15 May 2023 Council meeting Governance

Councillors Brown and Manly Motion re: Development Corporations

Motion
That: 1. an information report be prepared that provides background on municipally owned development corporations, their purpose and governance structures; the steps required for establishing a development corporation in British Columbia; and high-level costs and considerations associated with establishing a municipally owned development corporation in Nanaimo; and, 2. that the report on development corporations be brought to a Governance and Priorities Committee Meeting in July for discussion, and that topic matter experts be identified and invited to provide information at the meeting.
Sources
Agenda itemCity agenda
Put forward by Tyler Brown Source
Put forward by Paul Manly Source

Tyler Brown Yes

I know people have been having different discussions with different members in the community around development corporations. I know Councillor Manley and I have had these and I know His Worship and I have had it with some prominent community members at times as well. So really there is benefit, you know, there is known benefits to development corporations. There's also examples where they haven't worked so well. And both these, both these taken together are really to ask staff to do that research. take that discussion that's maybe been happening at different community tables with different sets of information, having a common foundation in which we can all have that discussion together and decide if that's something that we may wish to explore for the city of Nanaimo. It could be a benefit to different aspects of our community when we're talking about affordable housing, when we're talking about downtown revitalization, when we're talking about the ability to kind of bring together private industry, the benefits of private industry but also the benefits that government and local government can bring to the development process. So like I said, there is known advantages, there's also known pitfalls, and I think Council would really benefit from this discussion at this table in light of some of the challenges, But in order to have a healthy and robust discussion, I think we all need to have that same information and utilize staff to bring some of that forward.
It would really be, the idea there is to solicit feedback that would be beneficial for Council's deliberations, not to say, you know, and I'm trying, as much as I know development corporations have worked in some places, I also know that they have not fulfilled their promise in others. And the last thing I'd want us to do is to go down a path that had a high likelihood of failure because it wasn't going into something eyes wide open. Thank you.

Paul Manly Yes

I'm obviously seconding this, and I'm interested in the information. I've had some of those meetings and heard some very interesting projects, including the Winnipeg rail yards and North Vancouver, Lonsdale Quay and other areas where this has been successful. And I'm happy to hear that Mr. Rudolph, our current CAO, has some experience with this and knowledge to share. And so I'm looking forward to hopefully having this motion passed so that we can get a report and get further information about how a development corporation might benefit the city of Nanaimo. I've had some of those meetings and heard some very interesting projects, including the Winnipeg rail yards and North Vancouver, the Lonsdale Quay, and other areas where this has been successful. and I'm happy to hear that Mr. Rudolph, our current CAO, has some experience with this and knowledge to share. And so I'm looking forward to hopefully having this motion passed so that we can get a report and get further information about how a development corporation might benefit the city of Nanaimo.

Ian Thorpe Yes

Councillor Thorpe. Worship I'm inclined to support this I do have a couple of hesitations I will need to be convinced that the city would benefit by getting into the development business but I I know that it's taken us over four years to finally re-establish the Nanaimo prosperity corporation and I don't want to see anything done which is going to undercut that work so I'd be interested in how a development corporation might work as some type of adjunct of the prosperity corporation. I have a couple of concerns with the second motion or part of the motion. First one is that this is going to be a fairly substantive staff report I think which I would be interested in reading but the date of July seems to me a timeline and it implies that this would be a priority over possibly other things. So that concerns me. And second, the phrase that topic matter experts be invited to provide information. That to me implies people that are strongly supportive of this concept would come and sort of pitch the idea. I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in an unbiased pro and con analysis. concerns that I have with number two, but I'm curious to see how other councillors feel about this and on the whole I think I would be, as I say, supportive of getting at least a staff report. Thank you. Thank you, Your Worship. I'm inclined to support this. I do have a couple of hesitations. I will need to be convinced that the city would benefit by getting into the development business. But I note that it's taken us over four years to finally reestablish the Nanaimo Prosperity Corporation. And I don't want to see anything done which is going to undercut that work. So I'd be interested in how a development corporation might work as some type of adjunct of the Prosperity Corporation. I have a couple of concerns with the second motion or part of the motion. First one is that this is going to be a fairly substantive staff report, I think, which I would be interested in reading. but the date of July seems to me a pretty short timeline and it implies that this would be a priority over possibly other things. So that concerns me. And second, the phrase that topic matter experts be invited to provide information. That to me implies people that are strongly supportive of this concept would come and sort of pitch the idea. I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in an unbiased pro and con analysis. So those are concerns that I have with number two, but I'm curious to see how other councillors feel about this. And on the whole, I think I would be, as I say, supportive of getting at least a staff report. Thank you.

Leonard Krog Yes

None. Motion carries. We're now dealing with the amended motion. I just throw out this word of caution. A wise person reminded me today that we are potentially embarking on a very ambitious capital plan. The NIMA Operations Centre, the walkway, Southend Community Facility, And so I'm very pleased to see that it includes the wording their purpose and governance structures because I think we need to consider very carefully what we can bring to the table because we've been told many times we don't have much land. So it's not like we can put land down on the table. And we've had that discussion before around the value of properties that we do have. And so if we can't bring land to the table, we have to bring money. We've got to bring something. land or money and if we have a number of serious and important projects that are necessary to the operations of the city then we need to consider that. I'll leave it at that. I'm going to support it.

Sheryl Armstrong Yes

So I'm hearing you're not stuck in stone in July, is that correct? So I just would like to hear from either Mr. Lindsay or Mr. Corson as to what their time frame is and what their priorities, if they have to change some of their priorities to do this. Thank you.