West Vancouver's neighbourhood businesses do more than provide goods and services. They create local jobs, contribute to community life, and help give our commercial villages their distinctive character.
Local businesses are essential to West Vancouver's economy, but they are also part of what makes our community unique. Council's role should be to create the conditions for them to succeed by investing in attractive and well-maintained public spaces, providing planning certainty, and ensuring municipal policies support rather than hinder local commerce.
Small, independent businesses face significant challenges. Local business representatives have identified rising rents and less secure leases, customer parking, and staffing as important concerns. Businesses are also competing with the convenience of online shopping and food delivery. Municipal government cannot solve every challenge, but it should ensure its own decisions do not make them worse and look for practical ways to help.
Build on What Makes Our Villages Different
Our commercial villages are authentic neighbourhood centres in exceptional waterfront settings. Their human-scale character, independent businesses, restaurants, services, and a sense of place are strengths we should build on.
The popularity of Park Royal's outdoor Main Street demonstrates the appeal of smaller-scale storefronts and a pedestrian-oriented streetscape. We should strengthen the qualities that make Ambleside, Dundarave and Horseshoe Bay attractive destinations and give residents and visitors reasons to choose them over more generic shopping experiences.
Improve the Public Realm
Revitalization is about more than buildings. Well-maintained sidewalks, landscaping, benches, lighting, weather protection, clean laneways, outdoor patios, and welcoming public spaces can encourage people to walk, linger, and support local merchants. Council should carefully consider how development affects sunlight, views, pedestrian comfort, and the overall village experience.
Investments in the public realm should be viewed as investments in local economic vitality. Where appropriate, I would support partnerships between the District and commercial property owners to help fund improvements that benefit businesses, residents, and visitors alike.
Connect the Waterfront to the Village
Ambleside's waterfront already attracts large numbers of people. The opportunity is not simply to attract more visitors, but to encourage those already here to spend time in the commercial village, shopping, dining, and using local services.
Better pedestrian connections, signage, coordinated promotions and parking initiatives could encourage waterfront visitors to explore the commercial village.
When economic benefit to local businesses is cited as a reason for a major waterfront event, the District, organizers, and local business organizations should work together to maximize that benefit and measure whether it is actually achieved.
Encourage Investment and Planning Certainty
Some aging commercial buildings need substantial investment, but renewal does not always require wholesale demolition or substantially greater density. Renovation, façade improvements, modernization, and sensitive redevelopment can also renew a commercial area.
Planning uncertainty can discourage investment. If property owners believe higher density may be permitted in the future, they may postpone maintenance or improvements while waiting for redevelopment opportunities. Council should establish clear, durable expectations for scale, form, and design so owners can make investment decisions with greater confidence.
Council should also prevent "demolition by neglect" through consistent enforcement of property maintenance standards and by avoiding policies or discretionary exceptions that reward deferred maintenance. This preserves community assets, supports neighbouring businesses, and encourages reinvestment in existing buildings.
Redevelopment should also be evaluated by whether new commercial space contributes to a thriving business district. Additional storefronts provide little benefit if they remain vacant or are unaffordable to the independent businesses we want to retain.
Practical Support for Local Business
Council cannot solve every challenge facing local businesses, but it can take practical steps to improve the business environment. I would support practical measures that:
- make customer parking easier to find and use, including clear information about public and longer-term parking;
- review parking policy using actual occupancy, business impacts, and customer experience, and consider merchant validation or other incentives where appropriate;
- provide useful amenities such as clean, accessible public washrooms and support outdoor dining and pedestrian-friendly streets; and
- work with local merchants and business organizations on practical responses to the challenges they have identified, while continuing to listen and adapt as business needs evolve.
Our commercial villages succeed when they are attractive places for people and viable places for businesses. By strengthening village character, improving the public realm, supporting local businesses, and providing planning certainty, Council can help create the conditions for commercial villages that are both economically successful and enduringly attractive.