On October 15th, 2022, Prince George residents headed to the polls to choose a new Mayor after Lyn Hall announced he would not be running again earlier in the year.
They chose Simon Yu, a local engineer, to take up the Mayor’s chair for at least four years.
Mayor Yu, along with the rest of the new Prince George City Council, were sworn in on November 7th.
A little over a year after he was elected, Mayor Yu sat down for an interview with My PG Now to talk about some of the ongoing issues within the City, such as:
- The City’s relationship with the province following the decampment of Millennium Park
- A lawsuit the City is facing from downtown business owners
- The ongoing Official Community Plan review
- Protecting green spaces in the City
- Addressing the housing shortage outlined in the City’s Housing Needs Report
This is part one of a two-part series with Mayor Simon Yu, part two will come out tomorrow. (Friday)
It’s been a month and a half since the Millennium Park encampment was cleared and its residents were moved away from the location which drew the ire of the province and local Indigenous groups.
“We have ups and downs, the provincial government did not exactly see the safety issue as strongly as the council when we had to decamp First Avenue and George Street for Millennium Park,” Yu said.
“They feel we should have better consultation, and I agree in one sense, that we should have better consultation with our Indigenous partners to make sure there’s better data gathering prior to taking the action to move the people, to ask the people not to stay in that area. But overall, personally I’ve invested quite a bit in terms of getting to know the people there. I’m just glad the decampment was done in a peaceful manner.”
Yu said there needs to be better communication with local Indigenous groups, NGOs and the Provincial government.
“That was the only hiccup, but I think during the [Union of BC Municipalities convention], we had a couple more meetings with many different Ministries, differences of views have been expressed and I think we’ve turned a page. I hope the HEART and HEARTH program to be rolled out in the coming months will be rolled out smoothly and quickly, winter is fast approaching.”
“I’m confident in the months and year ahead we will do a better job as a team, as a whole, between ourselves, the First Nations, and the provincial government to address this important piece of work based on the spirit of the MOU.”
Yu added that as a downtown property owner, he sympathizes with many of the businesses downtown dealing with the social issues our city is facing.
“I can feel the frustration of some of or citizens, that first of all, I want to be absolutely clear. The piece of public safety, it is number one to the city, it is number one, because 34 per cent of our budget is put towards the fire department, RCMP, bylaws, so one cannot say that we, as a council or as a mayor, did not put that importance.”
“The situation on the ground is very complicated, it is not good for a lot of businesses, especially downtown, but in the years ahead, I am confident things will improve, perhaps as we fill the void with some good business, and more activity along Third Avenue, Dominion Street, things will improve.”
Regarding a lawsuit being filed against the City by downtown businesses, Yu said they have the right to express their frustration and anger in any way they feel.
“It is a democracy, so if they talk to their lawyers, if their lawyers feel, therefore they think the city is liable, I don’t think the city is liable, not just because I am a Mayor, because this public safety, we do contract RCMP as our law enforcement, but to say the City Hall itself is liable for an incident, that perhaps is a little bit far stretched,” he said.
“But people do have a right to express their anger, and if their lawyer feels there is an angle for some action, and make a case, I would like to hear, what exactly is the situation here?”
The process for the Official Community Plan (OCP) Review has begun, and one community engagement session was held at the Two Rivers Art Gallery on October 17th.
Based on the one session held at Two Rivers Gallery, Yu said green space is something very important to Prince George residents.
“I feel the same, because being here almost 50 years, sometimes we take the green space for granted, and watching some of the development taking place in various parts of the city,” Yu said.
“We need to have better bylaws, better green space management plans in place to make sure the reputation of Prince George as a beautiful green city with a big blue sky remains. In the years ahead, as the population might grow, when some industry moves in, based on my sense from the one session, this one piece is very much on peoples mind.”
He added he would like to see the adoption of a Green Space Bylaw to better protect green spaces in the city.
“In terms of a number of years of tree per acre, not just a tree, but a number of years of tree,” Yu said.
“For example, a 100-year-old Douglas fir, and a 200-year-old spruce tree shouldn’t just be chopped down just because without a plan. We want to protect as many mother trees as possible. We need to have a very strong, progressive green space bylaw in place. This is something I would like to work on as Mayor and along with my Council to see if we can adopt a green space bylaw prior to the adoption of the OCP or maybe simultaneously.”
Yu added the Housing Needs Report shows Prince George needs approximately 8,000 housing units of various types by 2030, which the city will need to double the current construction capacity.
“We need a little bit of luck with the interest rate, from the construction costs that stabilize the developers’ formula, right now a lot of people are taking a wait-and-see, because the interest rate is still quite high, and the construction cost last year has been skyrocketed, so I think everybody is taking a look to see if the situation will stabilize by the spring.
“I do have confidence the local pre-fab construction sector along with the province-wide pre-manufactured construction sector, if we get some of the standardized designs done, just like back in the 70s, when we have the BC Special, a housing unit relatively easy to put up together and along with better planning in terms of medium density, that we can throw two or three different model up quickly.”
Yu said he would also like to see development in terms of upgradable housing.
“In the past, we do the house, we leave the basement unfinished, and so keeps the costs low,” he said.
“In the future perhaps we need to get the first floor people moving in first and you can build the second floor later. We need to explore all avenues working with UNBC and academics, I’m confident, I have very good faith in the construction association’s ability in this area, we can ramp things up once we know what formula works for the lower income group, what will work for the young people getting into the housing market.”
Yu said concentrating on housing that enables young people to enter the housing market after entering the workforce is of foremost importance.
“Today, people just do some home speculation and build big houses and just put on the market, we still need some of it, but we need to really develop many neighbourhoods in the mixed density to correct some of the access of the past.”
“To understand and planning the public transportation piece is going to be important as well, we want to make sure people can access all the amenities easily from their neighbourhood as the city grows in every direction.”
Yu is encouraging all residents to participate in the OCP review.
“I really encourage all our citizens in every part of the town, to look at the existing OCP and take a good look at their existing neighbourhood, take a walk with their dog, pay a little bit more attention to the parks, to the schools, to the neighbourhood, and take a look and see what you like, what you don’t like about the area, what areas we can improve,” he said.
“No comment is a bad comment, all comments should be taken seriously because we can only make the OCP exercise meaningful only with the participation of all our citizens. With the information collected, and our consultants, along with our staff, we’ll package and put the plans together, and as a council, we will go through another round of debate in front of the public before we do the final adoption.”
In Part Two tomorrow (Friday), Simon Yu talks about how he’s adjusting to the job of being the Mayor, working with Prince George City Council, and plans for the future of the City.
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