Former Mayor Sam Sullivan was one of the last people to hear from his predecessor Tom Campbell. Here he recounts meeting Campbell and reflects on his legacy. Thank to the Global Civic Policy Society for letting us share this post with our readers…
Environmental concerns lead many to believe that the ideal city should have a very high density core with pockets of high density throughout the surrounding suburbs. I discovered that this ideal was exactly the city we were achieving many years ago.
In the 1960s the neighborhood of single detached houses in the West End made way for over 200 residential towers. In pockets around the city like Kerrisdale, Kitsilano, near UBC, residential towers arose providing housing for seniors and young people, dramatically improving neighborhood environmental performance, increasing social diversity and keeping the price of housing in check. I was awestruck that any city government could have achieved this.
I came to understand that it was under the government of Tom Campbell that most of this was achieved. Strange. The writers of Vancouver history have always told a less than flattering story of him. As much as I searched I couldn’t find anything in the “official canon” that said much positive about this period. His was an era of political insensitivity and avarice and its end ushered in the “livable city”.
But the more I looked certain myths of the past seemed to dissolve. The election that replaced him is portrayed as about whether or not to build a freeway through the city. I have looked through the newspaper articles from that campaign and have found no mention of a freeway. The great freeway debates happened in the 1960s and the idea had been dead for some time.
What I did read was a lot about the West End and other developments. Most of the political parties opposed additional density in the West End and thought it was a terrible mistake in the first place. There was a big push from landowning residents to stop other people from finding housing in new developments like the Arbutus Mall. With the benefit of time we now understand that the end of the Tom Campbell era brought us rampant sprawl and community-destroying high house prices.
I became convinced I needed to talk with Tom Campbell. Several knowledgeable people believed he had passed away years earlier. My friend Chuck Davis insisted he was still with us but had given virtually no interviews since he left office.
I was in the Vancouver Archives building which was constructed under his watch reading Minutes from his Council meetings when I decided to wander into the green residential tower on the south side of the Burrard Bridge. I knew that Tom Campbell had built this building and that it currently provides one of the few affordable residences in that neighborhood. The people in the building had not heard of him but I got a contact for the management company. Eventually I talked to his son who told me his father was doing very well but didn’t do interviews. I left him my cell number.
Several weeks later I got a call from Tom Campbell himself. He was very clear to me that he didn’t want anything written about him. He said that when he was the Mayor it was his job to be in the media and like everything else he did in life, he did it with gusto. There was now no reason for him to be quoted. We had a wide ranging conversation about city government in the 1960s and how things used to be done. We spoke about the two efforts by professional planners to stop the West End which would have exacerbated sprawl. I told him that I believed that in terms of land use he had been leading the city in the right direction and that I hoped history would recognize him properly. He was clearly not interested in what historians thought.
Tom Campbell would probably agree with Henry Ford’s comment that “history is bunk”. I wondered if in some profound way he was right. There is no doubt that what came after him like the emphasis on the public realm and more voices in political decisions was positive and wonderful. And for those who bought homes early enough the “livable city” was a great achievement. For everyone else and for the local and global environment the outcome is less clear.
Our conversation ended too quickly. I had wanted to ask him about who was behind the freeway initiative, him or his Director of Planning Gerald Sutton Brown. In cities throughout North America it was professional planners who led the effort to build them. It seemed unlikely that such a government project would be his idea.
Tom Campbell’s city was one where the free market mattered and the signals of the price system were taken seriously. The exuberant and chaotic free market was expressed in the loud and boisterous neon signs that were cleansed shortly after him. Affordable housing was not achieved by creating “special” buildings with taxpayer money in a certain neighborhood for specific people but by allowing the forces of supply and demand and the inventiveness of design professionals to provide affordability through abundance. And as in every other industry that has delivered us unparalleled prosperity, it wasn’t a bad thing if someone made money doing it.
Perhaps I have a soft spot for an outsider from the Eastside who led a Westside-based party. Perhaps an admiration for a politician who genuinely couldn’t give a whit about what the chattering class thought about him. How refreshing when held up against a whole industry of hand-wringers whose sense of self-worth is dependent on the article written that morning. Here was a man who had opinions and was not afraid of expressing them.
They don’t make them like that anymore. The city is a better place because of him.
- post by Sam Sullivan. Follow the Global Civic Policy Society on Twitter.
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Interesting article. I’ve often wondered how Vancouverites of the time reacted to the vast redevelopment that swept the West End was. Certainly Campbell and the other developers who got the ball rolling created a neighbourhood unique in North America. And one that, with its lawns etc., seems to have a more human scale than Downtown South. And though revionist like cast TEAM as the touchy-feely urbanists, False Creek South has always had a sleepy, cut-off resort feel to me.
“There was a big push from landowning residents to stop other people from finding housing in new developments like the Arbutus Mall.”
Sam Sullivan shows yet again that he has the ability to twist the facts to suit his own peculiar reality.
The Quilchena area, in which the Arbutus Shopping Centre is located, has about 1500 units of housing, mostly condos, apartments, and seniors residences, within a short walking distance of the Shopping Centre. What it doesn’t have (and now will never have) are the shops and services necessary to serve those residents. So thanks to Sam and his Council’s inability to comprehend this, all residents now and in the future will have to drive at least a mile for shops and services, instead of having them in their own neighbourhood. To claim that “landowning residents were trying to stop people from finding housing in new developments” is pure BS!
But Sam likes to push this because he overrode the residents objections to this development by using his EcoDensity Charter, and claiming that he was in favour of developing this site for the good of the “environment”.
Unfortunately, what he said was good for the environment was to build 500 condos on top of a stream channel, thereby putting all neighbouring residences at risk of flooding – not to mention the fact that building in or on a stream channel is supposed to be illegal under BC’s Water Act. So what he really did is use EcoDensity to destroy and environmentally sensitive area.
Too bad he is so dense that he thinks density is good for the environment, but streams and wetlands are not – despite publications like this, by the federal and provincial Ministries of the Environment: http://www.greenbylaws.ca
Oh, as for his waxing poetic about Tom Campbell – well, Tom was one of those pesky landowning residents of Quilchena that were against Sam’s EcoDensification of Arbutus Mall.
Sorry, third to last paragraph, last line should read: “So what he really did is use EcoDensity to destroy an environmentally sensitive area.”
They should have built the highway.
In the long run, it would have been “greener”. How ironic.
“They should have built the highway.
In the long run, it would have been “greener”.”
How so?
And thank you to Sam Sullivan for taking the time to share this with us.
gasp – You seem to have misunderstood. Sullivan is referring to the original Arbutus lands development with Arbutus Village etc. You’re incorrectly referring to the much later Quilchena Park development, which would have been approved under Phillip Owen or Larry Campbell, can’t recall which.
No, I am referring to the rezoning of the Arbutus Village Shopping Centre, which Sam incorrectly calls the “Arbutus Mall”.
When Sam was Mayor he wanted the Shopping Centre to be rezoned for condos and pushed through the “Arbutus Centre Policy Statement” to smooth the way for the developer’s rezoning application, which was approved last summer. Council and City Planning staff were both advised that there was a stream running through that property, but they obviously didn’t care, since they ignored both the conservation covenant registered against that property, as well as the original zoning conditions, which were both in place to protect that environmentally sensitive area (the entire Arbutus Village site is a stream system).
But I think it was Sam’s conduct at the public hearing that really upset many people in Quilchena. First, he and his Council (Vision councillors included here) were extremely rude to former Mayor Jack Volrich when he tried to speak at the public hearing. Then, on the 2nd hearing day, Sam wheeled himself out of the room when members of the public started to speak. He didn’t return until it was time for the last few speakers, and then he sat there, reading his newspaper, clearly showing his utter contempt for everyone that didn’t agree with his big visionary idea.
gasp – Sullivan’s quote is not regarding the rezoning of Arbutus Mall. It refers to the original development around the area, which inluded building the mall. Please re-read it:
“What I did read was a lot about the West End and other developments. Most of the political parties opposed additional density in the West End and thought it was a terrible mistake in the first place. There was a big push from landowning residents to stop other people from finding housing in new developments like the Arbutus Mall.”
I disagree with the way you have read that quote. Sam and the Planning department repeatedly slandered the people who opposed his policies for that site by claiming they were just a bunch of NIMBY landowners – just look at the Arbutus Centre Policy Statement!
When the original Arbutus Village was developed, local residents fought to have housing included in what was initially planned (under Tom Campbell) to be a completely commercial development – i.e., a regional shopping centre. Jack Volrich, a resident of the area fought for family housing, apartments and seniors residences, along with a small local shopping centre – and ultimately won the day by getting the CPR to consult directly and extensively with the community. As a result of Jack’s work, NOT ONE PERSON opposed the original Arbutus Village rezoning and development when it went to City Council in 1972.
So even if Sam was referring to the original development (which I doubt), he misrepresented the facts when he said “there was a big push from landowning residents to stop people from moving into new developments like Arbutus Mall.” In fact, residents at that time wanted the opposite.