BCBusiness

18 BCBusiness NoveMbeR 2015 that transformed downtown. He says that the city has put itself in a bind without a clear master plan for Vancouver—pursu- ing a policy of spot rezonings, with one-o• towers that exceed neighbourhood scale. "The planning agenda is at least a decade behind where the market demands are," he says. "Nobody has systematically looked at the city for at least that long." While former planners, including Beasley, were among Brian Jackson's sharpest critics, the fact is that the authority of Vancouver's city planners has been eroding for years—even as the amount on their plate has piled up. Brent Toderian knows this all too well. Toderian was Beasley's immediate successor, serving as director of planning from 2006 to 2012. "There was a pressure during my time to pre-conclude," he says, describ- ing the city's proclivity to decide on what a plan should look like before it goes to consultation. "That's something a successful planning department can never do." Besides taking on the job of two people—the city previously had two co-directors of plan- ning—Toderian also endured a series of budget cuts during his tenure, which he believes left his oce debilitated (he was termi- nated by council in 2012 after a series of public run-ins). When Jackson was hired, city hall also stripped the planning oce of its independence, placing it under the auspices of city manager and retitling it "general manager of development of general ser- vices." Previously the planner reported directly to council. Gordon Price, a former Vancouver city councillor and current director of SFU's city program, says that the move represented a fundamental shift in power—from a planner who could present reports and opin- ions to council free of interfer- ence to one under the thumb of the city manager (in this case, O nce again this holiday season, BC Liquor Store customers can buy bears with their booze: a pair of cuddly teddies, one to take home, the other to be donated to a local charity as part of its Share-a-Bear program. It's one of many ways the Crown corp uses point-of-sale ( POS) dona- tions to help local causes; others include Support Dry Grad, Red Cross emergency disaster relief and coin donation boxes for registered local charities. POS donation, also known as checkout charity or embedded giving, has been around since the early 1980s when American Express donated a penny for each use of the Amex card and a dollar for each new card to the Statue of Liberty renovation program. Donating to causes while buying something else clearly adds up: a U.S. study by Cause Marketing Forum found 63 of the largest checkout char- ity campaigns had raised a total of US$358.4 million in 2012. Increasingly, however, shop- pers are raising questions about where all this money goes. While BC LDB covers adminis- tration costs and lists how much each school district receives for dry grad on its website, other POS campaigns are less transpar- ent. Greg Thompson, director of research for Charity Intelligence, a Toronto-based registered charity that researches Canadian charities©to help donors decide where to give, says the statistics that show how much money is raised through POS donation, for what and by whom are elusive. Show Me the Money checkout charity is easy to do, not so easy to track by Felicity Stone R e t a i l the imposing Penny Ballem, who was forced out of oce herself in September). "At issue is who gets to make the decisions, write the reports and frame the questions that get to be asked by council," says Price. "If there's a division of opinion, the planner gets to express that." It comes at a criti- cal time, he adds, as the city tries to address the pressing issue of a•ordability with one of the few tools in its tool kit: densifying low-slung neighbourhoods. The supply of industrial land that allowed for Vancouver's condo- building boom of the 1990s and 2000s is nearly gone, and if Vancouver's population is to grow—a modest 150,000 in three decades, or 5,000 a year—neigh- bourhoods outside downtown will have to accept some change. Grandview-Woodland, for example, has seen its population hover around 27,000 since the late 1960s. Oakridge's population, meanwhile, has actually declined over the last three censuses, while Dunbar and Kerrisdale have a lower number of persons per hectare than suburban Langley. Next spring—after having spent close to $275,000 on focus groups and a new consultation process—Vancouver's planning department is expected to have a revised community plan for Grandview-Woodland to present to city council. Jackson—who is credited with introducing success- ful community plans for Marpole, the West End and the Downtown Eastside—will be long gone by then (he leaves oce at the end of December), with council's contentious push for change falling to Jackson's successor. Whoever inherits the poisoned chalice, Brent Toderian hopes the new plan does a better job of addressing community needs and incorporates many of the 270 recommendations that came out of the yearlong focus group. "Frankly you have to prove that you were listening, which city hall doesn't always do a good job at." Density of VancouVer neighbour- hooDs, 2011 (people per hectare) SoURce: cITY oF vaNcoUveR Downtown South 304.9 West End 216.9 Yaletown 130.6 Downtown Eastside 129.9 Grandview- Woodland 61 Riley Park 47 Marpole 32 Oakridge 27 West Point Grey 24 Dunbar 23 Shaughnessey 21 charity that researches Canadian

• Cover