Who is the big bad wolf?
The life and times of the UBC Properties Trust
by Stephanie Findlay, The Ubyssey
Friday, October 10th, 2008
1988: The University created a private company called UBC Properties Trust. Its mission: to acquire, develop and manage real estate assets for the benefit of the University. Today, UBC Properties Trust manages over $600 million worth of construction on campus, making it one of the largest developers in the province.
The company essentially straddles two mandates. One: to see through the successful development of U-Town. Two: to build UBC’s endowment. Despite achieving its objectives—they’ve built both institutional and non-institutional buildings on budget and on time, and contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to the endowment—UBC Properties Trust has become the symbol for contentious real-estate development on campus.
Dr Robert Hall Lee is the business mastermind behind UBC Properties Trust. Born and raised in Vancouver, the UBC commerce alumni built an impressive real-estate business with Wall Street Financial Corporation, a Vancouver real-estate developer. In 1979 Lee founded the Prospero Group, another real-estate company that focuses on the purchase, sale and ongoing management of commercial and industrial properties.
Lee is a former trustee of Belmont Trust, which is associated with Fairmont Shipping Hong Kong Ltd. He became a pioneer in his industry in the 70s when he became one of the first developers to invest in the South Asian market.
In 1984, Lee was appointed to UBC’s Board of Governors. His private business finesse and real estate experience would eventually led to the formation of UBC Properties Trust in 1988.The Sauder School of Business credits him for having the “innovative vision” of establishing long-term endowment wealth for UBC by developing surplus land. Lee served on the board until 1990 and then as chancellor from 1993 until 1996, all the while pushing and expanding UBC’s commitment to the endowment.
In 1987, the Board of Governors stipulated that land was not to be sold, but rather leased on a 99-year prepaid basis. The surplus from the building developments would go toward the endowments.
A year after, Properties Trust was created. The founding directors were Lee, Jim Houston—widely experienced in the hotel business—and Al Poettcker, who was president at Redekop Properties Inc., one of western Canada’s largest property and development companies.
It was then, during David Strangway’s 12-year tenure as UBC President, that the era of campus construction on UBC campus began. Trevor Boddy, reporting for BC Business, wrote that development of the surplus university land was an “irresistible” opportunity for income at a time when university funding from the BC government was at one of the lowest per-capita rates in the country. Hampton Place, a multi-family residential community on Southeast campus, sprang up in 1989. It was our first major commercial housing development.
Development moved forward and outward for years without much consultation with the public, raising the ire of groups including the student body, the City of Vancouver and the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD—predecessor of today’s Metro Vancouver). To address these growing concerns, the GVRD enacted the Official Community Plan (OCP) in 1997 to guide UBC’s development of non-institutional projects. The plan recognized the changing needs of UBC and sought to provide a policy framework for housing and other non-institutional development on the university land.
The OCP coincided with Martha Piper’s arrival as president and marked the beginning of a tumultuous relationship between UBC planners and the GVRD. It was also the beginning of the aggressive push for non-institutional campus development. “Simply put,” Piper wrote in a brochure, “tuition and taxpayer support alone cannot lift a university to the level of greatness that can be achieved by a carefully tended endowment.”
UBC Insiders blogger and veteran UBC political commentator Maayan Kreitzman described Piper’s reign as the “Martha Piper-endowment-development-endowment-ivory tower-endowment-elite research-endowment-ivy league-endowment” era.
The endowment initiative fused with UBC Properties Trust in 2002 when the university announced its vision of a distinctive “university town” at the first meeting of the new University Neighbourhoods Association. U-Town was born.
There is no simple way to describe U-Town. Technically, it is the fusion of multiple university plans to accommodate multiple GVRD plans. To name a few: Trek 2000, Trek 2010, Official Community Plan, Comprehensive Community Plan, GVRD Livable Region Strategic Plan. As U-Town development ramped up on campus, the university was accused of losing its focus on education. The governance structure at UBC became a high-profile issue as development seemed to take precedence over the university’s academic mission.
In 2001, Properties Trust’s mandate was expanded to include property management. Properties Trust began working on a $100 million project to construct student residences on Southwest Marine Drive in 2003. They were originally planned to house 2000 residences, but development initiatives butted heads with the GVRD and the community at Wreck Beach, who felt that the high-rise condos were an intrusion on the natural landscape of the beach. Most frustrating for the Wreck Beach community was the absence of a body accountable to the wider community outside of UBC. “UBC has no municipal structure,” said then-GVRD Director Suzanne Anton. “So the GVRD is its local council and it’s an extremely awkward and uncomfortable arrangement. UBC, in my opinion, should have a municipal structure in place.”
The ensuing construction delays resulted in $20 million in additional costs. The project was scaled back by about 400 beds and, though they had slated it for completion in 2005, was not finished until late September this year.
UBC’s official consultation process—dubbed mockingly “design, display, defend”—left the outside community up in arms. But, despite growing fatigue with the campus planning process, UBC’s Board of Governors gave a go-ahead for the University Boulevard project on January 29, 2004, starting the process all over again. After a $120,000, full-page colour ad in the Sunday New York Times, the U-Blvd design competition began.
For critics, the U-Blvd project was another example of a top-down planning strategy; it was further evidence that the university favoured profit-driven ventures over education. The project remained in limbo for five years, having to backtrack and repeatedly reevaluate its plans to accommodate all those that were left out of the consultation in the first place.
The original plans for the U-Blvd space included market housing, large commercial outlets and an underground bus loop. As in the Marine Drive development, Campus and Community Planning had failed to effectively consult the community. As a consequence, the project drew criticism for not reflecting student priorities. “There hasn’t been a place in any consultation process for the type of criticism that questions the fundamental nature of plan ideas,” noted former AMS President Jeff Friedrich.
In an effort to make the student voice heard, a group of students created a petition in April 2007 against the U-Blvd development project. “Students have been against this project since they became aware of it in 2004,” said Margaret Orlowski, a graduate student involved with the petition, “and it’s high time that we’re listened to.”
It was only after the 2007-08 AMS executive intervened that students could be involved in the planning process. UBC Properties Trust found the onus of blame resting on its back.
“I guess the first thing I should make as obvious as possible, we don’t plan.” said Al Poettcker, president and CEO of Properties Trust. “The university does the planning through Campus and Community Planning.
“I think it’s unfortunate that there was any controversy at all, but as so many of these things turn out, they evolve.” He argued that the proponents of the boulevard design had the university as a whole at the “heart of their considerations.” There were, he believed, legitimate concerns about the grassy knoll, which he referred to as “the mound.”
Dennis Pavlich, vice-president external, legal and community affairs at the time, was directly involved with campus planning. “I never want to sound defensive,” he begins. “I came into this—[the planning] came into my portfolio as a result of a crisis that occurred with U-Blvd, because the process that was first used for that was not particularly consultative.”
Since the planning committees had not taken preliminary steps to engage the students, faculty and residents in the planning process, the administration had no idea how the public felt until they released the building proposal. “There was a very, very ugly public meeting when this thing was released,” Pavlish said.
“…Unfortunately, that model should have been used more. Maybe there would not have been the same kind of controversy around the development of U-Town.”
Now, with the SUB Renewal project back in the hands of students, “there is some relief at coming up with a plan for the square that has very strong support all the way around, that is safe to say more student-oriented, and it now has a distinct time table,” said Brian Sullivan, VP Students.
Tristan Markle began his involvement with campus development as an activist opposed to the direction they were taking. Today, after being elected as VP Administration of the AMS, he is overseeing the SUB Renewal redevelopment. Now, with a first-hand view of campus planning he has a cynical respect for Properties Trust’s efficiency.
“I got to give it to [UBC Properties Trust], they did it really fast,” he said regarding the U-Blvd approval process. To him, it reflects the sizable sway of Properties Trust’s agenda over the university. He argues that they are unaccountable to UBC. “It’s hard to get contact with them, they’re off-campus….This is very conscious of them: democracy slows down development. You could see that we’re built to be efficient.
“…In the past I would have targeted Properties Trust, but now I look at the whole picture,” he said. “Left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.”
In theory, UBC Properties Trust is directly responsible to the university—that is, to the board of governors, but the board rarely opposes the trust, according to Markle. And with the only intervention at the community level, it is difficult for members of the community, especially students, to be involved with the planning process.
Markle argues that Poettcker’s presence on university planning boards and committees ultimately gives UBC Properties Trust more leverage to place their mandate before the university’s. “Al Poettcker sits on many committees and that is the reality,” he said.
Poettcker scoffed at the charge. “[I sit on the] development permit board. Development permit board is solely related to whether or not the project meets the technical requirements of the various plans and guidelines,” he said. “I can very accurately state that UBC Properties is simply not involved in the way in which plans are evolved and how they get approved. Now at one time we were involved. I don’t think we’ve been involved in 2002.
“I don’t know why that is still said,” he continued. “I know obviously we do the servicing and we do the public realm, but these are all plans that are submitted and approved by the university.”
Darren Peets, who was involved in the first protests against the U-Blvd development, agreed. UBC Properties Trust has a “tendency for setting policy,” he said, because the board members have representation on committees where “you wouldn’t expect a Properties Trust agent on board.”
There are members from UBC’s administration on the Properties Trust board, but they are not enough to hold the corporation accountable, Peets argues. There are only three UBC members on a board of nine, none of whom are students, and they are tied up with their own commitments that prevent them from devoting sufficient time and energy to oversee the trust.
Matthew Carter, VP UBC Properties Trust, explained that back when the trust was being developed in 1988 there was a “huge” debate over which objective comes first: the university community or the endowment?
Today, that debate continues. Balancing the two objectives, developing U-Town and managing the endowment, is an ongoing battle. It is a gross misperception that money is the prime motivator behind the company, Carter said. To him, Properties Trust’s mandate is very clear: “Our job is to only serve the university. The university creates the neighbourhood plan. Our job is to bring forward a proposal. Propose a project, parcel by parcel.”
UBC Properties Trust still seems unable to shake its reputation for pursuing its own agenda. Executive Director, Housing & Conferences, Fred Fotis has found relations with the university’s development procedures trying.
“I do see a direction that [campus development] is taking. I think that the university is interested in trying to mix market housing with the university’s mission with the university’s town”—which, he suggests, can be an awkward marriage.
But if the university’s academic mission clashes with U-Town, Geoff Atkins—acting-VP administration and associate VP of land and building services—says that UBC Properties Trust is not to blame. “[The university] asked them to develop according to the plan”—the agenda is set by the administration.
“It’s a fine balance….Because if used properly, the revenues from them [that go] into the endowment do have the potential to improve the student experience.” said Brendon Goodmurphy, former AMS VP Academic and active player behind the SUB referendum. “What it comes down to—we have to articulate what exactly we don’t like about the U-Town developments, and we have to articulate what we want to change.”
“I felt University Town had taken quite a few steps forward,” said Pavlich, reflecting on his term as vice-president external, legal and community relations at UBC. “I understood right from the beginning that it would not be a cake-walk, that it would be controversial. I understood that mistakes had been made, but when I looked back I felt that the positives really outweighed the negatives. With regards to the negatives I believed that they were not irreparable.”
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