Vancouver hires former San Francisco city planner

Theglobeandmail.com
Aug. 2, 2016
By Frances Bula

Vancouver has plucked a new chief planner from another North American city struggling with high housing prices and intense battles over gentrification and density.

After months of delay, the city announced on Tuesday that San Francisco’s recent director of citywide planning, Gil Kelley, will become Vancouver’s chief planner and general manager of the new department of planning, urban design and sustainability. He will start work on Sept. 15.

“Gil will help take Vancouver to the next level in becoming a greener, more affordable and inclusive city,” Mayor Gregor Robertson said in a prepared statement. “Gil’s extensive experience in cities like San Francisco and Portland is highly valuable at a time when Vancouver is facing an affordability challenge like never before.”

As in Vancouver, San Francisco has seen double-digit annual increases in home prices that have made the city among the most expensive in the United States.

The announcement is the latest in a series of changes in top management at the city during the past year. Vancouver’s previous planning head, Brian Jackson, retired last November. Since then, builders of both large and small projects have complained that processing times have become impossibly long.

Mr. Jackson’s departure, combined with such changes as the mayor’s decision to replace city manager Penny Ballem, meant that five top positions at the city have changed in the last year.

Some of the changes are part of Mr. Robertson’s effort to fulfill a campaign promise to make his Vision Vancouver party more responsive to communities and more open to consultation about development.

Vancouver has seen an unprecedented level of opposition to development in recent years, as available room in the city’s old industrial lands around the downtown has run out and builders have moved into established neighbourhoods.

Resident groups have sprung up to oppose individual projects and entire neighbourhood plans. They have frequently complained that the city is driving through projects while paying lip service to community objections.

The city’s news release said that Mr. Kelley’s work in San Francisco “included preparation of a new citywide transportation plan, development of policies and strategies to advance affordable housing preservation and development, a waterfront plan that includes a long-term strategy for addressing sea-level rise and public access.”

He has also “overseen a new community development function focused primarily on stabilization strategies for neighbourhoods in extreme tension (gentrification and displacement), as well as under-served communities.”

Before working in San Francisco, Mr. Kelley was the director of planning for Portland, Ore., a city that many Vancouver urbanists have seen as a model for neighbourhood consultation and development.