I'm Hanzhi Wang, Burnaby Mayoral Candidate - Ask Me Anything!
Hi r/burnaby!
My name is Hanzhi and I'm running for Mayor of Burnaby this October 17th. I live in the Metrotown area and I think Burnaby is a great city, but we have a lot of room for improvement. In these changing times I will bring a new vision to our city council so that we can make our city work for everyone.
Municipal politics tends to get less interest than Federal and Provincial politics (especially now with the BC election being called 🙄), but it can have the most impact on our day to day lives. The conversations currently tend to be dominated by a small group of people, and one of my goals with this election is to get more people out to vote and make their voices heard, especially younger demographics.
My top priorities are around housing, transportation and fair taxation. Highlights include:
- Phasing out the Development/Amenity Cost Charges (DCC/ACCs) which charge 10s of thousands of dollars for each new unit of housing being built, discouraging new housing from being constructed and contributing to the housing crisis.
- Streamline the permitting process for new developments, and allow more mixed-use and commercial spaces within residential neighbourhoods.
- Reclaim the space on our streets we all pay for and make it work for everyone, by installing all-day bus lanes on all major corridors as well as signal priority at major intersections.
- Upgrade our biking network to All Ages and Abilities (AAA) standards for all major routes.
- Rebalance the tax burden to make everyone pay their fair share. Single family homes cost around 9x as much to service compared to an apartment unit, despite only paying 2-3x as much in property taxes. This means that residents in higher-density housing (predominantly lower-income) are effectively subsidising lower-density housing in the suburbs (predominantly higher-income) - the opposite of what we should have in a progressive tax system.
You can find out more about me at https://burnaby.hanzhi.io/, and all of the candidates at https://www.burnaby.ca/our-city/mayor-and-council/elections/candidates
Instructions on how to vote on or before October 17th can be found here: https://www.burnaby.ca/our-city/mayor-and-council/elections/voters
I'll be around to answer questions this afternoon and evening, and will check back over the weekend if there are any new posts!
Verification photo:
P.S. Please make sure your Reddit account is email-verified before posting, otherwise your comment will be lost to the ether!