BCBusiness

17 B C B U S I N E S S . C A N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 24 Jack [Poole] and some others. The first thing we did was with the City of Vancou- ver—we entered into an agreement to build rental housing on nine sites along False Creek. At the time, people were destroying rental buildings and building condos. That model was a bit ahead of its time, partner- ing with developers and using city land. Then in 1992, we were growing fast and had big cash requirements. We researched how a pension fund could own a property like this and develop it and avoid risk to their pensions. It's quite unique; there are only three in Canada, and we have two of them. Then we bought out the private owners and sold our interest to the pension ownership, which still owns it today. [Ed note: Today, Concert is owned by some 50 union and management pension plans and institutional investors that represent over 200,000 Canadians.] What have been the biggest challenges over the last three-plus decades and how have you been able to overcome them? We haven't fared too badly at all, honestly. We did go through a couple of recessions. And certainly in the last 20 years I've con- sciously diversified the company. We do industrial—we have a large industrial hold- ing, and we do seniors' living facilities. I wanted to diversify so that we gave ourselves some protection in times of downturn. And the latest test of that was COVID. We didn't do too badly in that. Our rental apartments in Toronto dropped to about 65 percent vacancy but we had other things that were still strong so we were able to recover quite nicely. How can the government fix the current housing crisis? Well, you've heard it before and it really is true. There's a serious problem with [the time it takes for] approvals. We've got Lan- gara Gardens [in South Vancouver]. We can build almost 3,000 units there across 22 acres, with a lot of social housing and lower-cost rental. We're in our eighth year now trying to get approval for that. Is that where you think that Concert separates itself, in the quality aspect? We have a founding agreement that has three principles within it. One is that, because we're owned mostly by union pen- sion funds, the expectation is long-term, not short-term, gains. And because we use 100-percent union labour on our sites, we believe the quality reflects that. And the third one is that we'll work to give things back to the community. Often that means we design projects, supervise them and operate them, like BC Place or Vancouver General Hospital. Then we give to things like BCIT's Trades and Technology Centre, the St. James Cottage Hospice and the BC Burn Fund Centre. Along with Expo, you were heavily involved in the Olympics, including helping to secure the plebiscite vote that brought the Games here. What was that process like? I think there have been 17 plebiscites for different Olympic Games and only one city [that had a plebiscite] ended up host- ing. [Former premier] Gord Campbell was good with me. He gave latitude to make decisions. Normally, everything would have to go through committees of minis- ters and Gord said, "No, you decide what you're going to put in and you put it in." It maybe sounds a bit corny, but the govern- ments and the municipalities have to do more of that. They have to find the people they know will do it right and trust. But there was a lot of campaigning. There was a period when I was out every breakfast, lunch and dinner. We had a limited win- dow to get it done. But it worked out. What was the night like when the results went down—do you remember? Yeah, I do. I said, "Phew." That's it? No party, no champagne? I was too tired. This conversation has been edited and condensed. PET PEEVE Dirty windows. HOBBIES Woodworking, fly fishing, blacksmithing. MOST MEMORABLE CONCERT Seeing Jesse Winchester in a small bar in Richmond, Virginia. GUILTY PLEASURE All shellfish, but B.C. spot prawns are the best. LAST BOOK I READ Cattle Ranch [by Nina Shoroplova], the story of the Douglas Lake Ranch. QUICK HITS Different levels of government have announced a lot of different housing initiatives. Are they on the right track? They're not going fast enough. They have to get permits and approvals done in a timely way. Those are the two big ones. And this might sound odd, and I may be alone on it among my peers, but they're going too slow, expecting way too much and not doing any good planning. Broad- way is a great example of that. One day you sit down in a room, put a line around 500 blocks of a city and that's your plan. It doesn't work like that. It's not a way to get good quality.

• Cover