A meeting held by the GVRD/UBC Joint Committee last Wednesday gave way to debates surrounding the governance and land use provisions at UBC campus.
Approximately 30 UBC staff, students and residents showed up to the first public discussion between UBC and Metro Vancouver since Metro Vancouver released their proposed zoning bylaw on the Vancouver campus. There were delegations from the AMS, University Neighbourhoods Association, CUPE local 116 and residents of University Town.
Burnaby mayor Derek Corrigan was invited to sit at the table to explain Metro Vancouver’s position and to provide context for the recent bylaw proposal. Metro Vancouver is vying for more say in zoning and land use provisions that currently remain under the jurisdiction of the UBC Board of Governors (BoG) under a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and the Official Community Plan (OCP) negotiated between the two groups.
Corrigan said that Metro has become the body to which UBC residents and students go to protest campus land issues, given that Metro guides development for the region under the OCP. However, Metro has found that their OCP wasn’t necessarily binding unless zoning bylaws were attached.
“We are not prepared to continue with the status quo,” he said. “It leaves us accountable for things we have no control [over].
“We decided clearly that one of two things happen: either we govern or we don’t govern. No more in between.”
BoG member Andrew Irvine said that the proposal for a takeover is a dangerous one. “To have Metro become the local government is the worst option,” he said. “It would be disastrous to have a body that has no connection with the institution to have control…and most damaging would be to have these two layers of overlapping bureaucracy.” Irvine suggested that the MOU, which he said “has been working very well,” should remain in place.
Corrigan viewed UBC President Stephen Toope’s letter citing Metro’s bylaw proposal as an attack on academic freedom as “a little over the top.”
“If you don’t want us to be your local government,” he said, “be your own local government.”
Irvine asked whether this meant that Metro was unilaterally breaking the MOU. Corrigan responded that it was up for interpretation, while Maria Harris, director for Electoral Area A, said that it was ambiguous but that the MOU will stay in place until there is further discussion.
When requests for another meeting were proposed by Metro, BoG member Susan Yurkovich said that the BoG should be given the courtesy of being briefed, and that further discussion with Metro would be adequately done through e-mail, and would not require another scheduled meeting.
“I think there is probably a way that we could figure out how to move through it, whatever this next awkward period would be, that doesn’t lose all the good things that are happening, and lose the relationship as it is. If we can ask people to go back and see what that looks like…that would be best,” said Yurkovich.
Harris saw the importance of airing grievances. “What we’ve all benefited from tonight is seeing where others are coming from,” she said.
“The question isn’t about what we adopt,” said Andrea Reimer, a member of Metro Vancouver’s Board of Directors, “but that we get Metro in a comfortable place…and keep all the good things going at UBC.”
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