On Monday night, the Vancouver park board voted unanimously to make the rules regarding people sleeping in city parks stricter.
This includes forbidding people from putting up a tent under a tree, giving park rangers the authority to remove a tent if it has been unoccupied for more than one night, and prohibiting camping in Queen Elizabeth Park and VanDusen Botanical Garden.
Things like wood and insulation for building will also be banned, and the rights of park rangers to enter tents will be expanded.
All five commissioners present voted in favor of the changes to the Parks Control Bylaw — Temporary Shelter in Place.
The commissioners present were independent commissioners Brennan Bastyovanszky, Scott Jensen and Laura Christensen, ABC Vancouver commissioner Angela Haer and Vancouver Green party’s Tom Digby.
Digby mentioned that it was a difficult decision, as all 27 of the registered speakers opposing the bylaw amendments.
This included two UBC law professors.
Margot Young, who is an associate professor at the UBC Faculty of Law, mentioned various issues with the bylaw amendments, such as removing tents if unoccupied for one night and giving park rangers too much discretion to enter people’s tents.
“There are some serious issues about this bylaw standing up in court,” Young said.
Fellow law associate professor Alexandra Flynn said the bylaw changes would reduce the amount of park land that people can shelter in to 16.8 per cent.
Flynn said there had been a lack of procedural fairness that included not consulting with park users.
The staff report recommending the bylaw amendments stated that they were necessary because “when tents and other temporary structures … accumulate or remain in place for extended periods of time, they can impact public access to park space and amenities and result in a strain on staffing and resources.” The report recommended modifying bylaws to allow only camping tents or collapsible canopies that are a maximum of 10 feet by 10 feet and “capable of being dismantled and moved by one person.”
The report stated that the existing bylaw lacked specificity, leading some campers to believe that small structures without a foundation that could be removed on a trailer are allowed.
These changes are meant to support use by those relying on parks for overnight shelter, improve hygiene and safety, and enhance relations between park users and operations staff, the report said.
The report comes as about 30 people have started to return to a designated area of CRAB Park after crews completed a cleanup of the homeless camp late last month.
Crews eliminated structures that were considered “non-compliant,” many of which were constructed from wood pallets or metal fencing.
Conflicts have arisen between homeless residents and park rangers regarding which temporary shelters are allowed at the park.
A Metro Vancouver homeless count released last fall reported 4,821 people in the region without a home as of March 2023, with half of them in Vancouver.
With files from Sarah Grochowski
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to your bookmarks and and Only around 17 percent of urban parks will be available for overnight camping from now on .
