William Azaroff: Make daycares legal by right
Should Vancouver’s city hall make it easier to open daycares in residential neighbourhoods? Dan Fumano, Vancouver Sun.
Sophie Ngo and her husband, both finance professionals, work from home but still have a long daily commute. Every morning, her husband drives their two-year-old son to a daycare in Richmond — the only place they could find a spot — then brings their four-year-old son to another in Vancouver’s Cambie Village, then returns to their home in Marpole. At the end of each work day, Ngo traces the same path to retrieve both kids. It’s about 90 minutes each way.
“It’s three hours per day, just driving,” Ngo said. “I don’t know why it’s so hard.”
Back in 2023, Dan Fumano reported on a daycare expansion near Douglas Park that was rejected by the Board of Variance, because a handful of neighbours spoke against it.
The tenor during parts of this meeting almost sounded as if the city was considering building a chemical plant in a residential neighbourhood or bulldozing homes to build a freeway.
What was actually so vehemently opposed by an organized neighbourhood campaign was a proposal for a daycare for eight children.
The approval process for a daycare is like everything else requiring special permission on the part of the city. It’s a political process. It turns into a mini-referendum, complete with a miniature political campaign.
William Azaroff (currently running for OneCity's mayoral nomination) is proposing to make daycares legal by right in the city of Vancouver, without requiring special permission, as long as they meet health and safety requirements.
Azaroff believes something as crucial as daycare should not be subject to additional hurdles beyond health and safety guidelines.
“Child care is like infrastructure. It’s like electricity and water,” Azaroff said in an interview Tuesday. “We’re short thousands of daycare spaces in the city, we know that. And if we want to be a great place to live and for families to stay here, we have to address this issue. … We’re not looking to modify any of the regulations, we’re just looking to speed up the availability.”
Previously: