Arts, culture, libraries, and civic life
73 commitments from 10 parties, grouped by who published them.
OneCity Vancouver 18
- Create a new small cultural venue licence category with risk-based safety requirements, a compliance-first approach, a dedicated Venue Navigator, and a code-compliance grant stream for fire and building safety upgrades.↗↗↗
- Establish a Cultural Space Security Program including an annual cultural space inventory, a no-net-loss test for redevelopment, expanded accessibility and safety upgrade grants, and a requirement that major rezonings and public land projects consider cultural production space.↗↗↗
- Create an independent, sector-led Vancouver Arts and Culture Council governed by a board with arts, culture, equity, and Indigenous expertise to adjudicate civic arts grants through peer assessment, while City Council retains authority over the overall funding envelope and policy direction.↗↗↗↗↗↗
- Help small venues open and stay open, put a preloaded cultural pass on every library card, and make it easier to hold a block party on a public street.↗
- Give the City's existing Chinatown Advisory Committee a funded and measurable mandate to lead the renewal of Chinatown Plaza, with clear deadlines, dedicated funding, and measurable targets, reactivating the space with a year-round plan.↗
- Deliver cultural programming at Chinatown Plaza shaped by Chinatown residents, cultural organizations, and small businesses.↗↗
- Give the Chinatown Advisory Committee a funded mandate to animate Chinatown Plaza with cultural programming, new businesses, restaurants, pop-ups, and safety improvements.↗↗↗↗
- Propose a Vancouver Library Card Plus+ program reimagining the former Vancouver Inspiration Pass, preloading library cards with access to free or low-cost cultural events, recreation, public programs, digital tools, and community spaces.↗↗↗↗↗
- Make Vancouver Public Library the anchor of a citywide third-space revival with two new libraries, renewal of three aging branches, expanded community programming, and funding of the VPL Facilities Master Plan.↗↗↗↗↗
- Simplify busking permit rules and expand permit-free locations so more artists can perform in more areas of the city.↗↗↗↗↗
- Reform permitting for small cultural venues and community spaces to reduce approval time to weeks or months.↗↗
- Support small arts and culture venues through a new small venue licence category with risk-based safety requirements, a dedicated venue liaison, and a compliance-first approach focused on helping operators fix problems rather than shutting them down.↗↗↗
- Create an annual cultural space inventory to track losses, establish replacement or relocation requirements, expand accessibility grants, and set a goal to increase total arts and culture spaces.↗↗↗
- Help small music and cultural venues open and remain open.↗
- Place a preloaded cultural pass on every Vancouver Public Library card.↗
- Treat small cultural and community venues — including rehearsal rooms, art studios, galleries, community kitchens, and maker spaces — as permitted uses in neighbourhoods, with simplified approvals.↗
- Revitalize Chinatown Plaza as a cultural hub.↗
- Revive Hogan's Alley by providing new housing and cultural space.↗
Annette Reilly 10
- Invest in libraries, community centres, and welcoming public gathering spaces.↗
- Restore City arts and culture staffing.↗
- Support stable, sustainable arts and culture funding.↗
- Protect existing affordable studios and cultural spaces.↗
- Create more affordable creative workspaces.↗
- Make it easier for independent venues to operate safely.↗
- Support cultural land trusts that can acquire and preserve creative spaces.↗
- Advance an Eastside Arts District.↗
- Create more stable funding for festivals and cultural events.↗
- Support Vancouver's film, television, gaming, VFX, and XR sectors.↗
Vote Vancouver 10
- Invest in community centres, libraries, and pools to ensure welcoming places for Vancouverites of all ages to learn, play, exercise, gather, and connect.↗
- Within six months of taking office, establish an Arts, Culture and Creative City Navigator at City Hall to help artists and cultural non-profits navigate permitting, liquor licensing, and special-event approvals, while coordinating collective marketing for arts and culture.↗
- Give the Independent Arts Council a dedicated annual allocation from the City for arts grants, with at least 90% flowing directly to the arts and creative sector and no more than 10% available for administration and operations.↗↗
- Work with business, philanthropic, and creative communities to establish a Vancouver Arts Foundation as a permanent vehicle for private donations, sponsorships, and philanthropic investment in arts and culture.↗
- Create more small outdoor music and performance spaces.↗
- Increase the funding cap for arts and culture events and expand event security funding so that inside-perimeter security is funded at the same rate as outside-perimeter security.↗
- Create a Festivals Vancouver Fund to support neighbourhood festivals throughout Vancouver and continue to support large festivals such as the Vancouver Film Festival, the Vancouver Fringe Festival, and Khatsilano.↗
- Expand temporary occupancy permits so vacant buildings can be converted into creative and cultural spaces more quickly, including rooftop venues and second-floor activations.↗
- Support the Cultural Land Trust and efforts to preserve long-term cultural spaces by supporting the purchase of vacant commercial spaces for use as rehearsal spaces, performance venues, and artist workspaces throughout the city.↗
- Simplify permits and approvals for festivals, performances, street events, and live music, and reduce event-related fees and unnecessary administrative requirements.↗
TEAM for a Livable Vancouver 9
- Review and encourage program funding for arts and culture.↗
- Build an arts and culture page on vancouver.ca including promotion of all event listings.↗↗
- Create and publish an inventory of arts spaces on vancouver.ca.↗↗
- Provide incentives for retention and upgrading of creative spaces and disincentives for their demolition.↗
- Pursue a one-for-one replacement and retention policy for City-owned creative space, including repurposing unused or underutilized properties such as Park Board and School Board facilities.↗
- Encourage minimum space requirements for cultural amenities in densifying neighbourhoods.↗
- Examine how Vancouver's civic theatres could be made more suitable and affordable for the local arts community.↗
- Keep Community Centres and other Park Board facilities affordable for the arts community.↗
- Plan for the arts and culture sector to ensure affordable spaces for artists by protecting more affordable industrial lands, theatres, community centres, and publicly owned buildings.↗
Green Party of Vancouver 8
- Strengthen the Eastside's identity as an arts and culture hub by preserving affordable creative space and supporting artists and cultural organizations through zoning, land-use conditions, and incentives.↗↗
- Restore and expand arts and culture staffing and grants, and implement a new city-wide strategy to support arts economic development and employment.↗↗
- Protect and create affordable studios, live-work spaces, workshops, and cultural venues through adaptive reuse, flexible land-use policies, and creative building conversions.↗↗
- Reduce red tape around event licensing and occupancy requirements while maintaining safety standards, create a new licensing category for qualified venues, and in the interim raise thresholds to allow up to eight events per month and occupancy of up to 60 people.↗↗
- Support Cultural Land Trusts to acquire and preserve creative spaces, cultural venues, artist studios, and live-work buildings as non-profit community assets.↗
- Support a dedicated City-funded Festival Fund to provide reliable funding for arts, cultural, and community events.↗↗↗
- Invest in libraries, community centres, and other third spaces as essential civic infrastructure.↗
- Establish non-profit cultural land trusts to acquire and preserve creative spaces.↗
COPE 6
- Establish a Cultural Land Trust to increase long-term security of tenure of space for cultural and arts purposes in BC through ownership and stewardship of land and buildings.↗↗
- Increase funding, hours, and wages at the Vancouver Public Library; support library worker representation on the VPL board; and push for library expansion rather than cuts.↗↗
- Expand library hours to seven days a week and provide libraries with funding for mental health workers and better working conditions.↗↗
- Support the growth of tool libraries, libraries of things, and Vancouver's circular economy.↗
- Develop a Vancouver Arts and Cultural Spaces Strategy that leverages city-owned land for arts venues and encourages use of vacant commercial spaces for performance and arts.↗
- Create a Vancouver Arts, Culture, and Creative City Navigator to support arts organisations, festivals, and venues and facilitate the city's arts and culture goals.↗
Vancouver Liberals 6
- Establish an Artist Land Reserve in four locations across the city, providing resources such as studios and cutting property taxes in half for those locations.↗↗↗
- Find a way to make policing costs affordable for all community events.↗
- Create a Vancouver Arts Council to advise on funding, space, and policy for artists and cultural organizations.↗↗
- Adopt an Agent of Change rule requiring new development to provide soundproofing rather than closing existing venues, reduce permit and licensing red tape, and extend late-night support to neighbourhood commercial streets.↗
- Build and co-locate new library branches near SkyTrain and transit hubs, with study space and digital resources.↗
- Use the Mayor's ex-officio trustee position on the Vancouver Art Gallery board to help bring the new gallery to fruition.↗
John Jones 4
Lucy Maloney 1
- Adequately fund Vancouver's public libraries, providing sufficient resources for safe workplaces and opening more branches on Sundays.↗