Noted economist and philosopher Kenneth Boulding postulated a set of theorems on population growth, the first of which is “If the only ultimate check on population is misery, then the population will grow until is it miserable enough to stop its growth.” Having read Sam Cooper’s now (in)famous article “Kelowna’s Image Tarnished” in The Province (Feb. 23, 2013) in which he dealt the city a well-deserved black eye, I’m wondering if the residents of Kelowna are finally miserable enough to act?

Sam Cooper’s article suggested that there may be some relationship between the latest gang-related killings in the Kelowna area and population growth. While some would deny that there is a causal association between population growth and crime, social scientist Mitchell B. Cohen in The Western Criminology Review (May 2004) states that “population size is, by far and away, the single best predictor of the level of violent and property crime.” There is a three-fold dynamic by which this occurs: 1) growth in population results in greater social interaction, some of which may result in criminal activity, 2) urbanization and population growth weaken informal mechanisms of social control which, in turn, result in more crime and delinquency, and 3) the concentration of relatively large numbers of individuals fosters the creation and expansion of deviant subcultures.

Some have also suggested that population growth isn’t so much the problem as is the way that growth is   distributed throughout the community with low densities or sprawl, as it is disparagingly called, being the culprit. However, researcher Keith Harris in the article “An Analysis of the Influence of Population Density (International Journal of Criminal Justice Sciences, July 2006) states that “By and large, the available evidence increasingly tends to suggest that most types of crime tend to increase in levels of occurrence with increasing population density.”

But perhaps most interesting is the relationship between urban density and, specifically, gang-related homicides. David C. Pyrooz in the Journal of Research in Crime and Deliquency (Nov. 2012) writes that “densely populated neighborhoods and cities are conducive to the processes of gang violence” and that “densely populated cities experience higher rates of gang homicide than sparsely populated cities.” Apparently then, densification, “smart growth” or growing “up, not out” will not make Kelowna safer, as some suggest, but will only make crime problems worse!

The only viable solution to Kelowna’s crime problem, then, is to curtail growth. And, as Kelowna’s mayor and council are all supporters of unfettered growth, the first step must be to remove them all from office and replace them with people who put community before profits. Are the residents of Kelowna miserable enough yet to do that or will you wait until you become even more miserable?

The grass really is greener in Boulder

Unlike Kelowna and elsewhere in the Okanagan, there won’t be any watering restrictions in Boulder, Colorado this summer, city officials there have determined. Even though the snowpack in the mountain areas that are the source of Boulder’s municipal water supply was below average this past winter, such restrictions won’t be necessary. This is because Boulder has managed to control its rate of population growth thereby making sure that the demand for water doesn’t outpace the supply. In 1971 residents voted in a public referendum to cap the population growth rate of the city at 2% per year. This was further reduced to 1% in 1995.

Back in 1971 Boulder residents also heard the “growth benefits everyone ” argument that is frequently heard in Kelowna, but saw through it as a ploy by developers and their business allies to profit from endless growth and rejected it. As a result, they have been able to maintain a high quality of life and will be enjoying green lawns this summer. In fact, Boulder frequently ranks in the top ten on the most desirable cities in the U.S. in which to live. Recently, Kelowna was ranked by MoneySense magazine at 115^th on a list of the best cities in Canada.

Boulder residents take sustainability seriously and realize that they cannot outgrow the resources that support their numbers and still be sustainable. In Kelowna sustainability is just a catch-word that has almost no meaning, and Kelowna’s new Official Community Plan is being written without any attempt to keep the future population to a sustainable number. Boulder residents are smart and elect representatives to their city council that will keep their city sustainable and assure the continuation of a high quality of life. Kelowna residents are — well, let’s just say they are easily duped.

LEED Standards Watered Down by Kelowna City Council

It is regrettable that the original standards set for the Central Green project of LEED Gold construction and 20% affordable housing had to be watered down by Kelowna city council. The reason given was the expense of incorporating these features into the project and still giving developers an adequate return on their investment.

This brings me back to the series of open houses that were held prior to selecting a final design for the project. One of the original choices offered the public for this site was a series of four storey buildings equipped with solar-panelled roofs making them energy self-sufficient – a feature which practically by itself guaranteed a LEED Gold designation. As low-rise buildings can be constructed from wood, the cost of construction could have been kept down thereby affording a higher percentage of low-cost housing within the project. But instead of choosing the sensible option, the public backed one of the high-rise designs having been brainwashed for years by groups like Smart Growth BC, the Okanagan Partnership, and the Geography Department at UBCO that the highest residential densities were the most sustainable and these densities could only be achieved through high-rise construction.

Well, at this time I invite all those who participated in the Central Green open houses and selected the final high-rise option that was chosen on the grounds that they thought it would be the most sustainable to give themselves a cranial enema and wash out all the crap that they had heard before, because it is just that – garbage. High-rises are not, repeat NOT, more sustainable than four to six storey buildings no matter what various misguided people, some with very obvious connections to the development industry, tell them. And it is sad that the high standards originally set for the Central Green had to be lowered in order for them to learn this lesson.

The problem with the OCP 2030 Hubs and Spokes option

In its continuing work on developing the 2030 Official Community Plan, the City of Kelowna planning department has generated a refined land use scenario based on the Hubs and Spokes option which was most favoured by the public but also including other popular elements. While this option has some desirable features, more work still needs to be done to make this latest scenario acceptable.

Anyone who has participated in the OCP 2030 planning process knows that the Hubs and Spokes option calls for fewer high-rises than does the present OCP and instead incorporates more mid-rise buildings, an idea with which I concur. But what struck me as odd is that our planners define a mid-rise building as one which is between 5 and 12 storeys. Now, I certainly don’t consider a 12 storey building to be mid-rise and neither do most professionals. The Wikipedia online encyclopedia states that “most building engineers, inspectors, architects and similar professions define a high-rise as a building that is at least 75 feet (23 m) tall” or about 7 storeys. The same source considers a low-rise as being up to 3 storeys which leaves a mid-rise between 4 and 6 storeys.

If most buildings in urban centres are restricted to 6 storeys or less, the reduction in density in urban centres can be compensated for by increasing the density of suburban neighbourhoods. This is the thesis of UBC Professor Emeritus of Architecture John Gaitanakis in his monograph On-Street Housing: The Densification of Single Family Residential Districts, a Sustainable Model for the Future. In this work Gaitanakis writes that rather than build environmentally unsustanable highrises, the density of suburban neighbourhoods could be as much as quadrupled primarily by allowing secondary suites and carriage houses, all without compromising ground orientation or exceeding the capacity of residential streets and services. I believe such a proposal is a workable and equitable solution to distributing an expected increase in population of 45,500 people by 2030 without forfeiting community aesthetics through the construction of unsightly high-rises and without subjecting the residents of urban centres to the negative impacts of crowding and congestion.

Kelowna’s unemployment rate soars — city policy to blame

It was reported that Kelowna’s unemployment rate shot up in May to 11.5% being one of the highest among major Canadian cities and well above both the provincial and national rates of 7.6% and 8.4%, respectively. At 11.5% it is now above the pre-boom peak of 9.1% of 1991.

Mayor Sharon Shepherd attributes this leap in the number of unemployed to a sharp slowdown in building activity and the fact that about one in four jobs locally is related to the construction industry. So much for Economic Development Commission Chairman Robert Fine’s claim that the local economy has been successfully diversified. The truth is that it has become dangerously dependent on the construction sector in recent years as a result of Kelowna city council not putting controls on the pace of development and allowing the free market to determine our rate of growth. And whenever controls are foregone in favour of a laissez faire policy, rather than there being a moderate expansion, one can expect boom to be followed by bust.

However, the fallout from all this will not just be a personal problem for those who have lost their jobs but will be felt by the entire community. Sociologists universally agree that a rise in unemployment results in a higher crime rate and an increase in alcoholism, family breakdown, mental illness and suicide. And although a relatively small number have reaped most of the benefits of Kelowna’s boom, we will all be paying for the bust. As we watch the statistics that track social disorganization tick upwards in the weeks and months ahead, we should all remember those short-sighted men and women who have sat on city council for the past decade and have encouraged this to happen. If they have gotten any of the credit for the good times, they should receive their fair share of the blame for the bad.

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27 storey highrise on Barnard Avenue approved by stealth

I am very disturbed by Kelowna City Council’s recent decision to approve the application for a 27 storey building (a 12 storey height addition on top of 15 storeys that were already allowable under the existing zoning) at the site owned by Aquilini Development on the 400 block of Bernard Avenue. It is preposterous to treat a proposal to increase the height of a building by 77 percent as a routine application for a height variance as if it was only an additional one or two storeys being requested, yet that is precisely what was done in this case.  What the developer did here was make an end run around the present Zoning Bylaw and Downtown Plan, and a complicit city planning department, Advisory Planning Commission, and city council let him do exactly that instead of requiring that changes be made to those two planning documents with the full consultation of the public. How easy it is to get your way if you are a developer in Kelowna, especially if you have greased the palm of several city councillors by contributing to their election campaigns!

 

By caving into this developer, our city council has managed to significantly change the character of the downtown in much the same way as the Downtown CD Zone (21) would have done by setting a new standard for building heights which every developer from here on in will be demanding for their own projects there. No less important than the CD Zone because of its character-changing impact, the Aquilini proposal in contrast hardly received any public scrutiny or opportunity for public comment. That the item was on the agenda at the April 7 city council meeting was unadvertised and unbeknownst to all except those who regularly read the agendas for future city council meetings on the city’s website. I would venture to guess that 99.9% of the public were thus unaware that they had the opportunity to address city council on this important application that evening.

 

Compounding the egregious nature of the offense was the way the meeting was conducted. With a full agenda and the Aquilini application being the next to last item, city council did not begin to hear presentations on that item until around midnight. Council had an option to adjourn the meeting at 11:00pm considering the lateness of the hour, but Councillor Charlie Hodge moved that council press on. After all, there were still development applications to approve and no one on council wanted to stand in the way of “progress” even if it meant that the public gallery would be empty. Consequently, council approved a precedent setting and city character-changing development that the public was largely unaware was coming before them that evening and at an hour when nearly every member of the public was absent. But that is the way that city council conducts its business in Kelowna and, unfortunately, gets away with it.

Graeme James — Kelowna’s saviour of agricultural land

When Kelowna City Councillor Graeme James ran as a candidate last fall on the issue of protecting agricultural land in the city, I thought he was creating a false issue as there are adequate protections in place to preserve agricultural land, specifically the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR). How surprised I was then to learn that at a recent city council meeting at his first opportunity to rule on whether to continue to protect some viable agricultural land in the case of the Stober property on Dilworth Mountain that Councillor James voted to recommend to the Agricultural Land Commission that this property be removed from the ALR. So instead of carrying out his election promise, James here favoured developing some of the agricultural land that he campaigned to protect.

But then I never took his election grandstanding concerning protecting agricultural land seriously, knowing James to be another anything-goes-development type in which he neatly fills the empty shoes of Carol Gran and joins like-minded councillors Andre Blanleil and Brian Given on council. It can be seriously questioned whether James who essentially bought his seat on city council having spent over $16,500 in his election bid, which was more than five times the average amount spent by councillor candidates, would have won otherwise. But now that he has gotten his foot in the door, he will likely enjoy a long career on council as Kelowna voters being a timid lot by nature don’t like to throw out incumbents no matter how bad their performance might be. It seems that the electorate prefers the devil that they know on council rather than take a chance on change, the only problem being that as a result they usually end up with a lot of devils.

Home is where the heart is

I recently returned from an extended stay in San Diego County, California where I visited the cities of Encinitas and Carlsbad before concluding my travels with a trip to Santa Barbara in the central part of that state. Not unlike Kelowna, each of these cities is in an incredible natural setting with an abundance of beauty, but their urban planning and response to growth has been markedly different from that of our city.

Rather than capitulate to the mindless notion promoted by the development community and its allies in the city administration, the media and at UBC-O that growth is inevitable and that the only logical response is to channel growth to high density urban centres, each community has successfully controlled growth in its own way. Encinitas has limited the number of building permits issued annually, Carlsbad has required that adequate infrastructure and public services are in place before allowing growth to occur, and Santa Barbara has controlled growth by adhering to strict zoning regulations. Furthermore, each of these cities has imposed sensible building height restrictions and has said “no” to highrises.

As a result, each has retained its community character and quality of life while Kelowna is losing its. Encinitas, for example, has recently built a new library with a magnificent panoramaic view of the Pacific Ocean. At one time, one could enjoy a splendid view of the mountains to the east from Kelowna’s downtown library, but now you cannot see the mountains from there for all of the highrises in the way. The construction of highrises would never be permitted in activist-oriented Encinitas as the majority of the public there is concerned about the preservation of its community character. In apathetic Kelowna, the majority of the public doesn’t care enough to vote in a civic election.

In Santa Barbara there presently is a vigorous debate over building heights but not over raising them as one might expect, but rather of lowering allowable heights from the present limit of 60 feet to 45 feet as many feel that even allowing too many 60 foot buildings threatens their community character. Although tourism is an important industry in both Santa Barbara and Kelowna, in the former city the business community is supportive of strict restrictions on development because it realizes that preserving community character is in its best interests. In Kelowna, however, the business community is short-sighted and blinded by its greed unable to see that the construction of highrises along the lakefront will kill the golden goose of tourism.

I am deeply disappointed by the lack of concern in Kelowna for preserving its community character and quality of life as it marches on seemingly hell-bent on destroying its uniqueness and becoming just another generic city full of highrises. One can only blame politicians for so long before one has to point the finger at those self-serving or ignorant residents who keep re-electing the people who are responsible for this state of affairs or electing others who are basically no different from them.

I am looking forward to spending more time in the future in the cities of Encinitas, Carlsbad, and Santa Barbara as the values of its residents are closer to my own. And when I’m there, I will make sure to spend lots of my retirement dollars to help support business people who appreciate their community character and have taken steps to preserve it. Although I will continue to reside in Kelowna, if there is any truth in the adage “home is where the heart is,” then my real home is elsewhere

Voting at the malls — do your shopping and buy a Blanleil and a Given while you’re there

At its last meeting Kelowna City Council discussed reviving the idea of allowing voters to cast ballots at the malls. They better not leave out WalMart as a lot of residents go there too. And let’s also not forget places of recreation like golf courses. After all, people move to Kelowna for fun and leisure and not to get involved in community affairs, as I’ve been told by some such people myself.  Perhaps we can even have mobile units manned with election workers to make house calls for anyone who just doesn’t want to get off their duffs and go to a polling station. That should be a big hit with those who are too lazy or apathetic to leave their homes.

 

No, city council has come up with another clunker of an idea which will just treat the symptoms of the problem rather than the underlying cause, that being a general lack of interest of the populace in community affairs. Artificially boosting the voter turnout by making it even easier than it already is to cast a ballot won’t rejuvenate such interest and will only result in the election of candidates whose names have broad voter recognition like the incumbents. But perhaps that is why city council likes the idea.

 

To get to the cause of voter apathy would require an examination of the type of community that Kelowna has become in the past decade and why, and to take steps to rectify the problem. And that would be a much bigger task that just setting up a few more polling stations, and would require the admission that many mistakes in community building (or the lack thereof) have been made along the way. I doubt that even the new city council is up to that task as it mostly shares the same old thinking of previous councils on matters such as growth and development.  No, failing taking some radical steps i.e., getting to the root of the problem, council should just leave things as they are which is that those people who care enough about their community to make the effort to travel about three blocks to the nearest polling station get to choose its political representatives.