Decisions about the way we use the land we live on significantly shape our communities and our daily lives. Traditionally, public hearings have been the main forum for the public to gather and be heard regarding land use decisions in their communities. However, 100 years after public hearings were first established, many people are questioning their efficacy and asking to explore alternatives.

The Renovate the Public Hearing Initiative at Simon Fraser University’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue has spent over two years investigating the landscape of public hearings and piloting alternative engagement strategies to make public participation in land use planning more effective and equitable.

Join us as we share the outcomes of our work through a panel discussion, short film screenings and an interactive exhibit. This event is an opportunity to learn more about the past and present world of public hearings and envision new possibilities for land use planning.

Presented by the Renovate the Public Hearing Initiative in collaboration with the Museum of Vancouver.

Date: October 10th, 2024

Time: 5:30pm - 8:30pm

If you are having trouble using the embedded form above, please try to reserve your ticket directly on Eventbrite here.

For general inquiries regarding this event, please contact the the folks at Renovate the Public Hearing here. For questions about booking tickets or the venue, contact the MOV’s Programming Department here.

Why Attend? This event offers a unique opportunity to engage in meaningful conversations with a range of speakers and participants, including urban planners, policymakers, community organizers and advocates. It’s an ideal space to explore how we can make land-use decision-making more inclusive, equitable and democratic in British Columbia.

What the Event Will Offer:

Presentations and Findings: Discover parts of RPHI’s final report and its evidence-based recommendations to reform land-use public hearings in BC.

Panel Discussion: Hear from experts on housing, public consultation, and civic engagement as they explore ways to improve the state of housing in BC. 

Panelists:

Moderator:

  • Uytae Lee: Filmmaker and columnist, creator of the CBC series Stories About Here and About Here on YouTube, who will guide the evening's discussions.

Territorial Land Acknowledgement/grounding by Elder Wes Nahanee.

Interactive Displays: Engage with development signage from across BC, reflecting on how public notification can be made more accessible and inclusive.

Videos: Watch “The Voices of the Gibsons Residents Assembly,” along with a video collaboration with Uytae Lee’s About Here.

For your convenience, RPHI will be offering a shuttle service from SFU Vancouver (close to transit) to the Museum of Vancouver and back. More details to come. If you have any specific accessibility needs, or would benefit from on-site childminding services, please contact rphi@sfu.ca. 

About the Moderator:

Uytae Lee produces videos that educate and engage the public on urban planning issues. He is the founder of About Here, a creative studio dedicated to helping people understand their cities better. In addition to his video work, Uytae is an adjunct professor at the UBC School of Journalism and a BC Housing Board commissioner.

About the speakers:

Dr. Aftab Erfan (she/her) is the Executive Director of SFU’s Centre for Dialogue and an Associate Member at the School of Public Policy. She was previously the City of Vancouver’s inaugural Chief Equity Officer and Director of Dialogue and Conflict Engagement at UBC. Aftab holds a PhD in planning from UBC, a Master’s in planning from McGill University, and a BSc in environmental sciences from UBC. With over 15 years of experience as a process designer and facilitator, Aftab specializes in hosting dialogues on contentious issues, fostering warm and creative spaces for discussion. Her work has taken her across five continents, where she has led initiatives to address complex social challenges. Aftab has received numerous accolades, including being named one of BC500’s most influential business leaders by Business in Vancouver and being recognized by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for her work in the Research for a Better Life: The Storytellers Challenge. She was also shortlisted for the Best Published Paper Award by the Association of European Schools of Planning.

Stephanie Allen is a real estate futurist who has worked in the private, non-profit, and government housing sectors.  She is a nationally recognized expert on how systems & structures shape urban development and her experience spans the housing continuum from leading market developments, to supporting homeless people living in encampments. Stephanie grew up in public housing and despite being streamed to fail in the Ontario public school system, she holds a bachelor’s in business administration and her SFU master’s in urban studies was internationally recognized in 2020 by the Western Association of Graduate Schools (WAGS) & Pro-Quest with their Distinguished Master’s Thesis Award in Humanities, Social Sciences, Education, and Business Disciplines. Stephanie’s current work as founder and principal of Adinkra Strategies focuses on co-creating real estate and organizational development strategies grounded in bell hook’s definition of community-based love. Named after her grandmother, Stephanie works to honour her ancestors’ relentless pursuit of a free and just world by collaborating with values-aligned colleagues towards social and environmental repair in the built form. She is a co-founder and past Director of Hogan’s Alley Society, past Director of the Federation of Black Canadians, and has served on the City of Vancouver’s Development Permit Advisory.  In 2021 Stephanie was awarded the BC Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Awards, in the Breaking Barriers category and she has been recognized on Vancouver Magazine's Power50 list from 2018 to 2021.  In 2023 she represented Canadian civil society at the United Nations 2nd Permanent Forum for People of African Descent.

Jill Atkey is the CEO of BC Non-Profit Housing Association, where she leads a team of people passionate about housing.  She led the development of the Canadian Rental Housing Index, an interactive web-based tool that has driven media commentary and community planning in communities across Canada.  In 2023, the Province of BC invested $500M to establish the Rental Protection Fund, a sector-led entity that enables non-profit and co-operative housing providers to purchase market rental stock to secure its affordability in perpetuity, and she is the Chair of the Fund’s board of directors. She also sits on a range of housing and social impact boards nationally and has an M.A. from the School of Community and Regional Planning at UBC. 

Kevin Huang 黃儀軒 (he/him) is the co-founder and executive director of hua foundation, an organization - based in Vancouver - with the mission of strengthening the capacity among Asian diasporic youth, in solidarity with other communities, to challenge, change, and create systems for a more equitable and just future. His work has ranged from scaling culturally sensitive consumer-based conservation strategies through a project called Shark Truth, advancing municipal food policy to address inclusion and racial equity, to providing supports for youth from ethnocultural communities to reclaim their cultural identity on their own terms. Kevin’s involvement in Vancouver’s Chinatown over the past ten years include community-based research, public space activation, youth organizing, and pandemic response projects. Kevin is glad to have hua foundation ‘return’ to Chinatown after losing their office in the first year of the pandemic; this return is through establishing a co-share space with partners Chinatown Celebrations Society, Hogan’s Alley Society, and University of British Columbia’s Centre for Asian Canadian Research and Engagement and the Asian Canadian & Asian Migrations program. He currently serves on committees with Vancity Credit Union, Vancouver Foundation, and Metro Vancouver.

John Richardson is a mathematician, lawyer, technologist and change agent. His career focus is building organizations around systemic social impact strategies. In 2011, John founded Ethelo, widely recognized as one of the world's leading digital democracy platforms. Ethelo has won numerous awards and is a provider of governance technology to governments, organizations and communities. Ethelo is dedicated to addressing the social and environmental crises facing humanity by building the technology and social infrastructure for a new democracy. Ethelo is powered by group decisions algorithms John invented that empower groups to solve complex problems fairly and create solutions with broad support. In 2020 John invented SeaBrick, a new biotechnology which converts seaweed into a strong, structural composite to create floating, interlocking bricks. SeaBrick's strategy of sequestering biogenic carbon in low-cost marine infrastructure will open a new frontier in human exploration - and choices for the hundreds of millions of refugees facing climate change dislocation.