Metro Conversations Presents: The Sacred Single Family Home. What are we trying to protect?

Metro Conversations is on the road again, bringing important urban conversations out of the big city and into the ‘burbs. After two successful conversations in New Westminster and Langley City, the third discussion aimed at creating a larger conversation on urban issues is coming to North Vancouver. Started by four like-minded young City Councillors, Metro Conversations offers a unique format bringing experts in the field together with citizens for two-way dialogue and discourse within a strict 1-hour time limit. Beyond a lecture, it is a sharing of ideas.

“Like all communities in Metro Vancouver, the District of North Vancouver’s built area is largely dedicated to single-family housing,” said Councillor Mathew Bond, the main coordinator of this month’s event. “With the lack of affordable housing being the number one issue in our region, are these single-family areas limiting the opportunity for more affordable housing options to be built in Metro Vancouver?”

“Transportation and housing costs are linked,” said Councillor Nathan Pachal, “Building communities with a variety of housing choices including rowhouse, laneway houses, and apartments facilitate better transit service. People don’t have to own two or more cars in these diverse communities.”

Our panelists for the conversation include Michael Geller who is an architect and developer, Krista Tulloch who is a member of the District of North Vancouver Official Community Plan Implementation Committee, Cameron Maltby who specializes in custom home design, and Neal LaMontagne who is a City Planner and Adjunct Professor at UBC and Langara College.

This free conversation will take place on Wednesday, May 17th from 7:00-8:00pm in the Lynn Valley Village Community Room, 1277 Lynn Valley Road.

Seating is limited, so while attendance is free and open, we recommend that you reserve your seat.

Reserve your seat at Eventbrite

Inequality in Home Owner Grant and School Property Tax. Langley City affordable housing leader.

Metro Vancouver, our federation of local governments in the region, recently released a report on property tax in Metro Vancouver.

Property tax system needs reform: Metro Vancouver homeowners shoulder tax burden. Select infographic to enlarge.

A little more than 50% of property tax is controlled by local municipal governments in Metro Vancouver, the remainder of property tax is controlled by the provincial government and other agencies.

Because of how the property tax system currently works, Metro Vancouver property owners end up paying more property tax than the rest of the provinces on a per capita basis.

For example, provincially-controlled school tax in Metro Vancouver covers 61% of the expenditures of school districts in our region. In the rest of BC, school tax cover 31% of the expenditures of school districts outside of Metro Vancouver.

The Metro Vancouver report authors also found that the lion’s share of property transfer tax comes from Metro Vancouver, and the Home Owner Grant cut-off level doesn’t reflect the value of property in our region.

The Metro Vancouver report authors defines some of the problems with property taxation system inequality, and proposed some solutions.

When it comes to the Home Owner Grant cut-off, the recommendation in the report is to have the province shift away from a single threshold throughout the province, to a system where the cut-off is unique in every regional district to ensure that 91% of residential properties on average in each regional district would qualify for the grant.

A similar idea is proposed for school property tax. The recommendation in the report is to have the province adjust the school property tax rate in each community to ensure that the school property tax covers around half of the expenditures of each school districts.

For the windfall revenue from the property transfer tax received in Metro Vancouver, the recommendation is that the province use this unbudgeted revenue to invest directly back into regions for local government infrastructure, transit, and affordable housing.

One table in the report that stood out to me was the total residential properties by each municipality that would quality for the 2016 Home Owner Grant in Metro Vancouver. In Langley City, 99.7% of all residential properties would qualify for the Home Owner Grant. This is the highest percentage in the region.

Home Owner Grant eligibility by municipality in Metro Vancouver (2016). Select table to enlarge.

This is no surprise as Langley City has the highest percentage of land dedicated for apartments and rowhouses in the region. We have been redeveloping our older single-family neighbourhoods in the north side of our community to provide a variety of housing types.

While adjusting the Home Owner Grant cut-off will help give some people a tax break, it really doesn’t make housing more affordable in the region. The key to providing affordable market housing is by making the most of the current urban land base.

In Langley City, we have been slowly increasing our population and housing variety for several decades by redeveloping older single-family areas with care. When I look at some other communities in our region, the same can’t be said.

Building safer streets means building walkable communities

How to make streets safer, and reduce the amount of people who are injured or killed due to the use of motor vehicles, is changing. Old ideas of reducing the injury and death rate due to motor vehicle usage focused on building safer cars, and roads with wide lanes, wide shoulders, and centre barriers. Other conventional ideas to improve traffic safety include graduated licensing, distracted driving laws, and anti-impaired driving laws.

The problem with building seemingly safer roads is that the design actually encourages more risky behavior and higher speeds. Regulating behaviour is hard to do, and there has been mixed success. These conventions ideas are focused around driving.

Todd Litman at the Victoria Transportation Policy Institute has released a new report titled, “The New Traffic Safety Paradigm.”

He found that how we design our communities plays a larger role in reducing per capita traffic crash rates than focusing on conventional traffic safety ideas.

For example, building safer roads requires narrower lanes, not wider lanes as conventionally thought.

Building walkable downtowns, and communities with a variety of housing options within easy walking or cycling distance, reduces traffic crash rates. Building a connected street network that encourages walking with wider sidewalks, and cycling with protected bike lanes, reduces traffic crash rates. Building high-quality public transit reduces traffic crash rates.

Let’s say someone goes out to a pub with their friends and have a few. If they are in a community that is walkable and transit-friendly, they could walk or transit to and from the pub.

If their community isn’t walkable or transit-friendly, they would likely drive to the pub. The risk of making a poor travel decision when they leave the pub is increased.

The following table from Litman’s report shows that walkable communities that manage driving demand are safer communities with lower traffic fatality rates.

Traffic Death Rates For Selected Cities (Welle 2014 and USDOT Data). Select graph to enlarge.

Communities with 50 transit trips a year or more per capita are safer with reduced traffic fatality rates.

Transit Travel Versus Traffic Deaths in the U.S. Select graph to enlarge.

Langley City is a compact, walkable community though much of our road network was designed based on conventional ideas. I’m proud of the work that the City is now doing to design streets that encourage walking and cycling. Combined with our strong downtown and TransLink’s plan to improve transit service, Langley City is on the path to becoming a safer community with less traffic crashes per capita.

5-year draft strategic plan released: Truly making Langley City the place to be

I ran for Langley City council because I believe that local government has a direct, daily impact on people’s quality of life and the environment in which we all live. Running water, working sewers, great parks, safe streets, and a strong downtown are all the results of a well-run local government.

Beyond being an advocate for members of the community, the role of city council is to create policies, and set the direction, that guide work done by city staff.

Every member of Langley City council is independent which means that we all view what is in the best interest of our community through a different lens. One of the key documents that guides Langley City is its 5-Year Strategic Plan.

Langley City council and staff spent a good amount of time in workshops, distilling the viewpoints of every council member into one cohesive strategic plan. The strategic plan is the guiding document for all other City polices and plans. It also guides day-to-day City operations at a high-level.

Langley City has recently released its draft 2017-2021 strategic plan to seek public feedback. One of the overall guiding principles for Langley City council, and is evident in how City staff operate today, is a customer service focus.

Langley City's Full Circle Customer Service Model.

For example, if you use our City’s Request for Service portal to report a problem or express a concern, the City's goal is to get back to you within 24 hours of a request.

The key priorities in the draft plan are:

• Infrastructure Renewal: We recognize the need for, and are committed to, establishing, a long-term, financially-responsible infrastructure renewal plan for all municipal assets.
• Quality of Life: We are a community that is an ideal place to raise a family, offers a welcoming and affordable living environment, boasts great leisure and recreational opportunities, and supports healthy, safe and diverse neighbourhoods.
• Communication: We communicate effectively with our citizens, customers, partners, and stakeholders, involving them in decisions which impact and interest them, and engaging them in public life.
• Revitalization: We have a revitalized downtown core that is vibrant, clean and safe, is a desirable location for industry, and our policies and strategies create a vibrant economy that position the City as the Regional Hub in the Fraser Valley for innovation, education, technology, shopping, health industry, leisure, and entertainment.
• Environment: We continue to focus on protecting, promoting and enhancing environmental assets in the community.
• Protective Services: We maintain and foster partnerships with law enforcement agencies, community groups, neighbourhoods, and citizens to address public safety and socio-economic issues in the community.
• Organizational Excellence: We stand out as a results-oriented, engaged and innovative work force with a strong service ethic and high level of customer service, and a City Council that is accessible to its citizens.

You can see the breakdown of these priorities in the following graphic.

Langley City's proposed priorities and key initiatives in the draft 5-year strategic plan. Select table to enlarge.

You can view the Strategic Plan at a Glance on the City’s website. If you have any feedback you’d like to provide about the plan, please email info@langleycity.ca with the subject heading “Draft 2017-2021 Strategic Plan” by Wednesday, May 10, 2017.