The One About Developer Influence During the Port Moody 2050 Engagement Process

The extent of developer involvement/influence in the recent Port Moody 2050 OCP engagement process is only now coming to light and unfortunately, it is quite concerning and potentially raises questions regarding the integrity of the results of the engagement process.

Modus Social Media Posts

On Thursday March 9, 2023 Modus Planning and Engagement announced on their social media feeds (via Twitter and Instagram) that they had completed the last of the community dialogues (the Seaview Neighbourhood Workshop) as part of the Port Moody 2050 OCP engagement process (see below). Although undated, the photo included is clearly not from the Seaview Workshop but is instead from the initial Feb. 2, 2023 engagement session at the Galleria at Port Moody City Hall.

Participants at the Port Moody 2050 engagement events were very specifically told that photographs at the events were discouraged due to privacy concerns/lack of consent being obtained so we at the Watch are quite grateful to Modus for posting this picture as they provided us with photographic evidence confirming the presence of several representatives from the developer community at the Feb. 2, 2023 Port Moody 2050 Galleria event, thereby establishing that at least one of the individuals (a representative from Flavelle Oceanfront Development [clearly visible in photo]) attended multiple sessions (at least three that we are aware of). In fact, through various sources, the Watch has compiled a list of the following representatives from the Developer Community who we believe repeatedly attended and actively participated in the following sessions on the following days:

Representatives of the Development Community at Multiple Port Moody 2050 Events*
Thursday, February 2, 2023 from 6-8pm Civic Centre Galleria (100 Newport Drive)	Saturday, February 4, 2023 from 2-4pm Wellness Room, Port Moody Recreation Complex  (300 Ioco Road)	Wednesday, February 8, 2023 from 7-9pm Civic Centre Galleria (100 Newport Drive)	Monday, February 13, 2023 from 7-9pm online (virtual session via Zoom)
Patty Sahota (Flavelle Oceanfront Development)	Patty Sahota (Flavelle Oceanfront Development)	–	Patty Sahota (Flavelle Oceanfront Development)
Sebastian Zein (Flavelle Oceanfront Development)	–	Sebastian Zein (Flavelle Oceanfront Development)	Sebastian Zein (Flavelle Oceanfront Development)
Bruce Gibson (Flavelle Oceanfront Development)	Bruce Gibson (Flavelle Oceanfront Development)	–	–
Gaetan Royer (CityState)	Gaetan Royer (CityState)	–	–
–	Carola Alder (CityState)	–	Carola Alder (CityState)
–	Virginia Bird (Pottinger Bird/Moody Centre TOD)	Virginia Bird (Pottinger Bird/Moody Centre TOD)	–
–	–	Brad Howard (PCI Developments/Moody Centre TOD)	Brad Howard (PCI Developments/Moody Centre TOD)

*Apologies in advance if we at the Watch have any of this wrong and/or if we missed any days when the identified individuals were present/absent more/less than we have indicated and/or if we missed anyone else involved in the development community who may have also repeatedly attended/actively participated at any of the events and who were not identified. Please also note that we have not yet compiled all the information from the recently completed Seaview Event and will include that information when we receive it.

It is our understanding at the Watch that all of the individuals identified in the preceding table actively participated in the discussions and that they did so without identifying themselves as having a vested financial interest in the outcomes of the process. In one case at least, the same representative of the developer community sat at the same topic table, actively participating/guiding discussion through multiple sessions on a topic that had a direct impact on the proposed development that they are associated with. In the Feb. 8, 2023 session that the Watch attended, attendance was so high that there were general topic overflow tables set up so by this particular developer representative staying at that same table all night, this limited other citizens’ participation in the engagement process on that particular topic (but we guess that was the whole point wasn’t it?).

Even if you want to say that it was OK for developers to be present and/or to actively participate in a public engagement event without identifying themselves as such (we at the Watch don’t necessarily agree but we can accept that as a valid point of view), the situation that unfolded inspires a number of questions:

• Was/is it indeed OK for representatives of the Development Community to be present and actively participate repeatedly at multiple sessions, three times in certain cases and potentially more? 

• Was it OK for a representative from the Development Community to sit at the same topic table repeatedly without identifying their interests? 

• Should a representive of the Developer Community’s opinion be considered more valuable than the opinion of a resident of Port Moody? 

• Did residents also get to participate multiple times and/or were residents excluded from participating in certain discussions because of the presence of development representatives on multiple occasions? 
• Lastly, if one had very solid evidence that certain individuals had completed any one of the prior surveys three times (or more), would that have been OK? And yet are we willing to turn a blind eye to those with a vested interest participating three times (!) (or potentially more) because their political point of view and/or their development goals might just align with our own?

The Prior OCP Survey and the OCP Engagement Process

The “Port Moody 2050 Community Survey #3 Summary – Land Use Scenarios”, the survey that the majority of the new council appears very keen to ignore, had a historic return rate and the findings were very clear.  The survey indicated that “moderate growth” was the clear preference of the community and revealed that 57% of respondents opposed high-rises up to 26 storeys for the Moody Centre Area. Moreover, the survey indicated that there was a clear preference for mixed use and lower rise buildings overall with 66% disagreeing with the OCP currently envisioned Oceanfront District with buildings up to 38 storeys and a mix of land uses ( such as retail/commercial, residential, entertainment, light industrial, open space, and institutional/research facility) preferring instead to see an emphasis on lower density and park expansion.  Many members of the new council and their supporters have already stated that they thought that the survey was biased, not reflective of the “true” opinions of the community, and that it was open to manipulation. 

Let’s face it. No engagement process is perfect and no one is saying that any form of engagement is immune from influence and biases but please let’s not pretend that the recently completed Port Moody 2050 engagement process was/is any more or less open to biases and undue influences than any of the previous survey(s). Statements such as this by a recently elected Councillor

“The nice thing is that with these sessions you need to register so there is at least confirmation where input is coming from as opposed to anonymous surveys.” and in regards to input “at least with this one we can track who is providing it.”

are purely fanciful wishful thinking considering that ideas were posted on the boards anonymously, anyone could be a “plus one” in the registration process or could fake their e-mail and name (why didn’t everyone have to identify themselves as a resident and/or identify their affiliations anyway?), and apparently it was just fine for members of the development community to show up multiple times and sit at the same topic table through entire sessions providing the same opinions repeatedly and making it appear that the resulting ideas were from different sources. Did Modus not keep track of who was turning up repeatedly via their registration process? Isn’t that relevant? Are we to believe that the City Staff present didn’t recognize these individuals showing up repeatedly?

We at the Watch should say that we can’t really fault Modus too much, if any for all of this as we are familiar with their work in the past, know that they do very good work, and their methodologies are sound. How would they know that certain members of the Development Community would try to subvert the engagement process by interjecting themselves repeatedly? Unfortunately, they walked face first into the hyper-partisan environment known as Port Moody where some representatives of the Development Community (many of which are non-residents BTW) feel absolutely free to interject themselves brazenly and shamelessly into the planning and political process (as noted previously here) without any qualms whatsoever. They are in fact supported and celebrated by many in the community including many elected members of council when they do so.

Unfortunately, given that a number of representatives of the Developer Community were present and actively and repeatedly engaged in the Port Moody 2050 process and didn’t identify themselves as such during the sessions, this sadly raises questions regarding the integrity of the engagement process. That said, we’re quite sure that certain members of council will triumphantly announce the ideas coming out of the engagement process as being free of biases (when of course they clearly will not be). Remember that those running the engagement process could have asked for representatives of the development community to refrain from attending and/or actively participating in the Port Moody 2050 sessions, they could have limited the number of times that participants could attend, and/or they could have asked those with a personal financial interest to identify themselves during the sessions but, just like with their developer donations that they gleefully accepted, they preferred instead to turn a blind eye to that and ignore the development community inserting themselves into this time the consultative process (as opposed to the political process in the case of campaign donations).  We can only presume they will suggest that it would be some form of discrimination to not let them do so (?!) or that’s OK because they are residents too (which in most cases they indeed are not). 

In summation, The City of Port Moody on their website described the engagement sessions in the following manner:

These sessions will “provide an opportunity for residents to learn about proposed key directions for Official Community Plan (OCP) updates and engage in round-table discussions with other attendees on topics of interest such as:
• neighbourhood character;
• community amenities;
• parks and open space;
• transportation and mobility;
• housing; and
• economic development.

Unfortunately we at the Watch would suggest that a more truthful description of the recent Port Moody 2050 Engagement events would be something more along these lines:

These sessions will “provide an opportunity for residents to learn about proposed key directions for OCP updates and engage in round-table discussions with other attendees (including multiple engagements with representatives of the development community with vested interests in the outcome who won’t identify themselves as such) on topics of interest such as:
• neighbourhood character;
• community amenities;
• parks and open space;
• transportation and mobility;
• housing; and
• economic development.”

Let us be perfectly clear. No one is trying to demonize the entire Development Community here, many of whom chose to not participate and interject themselves into the proceedings and chose instead to sit this one out. For example, to their credit, it is our understanding that developers such as Marcon, Wesgroup, etc. to the Watch’s knowledge did not participate in the community engagement process at all and certainly did not do so repeatedly. If select representatives from the Development Community had turned up say just once each, had their say, and identified themselves as having a personal financial interest in the outcome of the engagement process, we at the Watch would have very little to no issue with the whole matter. But that didn’t happen did it? A certain councillor had specifically framed the engagement sessions as being for residents only as follows: “These in person sessions allow better variety of responses and also allows information to be shared amongst residents (our emphasis) at the tables to better understand ideas and issues”. Instead, certain members of the Development Community thought that they were more equal than others and they decided that their voices were more important to be heard. Repeatedly.

We at the Watch will now patiently await the results of the engagement process and look forward to how Council deals with the data that they are provided. We can only hope that the voices of the actual citizens of the community will be heard and will be able to overcome the voices of select portions of the Developer Community who disproportionately tried to insert themselves into the engagement process to get their views heard and influence matters to their benefit.

The Watch is in the process of filing a number of other FOIP requests, filing complaints regarding code of conduct violations, and researching a number of other issues that have come up since the past election. Stay tuned for further updates. Actual moderate growth everyone!

Got any tips that we should know about? Send us an email at tips@portmoodycouncilwatch.ca