PG's NIMBY driven decision-making

My angriest newsletter yet

I returned from a short but lovely vacation last week. My fiancé and I met up with her family from Ontario and spent a lovely weekend touring Vancouver. We stayed in Kitsilano and reaped all the benefits of density, walkability, and bicycle rentals - it was lovely.

I thought about writing a newsletter on the weekend in Kits but realized it’s about the most boring topic I could imagine - a jaded, anti-sprawl PG resident spends a weekend in one of BC’s most desirable, walkable neighbourhoods and SHOCKINGLY, loved it.

Revelations include: density = good, public transit = good, sprawl bad, cars bad. STOP THE PRESSES.

So a more interesting topic I’ve been thinking about since returning is just a general how the f— did we end up being the most sprawled major city in BC? And how can one example of extreme NIMBYism provide some answers.

That’s today’s topic.

So for the purposes of today’s newsletter, we’re going to begin by reflecting on a single decision made by council almost a year ago to the day - April 13, 2023.

Council votes down a proposed mobile home park in the Hart.

I will also add up top here - if you don’t know what NIMBYism is - it stands for “Not In My Backyard” and is kind of a catch all for people who complain about things like house prices or crime and say “we need to do something about this” then write letters to city council to oppose efforts (like apartments or subsidized housing or densified housing) in their neighbourhood because they’re scared of devaluing their property or the “character” of their neighbourhood. Those people are called NIMBYs.

Okay, on with the show.

Trailer parks as a viable tool for urbanism.

Sunrise Valley Mobile Home Park

Now a quick bit of disclosure here - I grew up in a trailer park in my hometown of Terrace. I spent the first 11 years of my life there and so if I’m coming at this with just a little bit of defensiveness, I hope you can understand.

Let’s also begin by revisiting an old infographic that the City released back in the Fall 2023:

This Hart trailer park proposal would have allowed for approximately 220 homes on a plot of land that would typically serve approximately 40 Hart-style properties (I’m not joking).

We’re talking about a 5-6x on density.

We’re also talking about 220 proposed homes that would be well under the current ~$500,000 average home price in Prince George. This would be an open door for many folks to get their foot in the door of an otherwise unhinged real estate market and whether it’s their forever home, or a starter home, begin to pay their own mortgage instead of a landlord (who might be a realtor who also owns 5 AirBNBs…).

A noteworthy comment exchange from the reddit thread about this issue last year and confirming that these new pre-manufactured trailers are actually a cut above what most people imagine when they’re envisioning something like this.

The first thing to establish is that trailer parks (or mobile home parks) are an incredibly valuable tool for densification, especially in a city like PG which is concerned with densifying its downtown but also densifying the sprawled neighbourhoods at the corners of the city like The Hart and College Heights.

Strong Towns has a great write-up about trailer parks being a relatively forgotten tool for urbanism and densification.

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The NIMBYs apply some pressure.

Let’s now look at what our city and, indeed, our mayor and council thinks of trailer parks.

The Citizen has a great write-up on the discourse in the proposal stage:

City council received 16 letters from residents of the area opposed to the development, one expressing concerns and one letter in support, city director of planning and development Deanna Wasnik said. City administration supported the application, which is consistent with the city’s Official Community Plan, she added.

A big boooo and thumbs down to the NIMBY residents of the area but a MASSIVE standing ovation to City Administration and to Deanna Wasnik here - actually standing on the OCP - a SUPER useful document that supposedly guides decisions like this. (You may come to understand some of my prior skepticism).

Okay.

Let’s take a look at Mayor Yu (who campaigned on a housing first policy, which included using emergency hurricane tents to house folks) to see if he deserves a similar applause:

“Based on my knowledge of the neighbourhood, the trailer park… is kind of out of the character of the neighbourhood,” Yu said. “To put a trailer park so close to a relatively high-end neighbourhood, I have a problem with that.”

Lastly, let’s pull up Councillor Brian Skakun’s analysis of the development:

“I went out there when the snow had already been melting for two or three weeks - I couldn’t even turn my vehicle around in one of those streets, I had to actually back all the way out. (And) there is no public transit out there that I know of,” Coun. Brian Skakun said.

The road infrastructure simply isn’t built to accommodate that many new residents, he said.

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*insert Will Ferrel “I feel like I’m taking crazy pills” .gif*

I’ll begin with the notion that analyzing flow of traffic, road quality, public transit stops, and general neighbourhood capacity BEFORE IT HAS BEEN DEVELOPED to conclude its adequacy to be developed is just about the most Prince George shooting itself in the foot thing I’ve ever heard.

Did Councillor Skakun drive to the bottom of Foothills and 15th before the new apartments buildings were put in and conclude the same thing? Or did they factor that in to the development plan, add an entire roundabout and 2 turning lanes to help adjust the traffic flow for the area?

Or how about the new University Heights developments coming down from UNBC where they’ve had to add new bus stops, widen roads, and street lights down the entirety of the hill?

Look at all these new roads and adjustments we’ve made to traffic for rich houses!

Or is it possible that he is yielding to NIMBYism and sharing the sentiments of our Mayor which can best be summed up as “ew, poor people near rich people? yucky.”

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Concluding thoughts (LONG RANT INCOMING).

The question I asked at the top - how the heck did Prince George get to be this sprawling city with the lowest density in the province (to comparable cities)?

This is how. Not this ONE decision - but decades of decisions like it.

Decades of scared Mayor and Councils yielding to letters written by NIMBYs who fear living near poor people because we see housing more as an investment than a human right and OH NO GOODNESS ME IF POOR PEOPLE LOWER THE PROPERTY VALUE OF MY NEIGHBOURHOOD.

I’m sorry if I’m coming across as genuinely angry about this one but I wore the stigma of living in a trailer park for most of my early life. The truth was that it was pretty great - my best friends were 3 brothers that lived a few trailers down, we spent every night biking up and down the park because there was a 20km/hr speed limit. My sister and I could walk to the convenience store that was near the main road for snacks (which was always busy because of the density of the trailer park giving business).

As I got older, I became more embarrassed to have my birthday party at my house and have friends over for sleepovers. The advent of Trailer Park Boys only added fuel to the “ew poor people” flames and tell the whole world what kind of people lived in trailer parks - the kind of people Mayor Yu think might not “be in the character of the neighbourhood” with.

“I don’t want my kids living near unsafe neighbourhoods” - my first rental with Britt was in a beautiful middle-upper-income neighbourhood in College Heights. Our first week living there, we woke up to an armoured police van with ERT tear gassing our neighbours house because he was one of the biggest drug dealers in PG. One of my first basement rentals on Olds near the CN Center was 2 door down from one of the biggest meth lab busts in the city’s history - it was a lovely neighbourhood that bordered an Elementary school.

Link to Citizen article showing crime is not just found in poor neighbourhoods.

All of this is to say that crime does not just follow trailer parks.

There’s actually a lot of good research that indicates having children from mixed socio economic backgrounds helps both groups become more successful.

So I’d say there’s good reason to encourage these rich kids to go play with the trailer park kids?

Alright.

Rant done. And no, of course, NIMBYism isn’t the ONLY contributor to sprawl but I hope this illustrates the power of it and some of the ways these small decisions can have big impacts.

Thanks for reading. I promise next week’s won’t be nearly as angry.

Oh also - it’s worth saying this, if ever you need to note the importance of local journalism, this newsletter could not happen without the reporting of The Citizen and while I’ve got endless quibbles with their editorial decisions, you cannot deny the value of their reporting over the years.

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Today’s recommendation? Ramen Ya Sendo

As a Hart resident, the fact that this is one of the Western-most restaurants in the city pains me because it’s a 22 minute drive.

BUT IT IS WORTH IT. Every time.

I went this weekend and had a nice big bowl of Spicy Miso Ramen with extra noodles. Food? Delicious. Service? Amazing. This is one of those spots that is on my list of must-bring-visitors when they come visit us in PG.

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