The 2025 Vancouver by-election is about many problems but only one Issue— open communications between government and governed—Part 2

CC#146—Hiding Neighbourhood Destruction by ignoring Standards of Maintenance

There is only one issue in this by election

My son asked: “I thought we were going to talk about the mess of homelessness and associated drug and mental health issues?”

We were carrying on with our discussion about the lack of open communications between government and its citizens as the single issue in the upcoming Vancouver by election.

“A mess it truly is,” I responded, “and we’ll get to that important subject. But just last night I was at a neighbourhood meeting of about 50 Vancouver residents at 5455 Balsam Street that illustrated another open communications mess—the destruction of neighbourhoods one building at a time, through city hall’s quiet refusal to enforce its Standards of Maintenance By-Law until too late. The demolition of the SRO last weekend at 500 Dunsmuir is getting the press, but there are many buildings such as 5455 Balsam Street all across the city where apparently deliberate landlord neglect is leading to unhealthy conditions that city staff apparently say they lack the resources to deal with.”

“Is this situation widespread?” he asked after a moment’s reflection.

“Anecdotally, yes,” I replied. He gave me his huh look. “The city’s Chief Building Official recently reported to City Council that he has no list of how many buildings are being left to crumble. Apparently he needs more staff and Council direction to enforce the City’s Standards of Maintenance Bylaw (SOM). Meanwhile an unknown number of buildings of all types are quietly deteriorating, creating hazards for their occupants, visitors and passersby.”

He gave me his there must be more? look so I continued. “It gets worse. On the one hand, City Council has the ability to charge an owner $300,000 for each Single Room Occupancy (SRO) home that is lost to neglect or demolition. But most demolition due to neglect seems not to attract any penalty.”

On a roll, I continued. “The $300,000/unit penalty, if enforced, only applies to SROs, BUT city staff have powers to enforce SOM provisions, but apparently seldom do. The meeting I attended last night occurred in a building so neglected that I could see issues like spalling concrete—that’s where bits or chunks of concrete disintegrate and fall off a building— in the dark from the sidewalk as I left the meeting. On the one hand, the locations I picked out in the dark look like they will not bean residents or passersby—yet. But is that the kind of buildings we want?”

My son interrupted. “So what’s the solution?”

“The shorter term solution,” I suggested, “is to complain—which the residents of 5455 Balsam have been doing, so far to no avail. Interestingly, there is no “file a complaint” option on the city’s SOM web page, so I would start at the top, with Mayor and Council. If there are enough ordinary citizens complaining about enough addresses, perhaps things will change. One can but hope,” I ended with a thin smile.

“You’ve complained to me previously that it’s hard to get Council’s attention,” he responded, “ so what should a citizen who sees an issue do?”

“Firstly, email Mayor and Council at https://vancouver.ca/your-government/contact-council.aspx —that was a hard email address to find! The fine print says city staff may respond, but enough volume may cause them to bring it to Council. Get your friends and other building residents to also send an email.”

I continued. “The form at that address lets you upload pictures quite easily, so attach them. If you don’t have them, take them with any smartphone. Include a picture showing your building’s address. Try to include the most obvious/alarming/dangerous images.”

“To test this out, I created my own email submission—no images because too dark, but the rest is real and was submitted:”

“Start with the information they request. Note that as you type in an address, a dropdown list will appear from which you need to select the subject address to have it recorded.”

“Then get into the specifics—use any of my words you like:”

“For Neighbourhood I would use the neighbourhood of the building you’re writing about. If you have images, use the Drag and Drop or Add files to add them.”

“Then they want information about you:”

“But Dad,” he observed, “this is not your building!”

“But I am a resident of Vancouver. If I see something wrong, I can report it regardless.”

“Back to submitting,” I continued. The Next button will take you to a summary:”

“Good to read because you can go Back if you made an error or want to add more. When you hit the Submit button you get a confirmation:”

“And that’s it!” I concluded.

“What if that does not work?” he asked.

“When you get your confirming email, send it to your friends and neighbours—perhaps they’ll also chime in. Thinking about it, if the city won’t create a register of SOM issues, perhaps we should. So if anyone copies me with their email confirmation, I’ll see if I cans set up a citizens’ database and perhaps publicize it, including any resulting city action.”

I concluded: “The residents of 5455 Balsam held a march and rally this past summer, which garnered some media attention. I’m sure they will question all candidates in the upcoming by-election about their intentions around maintaining the rental buildings in this city of ours. Hopefully residents throughout the city will do the same.”

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The post above is about 880 words, way more than the three minutes that Vancouver City Council now permits for public presentations at its meetings.

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Brian Palmquist writes on the traditional, ancestral and unceded lands of the Musqueam people. He is a Vancouver-based architect, building envelope and building code consultant and LEED Accredited Professional (the first green building system). He is semi-retired, still teaching, writing and consulting a bit, but not beholden to any client or city hall. These conversations mix real discussion with research and observations based on a 50-year career including the planning, design and construction of almost every type and scale of project. He is the author of the Amazon best seller and AIBC Construction Administration course text, “An Architect’s Guide to Construction.” A glutton for punishment, he recently started writing a book about how we can Embrace, Enhance and Evolve the places we love to live.