Creative or unrealistic? Ken Sim's ABC party releases full platform, promises to 'rethink the way City Hall is run'

Ken Sim has never held office, but believes he's ready to be mayor of Vancouver.

On Thursday, Sim and his ABC slate of candidates released the party’s full, 94-point platform, and during a news conference Sim said his team will “rethink the way City Hall is run.” The comment is a reference to Sim’s biggest plan to make housing more affordable by getting more homes built.

“It all goes back to permitting,” he said, while detailing the party’s ambitious goal to cut permit approval times. He calls it the “3x3x3x1” system.

This is what it means:

• Three days to approve home renovations (including renovations to accommodate mobility and accessibility-related challenges)
• Three weeks to approve single-family homes and townhouses
• Three months to approve professionally designed multi-family and mid-rise projects where existing zoning is already in place
• One year (down from six years) to approve a high-rise or large-scale project

Former city councillor and CTV News political contributor George Affleck questioned whether that promise is actually achievable.

“I know when I was there we added significant funds to the permitting staff and it made very little change,” Affleck said. “I would say it’s very, very unlikely that this can get pulled off, but I think it's good to have plans to do so. Absolutely, we need this.”

Sim’s other top priority is public safety, saying his first move as mayor would be to ask the Vancouver Police Department to hire 100 new police officers and 100 mental health nurses.

Other promises include developing a task force to address hate crimes, and calling for a mental health summit with political leaders, health authorities, and community members and agencies. Sim also plans to enable body cameras on VPD officers by 2025, something Affleck said may not be possible.

“I think there might be challenges to that by some of the privacy watchdogs in tis province,” Affleck said.

Sim also floated the idea of a satellite City Hall to help improve Chinatown and the Downtown Eastside.

“We’re going to be setting up a City of Vancouver office right in Chinatown, the Downtown Eastside, and we will be coming down here on a regular basis,” he said. “If you want to solve it, you have to understand what’s going on on the ground.”

• RELATED: Read more on how Vancouver's mayoral candidates are planning to address public safety here.

Other ideas proposed by the ABC party include adding 5,000 daycare spaces, increasing and expanding patios and plazas, bringing back the School Liaison Officer program and advocating for the SkyTrain to extend to UBC.

Affleck said he’s impressed by the “sheer volume” of ideas being put forward.

“I think that they’re being creative in their ideas (and) they are putting a lot of stuff out and that’s part of the game: Throw so much mud against the wall, see what sticks,” he said. “(But) the voters need to think about what’s real and what’s not possible, and I think you have to do your research.”