WATCHING its barely concealed dysfunction from the outside, one has the feeling City of North Vancouver council is trying - and failing - to please too many masters.
Not only that, it is falling short of its own goals for the community.
If that impression is the truth, the danger for residents and other taxpayers is that complex, often urgent matters will be stalled or decided one-by-one, each in isolation from the others. If council's decision-making continues to be compromised by dissension, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a spectacular North Vancouver-wide vision would be lost.
But what if Mayor Darrell Mussatto and council were to sit back, take a deep breath and begin anew - this time using a holistic approach?
To do that, they would first need to acknowledge the essential nature of the entire community and the interdependence of each of our communities' component characteristics.
The logical place to begin is with the city's new official community plan due this December.
But as usually happens just prior to ratification of a new OCP, major property owners, including North Vancouver school district, have been increasing their pressure on council to make immediate decisions in their favour on several community-altering proposals.
Everything is on the table, from council's own need to renew or replace Harry Jerome facilities, to the desire of the school board to re-zone and dispose of public lands it says are "surplus to its needs."
To that can be added the overbearing Onni/RPMG proposals for the Safeway site; the pressure from Port Metro Vancouver that it be allowed to expand its operations along the Low Level Road, and the determination of ConcertKnightsbridge properties to have the city convert Harbourside commerciallight industrial zoning into multi-family residential. Another waterfront density factor, rarely acknowledged, is the Squamish Nation's redevelopment plans for Mosquito Creek Marina.
So serious is the situation that one member of council totally forgot that when people believe they are not being listened to and respected, anger develops.
When people become incensed because they think their concerns are being ignored, wise governments - and their staffs - pay attention. That's why last November's concerns raised by voters in the Harry Jerome area resulted in the muchdelayed renewal initiatives being booted over for resolution by a new council.
All signs suggest that individuals and community associations alike are headed for similar push-backs on other major issues.
The universal message to council, school trustees and developers seems to be: You don't get to mess with our neighbourhoods, our schools or our school lands without including us as equals in the discussion.
These unpleasant rifts within city council and between council and its component and wider communities must be ended if any type of all-encompassing vision is to be achieved.
When Simon Fraser University refers to its "complete community" atop Burnaby Mountain, it means five neighbourhoods with more in the works.
Already there are schools, parks, conservation areas, shops, restaurants and more.
Walkable neighbourhoods run the gamut of studio apartments, single and multi-family homes, many of which can be considered truly affordable to buy or to rent.
At "full build-out" the community will have about 10,000 residents.
Most important for North Vancouver consideration was the April opening of the 50space UniverCity Childcare Centre - an expandable "living building" facility that cost less than $3.5 million to build because it sits on community-owned lands. (Do I hear Lucas Centre?)
Based on the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education, and added to a LEED Gold elementary school and Burnaby Mountain secondary, the centre completes the range of educational opportunities from daycare to university graduation. Not bad for a community that was a mere gleam in the eyes of then SFU President John Stubbs and Burnaby Mayor William Copeland just 17 short years ago.
If we want it to be, given open minds on the part of our councils, school districts and other interested groups, the SFU vision could be just as relevant here on the North Shore, particularly for Capilano University which has already asked city council for a minimum of 12,000 square feet for a Harbourside campus.
To be sure, SFU planners and developers had the advantage of beginning planning their UniverCity on a clean slate and on lands that could be leased rather than purchased.
Nevertheless, they are showing how much can be achieved given environmental sensitivity and a determination to look at the whole picture rather than the immediacy of the proposal on the table.
The North Shore should be what it always was and could be again - a community for the young and the not so young; the rich and the poor, the able and less able.
All it takes is good will and that politically overused but important word: vision.
