UBC and the City of Vancouver announced on May 11 a new initiative aimed at strengthening cooperation on environmental issues.

President Stephen Toope and Mayor Gregor Robertson signed a Memorandum of Understanding that addressed a number of areas where the university and the city will focus their efforts. Notably, it created the Greenest City Action Team Scholars Program (GCAP), an initiative that will provide ten UBC graduate students specializing in environmental issues real world experience as well as an opportunity to share their expertise with the city.

“The University will bring its expertise to help Vancouver achieve its inspiring goal, while building knowledge by adapting the innovative principles and programs that have worked well at UBC to meet the needs of a world class urban centre,” said Toope at the press conference.

The two sides hope these initiatives will play a central role in the Robertson’s efforts to make Vancouver the greenest city in the world by 2020. “Our collaboration will benefit residents of Vancouver and UBC’s community as we work together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance livability,” said Robertson.

GCAP will see ten UBC graduate students work with the city every summer to tackle a number of projects aimed at a greener Vancouver. These include reducing water consumption, designing sustainable buildings, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The program is planned to run for five years.

Alberto Cayuela, the Associate Director of the UBC Sustainability Initiative, argued that it’s crucial that the university find partners it can work with on environmental issues.

“If we want to move towards sustainability, and if UBC’s taking a global lead role in that sense, we can’t do it alone,” he said.

Cayuela added that he believed UBC had an immense talent pool of talented students and faculty that other organizations could benefit from.

The partnership was announced as a bill that will remove UBC from Metro Vancouver’s jurisdiction is winding its way through the provincial legislature. If passed, Bill 20 will give authority over land-use decisions on university land to the BC Ministry of Community and Rural Development. This separation comes after years of often tense disputes between UBC and Metro Van.

Despite the expected passage of the bill, Cayuela argued that the environment is a place where the two could successfully cooperate. “I think this can only strengthen the relationship between the two”

Stephanie Goodwin, Greenpeace’s BC Director, said that universities are key sites where innovation can take place. “I think that academic settings provide some freedom to be able to explore new technologies and new ways of doing thing that either governments or corporations are constrained by.”

She was also optimistic about GCAP itself. “I feel like what’s going to come out of it is that we’re gonna have ten people who are well trained and who are in some ways experts in those fields around trying to move this initiative forward and trying to make our footprint more harmonious with the earth. And that can’t be a bad thing” said Goodwin.

However, she stated she’ll reserve judgment until more measurable progress has been made.

“It’s too soon to be giving out any green medals.”

The months-long dispute between UBC and Metro Vancouver regarding land-use planning is coming to an end, with the provincial government proposing legislation to take the university out of Metro Vancouver.

On Friday, the province announced that Bill 20 is currently being read in Parliament. The bill outlines a transfer of land-use planning from Metro Van to the province’s Ministry of Community and Rural Development.

The university is pleased by the legislation. “I think it’s going to be a very exciting period,” said UBC VP External, Legal and Community Affairs Stephen Owen.

Owen said that this legislation is seen as an interim step by both UBC and the province, and that both groups will be working towards a better governance model—considered a long-term solution—for UBC. He added that the university wishes to have a model in place that would allow them to be more financially independent.

“The government has said…it wanted to look at taking universities out of what’s called the government reporting entity status, which means that it’s books are consolidated with the province. They’re looking at releasing UBC and perhaps other universities from that relationship so that we can really raise money and develop research facilities, student residences and things on our own, whereas now we have to get permission to take on any debt, even though we’ve got the ability to service the debt and retire the debt through income from the endowment,” he said.

UBC and Metro Vancouver have not always seen eye to eye. Although the two governing bodies have agreements in place regarding land-use planning, such as the Official Community Plan enacted by the two groups in 1997, they have had disagreements in the past. In 2005, Metro Vancouver intervened during a dispute between the Wreck Beach Preservation Society and UBC over the proposed Marine Drive Residences, which forced UBC to curtail the number and height of the towers.

In November, the university accused Metro Vancouver of overstepping their boundaries, when they proposed further zoning guidelines for the university. Metro Vancouver responded by saying that the university needed firmer guidelines around governance of land development on campus.

Maria Harris, Metro Van representative for Electoral Area A, which UBC falls under, expressed concern that the changes “have occurred without an adequate degree of consultation” from the stakeholders, namely students, staff and residents of the university.

“They have a need to know and participate, and I would have liked to respect that,” she said. “I have tried since November to bring this to the public.” Owen countered that the province explained that they will set up a consultation process with various stakeholders over the next year.

As the only official from Metro Vancouver directly representing UBC, Harris said that her job will remain but the responsibilities will change, and she will retain administrative duties regarding waste management, water control and parks.

Lois Jackson, Chair of the Metro Vancouver Board, told The Ubyssey that the province’s decision “came as a little bit of surprise,” but she feels a “traditionally democratic” governance structure at UBC would be ideal.

“It makes it very difficult to have such an arms length agreement and understanding [between UBC and Metro Van],” she said, “when the majority of the Metro board do not live there or have a real understanding of some of the ramifications of consultations.”

FURTHER READING:

UBC, Metro Van clash over governance

UBC upset by Metro Van plan to control Campus

UBC has democratic deficit

A recent post on UBC Insiders revealed a “secretive voting procedure” by the UBC Board of Governors (BoG), where policies can be passed via e-mail, meaning that no direct public consultation or public record of its process is documented.

The policy in question is Policy 92, which was passed on October 23, 2009. Student BoG representative Bijan Ahmadian described the policy as “a land use policy” that outlines the responsibilities that UBC Campus and Community Planning has over issues such as “ground rules, traffic regulations and bylaws.”

Upon further investigation, The Ubyssey discovered that e-mail voting in the BoG has happened before, as confirmed by both student representatives Ahmadian and Michael Duncan.

“You should go to public consultation for everything, and that’s an ideal thing that the Board [of Governors] should look up to, but I don’t think that is a requirement,” Duncan said.
Policies passed through e-mail are called “consent items,” where the BoG’s secretary sends a mass e-mail to all members of the BoG with the proposed policy attached. The board is then asked whether or not they wish to call a meeting for a discussion. If no member of the BoG makes a request for a meeting, then the policy is assumed to be passed unanimously.

In most other cases, policy development on the BoG begins on ad hoc committees—smaller, specialized groups that debate policies on issues such as finance, property and planning and governance. These committees generally draft the motions that come before the board.

Ahmadian said that e-mail voting is used when an item is “missed on the agenda” or when something is a “really urgent and pressing matter.”

“It’s a very, very rare way of passing things,” Ahmadian explained. Duncan said he recalls at least one other incident when this process has been used this year.

Ahmadian added that Policy 92 was a reaction to Metro Vancouver’s proposal to impose zoning guidelines on campus that poses a threat to UBC’s governance and infringes upon their academic freedom.

“We were defensive,” said Ahmadian. “When Metro Vancouver came around and questioned our [governing] practices we kind of felt like we were under an attack.”

Stephen Owen, UBC’s VP external, legal and community relations, said that Policy 92 was a result of three years of developing UBC’s “land use practices” by its Campus and Community Planning committee.

Unlike Ahmadian, Owen claimed that “electronic mail confirmation” is “not that unusual…something transitive.” He then added that there is “no municipality that I know of in British Columbia that has the extensive public consultations [as UBC does].”

Still, Duncan expressed concern about electronic voting at the time. “I am under the personal belief that passing things through e-mail is not the most effective way,” he said. He said that he had interest in bringing this transparency issue to the BoG, but had been pressed for time. “I did not have the time to look at all of those policies, but [I] would have addressed the issue,” he said.

Ahmadian said Duncan did not make the effort. “He as a board member has the right to call a meeting, and my understanding is that he never did,” he said. “If you take an interest in front of a mirror, it doesn’t make any difference. You have to write an e-mail [saying] ‘I’d like to make a request [to call a meeting].’”

Ahmadian admitted that the passing of Policy 92 was “enclosed,” but argued that it was passed legitimately because there had been “a substantial amount of discussion” on it among members of the BoG and because both student representatives were previewed on all the discussions “in the back room.”

Ahmadian puts trust in the university administration. “I’ve not gone so far as investigating whether or not this is legitimate,” he said. “I have sort of trusted that UBC would entertain a practice like this where it is legitimate, and we have very smart people at UBC that make sure that it is legitimate.”

The province also does not prohibit the public university from making their own rules about passing policies giving procedural and contextual freedom to the institution.
“It’s not up to us,” said Craig MacBride, the public affairs officer of the Ministry of Advanced Education and Labour Market Development. “Universities, we fund them, but…they are pretty much autonomous institutions.”

“Any rules for the board basically are made by the board.”

“We already had a good sense on what the public wanted,” Ahmadian said. “[BoG] just put it in writing so that it’s ‘clear, predictable, consistent.’”

“There was never an intention to do anything deceiving here.”

Is UBC a city? It depends on what you look at. It has a unique and defined geographical base, a local police force that everyone knows and loves (ahem), a permanent population base, a commercial sector, development happening all over the place, as well as a popular elected mayor.

See what I did there? Yes, UBC is basically a city. No, we don’t have any sort of municipal government. Between the UNA, Electoral Area A, joint committees, and consultation groups, students are subjected to a series of byzantine structures that effectively places them as cogs in an academic-corporate oligarchy. Which is interesting from a political sociological point of view, but disheartening for students actually living in it. Let’s recap the last nine months.

The Good
The BC Supreme Court ruled that UBC was illegally issuing parking tickets and towing cars, as they did not have the power to do so as a university.

The BC Privacy Commissioner ruled that UBC’s non-academic arms, such as Properties Trust, were in fact public organizations that had to be public with their information.

Metro Vancouver issued a scathing report pointing out that UBC lacked the municipal authority to zone and develop the way they do, and threatened to intervene.

The Bad
The provincial government flagrantly ignored the Supreme Court’s ruling on parking, retroactively amending the University Act to give UBC that power. Oh, and unlimited power on noise bylaws too.

UBC alleged that Metro Vancouver’s proposals were a “threat to academic freedom,” a claim so bogus it’s been derided by student politicians of all stripes. They have since passed a secret board policy that states their ability to control all zoning on campus, and have started to negotiate with the provincial government a way out of Metro Vancouver—which would eliminate the one municipal check on UBC.

All said, it isn’t a pretty picture. It’s abundantly clear that the university is a public organization that has been running like a private corporation. It’s also clear that the university will do all they can to maintain that advantage. This may benefit UBC, the UNA and the RCMP, but there’s no doubt that students are left out in the cold in this arrangement.

What’s to be done, you ask? Well, we’re about to have a new AMS president. The the last three years, when students have banded together and actually used their numbers to pressure the government, they’ve been successful. The underground bus loop. High athletic fees. The UBC Farm. The two main candidates for presidential office, Bijan Ahmadian and Natalie Swift, haven’t talked much about UBC’s governance yet. Here’s hoping they do soon.

Vancouver Councilor David Cadman is upset that he is paying his own way to the United Nations Climate Change conference in Copenhagen this week.

On November 13, Metro Vancouver City Council disapproved funding for Cadman to travel to Copenhagen. Funding was also declined for Lois Jackson, chair of Metro Vancouver board, and Joe Trasolini, chair of Metro’s environment committee.

“It basically says Metro Vancouver doesn’t care about sustainability…this group of 22 [municipalities that make up Metro Van] cannot be trusted,” Cadman told The Ubyssey. “It’s a question of lack of trust; if you can’t trust the government to do the things they have committed to do, how can the public trust them?”

Cadman asked for $7749 from Metro Vancouver for $1450 for air travel and the rest in accommodation, food and the conference. Jackson and Transolini proposed costs together added up to approximately $31,000.

“This province…that talks about sustainability goals will not be participating. To me, it’s a petty action taken by petty politicians who like to talk about their concerns and about sustainability but when it comes to forking $1450, they back off,” Cadman added.

Pitt Meadows Mayor Don MacLean, who argued for not funding the trip, declined comment, but stated in The Tri-City News, “I haven’t been supporting these junkets for years….We can’t be isolated from the fact we’re in the tail end of the recession and the concept of $31,000 is a lot of money to taxpayers.”

The total combined global engagement and learning opportunities for Metro Vancouver this year, including travel expenses, totalled $108,700.

Cadman was nominated by the GVRD to serve on the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), a global society of cities promoting sustainability. After three years, Cadman became the president to represent local authorities to the UN Commission on Sustainable Development.

“[Metro Vancouver councilors] are saying ‘we don’t care if we nominated you, we don’t care if you don’t go to this conference, we’re not going to spend a dime for this [conference] and by the way, don’t ever ask us for money again.’”

Some council members said that Cadman had spent too much in the past, while others argued that there were already representatives from BC heading to Copenhagen.
Currently, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and Vancouver-Quadra MP Joyce Murray, are attending the UN Climate Conference. And now, Cadman said he is going to the conference with money from his own pocket.

“I’m not going to let their opinion stand in my way,” he said. “I’ve already bought the ticket, and I’m going.”

Jackson called the decision to disapprove funding “disappointing.”

“The staff’s position to say that, ‘Oh well, there are already other people going, they don’t need to go,’ is not right,” she said. “Mayor Robertson is going…but there are other components to this.

“By having more local representatives will help to make a bigger impact, Jackson added. “If Metro is going to come onto the plate…we can’t do it half-measure. We just can’t stick our toes in the water and expect change to happen.”

“Nobody would be able to speak,” she continued, “but by being there we would be able to forward materials for the senior level government.”

Jackson said having local government representation is important, as it is under their jurisdiction to build sidewalks, manage sewage and water system-all of which directly relate to sustainability.

For Cadman, the environment cannot wait. “We need to make an agreement…if we don’t get an agreement, we lose $1 trillion if we wait another year,” he said, referring to the need for an agreement to be signed between countries at Copenhagen. He added that this conference could result in 12,000 cities reducing their greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent in 2020 and then 80 per cent in 2050.

“I’m going to take a very heavy action and continue to talk about this…that Metro Vancouver is cheap, malicious, and can’t be trusted.”

Related Stories:

“UBC upset by proposal to control campus”
“UBC rejects intrusion onto Campus Plan”

The working group currently will consist of:

Metro Vancouver – 1 member from Regional Development and 1 member from Parks

UBC Campus Planning – 1 member

UBC Properties Trust – 1 member

University Neighbourhood Association (UNA) – 2 members

City Of Vancouver – 1 member

Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure – 1 member

University Endowment Lands (UEL) – 1 member

Alma Mater Society (AMS) – 1 member

Musqueam Band – 1 member

Pacific Spirit Park Society – 1 member

Wreck Beach Preservation Society – 1 member

A Metro Vancouver proposal to install zoning regulations at UBC has raised the ire of university officials, who have warned that any imposition into the university’s traditional autonomy over academic lands would threaten UBC’s freedom.

Metro Vancouver put forward a recommendation to its staff to propose a zoning bylaw for UBC in May. The proposal is to be discussed for the first time at the joint GVRD/UBC committee meeting on November 25. However, UBC has already issued their opposition in an e-mail to all students, staff and faculty, in addition to a press release.

UBC VP External, Legal and Community Relations Stephen Owen told The Ubyssey the proposal is problematic because it places regulations on areas on campus slated for academic land use, such as student housing, laboratories and research facilities.

“It puts seven different zones within the academic area of the campus,” Owen explained. “It’s just an extraordinary constriction on the university’s ability to really maintain its academic and research prominence.”

The university is calling this a violation of “academic freedom.” In 1997, the university and Metro Vancouver agreed upon a Official Community Plan (OCP), which outlines land use designation at UBC and provides other various guidelines for development. However, in 2000 a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between Metro Vancouver and the university, clarifying that Metro Vancouver has control over the development and planning of family housing property, and UBC has control of the development and planning of academic, or institutional, land.

Metro Vancouver is arguing that the OCP needs to be amended to deal with several policy changes UBC has made over the past decade—most notably the current Campus Plan consultations.

“UBC currently acts as the landowner, developer, and approver for the campus lands. This situation…places UBC in a real or perceived conflict of interest on some land use issues,” reads a document presented to the Metro Vancouver Board on November 13.

“The OCP has not yet had a comprehensive review and update, which is normally completed for municipal OCPs every five years….The OCP and the new Campus Plan should also be made consistent.”

However, Owen said that the proposal is a violation of this agreement.

“Why on earth would a board that isn’t directly elected…be telling UBC, its students, staff, board, faculty and its researchers how to develop plans here?” he rhetorically asked.

Bijan Ahmadian, Board of Governors student representative who sits on the joint GVRD/UBC committee, offered his comments on the issue—speaking as a student, and not on behalf of the BoG—and what implications this proposal could have on the university.

“When it comes to academic land use…students and the university have been able to resolve their own issues themselves,” said Ahmadian, adding that the university has been managing its own land use for over a hundred years. “If we had to go through new hoops, new bureaucracy, with a body that is not linked to the university stakeholders, I don’t think that would work in the best interest of the students.

“A lot of institutional development relies on donor funds, and if you have to add another layer of bureaucracy to go through GVRD—which has lengthy processes—then we cannot develop our institutional buildings as quickly as we can.”

Director of Electoral Area A for Metro Vancouver Maria Harris told The Ubyssey that any comments from Metro Vancouver would be premature before the joint GVRD/UBC meeting, as the plans are only at the preliminary stages. She added that Metro Vancouver’s proposal was “not a surprise and not new,” and that while Metro Vancouver is for the idea of zoning on campus, they want to discuss the issue in a working group with the university.

Metro Vancouver has taken a more active legislative role in the past regarding academic land on campus. In 2004, UBC was forced to cut two stories from the original plans for Marine Drive residences because of backlash from the Wreck Beach Preservation Society, as well as reduce the number of towers from six to three. In 2008, Metro Vancouver voiced their support for keeping the UBC Farm at its current size. UBC has long felt that such intrusions by outside groups into decision-making on campus is not helpful.

AMS President Blake Frederick said that he could not comment on what the AMS feels the specific guidelines should be regarding the proposal, but was optimistic that the current conversation would produce positive results for students.

“For years we have been calling for increased governance guidelines fo this campus, particularly around campus planning and the land use provisions,” he said. “We would never want to put the university in the position where academic freedom would be compromised, but we do believe that we should have a larger conversation around land use on campus.

“[However,] we do not think that any bylaw should be implemented that would infringe upon the academic freedom of the university.”
—With files from Katarina Grgic & Larisa Karr

Other Stories:

“UBC upset by proposal to control campus”

UBC administration is upset by Metro Vancouver’s proposal that would regulate and restrict the use of academic land on the UBC Vancouver campus.

The proposal bites at the heels of the recent passing of Bill 13 by the provincial legislature, which amended the University Act to give post-secondary institutions more jurisdiction over their campuses, including allowing them to fine and collect parking tickets.

UBC President Stephen Toope expressed his sentiments in a broadcast e-mail to all students, staff and faculty.

“This is an attempt to intervene in the governance of UBC in a way that could be devastating to our academic freedom,” he said.

“I cannot overemphasize how important it is that UBC continue to fully and responsibly govern its academic land use. The freedom to learn is fundamental to why universities exist, and that freedom must be underpinned by autonomy to decide what, where, and how to study.”

The University Neighbourhoods Association, a governing body that regulates and represents family housing residences on campus, have also expressed their opposition to the proposed bylaw.

Stephen Owen, UBC VP external, egal and community relations, said UBC was “shocked” when Metro Vancouver introduced what they call “a wide-ranging and intrusive document” that included nine new planning zones and additional land regulations for areas that have been set aside for academic purposes for over 100 years.

The university has asked students, staff and faculty to express their support by e-mailing academic.freedom@ubc.ca. The proposal will be discussed at the Electoral Area A board meeting this Friday, as well as a joint UBC/GVRD committee meeting on November 25.

Related Stories:

“UBC rejects intrusion on Campus Plan”

“UBC will not participate in working group with Metro Vancouver”