What did the firing of Planning Director Brent Toderian (and the sloooow hiring of a new planner) mean for the direction of Vancouver. Urban designer Lance Berelowitz weighs in on the emerging debate:
It’s been more than six months now since the Vision Party-dominated Vancouver City Council fired the City’s last Director of Planning, and still no replacement is in site. Recently it emerged that Council has reorganized the Planning Department and is in effect eliminating the Planning Director position, instead advertising for a General Manager of Development Services (which will incorporate the Director of Planning’s statutory functions) who will report directly to the City Manager’s office.
This is unprecedented. The position is being politicized, presumably to ensure that the incumbent is more directly under the control of Council and more consistently on message with Vision’s ideological mission.
A source tells me that the City Manager recently called in several representatives of the design and development industries and academia to ask them what they thought the successful candidate needed to possess. An appreciation of development industry imperatives and the approvals processes seemed to be high on the list of key attributes. Having a long-term urban planning vision for the city did not, apparently.
