The City of North Vancouver now has final approval to borrow up to $55.7 million to build a new North Shore Neighbourhood House and complete two parks.
It follows an “alternative approval process,” which works a bit like a reverse referendum. Opponents charged that the loan is too large, that the process was sloppy and that it was all undemocratic.
We would argue it is in fact too democratic.
Every other decision in replacing a major asset like North Shore Neighbourhood House is within the jurisdiction of an elected council. Making the funding subject to this process yields no further democratic legitimacy, but it does unnecessarily inflame the community.
We note it is the province that imposes this burden on cities, but the province can itself run structural deficits without any other voter approval than the last election.
Had the opponents in this AAP been successful, it would have required either an expensive referendum for the North Shore Neighbourhood House project to proceed, or put the project on hold until some new plan could be found – as if there is a giant pool of money elsewhere for council to dip into.
The fact is previous generations found a way to create and pay for a valuable community facility that has reached the end of its life, and now it is our turn. If we were to lose North Shore Neighbourhood House, it would have resulted in parents losing child care, seniors losing vital connections, and the vulnerable losing services that make life bearable.
And the human cost that they would pay is far higher than the financial one the rest of us will.
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