Citizens are increasingly excluded from input to decisions that affect us. Thanks to recent provincial legislation, public hearings on most re-zonings are nothing but a memory of power residents used to have. At the municipal level, Vancouver is to lose its elected Park Board.
At a recent public seminar, former TEAM councillor and mayoral candidate Colleen Hardwick was one of the speakers on the subject of Civic Government: Corporate, Consultative or Participatory?
Vancouver’s decades of pendulum swings between providing more or less citizen participation in the development of the city makes it an internationally significant case study for these ongoing trends. The event on March 20th gave the background.
THE LOCAL DEMOCRACY PROJECT is a think tank initiative of the UBC School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture James Taylor Chair. The James Taylor Chair is “a research and outreach organization that demonstrates how to design and build affordable, equitable, and ecologically healthy communities. We work with citizens and public officials to incorporate new and emerging policies for sustainable development into community plans.” – from its website
UBC SALA Professor Patrick Condon hosted the event.
It's hard to imagine a panel with more brains and experience than this one. Click on a name for a brief bio. Watch each speaker's segment at the link below.
Watch the whole thing here.
Join the dialogue.
Read the White Paper.
This was the second in a series of seminars in the Local Democracy Project. The first, "Is Local Democracy in the Way of Affordable Housing?" was held February 12 and can be seen here.