WERA Director Christine Ackermann was quoted at the City of Vancouver’s recent “West End discussion on community needs and affordability” in Extra West. Articulating one of WERA’s concerns with the City’s STIR program, Ms. Ackermann was quoted as saying:
“The amount of supply we are getting out of the STIR program isn’t really going to make a huge drop in the bucket for affordability,”
task force website
Straight story on issue with quote from WERA Director John Whistler
The Provincial Government has appointed a Local Government Elections Task Force to review the regulations governing local elections.
The existing regulations governing local elections are out of date and have minimal financial controls. The current situation gives advantages to special interest groups, can influence who gets elected and corrupts politicians. For most BC municipal elections the real estate industry is the major campaign donor. This favours the election of politicians who support the interests of the real estate industry which may not be in the best interests of the local residents.
The Provincial Government needs to look to the existing Federal Government electoral regulations as a model for municipal regulations. Best practices from the Federal regulations include:
On January 31, 2010 WERA hosted a community forum called “Your Story. Our Future.”This forum was held as part of a campaign for community-based planning and a comprehensive community vision for the West End. The forum included a visioning workshop, a Q&A with the City of Vancouver, and a case study discussion of a future redevelopment in the West End.
WERA director Christine Ackermann is quoted in this story in this week’s WE newspaper. Posted here with the permission of the author.
Posted By: Jackie Wong
03/17/2010 12:00 AM
A group of West End residents gathered in front of the Beach Towers apartment building at Harwood and Cardero streets Sunday afternoon (March 14) to voice their opposition to a rezoning and development application for the site that will soon be submitted to the City of Vancouver. The proposed rezoning for Beach Towers — which consists of four towers clustered along Beach Avenue between Cardero and Bidwell — is the most recent in a series of rezoning applications that has drawn criticism from neighbourhood residents.
A rezoning application for a 21-storey tower at 1215 Bidwell, as well as an application for a 22-storey tower at 1401 Comox Street (currently the site of St. John’s United Church), have raised neighbourhood concerns about a perceived lack of public consultation. They are part of the City’s Short Term Incentives for Rental (STIR) program, a two-and-a-half-year initiative approved by city council in June 2009 that provides incentives for developers to build new market rental housing. Incentives include parking requirement reductions and expedited permit processing.
“What’s happening in the West End is that there’s been a number of rezoning applications because of the STIR program,” says West End Residents Association (WERA) director Christine Ackermann. “[But] the projects themselves aren’t really addressing the number-one concern of westenders, which is affordability.”
sample of some of values folk in the West End voted on in a dot democracy excercise
Residents pack community forum to demand new West End plan
WERA President in was quoted in an article in Xtra West, by Shauna Lewis in regard to
proposed new developments in the West End through the City of Vancouver Stir program:
“We’re not against density and we’re not against development,” says WERA’s current president, Brent Granby. “But [development] should conform to the urgent needs of the city.”
Granby says the only way WERA would support the STIR program was if it was reviewed and mandated to consider eco-sustainability, affordability and livability within the development and rezoning process. “We don’t support any development that doesn’t create affordability and ecological sustainability.”
For the full article:Xtra West
WERA directors Sharon Isaak and Christine Ackermann are quoted in a West Ender article by Jackie Wong in regards to letters sent to renters at the Windsor, 1924 Barclay, demanding higher rents by the company the owns the building.
Article posted here with the permission of the author.
More West End renters cry foul
Posted By: Jackie Wong
02/04/2010
Hollyburn Properties, a Vancouver-based property management company, has repeatedly come under fire in recent years from West End renters who claim the company has issued unreasonable rent increases and implemented unfair “renovictions” (eviction for the purpose of renovations). Last month, tenants of another Hollyburn apartment building alerted WE to rent increases that exceed the annual limit allowed by the provincial government. Yet while the manager of the building says those increases are “an isolated circumstance,” a similar situation has taken place at the same building twice in the last nine years.
In 2001, tenants of the Windsor apartment building, at 1924 Barclay Street, disputed rent increases at the Residential Tenancy Office; in 2004, landlords began evicting tenants with the justification that unoccupied suites would be necessary during renovations.
Most recently, two Windsor tenants received a letter from Hollyburn, dated January 8, asking them to sign off approval of a rent increase that would bring their suites up to market value. While the requested increases are at least three times the 3.2-per-cent annual allowable increase set by the B.C. government for 2010, Hollyburn cites a provision in the province’s Residential Tenancy Act that allows for increases above the annual allowable amount if those increases serve to bring the a suite up to market value. continue reading…
WERA Director Christine Ackermann is quoted in regard to the recent court decision from Seafield apartment filing which struck down a 30% rent increase. For the full story select the link below”
full Xtra West story
WERA President is quoted in in an article by Carlito Pablo in the regard to the unaffordability of new purpose built apartment units built by the City of Vancouver’s new STIR program.
For the full story select the link below:
WERA director Christine Ackermann, IOCC Chair Am Johal and Wendy Pedersen CCAP
This article first appeared in the West Ender and is reposed here with the permission of the author.
homelessness, Olympics
Posted By: Jackie Wong
11/19/2009 12:00 AM
Housing, homelessness, and the 2010 Olympics will be the focus of a public forum on Monday (November 23) at SFU Harbour Centre’s Fletcher Challenge Theatre. The forum is part of the Right to the City lecture series organized by the Impact on Communities Coalition, an Olympic watchdog group.
The forum features speakers with a wide range of expertise on Vancouver housing and homelessness, including Martha Lewis of the Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre; Wendy Pedersen of the Downtown Eastside’s Carnegie Community Action Project; and Reverend Ric Matthews of First United Church, the site of one of the first homeless shelters to open last winter under Mayor Gregor Robertson’s Homeless Emergency Action Team (HEAT).
While preparations for the 2010 Games have drawn criticism from housing and civil-liberties advocates, attributing all of the city’s housing issues to the Olympics is too simple, says Nathan Edelson, a former senior planner for the City of Vancouver and a speaker at the Right to the City forum. continue reading…
The Right to the City: Housing, Homelessness and the 2010 Olympics
A Public Forum Hosted by the Impact on Communities Coalition
Monday, November 23, 2009
7:00 – 9:00 pm
Fletcher Challenge Theatre, SFU Harbour Centre
Reverend Ric Matthews, First United Church
Christine Ackermann, West End Residents Association
Wendy Pederson, Carnegie Community Action Project
Nathan Edelson, Former Senior Planner, City of Vancouver
Martha Lewis, Tenants Resource Advisory Centre
Am Johal, Impact on Communities Coalition
David Dennis, United Native Nations
Monte Paulson, Investigative Editor, The Tyee
Christine Parnell-Smith, Vancouver Aboriginal Transformative Justice Society
Moderated by Stefanie Ratjen, Board Member, Impact on Communities Coalition
When the Olympic bid process was underway, the Inner City Inclusive Commitment was signed in 2003 and included commitments around a housing legacy and protection from Olympic related evictions. This panel will look at the impacts of the 2010 Olympics on housing and other urbanization processes underway in Vancouver including the crisis of affordability, the proliferation of homelessness and loopholes in tenancy legislation which are resulting in evictions.
You can find out more about this event on Facebook, or on the IOCC website.
WERA Director Christine Ackermann was quoted in the Province Nov. 9th in regard to resident’s concerns about two proposed rezoning applications in the West End
There also has been a facebook group set up to connect residents with concerns with this project together called:
Neighbours Concerned about 1401 Comox Street
And a website:
