Planners of Vancouver: Devon Harlos's comments

(Below is a meeting report kindly submitted by Devon Harlos. After Vancouver’s current chief planner retires in the near future, Vancouver will need to hire a new one. The search is on, and many people are watching carefully.)

.

Previous city planners, Ray Spaxman, Ann McAfee, Larry Beasley and Brent Toderian came together on Thursday, Oct. 29 to discuss the open position for a new planning director in Vancouver. They also talked about personal experiences in their former positions and their visions for the future of the city.
Starting the discussion, Brent Toderian shared his concern about the current political culture in City Hall, particularly in terms of the relationship between planners and City Council. He emphasized the need to re-evaluate the way planning decisions are being made and whether or not the current culture is working well for the public. According to Toderian, we need to ask ourselves the fundamental question of what kind of planner we really want—whether this is someone who routinely goes along with political will, or who acts independent of it.
Ann McAfee hopes that a new planner will reintroduce heavily research-based planning initiatives that are the product of a high amount of public consultation—a process she claims has been lost in recent years. She also commented on the new position title of “general manager, planning and development services,” and is worried that a more diverse set of responsibilities might mean time taken away from actual planning.
In Larry Beasley’s view, strong leadership qualities are essential for our new planning director and he claims that an aggressive, proactive planner with a strong vision is needed to move planning initiatives foreword. Affordability and housing supply problems can be attributed to a lack of proactive planning. Therefore, a new director of planning must have the ability to stimulate public support and the create political will to address these issues. He says that communication skills as well as passion will create a planning figure that leads rather than follows, and at the same time will build a constituency of support behind them.
Ray Spaxman cautions that if the new director of planning comes up too strongly against Council, difficulties could emerge. Instead, more success could be found with the encouragement and support of ruling party Vision Vancouver’s current principles, but without fear of speaking the truth. He hopes that when deciding on a new chief planner, Council will look for a balance of both technical and ethical aptitude and someone who will promote an honest relationship with Council and the public.
The panelists went on to discuss their visions for the future of city planning in Vancouver, followed by a question and answer period. All panelists agreed that the public needs to have a bigger role in the planning process.