The chair of Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim’s budget task force has identified the city’s only zero-carbon fire hall and Hastings Park as assets that are not maximizing their values to generate money for city coffers.
Randy Pratt pointed to the fire hall on Knight Street and Hastings Park when asked Tuesday by reporters to give examples of properties that are not generating recurring cash flow — a concern raised by the task force in its report released Jan. 18.
“I get it — its leading edge and it's beautiful, but there's an example of an underutilized asset,” said Pratt of the No. 17 fire hall, which cost $25 million to build.
“You go to any other major city — certainly back east in the northeast United States — their fire halls are on the ground floor of other buildings. They have adjacent uses and alternative uses, and overhead use was another example.”
The fire hall at 55th Avenue and Knight Street opened in April 2022 and is believed to be Canada’s first ever zero-carbon hall. It includes a rooftop of solar panels and is built to internationally-recognized Passive House standards.
Unlike the No. 5 fire hall in Champlain Heights, which added social housing above the hall in its redevelopment, the Knight Street hall is a stand-alone facility, although it was built to serve as a communications hub in the event of an earthquake or another disaster.
'Underutilized in many different ways'
Hastings Park, one of the city’s largest urban parks and home to the Pacific National Exhibition and Empire Fields, is also not operating under its “highest and best use,” suggested Pratt, prior to giving a presentation on the task force’s report to city council.
“This is a personal comment, not a task force comment: is that land properly utilized?” he said of Hastings Park. “Are there lots of naming right opportunities for the exhibition grounds and stuff? Certainly. It's underutilized in many different ways.”
An example, he said, of a property maximizing its full potential is an $81-million project in Coal Harbour that includes social housing, a school and child care. The city has owned the land since 1996 and is already home to a community centre.
Property tax hikes
Pratt’s visit to city hall Tuesday capped the end of his team’s lengthy investigation into the city’s finances, which occurred with the cooperation of city staff, who were present to hear the presentation but did not comment on the findings.
The mayor created the task force in April 2023 with a mandate to review the city’s operating and capital budgets “with a fine-tooth comb” and recommend ways tax dollars can be spent “more efficiently and responsibly.”
The volunteer group made 17 recommendations aimed at “ensuring the city’s long-term sustainability and prosperity.” Council raised property taxes by 10.7 per cent last year and approved a 7.5 per cent hike this year — hikes that Pratt said are not sustainable.
Also not sustainable, he added, is the amount of money the city spends in areas that fall under the jurisdiction of the provincial and federal governments such as health care, housing, mental health, drug addiction and child care.
Estimates are that in 2023 alone, the City of Vancouver spent more than $150 million in operating expenses and more than $230 million in capital expenditures outside of traditional service areas.
Wouldn't leave people 'in the lurch'
Pratt told council that he wasn’t suggesting investments be rolled back but that continued lobbying of senior governments is a must to avoid the city taking on a financial load that it cannot afford.
“We wouldn't leave these [vulnerable] people in the lurch,” he said.
“However — and this is a challenge to council — you are elected not to be re-elected in four or five years. You're elected to take courageous, difficult leadership questions and tackle them.”
Pratt highlighted the city’s $5.7-billion property endowment fund as holding significant untapped value. The fund was established in 1975 to hold strategic land purchases separate from ongoing city operations.
The task force report said a small portion of the fund currently generates recurring cash flows, contributing only $13 million in dividends to fund the city’s operations in 2023, which equates to a mere 0.2 per cent cash yield.
“With a current assessed value of roughly $5.7 billion, the [fund’s] assets hold the potential to provide substantial future income streams, offering a viable means to help fund the city’s operations and infrastructure needs while reducing dependence on property taxes,” the report said.
“For perspective, each additional $10 million in dividends currently translates to an approximate one per cent reduction in property taxes.”
Pratt identified UBC Properties Trust as a better model of how the fund could maximize its value. The trust has grown from $100 million in assets in the 1980s to more than $2 billion in assets and is generating positive cash flows for the university.
City's 'non-core assets'
Some of the recommendations in the task force’s report created concerns for councillors and citizens who commented in media stories and on social media platforms about the city’s “non-core assets” being sold.
Pratt said several times during his exchange with councillors that the task force was not recommending selling “non-core assets” such as community centres, theatres and parks.
However, unleased office space owned by the city and its fibre-optic network — which has excess capacity — could be considered areas for the city to divest.
“Let's be clear — we're not recommending the sale of assets, we're recommending that an examination of each of the funds be undertaken,” he said.
“In the case of a capital fund, one of the obvious things is to either acquire assets…or consider the sale of them if they're not important. That's where our recommendation stops.”
Council ended its meeting by agreeing to create an “implementation oversight committee” to explore the recommendations in the task force’s report. Recommendations from the committee would then be brought back before council, with an opportunity for public input.
The mayor said he introduced the motion for an oversight committee so that the task force report wouldn’t be “left on a shelf to gather dust.”
“This is a generational thing,” Sim said. “This will live beyond this council, I'm sure.”
The task force's report and recommendations can be read in full, online.
