Background: Cultural Facilities Priority Plan

Overview

Purpose

The City of Vancouver engaged Artscape Consultants from Toronto to undertake a Cultural Facility Study that began in November 2007 and was completed in May 2008. This study has delivered a Cultural Facilities Priorities Plan (3.40mb) that articulates cultural “place and space” priorities for the next fifteen years, as well as recommendations on strategies for how the City, working with community, government and private partners, can begin to realize these priorities. The Study ties into the larger Creative City Conversation and 2008-2018 Culture Plan (207kb). The Facilities Priorities Plan is a key aspect of the Culture Plan implementation.

Outcomes

The Cultural Facility Plan provides the following outcomes:

• Be a “priorities” and “strategic” plan that highlights key infrastructure priorities (at a global level), not just a wish list of all arts and culture facility needs and desires.
• Be both a guide for priority setting (with criteria for decision-making), as well as provide policy recommendations for ways in which the City can/should leverage and maximize cultural facility development.
• Have built in flexibility to enable the City to respond to opportunities as they arise and change over time.
• Envision cultural infrastructure and facilities as they are understood today, and as they may be understood (and realized) in the future.
• Enable maximized use of the array of tools, including civic planning, development rezoning, community fundraising and other, for cultural facility development.
• Enable maximized upgrading and upkeep of existing City cultural facilities and assist where possible for non City arts and culture facilities.
• Facilitate strategic new presentation, production, administration, rehearsal, storage spaces and additions to artist live/work studios (light and industrial).
• Enable access to information and resources by artists, arts and culture organizations and the public.
• Facilitate collaboration and consensus in the arts and culture community on facility priorities and decision-making criteria.
• Encourage an appropriate balancing of responsibility and ownership by the community and the City for facility solutions.

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The Process

Timeframe

The study began in November 2007 and ran through to early May of 2008. The Final Report was completed at the end of May 2008 with a report to Mayor and Council on June 26, 2008.

Consultants

Artscape Inc. is a not-for-profit organization based out of Toronto that has been engaged in innovative, culture-led regeneration over the last twenty years. A leading practitioner in multi-tenant space development for the arts and culture sector, Artscape brings specialized planning and development services to help Vancouver build, connect and leverage its distinctive creative assets to further social, cultural and economic goals. www.torontoartscape.on.ca

Committees and Staff

A Steering Committee consisting of internal City staff from the Cultural Services, Planning, Social Planning, Finance and Facilities departments was established to provide internal guidance into the development of the Cultural Facilities Priorities Plan for the City of Vancouver.

A Community Advisory Committee was established with representation from the dance, theatre, music, visual arts, museum, festival, multidisciplinary, film/new media, development and planning communities as well as individual artists and representation from the Parks Board, Library and School Board, to ensure that strong connections and input from the arts and culture communities were evident throughout the study process and in its final product. In particular, the Advisory Committee was critical to ensuring that strategies and opportunities for public and arts/culture community input were maximized, and to provide feedback and direction on draft recommended priorities and strategies.

The development of the long range Cultural Facilities Priorities Plan was lead by the Senior Cultural Planner, Office of Cultural Affairs.

• Jacquie Gijssen, Senior Cultural Planner  - jacqueline.gijssen@vancouver.ca
• Marcia Belluce, Cultural Planning Assistant  - marcia.belluce@vancouver.ca

List of Steering and Advisory Committee members (14kb)

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Public Engagement

Artscape Consultants undertook an extensive public engagement process, consulting widely with the non-profit arts and culture communities. Key components of the public engagement process included:

• Online survey for arts organizations to assess facility need and capacity
• Separate online survey for artists and individual creators to assess facility need and capacity
• Series of themed focus groups
• Sector workshop
• One-on-one consultations with arts and culture facility leaders and stakeholders
• One-on-one consultations with City staff from finance, planning, real estate, facilities design and management, licensing, special events, police, fire, and development services
• Consultation with other cities regarding cultural facility development, operation and financing models
• Regular meetings with the Community Advisory Committee
• Open House consultations to seek feedback on draft recommended priorities and strategies
  
  

  April 2008
  Report 1 of 2 on Engagement and Survey (126kb)
  Report 2 of 2 on Engagement and Survey (173kb)

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Background Information

Cultural Objectives

The City of Vancouver is home to a vibrant artistic and cultural community reflecting a broad range of disciplines, institutions and organizations. From small artist collectives to large specialized facilities, the City boasts a rich cultural foundation upon which to grow and prosper.

The City’s Cultural Objectives are to ensure our future as a creative city, open and accessible to artists, to the broadest range of artistic expression and to the widest participation. To achieve this, the City strives:

• To promote a high level of creativity and excellence in the cultural life of Vancouver.
• To promote diversity in the artistic life of the community, including the professional and non-professional, the traditional and the innovative, the established and the aspiring.
• To encourage financial managerial efficiency in the operation of Vancouver’s cultural organizations.
• To ensure the existence of adequate facilities for the creation and presentation of the arts in Vancouver.
• To ensure that all Vancouver residents and visitors, including senior citizens, youth, low-income people, members of ethnic minorities and other distinct groups, have opportunities to enjoy and participate in cultural activities

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Civic Support for Art and Culture

The City fosters, encourages and supports arts and cultural activities, celebrations and special events through an array of programs and services. These programs and services are administered through the Cultural Services department, division of the Community Services Group. Cultural Services is comprised of:

• Office of Cultural Affairs (OCA)
• Vancouver Civic Theatres (VCT)
• Pacific National Exhibition Planning Process
• Civic Sponsorship Initiatives

The Office of Cultural Affairs (OCA) delivers a full complement of grant programs—project, operating, diversity, organizational development and capital grants programs delivering close to $10 million annually to artists and arts and culture organizations in the City (one of the highest per capita by a municipality in Canada). In addition, OCA manages the civic, private and community public art programs; assists the community in facility planning and development; supports communication objectives through the transit shelter program; oversees relationships with the major exhibiting institutions that hold the City’s collection of art and artefacts in trust for the people of Vancouver; and finally, delivers policy and program development in support of the arts and culture in Vancouver.

The Vancouver Civic Theatres (VCT) is a civic department that operates the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, the Vancouver Playhouse, and the Orpheum Theatre. VCT accommodates all types of public assembly activities, and welcomes the full range of diverse audiences and performers to its facilities. In addition, a key pillar of VCT’s mission is to build partnerships that support, and are responsive to, the development of regional cultural organizations and future audiences.

In addition to Cultural Services, Engineering Services co-ordinates and provides services for special events and film projects as well as manages the street banner program. The Vancouver Public Library and Vancouver Archives provide direct cultural services through their facilities and collections, and the Vancouver Parks Board fulfils a community arts mandate through its parks, community facilities and programs citywide.

In December 2004, Vancouver City Council approved the creation of a Creative City Task Force, comprised of Councillors, community representatives and City staff to undertake a planning process, including extensive stakeholder consultations, to identify strategic goals, directions and priority objectives for the City’s role in development of the arts and culture. Included in the portfolio of the Creative City Task Force is the responsibility for strategic infrastructure development.

The new Cultural Facility Plan is directly tied into the Creative City Task Force Culture Plan and forms a subset of this overarching document.

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Cultural Infrastructure and Facilities in Vancouver

Matching the richness in cultural activity and organizations is a plethora of cultural facilities—large and small—serving the needs of artist creators, arts and culture organizations and audiences. Vancouver features a major symphony hall, the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, and art museums like the Vancouver Art Gallery, as well as intimate smaller theatres such as the Vancouver East Cultural Centre and Artist Live/Work studios. Cultural facilities for creation, production, presentation, administration and more recently artist housing are key aspects of the facility portfolio.

Appropriate cultural facilities are essential to any community and key to the economic health of our cities. These facilities serve residents, attract tourists, maintain businesses, and enhance our quality of life. However, ensuring access to appropriate and affordable facilities is challenging, especially in Vancouver’s rapidly developing real estate market.

To ensure that artists and arts organizations can afford to remain part of our city, Cultural Services works to sustain and enhance Vancouver’s cultural and social infrastructure through the following:

• Operations of the Civic Theatres (Queen Elizabeth, Orpheum, Playhouse)
• City-owned land and buildings, which are leased at nominal rent to not-for-profit arts and cultural organizations (Firehall Arts Centre, Science World, HR MacMillan Space Centre, Roedde House and others).
• Artist Live/Work Studio spaces including a 30-unit CORE Artists Live/Work Co-op and two studios that are part of the City’s artist residency awards.
• A capital grants program that allows not-for-profit social service and cultural organizations to apply for funds to assist in purchasing or renovating/ refurbishing facilities not owned by the City.
• Long range facility development working with the City’s Planning Department and developers through the Amenity Bonusing program and Community Amenity Contribution Policy (which in the last twenty-five years has been instrumental in creating over ten arts and culture facilities such as the Alliance for Arts and Culture, Vancouver International Film Centre, ArtStarts in Schools and the Contemporary Art Gallery).
• Securing Community Use arrangements for selected public plazas or other resources of benefit to the arts and cultural community and audiences (UBC at Robson Square, Plaza of Nations and Wall Centre Plaza).
• Assistance with facility planning and upgrading (Vancouver Museum Revitalization Project).
• Property tax exemption for non-profit organizations.

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Many of Vancouver’s cultural facilities are well appointed, high quality assets. Others require infrastructure work on both minor and major scales. And in other situations, no facilities exist and there are major gaps in the arts and cultural facility asset portfolio.

Factors of use, ownership, age, purpose or non-purpose built, maintenance and design contribute to the character and variety of spaces, as well as the complexity of their suitability and long-term maintenance and operation. While Vancouver has a multitude of arts and culture facilities, many are aging, inappropriately suited to their functions and too small to sustain growing operations.

The City and the arts and culture communities are evolving at lightening speed, providing enormous challenges for keeping pace with effective and appropriate infrastructure and facilities. Additional pressure from Vancouver’s real estate market places organizations, and artists themselves in tenuous positions as they struggle to retain access to inexpensive but well-suited and well-situated spaces.

In 1990, the City created its first Cultural Facilities Priorities Plan. Although previous work had identified cultural facilities needs and some priorities, the 1990 plan was the first formal articulation of this nature. This plan guided Council for ten years in establishing priorities for the performing and visual arts, exhibiting institutions, education and resource centres, film/media, and housing.

Recognizing that artistic and cultural facilities play a vital role in the community, that such investments require significant cash and land investment, that partnerships are critical to the realization of cultural facilities, and that municipal involvement is both desired and necessary, the City embarked on the creation of a strategic priorities plan for cultural facility development by undertaking a Cultural Facility Study working with Artscape Consultants out of Toronto. The Cultural Facility Study was built on the work of earlier plans, taking measure of today’s needs and priorities to capture a vision and strategy for cultural infrastructure and facility development for the next fifteen years. The result of that study is the Cultural Facilities Priorities Plan (3.40mb) that provides the City of Vancouver, the community, government and private partners with a new approach to cultural facility development that reflects the aspirations of a twenty-first century creative city.

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