Who Is Responsible For The State Of Our City?

By Mike Archer. No wonder the local chain-owned newspapers didn’t cover the annual Real Estate Investment Network (REIN) rankings.

Did you see what the influential organization has to say about Abbotsford?

Not only has Abbotsford dropped significantly (from 4th to 6th place) in the rankings of BC cities; read what the report says about the City:

The REIN rankings

“The City of Abbotsford is notoriously known by investors and business owners as a tough place in which to do business.”

“It is well known that some businesses have decided to locate elsewhere due to crippling zoning bylaws and unyielding planning policies.”

“In fact, one successful investor who has prevailed in the rental market in spite of the City has stated that the civic motto may be more accurate if it read: ‘We aren’t happy until you are unhappy.’”

There were other things – less damning things – the report had to say about Abbotsford. But quite frankly, what more do you need to say?

Sad thing is … no one is really surprised
Now nobody in the real estate community, or the business world for that matter, will be the least bit surprised by these statements. They have been being made since the 1990s in business circles. The general public never gets to hear this kind of truth about their city because . . . well . . . have you read about the devastating remarks in either one of the corporate local newspapers?

Have a gander at a summary of the report [REIN Rankings: Abbotsford Sinks While Surrey, Langley, Chilliwack Rise] or download a free password protected version here.

If developers, and people in the business and real estate communities have been talking this way for years, why haven’t the newspapers been telling us about it?

Now I don’t know about you but, for a city with Abbotsford’s natural strengths to be anywhere on the list but number #1 or #2 is more than astounding – it must have taken some seriously hard work on the part of some dedicated civic officials and politicians to keep us out of the top spots.

Despite that fact, our natural advantages had managed to keep us at a #4 ranking. Now even our natural advantages can’t help hide the rot that has set in. We’ve slipped to #6.

Consider the natural advantages for investors and businesses that we simply take for granted:

International Airport
US border crossing
TransCanada Highway and access to Highway 7
Main line cross-Canada rail access
Fraser River access

We are the 5th largest city in BC with the all of these advantages just sitting there to be promoted and used. How can we possibly not be # 1 or #2?

It is a very easy answer.

Hard work.

A decade of abysmal management and terrible decisions
The incompetence, intransigence and simple-minded inability of our politicians and civil servants which has plagued the City of Abbotsford for the last three administrations, coupled with a seeming inability or unwillingness of the corporate media to even discuss these issues openly, has taken all of the advantages the City possesses off the table for any smart companies out there who know how to look beyond the glitzy brochures and the happy promotional journalism.

Companies who are able to see things like:

Outdated and insufficient infrastructure
Crippling Zoning Bylaws
Unyielding Planning Policies
High Unemployment Rates (highest in Western Canada)
Housing Start trends – declining
Building Permit trends – declining
Comparative tax rates – high
Comparative water rates – high
High rates of homelessness relative to surrounding communities
High rates of Hepatitis C relative to rest of Canada
High rates of HIV relative to rest of Canada
High rates of teen/high school aged drug use relative to rest of Canada

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Why are the headlines of our newspapers not mentioning these things?
These are all terribly important issues for a city struggling with enormous long-term debt and financial commitments and a Development Cost Charges (DCCs) fund that is in arrears.

The combination of financial commitments and constraints, bureaucratic bungling and entrenched and growing social problems are the direct fault of the leadership of this community as represented by the politicians they keep sending back to run the City.

Without knowing just how bad things are, how can anybody be expected to take corrective action? It used to be the raison d’être of journalists as individuals and the press as a whole to keep the public informed about what was really going on so the politicians and bureaucrats would be forced to live up to the expectations of their friends and neighbours when they elected them.

That system has broken down in Abbotsford. The corporate media acts more as cheerleader than critic when it comes to the individuals at the institutions which have been running the City into the ditch such as City Council and the Abbotsford Chamber of Commerce. Without resistance, or at the very least maybe a a question or two, from the old media no one should be surprised things have gone so far off the rails in Abbotsford without more people knowing about it.

And then came the Abbotsford Chicken Manure Homeless Incident and the ACS Supported Housing Proposal.

An opportunity to do the right thing with the eyes of the whole world watching.

Without missing a beat or stopping to think about how the uneducated, ill-informed, immoral and probably illegal behaviour of the City’s power structure towards its homeless and drug addicted citizens over the last decade might impact on its reputation with developers or businesses considering making an investment here, the City of Abbotsford simply shut down discussion of the issue and stuck its head in the sand.

Abbotsford Mayor Bruce Banman

To make matters worse, the Mayor has indicated he thinks the ACS proposal to provide housing for the some of the downtown homeless men – the one hope on the horizon of dealing with the issue for the ADBA, is a great idea just in the wrong place.

A more ill-informed understanding of how homelessness works or the amount of time wasted and the opportunity being missed if the proposal doesn’t go ahead is, to put it bluntly, hard to fathom.

By looking a gift horse in the mouth, the downtown businesses opposed to the ACS proposal, and the politicians who simply can’t understand how our neighbours in Langley and Chilliwack have dramatically reduced their homeless problems, [by building low barrier shelters near or in their downtowns] the mayor and some councillors seem intent on eradicating social problems with bylaws.

Those who have represented their friends and neighbours on City Council in Abbotsford and who have ruined its finances, exacerbated its social problems and presided over the broken and ineffectual administration which is now their legacy, have an enormous amount of explaining to do to their friends and neighbours … and history.

It is hard to imagine a darker time in the community’s history than the last ten years.

Anyone who has been in political office in Abbotsford for more than one term must explain to their friends and neighbours who trusted them how they either:

a) Didn’t know what has been going on. (If not – why not?)
OR
b) Did know but did nothing about it

Over to you ladies and gentlemen: