Making a Sustainable Future in Southeast False Creek, Vancouver Mark Kear University of Toronto, Sidney Smith Hall, 100 St

Cities, Vol. 24, No. 4, p. 324–334, 2007 Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.cities.2007.01.005 All rights reserved. 0264-2751/$ - see front matter www.elsevier.com/locate/cities Spaces of transition spaces of tomorrow: Making a sustainable future in Southeast False Creek, Vancouver Mark Kear University of Toronto, Sidney Smith Hall, 100 St. George Street, Rm 5047, Toronto, Ont., Canada M5S 3G3

Received 4 September 2006; received in revised form 12 January 2007; accepted 14 January 2007 Available online 23 April 2007

The most recent overhaul of the relationship between nature, society and the economy in Southeast False Creek began in the Fall of 1990 when the Vancouver Task Force on Atmo- spheric Change presented a report entitled Clouds of Change to City Council. The report laid out a set of 35 recommendations designed to set a new course for socionatural transformation in the city by implementing a more comprehensive approach to environmental planning and policy. Among the initiatives outlined in Clouds of Change was a call for the development of a planning and design process aimed at creating a sustainable community on the shore of South- east False Creek. The subsequent and on-going evolution of the plans to create this ‘‘sustainable community’’ will be used to examine how the vision of Clouds of Change has been forced to interact and react with other concomitant visions of the Vancouver of Tomorrow to produce a new space and a new nature on the city’s waterfront. I will show how various phases of the now decade-old debate over the meaning of ‘‘sustainability’’ in the context of SEFC have exposed the often obscured connections between transformations in the socionatural function of urban space and the process of maintaining and renegotiating the relationship between nature and urban-centered regimes of accumulation. Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Waterfronts, Vancouver, urban political ecology, socionature

Introduction which has been described as ‘‘a vast display case for the aesthetic consumption of nature’’ (Berelo- Since the early 1990s, Vancouver’s popularity as witz, 2005), much of this change has occurred on an object of scholarly inquiry has grown signiﬁ- 1 the water’s edge, where views of the Coast Moun- cantly. This is due, with little doubt and in large tains and English Bay are the least obstructed, part, to the many changes that have occurred over property values are the highest and consumers this period in the city’s built environment, plan- are the most eager to consume. Accordingly, it is ning structures, demographics, and relationship to in these waterfront spaces where some of the most surrounding spaces. Not surprisingly, in a city dramatic transformations of the relationships between society, nature and the economy have been experienced. One such shoreline space, Southeast E-mail: [email protected]. False Creek (SEFC), will be the focus of this 1 Over the last decade (beginning January 1996, as tracked by the study. Social Science Citation Index) Vancouver has experienced a more than 20-fold increase in the number of citations it receives in The story of SEFC, an 80 acre brownﬁeld on the planning and geography journals over the number of citations it shore of False Creek, an inlet of English Bay that received from 1976 through 1985. acts as a de facto border between downtown

324 Spaces of transition spaces of tomorrow: Making a sustainable future in Southeast False Creek, Vancouver: M Kear ab

Figure 1 (a) Vancouver and region. (b) The urban core. (c) Southeast False Creek background.

Vancouver and the rest of the city, began in the meaning of ‘‘sustainability’’ in the context of Fall of 1990 when the Vancouver Task Force on SEFC have exposed the often obscured connec- Atmospheric Change presented a report entitled tions between transformations in the socionatural Clouds of Change (City of Vancouver, 1990)to function of urban space and the process of main- Vancouver City Council. The report laid out a taining and renegotiating the relationship between set of 35 recommendations designed to set a new nature and urban-centered regimes of course for socionatural2 transformation in the city accumulation. by implementing a more comprehensive approach The manufacture of synergies between produced to environmental planning and policy (Punter, socionatures and accumulation regimes, despite the 2003, p. 152). Among the initiatives outlined in economism that the existence of such a relationship Clouds of Change was the first, and seemly innoc- implies, is shown by the story of SEFC to be far uous, call for the development of a planning and more than a deterministic process. What the exam- design process aimed at creating a sustainable ple of SEFC demonstrates is that the harmoniza- community on the shore of Southeast False Creek tion of socionature with accumulation, like other (see Figure 1a–c). In what follows, the subsequent forms of social and economic transition, is a and on-going evolution of the plans to create this never-quite-finished, trial-and-error process of ‘‘sustainable community’’ will be used to examine searching for new fixes for the social, economic how the vision of Clouds of Change has been and ecological crisis tendencies of locally dominant forced to fuse and interact with other concomitant accumulation regimes. This ‘‘search,’’ in the case of visions of the Vancouver of tomorrow to produce SEFC, has taken the form of an often confronta- a new space and a new nature on the city’s water- tional political struggle between different interest front. More specifically, I will show how various groups, actors and networks of actors. Among the phases of the now decade-old debate over the forces shaping this struggle, and the networks which entangle it, has been the pull of the market to rebuild and reimagine the everyday function of the waterfront in a way that is in sync with the 2 Castree (2002) attributes the term socionature to Swyngedouw ‘‘highest’’ and ‘‘best’’ uses of that space in the post- (1999). Callon (1995) also made use of the term. See Bunce and Desfor (2007) in the introduction to this special issue of Cities for industrial city. In dialectical fashion, this market a more detailed description of the term, its theoretical anteced- force has been met by the reciprocal action of ents, and its relevance to the study of waterfront transformations. those agents and actors, unassisted by the law of

325 Spaces of transition spaces of tomorrow: Making a sustainable future in Southeast False Creek, Vancouver: M Kear

The PEF was established in 1975 to manage city-owned real estate. The PEF is directed by a five member appointed board composed of the Mayor, two Councillors, the City Manager and the Director of Finance. Neither the public nor non-board-member Councillors are permitted to attend PEF board meetings, or access meeting agendas and minutes. The objectives of the PEF are: “To manage and develop the Fund's holdings in order to generate a reasonable economic return; To buy and sell lands in order to assemble a land inventory that offers the best possible opportunity to preserve and where possible increase the real value of the PEF's assets; To support the City’s public objectives; and To develop a program to accomplish the conversion of non-strategic holdings to strategic ones.” The PEF board oversees approximately $1.2 billion in city assets. Figure 2 PEF background. value, to protect themselves from such market-lead and the PEF. In making this sketch, I rely heavily imagineering of space with calls for greater atten- on David Harvey’s model of the circuits of capital tion to the ‘‘extra-economic.’’3 and the difficulties, political or otherwise, often Consequently, the dispute over the future of encountered by those seeking to rechannel flows SEFC, though couched in the language of sustain- of investment from one circuit to another. This spa- ability, has served as a sort of discursive proxy battle tially informed model of the urban process under to define the ‘‘proper’’ and foreclose ‘‘alternative’’ capitalism is an attractive one to apply to Vancou- fixes for the fissures which Vancouver’s transition ver’s experiences in SEFC because it avoids both to a knowledge-based economy has opened in the ci- (i) over-hyping Vancouver’s planning and environ- ty’s neighborhoods, social networks and landscapes. mental achievements, and/or (ii) rehearsing and Thus, on the surface, the dispute can be read as be- reifying ‘‘common sense’’ (classical economic) ac- nign and parochial, focused on creating a community counts of urban change. which balances the so-called three pillars of sustainability: the social, the economic, and the environmental; however, the subtext of the dispute tells Remaking the socionatural function of urban many nested and overlapping stories about the rear- space ticulation of the relationships between the economic and the extra-economic, use value and exchange va- The challenge for those seeking to remake the socio- lue, the local state, capital and civil society, et cetera. natural function of urban space while at the same In other words, sustainability has come to function time aiding accumulation and/or expanding the local as what Spivak (1988) calls a ‘‘screen allegory,’’4 tax base is to identify the conditions and the means to both obscuring and legitimating the socionatural transform the way socionature is lived, conceived ‘‘fixing’’ of space.5 and perceived in a manner ‘‘that either directly or In order to bring this public narrative of sustain- indirectly expands the basis for the production of sur- able city building together with the broader story- plus value’’ (Harvey, 1989). This is a specific instance line of finessing a socionatural ‘‘spatial fix,’’ I of a broader challenge of identifying ‘‘opportunities trace the changes that have occurred in the role for direct and indirect productive investment in the played by the City of Vancouver’s Property secondary and tertiary circuits of capital’’ (Harvey, Endowment Fund (PEF see Figure 2) in enabling 1989, p. 69). Such investments in the built environ- and disabling various iterations of the SEFC pro- ment (secondary circuit), science and technology, ject. I start with a brief sketch of the theoretical healthcare, education (tertiary circuit), or sociona- framework that will guide my narrative of SEFC ture (secondary and tertiary) are often difficult to evaluate because they are hard to quantify, and so decisions must be made in the absence of clear profit

3 signals (Harvey, 1989). Consequently, the switching Here, I use the term ‘‘extra-economic,’’ in manner consistent of capital flows from the primary circuit into the pro- with Jessop’s (2002) use of the term to refer to all those factors required to reproduce the social conditions necessary for contin- duction of a new socionature can be contentious, of- ued accumulation, but which the market alone cannot incent the ten requiring state intervention (e.g. SEFC) and production of. therefore subject to political contestation. Such con- 4 Mitchell (2004, p. 182) was the first to recognize the use of flict opens the possibility that, though the production sustainability as a screen allegory in the context of Vancouver. 5 Some good work relating sustainability and environmental of a new socionature may be intended to abate crisis, change to Harvey’s notion of the spatial fix has been done by the required rechanneling of capital flows from the While et al. (2004), Whitehead (2003) and Keil and Kipfer (2002). primary circuit may itself trigger a form of legitima-

326 Spaces of transition spaces of tomorrow: Making a sustainable future in Southeast False Creek, Vancouver: M Kear tion crisis.6 Thus, the remaking of socionature, both The megaprojects of the 1980s and 1990s are per- materially and symbolically, must occur in such a haps the most visual expressions of the long-term way as to justify the switching of capital flows to process of post-industrialization, which since the those who might challenge the value of such invest- early 1970s has reshaped Vancouver’s landscape, la- ments, or question the trajectory of transformation bour markets, and social structure (Ley, 1996; Olds, those investments intend. As the following sections 2001; Hutton, 2004). According to Olds (2001, p. 97; will show, in Vancouver the notion of sustainability also see Ley, 1996), this restructuring has led to the has played an important role in contesting and justi- ‘‘‘embourgeoisement’ of Vancouver’s inner city,’’ fying both the switching of capital flows and the tra- making it ‘‘increasingly an economic, social, political jectory of socionatural change. and ideological space dominated by the new middle class, and by planning policies that favor the new middle class’’ (see Ley, 1996). The aesthetic and so- Contextualizing the redevelopment of SEFC cial fallout of these megaprojects, coeval with the Occasionally a city decides to take its wealth and to broader process of urban restructuring, has been invest it in something that goes beyond just making the creation of what, at times ‘‘resemble[s] a high- money. It wants to do something more, in this case density version of The Truman Show’’ (Punter, the city wants to model a kind of development 2003, p. 226); a post-industrial landscape crafted to which is different than what we’ve been able to fit an ‘‘image of ecology, leisure, and ‘liveability’ see elsewhere. We want to test new things. We want [which] feeds off the consumption preferences of to be the first to set the pace, so that others can professionals in a service economy’’ (Zukin, 1991, 8 then take those things up, and they can become p. 7) ; a waterfront which exists in a ‘‘highly con- more integral to the way that we do business. If trived, ideologically controlled and economically you take the short-term perspective then, yes, it commodified reality’’ (Berelowitz, 1998 cited in Pun- means that we suggest the PEF, council suggests ter, 2003). the PEF, put more into that development than eco- These criticisms, and the problems of social nomically makes sense. If you take a long-term per- exclusion, gentrification and housing affordability spective – almost an even fuller than full-cost to which they respond, along with a host of other accounting perspective – then we can instigate prac- concerns which Richard Florida might label ‘‘the tices that are helpful – we make up a lot of that externalities of the creative age’’ (Florida, 2005, money over time. p. 171), can be well described as the collateral dam- Larry Beasley, age of building a ‘‘consumer city.’’ The significance Former Co-director of Planning, of Vancouver’s consumer city status may not be City of Vancouver, Interview, 29/09/2005 immediately obvious; after all, cities have always been sites for consumption. Notwithstanding this When a city decides ‘‘to do something more’’ the fact, the recent popularity of the idea that urban first three questions one should ask are: more than fortunes depend on a city’s capacity to attract, re- what, why and for whom? While the desire to do tain and cater to the tastes of a semi-nomadic class ‘‘something more’’ in SEFC may merely be a mani- of ‘‘creatives’’ (Peck, 2005), ‘‘knowledge workers’’ festation of an urban entrepreneurial impulse, that is or, more generally, those well endowed with ‘‘hu- a desire to do something more than the competi- 7 man capital,’’ has highlighted ‘‘cities’ role as cen- tion, ‘‘something more’’ likely also refers to the ters for consumption’’ (Glaeser et al., 2001). The string of other megaprojects which have taken shape storyline implied by this understanding of urban on Vancouver’s waterfront over the past decade and economies is, at its most skeletal, a simple one: a half. The transformations of North False Creek high amenity cities will thrive and those which fail and Coal Harbour, along with a host of other brown- to offer attractive consumption opportunities for field spaces near the city’s waterfront, have, in desirable classes will not. The statistical hallmark addition to transforming Vancouver’s skyline, of this city-centred amenity-based variant of social engendered a wide spectrum of often vociferous Darwinism is the existence of an urban amenity public reaction. According to Punter (2003, p. 224), premium, that is, an economy in which rents and ‘‘the Vancouver public remains unconvinced that housing prices exceed those expected based on lo- the megaprojects offer a quality of life and a quality cal levels of productivity and income alone (Glae- of neighbourhood that is appropriate for the future ser et al., 2001).9 of the city at large...’’

6 Harvey refers to such crises and ‘‘switching crises’’ (see Harvey, 8 Zukin made this statement in reference to ‘‘the ‘postindustrial 1999 and 1989 for more on switching crises). landscape’ in modern Vancouver or Silicon Valley...’’ 7 Every year Mercer Human Resource Consulting publishes the 9 Glaeser et al. (2001) presents this relationship in the form of a world’s most widely cited urban quality-of-life ranking; since 1999 formula: Urban Amenity Premium = Urban Rent Pre- Vancouver has placed no lower than third. mium À Urban Productivity Premium.

327 Spaces of transition spaces of tomorrow: Making a sustainable future in Southeast False Creek, Vancouver: M Kear

CPI for Vancouver CMA (1986=1)

2 Average Rent Index (1986=1)

1.8 Dwelling Price Index (1986=1) Household Income Index (1986=1) 1.6 real constant dollars

1.4

1.2 Index Value

0.8

0.6 1981 1986 1991 1996 2001 Year

Figure 3 Economic indicators in Vancouver’s core: 1981–2001. Housing costs have grown at rates exceeding the rate of income growth and the rate of inﬂation.

As Figure 3 shows, since the mid-1980s Vancou- ‘‘the power of global history to affect our lives, ver’s core,10 despite the additions to the housing sup- and the average citizen’s alienation from the civic ply represented by the megaprojects, has political process – they are glass totems that say experienced inflation in the cost of housing which ‘F-you’ to us’’ (Coupland, 2000). cannot be accounted for on the basis of local in- This is the historical context in which the redevel- creases in productivity or income. This apparently opment of SEFC must be understood. Thus the 1991 exogenously induced ‘‘urban amenity premium’’ Council decision to build a sustainable community in has been widely attributed to the globalization of SEFC should be seen as more than simply a re- Vancouver’s property markets (see Mitchell, 2004; sponse to a recommendation made by the Task Olds, 2001). The flow of global capital into Vancou- Force on Atmospheric Change, or as an extrapola- ver, and especially the city’s integration with the tion of a precedential trend line in good planning economies of the Pacific Rim, has played a seismic practice, or as a local response to the global ‘‘ecolog- role in the reshaping of the city’s built environment. ical crisis.’’ It should also be appreciated as a tactful The development of Concord Pacific Place on the gesture from an elected body to an electorate alien- North shore of False Creek by Li Ka-shing, ‘‘Hong ated from local politics; preoccupied with issues of Kong’s richest, most powerful, and well connected housing affordability and neighbourhood quality property tycoon’’ (Olds, 2001, p. 113), is likely the (Punter, 2003); watching its city be transformed by most dramatic ‘‘physical manifestation of Chinese market and ‘‘global forces, which are beyond [their] capitalism integrating with Vancouver’s property control’’ (Kwok, 1990). In other words, sustainabil- market’’ (ibid). The ensuing controversies surround- ity, in the context of SEFC, has come to operate as ing the involvement of foreign corporations in the the central theme of a screen allegory in which the redevelopment of Vancouver’s waterfront has only broader, more contentious storyline of reshaping served to foment existing and still budding criticisms the built environment to a form more attractive to of the megaprojects. desirable classes and amenable to accumulation, The sale of the North False Creek Lands to Li Ka- has been occluded and displaced by a more paro- shing contributed to a sense among the public that chial narrative about sustainable city building. ‘‘the right to participate in the production of the landscape and its associated symbolic meanings’’ Contextualizing the redevelopment of SEFC: the (Mitchell, 2004, p. 157) had been outsourced. In City planning context of Glass, cultural commentator and native Vancou- Despite Council’s 1991 machinations about explor- verite, Douglas Coupland captures this sentiment ing the possibility of developing SEFC as a ‘‘sustain- well with his description of the high-rise megacom- able community,’’ the City did little, symbolic or plexes of Pacific Place as ‘‘contingency crash pads otherwise, to demonstrate its commitment to build- for wealthier Hong Kong citizens,’’ signifiers of ing such a community for nearly five years. Notwith- standing this silence on sustainability, several changes in the City’s planning context did occur in 10 The core is composed of all census tracts (CTs) in the the early 1990s which have directly and indirectly im- downtown peninsula and those CTs contiguous with SEFC’s CT. pacted the planning process for SEFC. First among

328 Spaces of transition spaces of tomorrow: Making a sustainable future in Southeast False Creek, Vancouver: M Kear these changes was Council’s approval in December ment was well captured by former Chairman of the 1991 of a new Central Area Plan. The Central Area Vancouver Parks Board, Art Cowie, when he lamen- Plan aimed, through the demarcation of 35 sub areas, ted that ‘‘the citizen participation process [had] be- to diversify the core’s landscape, urban form, econ- gun to turn into the ’tyranny of a few,’ who look omy and demographics. To this end, the sub area of after their own interests at the expense of the wider SEFC was targeted for mixed-use residential devel- community’’ (Artibise and Seelig, Nov. 13th, 1990). opment specifically intended to attract families with CityPlan’s response to what Mitchell has cynically children to the empty-nester-dominated core. The described as ‘‘the increasing power of ‘chaotic’ citi- Central Area Plan’s family-friendly goals for SEFC zens’ movements and the declining control of urban were an extension of the emphasis the Planning land by the ‘responsible’ forces of city government Department had been placing on residential devel- and the marketplace’’ (Mitchell, 1996, p. 481) was opment, or ‘‘Living First,’’ in the core since the late to, in the words of the CityPlan mandate, ‘‘inform cit- 1980s. Since the inception of this ‘‘Living First’’ strat- izens about the issues facing the City and present egy, ‘‘downtown residential’’ has been, in the words Council policies, and create, from their advice, a of former Co-Director of Planning, Larry Beasley, shared sense of direction for the City and its place Vancouver’s ‘‘mantra for urban vitality in the new in the Region’’ (City of Vancouver, 1995). The hope century’’ (Beasley, 2000). Much of this figurative implicit in this ostensible redistribution of power to chanting associated with the ‘‘Living First’’ strategy the public was that it would foster a greater sense has been directed toward the urban periphery and of collective proprietary responsibility for planning the ‘‘ultimate target...[of] the suburban family with decisions, and therefore, make otherwise recalcitrant children’’ (Beasley, cited in Dietrich, 2003). This tar- citizens more willing to accept the inevitable trade geting of suburban populations has been justified offs associated with crafting policy (Punter, 2003). through faith that ‘‘if they come back [to the core], CityPlan’s public participation process included, everything comes with them’’ (Beasley, cited in Die- among other things, 250 idea-sharing ‘‘kitchen ta- trich, 2003). To this end the Planning Department bles’’ composed of 3000 individuals, a three day has attempted to splice the values of suburbia into ‘‘ideas fair’’ visited by 10,000 people, a 6000-person a high-density urban milieu with the intention of mailing list, a ‘‘making choices’’ exhibition with making the inner city appear more attractive and safe 15,000 attendees, as well as a plebiscite. Regardless to those living in the periphery of the city (Grdadol- of whether CityPlan was more an example of realpo- nik, June 30th, 2006). Though sustainability and litik or an earnest attempt to democratize the plan- suburbia more often connote contrast than comple- ning process, it set a new high-water mark for mentarity, it is not hard to see, when viewed through public participation in Vancouver to which all future the lenses of the Central Area Plan and the ‘‘Living developments could be compared. First’’ strategy, the hypothetical attraction, for plan- Among the messages that the citizens of Vancou- ners, marketers and utopians alike, of crossing subur- ver sent to the Planning Department and developers ban appeal with sustainability in SEFC. It is the were calls for greater attention to the promotion of mythic promise of suburbia to successfully marry sustainable forms of development (broadly defined); the virtues of the country with those of the town, re- more control over building heights to protect view newed on the waterfront – where the prodigal town corridors; and increased attention to fitting develop- will be reunited with nature. ment into the context of its surroundings. CityPlan A second, less direct, source of influence on the also made clear that Vancouverites wanted to see planning and political dynamics of SEFC’s redevel- a greater mix of leisure and residential land uses as opment was the preparation of a citywide planning well as more integration of non-market with market strategy, dubbed CityPlan. While the motivations be- housing. By conspicuously articulating the public’s hind Council’s June 1992 decision to begin the three concerns, CityPlan became, as the story of SEFC year process of developing CityPlan were numerous will show, an elephant in the boardrooms of both and varied, many hoped CityPlan would help inocu- the City and local developers. late the city against the popular straw man of NIM- BYism. As UBC planning professors Michael Seelig and Alan Artibise declared in their 1990, developer sponsored (Mitchell, 2004; Punter, 2003), Shaping socionatural transformation: Southeast Vancouver Sun news serial, ‘‘Future Growth: Future False Creek and the Property Endowment Shock,’’ ‘‘A growing number of planners, developers Fund and politicians [were] saying that popular sovereignty [had] become a euphemism for abandoning Sustainability and the PEF responsible, representative government’’ (Artibise The plane took off and there was an agenda to do, and Seelig, Nov. 13th, 1990). Such wide-ranging anx- quote, sustainability because it was the flavor of the iety over ‘‘popular sovereignty’’ in some cases trans- month. lated into a general resentment of the public’s Anonymous, representative of SEFC private participation in the planning process. This resent- landowner, Interview, 20/09/2005

329 Spaces of transition spaces of tomorrow: Making a sustainable future in Southeast False Creek, Vancouver: M Kear In the summer of 1996, not long after the ‘‘vision- about them – they did not like what they were see- ing’’ phase of CityPlan had come to an end, the ing’’ (Interview, 29/09/05). repercussions of Council’s commitment to ‘‘sustain- Given the historical, geographic, planning and ability’’ in SEFC began to materialize. That July, political contexts into which Creekside was intro- the City’s Real Estate Services Division retained duced, the adverse reaction from the general public, Stanley Kwok, the principle protagonist behind the environmentalists, affordable housing advocates and redevelopment of North False Creek, to serve as a a variety of other stakeholders, should have come as development consultant for SEFC. Kwok was no surprise. First, as a result of playing such an charged with (i) identifying ‘‘appropriate and eco- instrumental role in the redevelopment of North nomically feasible’’ development options for SEFC, False Creek, Kwok came to SEFC with baggage. and (ii) advising the board of the PEF (see Figure 2 For many in the city, Kwok and Pacific Place were for PEF background) based on his findings (Kwok, synonymous; together they represented a particular 1997). Though Kwok’s terms of reference were lim- brand of market-lead development concerned more ited to performing and reporting a preliminary ‘‘pro- with profit maximization than with environmental forma analysis,’’ Kwok produced a full design and social impacts. Second, Creekside bore a strong concept plan for a new neighbourhood renamed resemblance to North False Creek. Creekside’s high ‘‘Creekside Landing’’ (Alexander, 2001). Kwok jus- density along with its high-rise and medium-rise tified expanding his terms of reference by explaining apartments gave it a look akin to a glassy ‘‘sustain- that ‘‘development concepts are abstract thoughts able’’ version of Le Corbusier’s ‘‘tower in a park.’’ which needed to be captured into physical form for The perception that Creekside was the sequel to Pa- them to be felt and understood’’ (Kwok, 1997, p. cific Place heightened extant concerns about the 11). Despite the importance Kwok placed on flesh- homogenization of the core and the waterfront, both ing out abstract concepts, the solicitation and incor- in terms of built form and in regard to the exclusion poration of the public’s input was deemed an of marginal groups. Also, perhaps contributing to inessential component of this process. The consulta- the traction of these concerns over built form and tion that did occur was limited to a one day ‘‘private homogenization, was Creekside’s deviation from workshop’’ (Kwok, 1997) attended by a ‘‘group of the urban design principals the Planning Depart- [26] respected guests in the development industry’’ ment outlined in the 1988 False Creek Policy Broad- (Kwok, 1997, p. 22).11 This narrow range of voices, sheets.12 The Broadsheets endorsed a ‘‘carefully in addition to being in conspicuous contrast with conceived mixture of short and tall buildings’’ in def- the precedent set by CityPlan, led to a ‘‘very con- erence to mountain views and a concern that tall strained interpretation of urban sustainability’’ buildings ‘‘could reduce the apparent width of the (Alexander, 2001, p. 10). water basin’’ (City of Vancouver, 1988, p. 16). Third, In his report to the PEF board, Kwok explained and arguably most detrimental to Creekside, was its that ‘‘sustainable development is hard to define’’ skeptical interpretation of sustainability, and more and that despite consultations carried out in the cre- specifically, its deviation from the now taken-for- ation of the Creekside concept ‘‘no meaningful def- granted understanding of sustainability as a meta- inition was agreed [upon]’’ (Kwok, 1997, p. 24). phorical piece of furniture ‘‘structurally’’ dependant Notwithstanding this lack of a formal definition, on its social, ecological and economic ‘‘legs’’ being Kwok’s report concluded that ‘‘Creekside Landing’s given equal measure. vision embodie[d] the goals of sustainable urban The inability of Kwok and associates to distance development’’ (Kwok, 1997, p. 24). This assessment Creekside from previous waterfront megaprojects was based largely on the fact that: (i) the plan pro- as well as their failure to meet heightened standards vided a generous supply of green space, (ii) the sep- for public consultation, or to approach the remaking aration of sanitary and storm sewers would improve of SEFC with a financial or symbolic rationale com- water quality in False Creek, (iii) the high densities patible with the three-pronged approach of main- planned would make efficient use of land and be stream sustainability discourse, helped trigger a walkable, (iv) the development’s proximity to the public reaction against Creekside. The expansion core would reduce commuting, and (v) redevelop- of market-lead development around False Creek ment would force the remediation of contaminated was met by a ‘‘more ecologically and socially con- soils (Alexander, 2001). Regardless of whether these scious’’ (Alexander, 2001) countermovement, the features were sufficient to make Creekside a ‘‘sus- early stages of which, found its clearest expression tainable’’ community, according to then Director in a workshop held in April 1997 just before Kwok of Central-Area planning, Larry Beasley, ‘‘the re- was scheduled to deliver his report to Council. The sults were not popular, the results when we took workshop sponsored by the Vancouver Planning them out to the public – people were screaming

12 The False Creek Policy Broadsheets was also the ﬁrst docu- 11 Among the participants in the workshop were a number of ment to suggest that SEFC was an ‘‘excellent location for City of Vancouver planners and other City staff. residential [development]’’ (City of Vancouver, 1988).

330 Spaces of transition spaces of tomorrow: Making a sustainable future in Southeast False Creek, Vancouver: M Kear Commission and Simon Fraser University, according and visioning produced a whole new set of sustain- to Alexander (2001, p. 11), ‘‘helped to cement con- ability principles, goals and practices aimed at oper- sensus amongst design professionals and activists ationalizing a politically viable definition of around the necessity and desirability of making sustainability. This process was fairly open and occa- SEFC a model [sustainable] community.’’ sionally adversarial, incorporating input from a wide Over half of Council and close to 300 delegates at- variety interest groups including businesses, private tended the workshop entitled ‘‘Cents and Sustain- landowners, residents from adjacent communities ability,’’ helping ensure that when Kwok delivered and other interested parties. The list of policy docu- his report to Council he would face an organized ments, consultants’ reports and proposals published resistance. After Kwok presented his report, Council during this period is long including, everything from heard from 32 speakers largely drawn from a group a 700-name petition, to have the entire site turned of professionals, students and social activists calling into a park to an urban agriculture study, to various themselves the SEFC Working Group. This counter- policy statements, energy options studies, charrettes movement represented by the Workshop and Work- and even poems. ing Group proved effective in forestalling the plans As the financial implications of implementing for Creekside. In the end, Council resolved to accept Vancouver’s dreams of a sustainable SEFC became Kwok’s report for ‘‘information purposes only,’’ cit- clearer, the power dynamics which had lain latent ing concerns about the assumptions on which the re- during the years of visioning began to resurface. In port’s findings were based and a lack of sufficient July 2004, the central issue in the redevelopment be- attention to issues of sustainability (Alexander, gan to shift from the operationalization of a politi- 2001). After seven years, Council ‘‘recognized that cally legitimate definition of sustainability to a their sustainability objectives from the Clouds of debate over the proper role of the PEF in meeting Change commitment had been derailed’’ (Punter, city objectives. On July 14th, 2004, the SEFC Steer- 2003, p. 230). ing Committee,15 in response to a series of new ideas raised by both the public and Councillors regarding 16 Choices and directions for the PEF and the socio- the level of public amenity warranted by SEFC, natural transformation of SEFC made a series of recommendations, and presented a series of choices to Council. The report was a request ...cost implications from sustainable development to Council to revise the existing draft of the Official have not been considered in the economic analysis, Development Plan to include an enhanced public as this concept remains undefined. amenity package and alterations to the neighbor- Ken Dobell, City Manager, hood’s built form. These changes consisted of: City of Vancouver, 1997 A low to mid-rise built form instead of a ‘‘podium The fact that in April 1997, seven years after and tower’’ configuration. Clouds of Change, the city had still not produced a A change from the city megaproject standard of formal definition of sustainability, suggests that an 80–20% split between market and low-income Council’s initial commitment to ‘‘sustainability’’ in housing to 1/3rd market, 1/3rd middle-income, SEFC was at best naı¨ve, and at worst based on the and 1/3rd low-income. term’s ‘‘flavor of the month’’ status and public rela- An increase in the number of childcare facilities tions potential in the wake of the 1987 Brundtland 13 from 3 to 5; and Report. In either case, though Kwok’s report re- Also, the addition of sustainability indicators and vealed a project on the margins of profitability, targets to the Ocial Development Plan, ‘‘and that requiring quick action to minimize medium-term ‘place making’ (creating legible memorable financial losses, the city shelved it. Clearly the ver- spaces)’’ be given further emphasis. sion of sustainability which Creekside embodied was insufficient to legitimate the switching of capital These additions, while responding to public con- flows. In response to the failure of Creekside, Coun- cerns about housing affordability in adjacent neigh- cil went back to the drawing board. Between 1997 bourhoods (see Figure 4) and other issues, and 2004, the city engaged in one of its most in- dramatically increased the financial demands of the volved public participation campaigns. This consul- tant14 supported, institutionally mediated dreaming

15 The SEFC Steering Committee was established as an oversight body for the SEFC project. The Committee was composed of the 13 The United Nations Brundtland Commission Report, Our City Manager, Councillor Raymond Louie, Councillor Peter Common Future (1987), is widely credited with bringing the term Ladner, as well as the Directors of Current Planning, Real Estate sustainable development into common parlance. Services, the Housing Centre, and Finance, the General Managers 14 The principal consultative contributor during this period was of Engineering, Community Services, and the Park Board, and the Sheltair Scientiﬁc. Sheltair established a set of sustainability Deputy City Manager. targets, goals and objective including a system of ‘‘full-cost 16 The redevelopment of SEFC was commonly portrayed as a accounting.’’ once-in-a-urban-lifetime opportunity.

331 Spaces of transition spaces of tomorrow: Making a sustainable future in Southeast False Creek, Vancouver: M Kear

Population in Rented Average Gross low-income Dwellings (%) Rent (2001 C$) households (%) Mount Pleasant* 35.6 71.7 692 Fairview 18.4 66.2 887 Strathcona 58.8 84.3 466 Downtown Eastside 79.8 95.3 360 Downtown 36 68.6 749 City of Vancouver 27 56.2 796

Statistic Canada 2001 Census cited in City of Vancouver neighbouthood profiles * Includes SEFC

Figure 4 Characteristics of neighbourhoods adjacent to SEFC.

project. The major financial implication of delivering looking for new ways to fund their projects’’ (Sulli- the enhanced public amenity package was that all of van cited in Lee, 2004). Soon the use of the PEF to the $50 million in expected return to the PEF would finance the enhanced amenity package was likened have to be funneled back into the project (i.e. a to an attack on the PEF itself and by association to break from the normal pattern of investment in the financial well being of the entire city. As Council- the primary circuit). lor Peter Ladner explained, the redirection of funds This break-even approach to the renovation of from the PEF was a ‘‘signal that [would] be picked space, while reminiscent of the funding scheme used up by bond-rating agencies. It’s a signal that some- in the redevelopment of Southwest False Creek in body’s hand has slipped on the tiller and we’re not the early 1970s, deviated from the interpretation of sure where this is going to go.’’ The Vancouver Sun the PEF board’s mandate which has been the status (2004) chipped in with an editorial pointing out that: quo over the past two decades. The PEF board has The fund is also counted as an asset by credit rating perceived its role as the city’s land developer to be agencies when they assess Vancouver’s status. Last investing in ‘‘transferable’’ projects. ‘‘The PEF inter- December, Dominion Bond Rating Services dropped preted the goal of ‘transferability’ to mean that in Vancouver’s status from triple A to double A high. developing its lands, the city should have the same We were reminded then how a rating downgrade objectives that a private land owner would expect can lead to higher borrowing costs and potentially to achieve’’ (Beasley et al., 2004). Based on this to the need for higher property taxes. interpretation, the 2004 revisions to the Official Development Plan pitted two of the PEF’s objec- This political contest to determine both the future tives against each other. In one corner was the city’s of SEFC and the ‘‘proper’’ role of the PEF vacillated goal of building a ‘‘sustainable’’ community that at- between the default poles of altruism and fiscal tempted to do ‘‘something more,’’ and in the other responsibility for most of 2005. Finally, this binary the goal of transferability and the maximization of was formalized in the lead up to the civic election the financial return to the PEF. in November of the same year where the two main The Council of the time opted for the former; a municipal parties slotted themselves neatly into the decision that was lauded by many in the activist well-worn ruts at their respective ends of the politi- and design communities. However, Council’s ap- cal spectrum. Because of: (i) the timing of the proval of the revised Official Development Plan, changes to the plans for SEFC; and (ii) the ease with and the requisite rechanneling of capital flows, which the debate over the PEF and SEFC could be quickly became a political battle to determine the scripted as battle between a ‘‘leftist’’ brand of urban ‘‘proper’’ role of the PEF that would play out in entrepreneurialism based on product differentiation the media and in the 2005 municipal election. and investing in progressive infrastructures of feel- ing, and a ‘‘rightist’’ brand of urban governance The market strikes back based on a more traditional city-as-firm model of urban governance, the plans for SEFC became a cen- ...council is about to abandon the idea of sustain- tral issue in the election. ability and demolish the vital economic pillar when The election created a rare moment where the they approve the new Southeast False Creek plan... power-dynamics intrinsic to socionatural transfor- , , 2005 Bob Ransford The Vancouver Sun mation were placed blatantly on display and closely The detractors of the new plan were quick to point paired with the economic imperatives of the local out the dangerous precedent being set by the revised state. Perhaps the best example of this was the oppo- Official Development Plan. As then Councillor Sam sition Non-Partisan Association’s complimentary Sullivan put it, ‘‘the Property Endowment Fund is campaign promises to both reestablish the city’s tri- too tempting a target for social activist councillors ple-A credit rating and ‘‘restore the principle of sus-

332 Spaces of transition spaces of tomorrow: Making a sustainable future in Southeast False Creek, Vancouver: M Kear tainability to the Property Endowment Fund’’ (Non- to the perpetual, never-quite-finished status of all ef- partisan Association, 2005). By tacitly relating the forts to impose on the dynamics of urban change a viability of the local state to decisions made by an telos of equilibrium between nature, society and extra-governmental, non-citizen body (i.e. a bond- the economy. No matter how obvious or intrinsic rating agency) the NPA was able to invert the mean- the virtues of balancing these three ‘‘pillars’’ may ing of the sustainability allegory. No longer was seem, what the story of SEFC makes clear is that sustainability a screen allegory or trope with which the process of harmonizing socionature with accu- to legitimate the switching of capital flows, but a mulation is far from natural, invariably subjective, screen intended to help block their rechanneling. dependent on context (historic, geographic, etc.) The ease with which the NPA was able to exploit and always political. Following from this, the term the multivalent character of sustainability, and even- ‘‘sustainability,’’ which has become so tightly linked tually win the 2005 election, despite a seven year with processes of socionatural change in advanced (from 1997 to 2004) effort of visioning intended to capitalist cities, has become a source of semantic dis- operationalize and give closure to the meaning of sonance. The semantic and political malleability of the term, speaks to both the obfuscatory value and sustainability, even in instances where the term’s versatility of sustainability in facilitating socionatu- meaning has been ostensibly formalized through sci- ral fixes at an urban scale. entific indicators, public meetings and community One of the first initiatives of the new NPA Coun- visioning exercises, is evidence that the term has be- cil, lead by Mayor Sam Sullivan, was to ‘‘restore sus- come a loose signifier easily tied to opposing posi- tainability to the [Property Endowment] Fund’’ tions, and used as a screen for special interests. (Sullivan; cited in Bula, 2006) by instructing city staff Though in some cases the semantic plasticity of to prepare a plan to return ‘‘economic sustainabil- sustainability may be deliberately exploited toward ity’’ to the SEFC project by having the PEF recover the furtherance of some political or economic end, the land value of the site (i.e. C$50 million) (City of it would be a fallacy to assume that the existence Vancouver, 2006). To do so, the new Council re- of synergies between the notion of sustainability solved on January 20th, 2006, to amend the Official and a particular version of urban change is artefac- Development Plan once again by: (i) cutting the pro- tual; the existence of synergies may also be, at least vision of affordable housing by C$20.8 million and in part, incidental. In other words, sustainability’s (ii) reducing the provision of childcare facilities from loose signifier status makes it especially susceptible five to two17 (City of Vancouver, 2006).18 This to the historical, geographic and political contexts amendment has again been met by resistance from in which it is mobilized. Thus the meanings of sus- those concerned that SEFC will become a ‘‘play- tainability in Vancouver, or in regard to the redevel- ground for the rich’’ and afraid ‘‘that changing the opment of SEFC, are dependent on their local plans for this diverse and experimental neighbour- geographies. I rehash the old platitude that meaning hood shows a lack of leadership and imagination is contextual because it has important policy impli- that will accelerate Vancouver’s evolution into a city cations for those seeking build more equitable and for only the very rich and the very poor’’ (Bula, environmentally informed cities. The challenge that 2006).19 Regardless of whether such prognostica- lies in the subtext of story of SEFC and the PEF for tions turn out to be true, or even whether the con- planners and sustainability advocates living and cerns that they express are justified, the existence working in ‘‘consumer cities’’ like Vancouver, is to of such fears suggests that the debate over the future learn how to build sustainable cities without turning of SEFC is no longer a narrow one about sustainable sustainability into a slogan or brand with which to city building, but one which engages with the broad- sell the city to tourists, mobile classes and capital. er political economy of urban change. While this may seem like a counterintuitive goal, under a regime of urban change increasingly shaped by inter-urban competition (for government transfers, Conclusion global capital, tax dollars, ‘‘human capital,’’ etc.); SEFC continues to be a point of friction in the inter- and an entrepreneurial drive to do ‘‘something dependent processes of waterfront and socionatural more’’ – where it seems inevitable, and almost auto- transformation in Vancouver. The ongoing story of matic, that the ‘‘sustainableness’’ of a city be amen- this piece of inner city riparian blight is a testament itized and capitalized – efforts must be made to prevent sustainability from being used to exacerbate already existing urban amenity premiums. The inflation of such premiums may benefit property owners 17 After public hearings this was increased to three. and expand the local tax base, but they do little to 18 No other substantial cuts to the ‘‘enhanced amenity package’’ ameliorate affordable housing shortages, ease social have been proposed. The remaining the $50 million to be exclusion or mitigate the impacts of gentrification. recouped will be acquired through unspecified savings over the build-out period. When the challenge of urban sustainability is framed 19 Bula (2006) attributes this concern to ‘‘a coalition of commu- in such terms, the fact that the story of SEFC nity groups... preparing to mount an energetic protest.’’ evolved from a recommendation from a climate

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