4 - Friday, September 11, 1992 - North Shore News

Recounting the war over 320 Taylor Way

ONE OF West Vancowver’s
darkest episodes has been
chronicled in the prestigious
scholarly journal BC
Studies.

The passions and puzzles of the
affair of 320 Taylor Way are over
— unless new evidence comes to
light.

But the results will mark our
community’s skyline for as long as
99 years: the twin towers of the
Westroyal development, which,
however smart and exclusive they
are to their occupants, will long
have unpleasant connotations for
many West Vancouver residents.

Especially, of course, for those
living nearby whose views (and
property values) have been dam-
aged by the highly controversial
deveiopment.

The tortuous history of the af-
fair is recounted in the 1991-92
autumn/winter issue of BC

Studies, published last March.

doesn’t remove from the
thoughtfulness of his observa-
tions.

His chief conclusion, and the
subject of much of his analysis in
the article, is the appalling inade-
quacy of British Columbia's
Municipal Act — ‘‘a travesty of
democratic government,’’ he told
me the other day.

This elevates the issue to one of
more than mere parochial con-
cern,

“Given the political will,’’ he
writes, ‘‘techniques similar to
those applied in West Vancouver
can be used anywhere in the pro-
vince.’”

The language is measured but
devastating: ‘‘This,’? Johannson
says near the beginning of his ar-
ticle, ‘‘i. a study of democracy be-
ing frustrated by those in authori-
ty.”

To my eye, the most deeply
distressing aspect of the whole

complicated affair is that at one

44... West Van council “sneaked” the twin
towers project at Marine and Taylor Way past
the unsuspecting peasants. 99

it describes itself as ‘ta quarter-
ly journal of the humanities and
social sciences.”’

its offices are on the University
of B.C. campus, and its puislica-
tion is supported by UBC, the
University of Victoria, Simon
Fraser University, and the
Humanities Researclt Council of
Canada.

Roff Johannson, author of the
article and a West Vancouver res-
ident, has had careers in banking
and in teaching, including at both
UBC and SFU.

His interests are in political
science, international relations,

and government generaily.

Mr. Johannson was involved in
the 320 Taylor Way issue — on
the opposition side — as a
member of the Ambleside and
Dundarave Ratepayers associa-_
tions. So he was no neutral, arm-
chair observer of the events. That

- Noel Wright

time or another a number of our
council’s elected officials made
noises — usually coincident with
and in direct proportion to the
level of public outcry — that
sounded very much like the noises
of politicians at their most
equivocal.

But when it came down to
brass tacks, the municipality’s ac-
tions favored the developers.
That’s my reading of the affair,
by the way, and not Johannson’s
words.

Having said that, I'd add: in
fairness to councils over the
period of almost a decade of the
issue’s existence, it could be
argued that this was a classic case
ef a municipality correctly going
through the rather boring bureau-
cratic procedures of a develop-
ment, and the citizens waking up
to its implications all too late.

As most residents remember on-

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ly too well, a referendum was
called after the commitment was
made, the two-question referen-
dum narrowly (by a margin of on-
ly 12%) resulted in defeat of the
highrise option for the site, aad
the municipality then felt obliged
to make what Johannson calls ‘‘a
half-hearted legal effort to have
the existing lease agreement
(which they had approved, but not
yet signed) examined by the courts
for its validity.’”

Haif-hearted indeed, since the
municipality was asking the
court's opinion of a decision that
it, the municipality, had already
agreed to.

What makes the final deal par-
ticularly unpleasant, since by chat
time there could be no doubt of
widespread citizen opposition, was
that, as Johannson writes,
“‘subsequent changes to the ar-
rangements gave the developer
{Newcorp) even more generous
scope for action than originally
given,

“Thus, the architect admitted
that the taller tower would rise
252 feet, well above the 182 feet
of the nearby Kapilano 100 Build-
ing, which was widely thought to
be quite tall enough — and in ap-
parent violation of counci.’s own
bylaw.

. Then-mayor Don Lanskail urg-
ed the referendum, allowing that
council in 1981 had assumed that
the issue had been resolved but
acknowledging that by then (1988)
changing circumstances had

created ‘‘a clear need for a fun-
damental review of the issue’? —
but left no doubt as the referen-
dum approached that he favored
the development.

Then-municipal manager Terry
Lester, who has also Jeft the
scene, was solidly behind ‘‘a ‘yes’
response’”’ tco.

The charming and urbane Lan-
skail’s predecessor, Derrick Hum-
phreys, envisioned when the prop-
erty was bought i in 1981 for $1.1
million ‘‘a wide-open public place
... an uplifting public showplace’
with development occupying “‘a
portion of the area in the
southwest comer’? — which
doesn’t, to my perceptions, sound
like any enthusiasm for highrise
buildings.

And Lanskail’s successor as
mayor, then-alderman Mark
Sager, is quoted as saying unam-
biguously in 1988: ‘‘We do not
have any division in this com-
munity, and there is nothing to
weigh. There is adamant opposi-
tion to this proposal.”’

Looking at the upshot — the
project still under way at this im-

portant intersection — Humphreys

and Sager were on the side of the
angels.

North Shore News columnist
Noel Wright also brilliantly
shines, his quoted remarks tren-
chant and commonsensical:

“There's no questioning the
fact that West Van council
‘sneaked’ the twin towers project
at Marine and Taylor Way past
the unsuspecting peasants. The
only question is whiether it was de-
liberate or mere sloppiness?”

l asked Mayor Sager this week
for his reaction to Johannsen’s
article.

Knowing an unhappy topic
when he sees one, Sager said:
“It's one man’s view of the course
of events. ... To me the whole
episode is behind us.”’

His own preference, then as
now, was for a lower-scaled,
perhaps terraced development, he

said.

“The real lesson is: don’t call a
referendum oa something that’s
already a fait accompli.”*

Sager won't comment on the
esthetics of the development —
“we don’t have the ability to dic-
tate taste’’ — but his personal

preferences can be inferred from
his sentiments for the old and the
human-sized: the old store at
Caulfeild Cove once owned by his
parents, the Tudoresque Sager
Building in Dundarave, and his
high school, Hillside — which the
West Vancouver School Board
discredits but which Sager hopes
can still be saved for some other
public use.

We're left with Johannson’s
opinion that ‘‘despite winning
nearly every battle, the opponents
of 320 Taylor Way lost the war,”’
and that ‘‘West Vancouver’s -
council supported development
over democracy, and exper -
with the exception of the ‘Advisory ,
Design Panel, which was overtul-
ed — “over citizens.”

Sobering words.

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