The Riverview argument is really about who gets to stay
Density is the language council is using. Tenure is the thing the hearing is actually about.
The hearing on the Riverview lands will be conducted in the language of density: floor space ratios, unit counts, height in storeys. That is the language the Local Government Act gives councils, and it is a poor fit for what the room will actually be arguing about.
The question underneath is tenure. A thousand units of market strata and a thousand units with rent controls attached produce identical numbers in a staff report and entirely different towns a decade later. Only one of them keeps the people who work in the hospital that is being rebuilt next door.
Council has the tools to ask for the second kind. Inclusionary policy, density bonusing, land it already owns — the province handed this city an unusual amount of leverage in March, and leverage expires the moment a bylaw is adopted.
Three evenings of submissions is a serious hearing, and the board welcomes it. We would only ask that someone at the table say the quiet part: this is not a debate about how tall. It is a debate about who gets to stay.
