Profiling Vancouver's political parties: OneCity

It's one party with just one councillor at the moment, but OneCity hopes for a lot more than incumbent Christine Boyle at city hall after Vancouver's municipal election on Oct. 15.

And a lot more housing.

"We'd like to see gradual increase in density across the city. Not only on the amount of housing, the types of housing," said Ian Cromwell.

He's one of four candidates for council for OneCity, along with Boyle, Iona Bonamis and Matthew Norris. Their school board candidates are Jennifer Reddy, Kyla Epstein, Krista Sigurdson, Gavin Somers and Rory Brown, and their park board candidates are Tiyaltelut Kristen Rivers, Serena Jackson and Caitlin Stockwell.

Of the 10 political parties, OneCity is the only one with a publicly contested election for all of their nominations — something Cromwell says is a big reason they're different from the other parties on the centre-left of the political spectrum with similar policies on housing, climate and social issues. 

"Our approach is the way that democracy should work in Vancouver, period," he said. 

"When we truly work in a democratic way, in an open and transparent way, we get the best of what the city has to offer."

'Six floors and corner stores'

But what does that mean in terms of concrete policy? 

OneCity has a detailed platform (which you can read here), but the party is arguably focused most on housing. It's a 16-point plan, focused on building more supply of housing, protecting renters and better connecting services to communities.

It's the subject OneCity arguably talks about most, and Cromwell says their philosophy is centred around the concept "six floors and corner stores."

In short, it's a proposal for more density and services across the city, allowing rental buildings of up to six storeys on all streets — including in neighbourhoods dominated by single family homes, like Shaughnessy.  

"We have a couple of overlapping problems with the housing supply in Vancouver. The first is that there's not enough of it, and the second is that it's all in the wrong place," said Cromwell. 

"We are putting a lot of density in areas that are already dense and displacing existing renters while not putting necessary housing into the areas of the city that can most afford to absorb new neighbours."

Is the policy working?

Some of the proposals are straightforward, like simplifying the process for co-op and non-profit housing to be built, rezoning land so grocery stores and small-scale retail shops can exist in all neighbourhoods, supporting more local festivities and block parties, or developing certain school board properties into non-profit housing.  

Others are outside city control, like demanding vacancy control, or calling on the province to work more closely with the city to ensure schools are built in areas where the number of young families is quickly growing.

But overall, it's a platform focused on accelerating current city priorities — and Cromwell argues the fact that home prices haven't gone down under those priorities isn't a reason to change course.  

"Though there has been a focus on an increase in supply, there has not necessarily been the votes on council," he said. 

"So we can underperform and then complain ... but that doesn't mean that the solution is wrong. It means that we aren't implementing it properly."

And Cromwell says that if they win enough seats to hold the balance of power on council, they won't back down from their promises.

"We see a lot of other parties who are very much in favour of everything that is popular until it comes time to vote for it ... and then all of a sudden they find a problem with it," he said. 

"What OneCity is proposing is bringing a set of values and tangibly and clearly spelling out what the benefit is going to be to residents in these neighborhoods, and a commitment to actually have our voting record back up what we promised."

CBC News will be profiling all 10 political parties in Vancouver ahead of the municipal elections in October.