North Vancouver’s two mayors met at the intersection of traffic congestion and housing unaffordability Wednesday.
City Mayor Darrell Mussatto and District Mayor Richard Walton were on stage at the Seymour Golf & Country Club for the annual North Vancouver Chamber of Commerce Mayors’ Luncheon.
Though the annual chin-wag with the business community is typically more about traffic and taxes, Mussatto quickly addressed the “elephant in the room” – an incident at council on December 15. When discussing elephant feet crossings for cyclists, Mussatto had said, “Is camel toe the same as elephant feet?”
“I apologize for those (remarks). I apologize to the people I offended and it will not happen again,” Mussatto told chamber members.
'Too expensive to live'
Down to business though, Mussatto spoke to the trouble businesses on the North Shore are now having. A survey by the chamber last month showed 40 per cent of its members were considering relocating off the North Shore because of frustration over congestion or inability to hire and retain staff.
“They all say we can’t get enough workers to come here because it’s too expensive to live here and if they’re going to work at a Starbucks, they might as well work at the one in Surrey where they live and not the one in North Vancouver,” Mussatto said.
The city has been adding to its housing supply, Mussatto said, so that more people working here might have the chance to live here. “Every morning, there are more people coming onto the North Shore than leaving.”
Walton agreed, and said the blame for traffic is often misplaced. “People see towers going up and they tend to light their hair on fire and they get caught in a traffic jam and link the two. It’s a lot more complicated than that,” he said.
The high quality of life on the North Shore means its real estate will always be in high demand, regardless of how much supply we add, Walton said, but the district is now trying to include affordable housing in all new projects approved by council.
Similarly, the city has made progress with its new “10-10-10” rule whereby 10 per cent of new units must be rented at 10 per cent below the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.’s average rents for the community for 10 years, Mussatto said.
Speeding up commutes
And there is help on the way for commuters, Mussatto said, with the North Shore Transportation Planning Project expected to produce their first report this June, which will likely include some big ideas for speeding up our commutes.
Mussatto praised Walton for his work in advocating for mobility pricing, which the province is now studying.
“Road tolling is the most effective. It’s the cheapest. It’s the fastest way to make major changes in your transportation network,” he said. “The challenge you have is it’s the least liked by the public.”
Persuading just 10 to 15 per cent of drivers to carpool, take transit or avoid chokepoints at rush hour would make a drastic change, Walton said.
“It’s been proven in cities all over the world. It’s tough medicine but it’s going to come whether it comes in our political lifetime or whether it comes 10 years from now. It’s coming,” he said.
Things aren’t just getting harder for commuters though. Businesses themselves are bracing for a spike in their municipal taxes this year thanks to an explosion in land values for commercial and industrial properties. Walton said the district will try to set its industrial mill rate competitively with other municipalities. Mussatto said he favours shifting more of the tax burden off the industrial and onto the residential class.
For those waiting to hear whether this would be the last time the two would share the chamber’s stage, neither of the multi-term mayors were ready to say whether they’d run for office again in this fall’s municipal elections.
Mussatto said he will be making up his mind “very shortly,” while Walton pledged he would make his plans known in the next six weeks.
