now, 20 years from now, that you will be treated as fairly as people are being treated today. So commissioners, I will be voting in favor of the motion and I will call for a vote by a show of hands. All those in favour of the motion as written, please raise your hand. I see Commissioner Christensen, Commissioner Jensen, Commissioner Basti-Avansky, Commissioner Digby. All those opposed, please raise your hand. I see Commissioner Howard, Commissioner Hare and Commissioner Verity. The motion passes and we will move on. Thank you for your attention, Commissioners.
Next motion is order of business inquiries. Does anyone have inquiries for the staff? Seeing none, then we'll move to adjournment and an inquiry from Commissioner Verity.