Using the tools already available to our city we will use a combination of zoning, development policies, building codes, partnerships, and civic assets to ensure a city that is affordable.

Vancouver Greens are committed to ensuring people who live and work in Vancouver have access to secure, good-quality, appropriate homes that are affordable to buy and rent. Greens are committed to a city-wide plan that has a livable city, not a growth strategy, as its goal. Developed with residents, this plan will determine how we grow and zone our city, where and in what forms we add new affordable housing, and how we increase liveability and quality of life.

Key points of the Green Party housing platform include:

Recognize the right to housing in the Vancouver Charter

Define affordability relative to local incomes: people should pay no more than 30% of their income

Launch a city-funded, city-built housing program on city-owned land

Change our building code to enable more affordable construction

Use conditional zoning in all new plans to suppress land speculation and deliver public benefits

Set a goal of 50% below-market-rate housing overall for all new multi-residential development

Allow two or more secondary suites as incentives for retention and conversion of character homes

We will:

Advocate for funding, both operational and capital, that meets our district’s needs.

Work collaboratively with stakeholders on creating the district’s Needs Budget.

Continue the district’s active participation in the provincial K-12 Public Education Funding Model Review, including increased support for special needs students.

Pursue the VSB becoming a Living Wage Employer to invest in our employees and the community by fostering a dedicated, skilled and healthy workforce.

Effectively implement the Supreme Court-ordered reinstatement of the collective agreement with teachers, and advocate to the province to adequately set the Classroom Enhancement Fund.

Seek provincial support to build new schools in areas of the city where there are more students than school spaces, such as Olympic Village and downtown (King George Secondary), and in the future along the Cambie Corridor, at UBC, the East Fraserlands and the Jericho Lands.

Ensure that the unique opportunity presented by the BC Hydro proposal does not set a precedent for the province to give no funding for new schools.

Refuse to vote for the sale of any school sites despite pressure from provincial government. We will fulfill the previous board decision to preserve neighbourhood sites for future generations and only consider land swaps and partial sales that would be a net gain to our school district and its students.

Resist any provincial government pressure to sell VSB land, such as Kingsgate Mall, to cover either operating or capital costs the province should fully fund such as seismic projects.

Advocate for improved maintenance funding to improve school buildings, for example washrooms, water fountains & filling stations, covered play areas, and fields. At present there is more than $700 million in deferred maintenance for VSB buildings.

Continue the district’s advocacy focus on Ministry Area Standards to ensure new schools provide adequate space for an excellent learning environment, especially for the new curriculum.

Advocate to the province for additional playground funding beyond the current allotment for one playground in a district each year.

We are striving to create a model city of compassion and inclusion.

How we build our city affects the way we feel, think, and behave as individuals and as a society. Vancouver Greens support every effort to grow our cultural vibrancy, celebrate our city’s diversity, and ensure all residents’ health and safety, through robust city services and the meaningful action to be an inclusive people-centred city.

Key actions:

Initiate an Urban Stewardship plan to improve the public realm, community health, and to foster connectedness and community pride.

Create Neighbourhood Planning Offices which will work with community advisory committees to collaboratively plan for liveability.

Promote culture and cultural diversity in our city, including reconciliation and inclusion.

Design for complete communities accessible to vulnerable populations for all stages of life, including housing that enables aging in place and accessible public washrooms.

Increase food security and city-wide food assets, ensuring that there is enough secure, sustainable, local food infrastructure in every neighbourhood.

Support front-line responders to the opioid crisis: increase critical funding and support for overdose response teams, non-profit agencies, front-line workers and city staff who respond to overdoses and the opioid crisis, including Fire and Rescue Services, Police, Library, Community Centre staff, and peer supporters.

The biggest long-term crisis facing Vancouver and every person in our world is human-caused global climate change. Vancouver can expect wetter winters with more intense rainstorms; hotter, drier, smokier summers; and sea level rise. The record number of B.C. forest fires this summer is a call to action to do everything we can to reduce our city’s greenhouse gas emissions and do our part to prevent the worst of now-inevitable climate change impacts.

It’s better if we stop trying for the title of “world’s greenest city” and focus on being a low-carbon resilient city that meets our current environmental and climate challenges in the most effective ways possible. This means bolder actions, better metrics, and open and transparent reporting, especially given our reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by only 7% when our city goal is 33% below 2007 levels by 2020.

Greens are leaders in ecological policies, environmental protection and effective actions to achieve environmental and social sustainability wherever they are elected.

Key actions:

Ramp up energy retrofits of buildings, with carbon-offset funds from a new Vancouver Carbon Trust.

Implement bolder zero waste initiatives including expanding the ban on single use disposable items to include banning plastic bags.

Increase the amount and quality of parks and natural areas with the goal of 1.1 hectares of parkland per 1000 residents, and restore developer cost levy funding to the Park Board.

Provide 4-bin public recycling receptacles citywide, including in parks.

Aim for 100 percent swimmable beaches by ramping up enforcement to stop the release of untreated sewage.

Quickly move from solar-ready to solar-required in our Building Code to increase Vancouver’s production of renewable energy

City Hall delivers essential services that affect us all: our community amenities, planning, land use and zoning, licensing and permits, roads, water, sewers, storm water, utilities and so on. In areas where City Hall does not have jurisdiction — like rent control, property tax assessments, and public transit — we must work with senior governments.

Vancouver Greens are committed to a more collaborative, respectful style of politics with the public and other governments, and to restoring trust in our city. Greens put public interest first.

Key Actions:

Prioritize a comprehensive City-Wide Plan, co-created with residents, with an affordable, liveable city as its goal.

Speed up permitting and reduce unnecessary red tape.

Require transparency around budgeting, negotiations with developers, and public benefits.

We will:

Honour our commitments to existing facilities and emphasize smart upkeep and timely upgrades to ensure lasting benefits.

Prioritize clean, well-functioning facilities and water fountains for all.

Working in close collaboration with municipal partners and staff advocate for a network of clean, accessible public washrooms.

Identify connections between the food system and our parks and recreation system and manage this relationship to promote sustainability.

Emphasize sports facilities and playgrounds as vital gathering places where community is built. Ensure infrastructure is safe, clean, and responsive to users.

Explore development of creative and diverse spaces for our parks network, including a design theme centred on “sound” in collaboration with community partners.

Encourage active transportation networks. Ensure infrastructure that prioritizes pedestrians, cyclists, and public transit users, including bike racks at parks facilities.

Work to expand bike sharing programs so that depots are close to community centres.

Upgrade bicycle routes for safety, efficiency and responsiveness to community needs.

 Vancouver has a very diverse student population, which presents much strength but can also present challenges. All students must feel safe and welcome at school so they are ready to learn.Working collaboratively with all levels of government and stakeholders we will:

Accelerate the seismic projects such that all Vancouver schools will be safe by 2030; there are more than 60 schools that are not yet seismically safe.

Ensure we have safe drinking water for all our students. We will immediately review remediation work to date and develop a plan to remove all lead from water pipes. We will work with the province to upgrade facilities and with school communities to ensure they are informed.

Support wellness and mental health initiatives for all students, teachers, support staff and administrators and in particular address the increase in stress and anxiety experienced by many students.

Work closely and collaboratively with the Vancouver Police Department to support students in making good choices at school and in their community.

Support access to food programs for vulnerable students as any hungry student will struggle to learn. In April 2018 the board asked staff to report on the steps to be taken and costs associated with a district wide plan to address food security and healthy eating through food programmes in all our schools. Green Trustees will take action on this report, so that no child goes hungry and every child eats healthy.

Support English language learners, Multicultural Liaison workers, and family support programs to accelerate student success.

Work to ensure a robust teacher/support staff on call list so that classroom absences will be fully covered.

Continue the implementation of the guidelines for the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identities Policy, monitor their success, and look for improvements.

Continue the successful SACY (Supporting and Connecting Youth) program to advance substance use prevention and support students who are impacted by the opioid crisis.

Continue to support the Active Routes to School partnership with the City, ensure action plans are implemented, and seek to increase the number of schools participating each year.

Seek funding and partnerships to provide cycling safety education in all schools that request it.

Continue to work with the park board to coordinate the appropriate use of school grounds and adjacent parks by dog owners.

Focus on excellence in our district: in student success, in support for all staff, and in all district operations.

We will continue the implementation of the guidelines for the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identities Policy, monitor their success, and look for improvements.

Vancouver’s economy is blessed with potential. Vancouver has strengths in a diverse range of industries, from traditional industries to social enterprise, apparel, green economies, digital entertainment and interactive and arts and culture.Vancouver’s “green brand” has been valued at $31.5 billion.

But Vancouver’s economy is vulnerable to climate-related changes, natural disasters and global forces and local economic forces. Vancouver’s small business community also faces rising costs of commercial space and are being priced out of key urban centres.

Vancouver Greens are committed to measures to retain and sustain locally owned small businesses, to expand community and low-carbon economic development, and to support arts and culture as critical to Vancouver’s economy, quality of life, and the liveability.

Key actions:

Develop a Small and Local Business Strategy to sustain and expand neighbourhood shopping districts and resolve taxation, licensing and permitting issues.

Tax empty stores and protect vibrant streetscapes, legacy businesses, and unique neighbourhood shopping districts. Involve residents and businesses in a participatory budget process to decide on how revenues will be spent.

Prioritize the Creative City Strategy as a driver of the creative economy. Support year-round community events and festivals in all parts of our city, as well as arts and culture initiatives of public libraries, community centres, and other public facilities, that provide community hubs, space for meetings and events, arts and culture programmes, and lifelong learning.

Develop a Green circular economy, that repurposes waste and develop new production space for local manufacturing.

Vancouver is a growing city, with limited road space, growing demand for transit, increasing health costs of sedentary lifestyles, and increasing unaffordability. Transportation is the second highest household expense after housing, with private vehicles as the biggest contributor. Congestion costs people and businesses time and money and negatively impacts air quality and our climate. Efficient transportation is key to a healthy, greener city.

Key actions:

Make Vancouver the most walkable city in North America.

Accelerate repair of streets, bikeways and sidewalks for safety, especially potholes, heaves and cracks.

Develop a plan to reduce traffic congestion, without sacrificing walking, cycling and public transit choices.

Make our city’s goal zero transportation fatalities, not just zero pedestrian fatalities.

Adopt “smart city” transportation technology to better synchronize walking, cycling and vehicle traffic.