This week, the City of Grand Forks council heard a delegation addressing a petition with over 1,000 signatures in protest of the planned Second Street supportive housing development proposed by BC Housing. The discussion at council took well over a half hour, and the delegates gave a thoughtful and composes presentation articulating many valid concerns about BC Housing, this project, and the ability of Grand Forks to adequately care for residents with complex mental health and addictions concerns.
The only problem that I can see is that much of this isn’t the city’s problem.
Allow me to explain – and don’t get my wrong, much of what I’m saying has been said before. When it comes down to it, the city, and council by extension, simply don’t really have any power to accept, decline, cancel or in other ways modify this project.
It’s private land, it was a private sale, and BC Housing is a government entity – and their power supersedes the power of council. It’s simply not the city’s project – yet day after day, I read on social media that they city isn’t listening to citizens about this project, that they need to stop it, that members of council should resign, darn the city.
But how can we be holding our council accountable for something that isn’t their fault? As far as I can see, they have done everything they can to work with and negotiate with BC Housing on this project. When that didn’t work, members of council continued to be vocal about their disapproval. But it doesn’t seem like that’s making much of a difference.
The city’s minimal input comes from a parking variance the organization has requested – and that, as staff outlined on Monday, is an easy work-around. It will cost BC Housing a mere $1,000 per parking space to buy their way out of parking requirements, should be council vote against issuing a variance. Council can deny the variance, sure, but if I were to bet, I would bet on BC Housing just paying the penalty.
Other efforts by the city to work on this have, it seems, been met with resistance, including a proposed land swap that councillors said was rejected by BC Housing.
There are lots of issues to discuss and debate here. How is it that BC Housing is allowed to put in a project with essentially no council input? Should the city revise its bylaw to remove the “pay for parking” clause? Does BC Housing have an effective method for communicating and engaging with citizens – and if not, shouldn’t they, as a crown corporation? These are things we can debate to death. But for sake, let’s all hold council accountable for the issues that are actually theirs to be accountable for.
