Fund arts, culture through development fees

Mayoral candidate Suzanne Anton and her Non-Partisan Association team want to use future real estate development in Vancouver to fund the arts.

Suzanne Anton: "This will be a plan to allow a steady stream of capital funding from development".

The NPA strategy is to create two new arts and culture funds with money provided by developers to the city when they gain new development rights through rezoning. “We can make ourselves into a real cultural capital. We’re good now. We can be great,” Anton told a press conference Monday.

Under the NPA proposal, the new cultural funds would be financed by setting aside five to 10 per cent of community amenity contributions that are provided by developers when city council grants additional development rights through rezonings. The two arts and culture funds proposed by the NPA are the Infrastructure Financing Fund, which would support capital improvements, and the Infrastructure Endowment Fund, which would assist with ongoing operating costs.

“This will be a plan to allow a steady stream of capital funding from development,” Anton told reporters. Amenity contributions typically fund things like neighbourhood parks, child care facilities, libraries and community centres. The NPA also wants to give the Vancouver Art Gallery development rights on the entire Cambie Street grounds at Larwill Park.

This approach would allow the VAG to finance a world-class art gallery, build a revenue-generating endowment and also repay a $40-million debt placed on the site in 2006 to partly cover renovations of the nearby Queen Elizabeth Theatre, said Anton.

The VAG wants to move from its current Robson Square location to the Cambie Street grounds, which is the last undeveloped piece of city-owned land downtown. Earlier this year, Vancouver council gave a tentative thumbs-up to the VAG to use up to two-thirds of the city block at 688 Beatty St. if it can find the money for the estimated $300-million project.

The city plans to build a commercial office tower on the remaining portion of the block. Under the NPA proposal, however, the VAG would get the entire site. This would allow it to develop an office tower or hotel, or both, on the northern third of the property, and then use the profits to finance its operation.

Anton said this strategy could allow the VAG to become the “premier art institute in Canada.”

Doug Ward, Vancouver Sun

Posted by Eugene Boyko on 01/11/2011. Filed under Art news,Persons. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry