Below the Radar Transcript
Episode 159: The Future of Urban Housing & Climate Policy — with Christine Boyle
Speakers: Steve Tornes, Am Johal, Christine Boyle
[theme music]
Steve Tornes 0:02
Hello listeners! I’m Steve Tornes with Below the Radar, a knowledge democracy podcast. Below the Radar is recorded on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.
On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal speaks with Vancouver city councillor Christine Boyle about issues in municipal housing and climate policy — and how to move the needle on both these crises at the city level. I hope you enjoy the discussion!
[theme music fades]
Am Johal 0:33
Hello, welcome to Below the Radar. We have a very special guest: City Councillor Christine Boyle has joined us this week. Thank you for joining us, Christine. Welcome.
Christine Boyle 0:43
Thanks for having me on, Am.
Am Johal 0:46
Christine, maybe we can begin with you introducing yourself a little bit.
Christine Boyle 0:50
Sure! So, I am a first-term city councillor in Vancouver, I've been in this role three years, I am elected with a party called OneCity Vancouver, and have spent the last three years really focused on the intersections of climate action and climate justice, and housing and transportation… how our climate action can address rather than worsen inequality. And then also, you know, all of the huge amount of work that needs to continue to be done in addressing the drug poisoning crisis happening here and elsewhere.
So, I'm a newish politician, or elected leader. I come into this work with an organizing background. I have spent most of my adult life doing justice, organizing some of that as an ordained minister, and organizing among faith communities locally and nationally on climate justice and Indigenous rights issues. And I continue to want to be an organizer before being a politician, though I certainly wear both of those hats in the work I'm doing these days.
Am Johal 2:03
Christine, when you think about the various things that the city does for making sure their garbage and recycling get picked up on time to rezoning and development, which are, you know, often contentious issues in a city that has an affordability crisis, like Vancouver does, different claims on what the future might be for the city, let alone its past and present and… Wondering: what is it about this level of government that got you motivated to run in the first place, as opposed to say, running provincially or federally?
Christine Boyle 2:41
I have always been a big nerd for local government. It really is where so many of our values hit the ground for people, you know, in our day to day lives, and I think there's a huge amount of opportunity for progressive change at the local level, and so I was keen to be engaged in that I've been engaged in local politics and local issues for quite a while. And I'm glad to see local governments leading on so many issues that I care about, and really moving the needle and adding pressure at other levels. I certainly try to do that work I get accused of… or I get told to stay in my lane all of the time, and I never intended to focus only on garbage pickup, though that's important. Those core services are important; in people's lives, too, they're important and, you know, issues around labour and the environment. All of these big things we care about are lived out in those core services and what we do beyond them in terms of reflecting who the city is for, so... yeah, I'm a big nerd for local government. That's why I'm here and I don't regret it.
Am Johal 3:57
So, prior to becoming a councillor, what are some entanglements or interactions that you had with city policy, that you first kind of got involved in civic policy prior to elected life?
Christine Boyle 4:12
You know, housing is a huge one. Absolutely… and public and active transportation as well. I grew up in Vancouver. I grew up on the west side of Vancouver in a neighbourhood that I moved from when I was 18, but would never have been able to afford to stay in had that been my hope, and so I have lived in a number of parts of the city. I care a lot about Vancouver, and I've seen neighbourhoods hollow out because people are priced out, and then I've seen the impact that that has on pressures in previously working-class neighbourhoods where residents are getting pushed further out, you know, that just the ripple effect of housing decisions, you know, the sort of protectionism and exclusivity of some neighbourhoods and how that impacts other neighbourhoods.
And we see it playing out all the way beyond the City of Vancouver, you know, I hear from renters in Roberts Creek or in the Fraser Valley, or on Vancouver Island, where the cost of living is going up, and more and more people priced out of Vancouver pricing other people out in other places.
I grew up in the city, and I've seen all of those changes happen. And so I've been engaged in all of those housing issues for many years. But really, climate has been my focus, and there's a lot of ways that climate hits the ground in the city. And, you know, we all live them every day, so I'm sure we'll get into many of those. But, that has been… my activism hasn't always been focused at the local level. My activism has been a lot larger, but I see the tangible ways that local, that more progressive local action can be of service to those movements.
Am Johal 6:02
Well, maybe let's begin with the city of Vancouver, and how it's looking towards climate change in sort of the policy environment at the municipal level; oftentimes, people are calling on the federal and provincial governments for policy change, which is, of course, really important. But there are a set of policy levers that the city engages in which it can do a lot of things autonomously, without those levels of government, and still have a big impact related to reducing climate emissions. So I'm wondering if you could speak to how you're approaching these questions and thinking them through at the policy level, like what are the practical interventions that can happen at the city level?
Christine Boyle 6:44
That's a great question. So, Vancouver was the first municipality in English-speaking Canada to declare a climate emergency. That was one of the first motions that I brought forward, and we unanimously passed a pretty ambitious climate emergency action plan, which looked very specifically at what we can do in our jurisdiction. So, people may or may not know, the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the city of Vancouver are in transportation, in the gas that we burn getting around, and in buildings. 54%, something like 54% of emissions in Vancouver, are from the burning of natural gas for heat space heating and hot water in our buildings. So, there are very specific municipal tools that we can use to get at those largest sources of emissions. Absolutely, all of it would be easier if we had more ambitious movement at the provincial or federal level. In the meantime, in Vancouver, we have been looking at changes to our building code and regulatory tools to get new buildings off of gas to have new buildings, low density and multifamily buildings built electric without gas. And, you know, more and more passive house standards as well. So, we're using less energy overall, but the energy that we're using is zero-emission. We're looking at how we retrofit existing buildings, which is a huge piece of work, and a sticky one when we're approaching this work with a lens of equity and inequality.
How are we there? You know, it's different, a different set of requirements for a financially stable homeowner in a single-family home to require that when their gas furnace dies, they transition into a heat pump. It's a more complicated policy challenge when we're looking at privately owned rental housing, for instance, where we are very cautious. The requirements to fuel switch a building like that, to get it off gas could trigger a type of renovation that allows a landlord to evict tenants and causes displacement. So, we are being cautious and thoughtful in how we bring about those sorts of requirements, and actually, we're doing some pilot projects around it to see what we can learn in terms of timelines and processes for transitioning existing rental building in a way that doesn't displace tenants or increase rents. But a lot of tools that we have in the city of Vancouver to be doing that work.
And on the transportation side, you know, again, we need help from the provincial and federal government, and we need funding support in order to be as ambitious as the climate emergency requires us to be. But there is a lot we can do. One of my favourite examples on transportation is because land use is our, one of our greatest powers as a local government. We're looking at how we create and where we can create bus priority lanes to give more of our road space to public transit so that buses are faster and more reliable. And when buses are faster it… for a transit rider, the experience is that they're coming more frequently, because they're not stuck behind people's cars in traffic. So there are things we can do, even though we as a local government don't fund or control transit, we do control the allocation of our road space, and so when we prioritize public transit on our road space, it makes it seem as if that public transit is coming more frequently, and that's one of the key things we, of course, hear from people, is that they would be more likely to take public transit if it were faster and more reliable. So again, you know, and the same is true about reallocating road space, for more pedestrian safety, for more separated, accessible cycling infrastructure. Those are a lot of those are land use decisions around how we're allocating our transportation space, and then there are capital funding decisions about what infrastructure we're putting in place and what sort of road users it is benefiting the most.
Am Johal 11:23
And when you think about it, oftentimes it gets presented as a very polarizing issue inside the media, the media, but in 10 or 15 years after bike lanes go up, they certainly are viewed as quite popular and… But you know, beyond you know, parking policy, congestion charges, various forms and interventions, what are other cities that you look to for policy inspiration, like when you see people in terms of people in cities across the planet that have put progressive policies in place that are facts in the ground right now? Where do you draw inspiration from in terms of thinking through what a policy framework and Vancouver might look like?
Christine Boyle 12:04
On the transportation front, there are a ton of great examples. In Europe and in and across many large cities in Asia, where road space is being reallocated. I think about a lot of the work Barcelona has been doing creating Superblocks and more protected public space, really boldly shifting the understanding of street space back to people and away from cars. And I have really liked, I think this I saw this language out of the New York Department of Transportation, but it could have been them borrowing it from elsewhere, but thinking about cars as guests in more of our road spaces. That that space is for people to gather and to move around and that when cars are there, they are required to go slower, and be cautious of the people around them, rather than having all of those people need to operate around streets in fear of cars. You know, I certainly think about that as a parent of kids who can sometimes get distracted and worry a lot about them around cars, so.
Barcelona, but many other places, you know, even like, Paris is being incredibly ambitious in its goals, and its very tangible changes around deprioritizing cars and creating a lot more safe cycling infrastructure across the city. There's been some amazing examples through the pandemic of local governments really ramping up their plans on that front. You know, the other piece I didn't really touch on, but is absolutely a climate and a justice issue is land use. And there are also a number of local governments, particularly across the states who are starting to make citywide land use decisions that are climate and justice decisions, too, so.
Minneapolis was one of the first places that this has rolled out; Minneapolis pretty boldly in a citywide plan ended exclusionary zoning or single-family zoning. So, they made it legal to build apartments in all parts of the city, there was no neighbourhood that was sort of too precious or too valuable for renters to have secure housing there. Which is, of course, a justice issue, and coming out of Minneapolis, some of it was overturning land use and planning decisions that had been at been intentionally racist and exclusionary in their origin. So, they had that piece of their land use to correct.
I say it's a climate decision, too, because, in cities, we need more people to be able to live in complete communities: live near their work, live near, you know, their grocery store, and their hairdresser and whatnot, and be less reliant on cars. And when we don't have enough housing for people in the city, it pushes up the price of all of the housing we do have, but it also means more and more people are living further and further out and relying on long commutes, often burning a lot of fossil fuels to do that. So land use hasn't historically been part of our climate work… and I'm a longtime climate organizer, I've been focused on opposing the extension of big fossil fuel projects. That's absolutely important. And now with a city councillor hat on, I'm thinking more and more about how land use is a corrective tool in historic exclusion and injustice, but also a proactive tool in building more climate-resilient communities.
Am Johal 15:56
With the climate talks happening currently in Glasgow, what's your hope and wish of what might come out of there in terms of what it might mean, for municipalities and possibly federal and provincial policies that would enable municipalities to do their work better related to the climate?
Christine Boyle 16:15
Yeah, great question. I wish I had a more hopeful response about the COP in Glasgow. I was a civil society delegate at COP21, in Paris six years ago. And… it made me cynical about the impact of these global meetings.
I mean, I am heartened to see the media coverage, increasing media coverage of climate, mostly. And I, of course, I'm desperately hopeful that this COP be worthwhile, and more worthwhile than some of the past ones have been. You know, overall, what we at a local level need is for provincial and federal governments to be treating climate change like the emergency that it is, and putting in place emergency level policy. So much of what we are trying to do at the city level, in Vancouver, is push the bounds of what is required; ramp up dates, you know, we're trying to get buildings off gas, like, next year, not 2030, or 2040. We wouldn't need to fight so hard on those fronts if that leadership were being provided at another level, and we could partner with them and work with them.
You know, there are dates being set at provincial and federal levels to get off gas, to end the sale of gas combustion vehicles and whatnot. All of those dates are too far out for the scale of the crisis. And so, at a local level, we need those plans to be emergency plans, we need those dates to be sped up. And then we need either new fiscal tools or, you know, federal transfers. I mean, the types of investments that we need to be making, to be mitigating, you know, to be getting off gas and mitigating worse climate change, but also adapting to the climate changes that we're already experiencing, are out of scope with the fiscal tools that we have.
At a city level, we only have a flat property tax, and we just aren't able to raise the revenue that we need to be adequately addressing this crisis, so we need help on that front, as well. And we have been asking for more fiscal tools for a long time, I think there's awareness of just what a disaster we're facing in terms of inadequate infrastructure and not the tools for it. But we have yet to see real changes in terms of any of those fiscal pieces, and it really does hamper what we're able to do. So I, you know, I sort of scream into the wind, with frustration. I mean, occasionally, often, but occasionally on this subject, which is, cities get lifted up and celebrated by the federal government, by provincial governments for leading on climate. But when we say actually, these are the things we need in order to lead on climate, we aren't getting the tools and supports that would allow us to really make the difference that we need to make at the speed and scale that's needed.
Am Johal 19:18
Christine, I want to talk a bit about the intractable issue of affordable housing in Vancouver. I've been in Vancouver over 30 years now. I moved down from Williams Lake to go to university, and this has been an issue that's been talked about far before I moved to Vancouver. And, you know, there's been, you know, structural issues that are at play from, you know, not having election spending limits in place with forms of regulatory capture that happened in terms of development decisions that were made.
The large mega-events like Expo 86 and The Olympics, which exacerbated and accelerated development paths, in a way where public policy wasn't in place to protect residents from being evicted. And many of those structural barriers remain in place in the city with such a big affordability crisis. The protection of tenants still remains inadequate, even though that's mostly a provincial responsibility. But I'm wondering if you can speak a little bit to the challenges this council has gone through thinking about housing and how you've approached it from a policy intervention point of view?
Christine Boyle 20:30
Yeah, great question. So this council has strengthened our own tenant protection policies, particularly around renovation and redevelopment. And a huge amount of credit for those changes is owed to tenants themselves organizing across the city and, and pushing for strengthened protections against demoviction and rent eviction. So we have strengthened our own protections on those fronts. They still could be stronger, I think, and that's an ongoing conversation, but we made some important changes. And again, because of the advocacy of tenant groups, we have been trying to build… you know, some of the challenge in Vancouver has been that we have been building for-profit, housing, a lot of it stratified condo housing for so long. So we have been trying to tip that balance in favour of building more secure rental housing, than private investment housing.
Still, I think the piece we need a lot more of is housing outside of the market. You know, we need more co-op housing, we need more nonprofit and public and non-market housing. The housing market in Vancouver and beyond is clearly broken. I don't think you will find a lot of argument with that. And so we need tools to be building more housing outside we need to change the balance of the housing that we are building within the market and change where it's being built. And that's where I get into land use and zoning changes.
So where we're building new market rental, we're not just building it at the expense of and destruction of existing market rental, we're protecting existing rental and building new rental in neighbourhoods where historically renters have been excluded. But, and, we need a lot more non-market housing and I have had many, many conversations with folks across the community housing sector and Vancouver, across the labour movement, trying to figure out how we increase the city's role in the development of public and non-market housing. One piece that the city can do, and that we do, some of is providing publicly owned land at a nominal lease for nonprofit or co-op housing. I had a motion to Vancouver Council to upzone for non-market housing, and allow more floors allow more density for housing that is co-op or nonprofit housing.
This council killed it--voted against it, which was frustrating, because we know we need more of that housing, so, I will continue to work on that front. I sometimes describe these as the three pillars. And you know, it is true that there's no silver bullet to the affordability and housing problems that are so entrenched in Vancouver, and really, are a reflection of a kind of global capital, hunger, and greed. But locally, I think about a few specific examples, a few specific tools, we need to be moving on altogether. And one of them is increased tenant protections, and one of them is zoning and ending exclusionary zoning. And one of them is building more non-market housing everywhere across the city. And so I have, in my three years so far, been trying to work on all three of those at the same time; there are sometimes fights between advocates of one or the other of those solutions, that their solution is the most important and even in progressive circles, and certainly in housing Twitter, in Vancouver, there are, I think, harmful fights between camps about what the solution is, and there are very good people working in those different camps trying to move solutions forward.
And ultimately, I think we need a progressive housing plan that includes all of these pieces and, and more. And so I'm glad in my term so far to have been able to work with folks across each of those pieces and be able to move the issue forward in a few ways. Though again, I wish this council was being more courageous on housing. And I hope the next council that we elect a year from now, is braver on all of those fronts together.
Am Johal 25:10
There's been some specificities to the challenge that the city faces caused by the pandemic. And I want to just begin with the issue of the contamination of the drug supply, which precedes the pandemic. It was already a crisis in many respects, but certainly heightened and accelerated with border restrictions and others, and has had a huge impact in terms of the increase of the numbers of deaths across the province, most prevalently in the Downtown Eastside, but also in other parts of Vancouver as well. I wonder if you could speak to how the city has been attempting to address this issue from its own vantage point, you know, understanding that the provincial and federal governments are required to move on this in a much more fundamental way. A lot of the policy levers rest with them.
Christine Boyle 25:59
Yeah, I mean, a lot of our work as a city on this front has been on the advocacy front, really, you know, writing letters, and, and pushing and fighting in all sorts of ways the city of Vancouver has been advocating for decriminalization, for a city-wide exemption in order for us to implement decriminalization of personal possession of drugs; council unanimously, I think was unanimous, supported the DULF application for Compassion Clubs model. We have been pushing the provincial government for a more ambitious rollout of safe supply.
So all of those advocacy tools, really coming to us from people who use drugs and drug user advocacy groups saying this is what's needed and then the city can use our, you know, pulpit so to speak to amplify those asks and push for changes at the provincial and federal level. And then alongside that, I'm doing as much as we can on the harm reduction front just to keep people alive, as best as possible while we advocate for these big systemic changes that we absolutely need. So we have been, we approved a new overdose prevention site in Yaletown... a year or two ago; my sense of time is really skewed now. It was not a smooth or easy decision, but I'm glad to see those spaces being created for people.
There are roles that we play in terms of grants and funding for frontline service organizations and advocates. In order again, to really be supporting people, meeting them where they're at, and helping keep them alive, while we roll out the larger solutions that we need the provincial and federal government to be moving on.
Am Johal 28:04
There's been a big impact on city budgets, from the pandemic, you also have a lot of storefronts and small businesses that have gone away during the pandemic, for financial and other reasons. I'm wondering if you can speak a little bit to the economic outlook of the city coming out of the pandemic and some of the revenue challenges the city might be facing as to what might be a way of addressing and dealing with things on those fronts?
Christine Boyle 28:32
Yeah, it's such a great question and is really what I am in the middle of wrestling with right now. The city approves its budget in December of each year… and the outlook for a 2022 budget is bleak. Our finances were hit very hard, because of the pandemic. We, in the early days of the pandemic, the city had to temporarily lay off 1800 workers. And that was very difficult for those folks and a difficult decision to be making. And we have been slowly recovering in terms of revenue, and we have been trying to balance the right, you know, because our main fiscal tool is a flat property tax. I think all of us are very conscious what a blunt instrument that is and the pressure that it places, particularly on small businesses that are already struggling.
So, we know we need to fund strong public services because residents across the city who are most vulnerable rely on those public services. You know: public libraries, community centres and grant community grants and so much more. And because they are peoples’ jobs, people who live in our communities, and there are some limits to property tax as our only fiscal tool. I mean, this is why I hammer on and on about the need for new fiscal tools for local governments to meet the challenges that we are facing. And because those limits are so real.
You know, in the meantime, the balance for our next budget is going to need to be really about resisting austerity and preventing layoffs and further cuts, and then making some pretty difficult choices about what new initiatives we are investing in. And I certainly am going into this budget strongly advocating for funding for the city's work on implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous people. There are a number of key issues that I have been championing along the way that I will fight for hard in this budget. A bunch of investments around climate and safe transportation as well. But with a minority council and a very squeezed budget and a lot of competing priorities, it's going to be hard and we do need help from senior levels of government if we're going to truly be able to follow through on all of these asks that the public have of us and priorities that we would like to be addressing.
Am Johal 31:16
Christine, what are you most excited about going into next year on council?
Christine Boyle 31:22
Oh, great question. Um, you know, I have been co-chairing our UNDRIP, United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Task Force I co-chaired with Khelsilem from the Squamish Nation. I'm really excited about that work. Obviously, the province and the feds have been looking at implementing UNDRIP as well and moving along their own processes. The city of Vancouver is really leading from a municipal level in terms of what a recognition of those rights looks like at a local level. And we have an amazing collection of leaders from Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations at that table together, and those recommendations will come out some in the spring, and then some next fall. And I'm excited about that work.
I will say, you know, I have some ongoing despair about the scale of the climate crisis, but I also am regularly lifted up by the advocacy and leadership that I hear from the community on that front. And so I always look forward to getting to work alongside those folks when we have difficult climate decisions. That's my favourite part of the work, is when I get to be one piece of organizing and social movement work from the community, where I can help and play my role. And that's why I think it matters that we elect strong voices, but those voices can't do it alone, so.
On climate, on a number of housing decisions, housing decisions for renters, and co-op in non-market housing, in particular, all of that. It sounds so cheesy, but I really do feel so honoured to get to be at the table to amplify those community voices and to help lay out, in policy, tools that can make this city work for more people, and allow more people to stay and continue to call it home, so, all of that matters a lot to me.
And the last thing I would add to that question is we have an election coming up next fall, and we have some really inspiring folks interested in running with OneCity, and so I've been working with a bunch of them behind the scenes as they get ready to make announcements. And I'm excited about that because I think it matters who's at the table, and these three years have been a tiny bit lonely and exhausting and… Being the only OneCity voice there, of course, you know, there are folks at the table I work well with across parties, and there's been lots of collaboration, and I'm thankful for that. But I also am looking forward to helping get more OneCity voices elected and get to sit around the table with them.
Am Johal 34:13
Yeah, anything you'd like to add, Christine?
Christine Boyle 34:17
Oh, Am, I feel like we could talk about a dozen more topics and I would love all of it so... But, just really appreciate the chance to dig into each of these topics, and knowing what an engaged listenership you have, you know, I'm sure there are folks pushing us on all of these topics. Keep pushing us we need... those of us in elected office need you to be advocating that we do better, and pushing us to do better makes a real difference.
Am Johal 34:44
Christine, thank you so much for joining us on Below the Radar. Being a city councillor is not easy work in a complex place like Vancouver. So, thank you for the work that you do. And thank you for joining us on Below the Radar.
Christine Boyle 34:57
Thanks for having me on.
[theme music]
Steve Tornes 35:07
Below the Radar is a knowledge democracy podcast created by SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. This has been our conversation with Christine Boyle. Head to the show notes to read up on some of the initiatives and examples mentioned in this episode. Thanks for listening, and tune in Tuesdays for more Below the Radar.
[theme music fades]