User:Stanigator/sandbox/Colleen Hardwick

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Colleen Hardwick
Vancouver city councillor
In office November 5, 2018 – November 7, 2022
Personal details
Born	(1958-09-17) September 17, 1958 Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Party	TEAM for a Livable Vancouver (2021–present)
Other political affiliations	Non-Partisan Association (2005–2021) Independent (2021)

Colleen Hardwick is a Canadian film producer, serial digital technology entrepreneur, and politician in Vancouver, British Columbia, who served on Vancouver City Council from 2018 to 2022. A third-generation Vancouver public servant, she is the daughter of former Vancouver academic and alderman Dr. Walter Hardwick and the granddaughter of former Vancouver park commissioner Iris Hardwick.

Entrepreneurship and digital innovation

Hardwick worked on dozens of film and television projects through a twenty-five-year career. She founded New City Productions, which operated from the mid-1980s to 2000. Through New City Productions, she provided production services for major networks and studios including Universal Pictures, Paramount, and CBS, and produced made-for-television movies such as The Perfect Mother. The company also developed and produced independent feature films, including Mr. Rice's Secret. She won a 1997 "Forty under 40" award in entrepreneurship from Business in Vancouver and was also named one of the "Influential Women in Business" in 2009.

Evolving from film production to digital technology, Hardwick developed MovieSet Inc., a platform that pioneered behind-the-scenes filmmaking online. MovieSet raised $5 million in venture capital and won a 2006 Marshall McLuhan Award for New Media Innovation. The company ceased operations following the 2008 global financial crisis.

In 2010, she founded PlaceSpeak, a location-based civic engagement platform developed to address a crisis in public consultation by providing defensible data for evidence-based decision-making by authenticating digital identity to physical location. PlaceSpeak achieved B Corporation certification in 2021, and is a member of the Democracy International. PlaceSpeak, through a rigorous process, was among the first to achieve a Trustmark from the Digital Governance Council.

Political career

2005 Vancouver City Council election

Hardwick ran successfully for nomination for City Council with the Non-Partisan Association (NPA) in September 2005. With ten councillors to be elected, she placed thirteenth.

During this campaign, she strongly opposed a proposal to use assets from Vancouver's Property Endowment Fund to build housing that would not yield a return on investment. Demanding basic economic literacy from city planners, she famously stated that her Vision Vancouver opponents "don't even understand how market housing works."

She had the endorsement of the Vancouver Sun’s editorial board ahead of the November election.

2018 Vancouver City Council election and tenure (2018–2022)

In 2018, running again under the NPA banner, Hardwick was elected to the Vancouver City Council. She placed fifth in the at-large race, which successfully secured her a seat on the council. On a council with no party majority, she consistently questioned initiatives and policies, frequently voicing concerns about "scope-creep" — instances where the municipal government was dedicating civic resources to issues traditionally managed by provincial or federal levels of government.

Hardwick was elected as a member of the NPA but resigned from that organization in April 2021 to sit as an independent councillor. Five months later, Hardwick announced her affiliation with a new civic party, TEAM for a Livable Vancouver.

Transparency through City Lobbyist Registry and Auditor General

While on council, Hardwick sought the establishment of an independent auditor general for Vancouver. The motion for establishing the Independent Auditor General’s office passed unanimously, and the office was formally established in 2021.

Community engagement and the 50 Neighbourhoods Project

Hardwick campaigned on rebooting CityPlan, but seconded a motion for a Vancouver Plan. After staff reports demonstrated a top-down "values-driven" approach, Hardwick sought to draw attention to a better approach to community planning. This led to the 50 Neighbourhoods Project.

Launched in January 2020 as a "New Year’s Resolution," the 50 Neighbourhoods Project was a proactive planning initiative intended to counter the narrative that Hardwick simply opposed housing growth. Pledging "52 weeks for 52 neighbourhoods," she visited unique Vancouver communities to engage residents on the "Livable City DNA Matrix"—a framework designed to build grassroots consensus. The goal was to empower residents to identify locations for "1,000 new dwelling units" per neighbourhood over the following decade, emphasizing that local inhabitants were best positioned to determine how their communities should evolve.

Democratic reform and digital authentication

In March 2020, Hardwick introduced the motion "Strengthening Representative Democratic Practices", which sought to address a perceived "crisis in public consultation". This initiative focused on the legitimacy of civic engagement, advocating for the use of digital identity authentication to ensure that city feedback mechanisms reflected the input of real, verifiable constituents within jurisdictional boundaries.

Hardwick argued that such authentication was a necessary safeguard to prevent "coordinated bots or trolls" from skewing public hearing outcomes and to provide council with defensible data for evidence-based decision-making. The final version of the motion was significantly amended by council; rather than implement full digital authentication, the updated requirements only requested that speakers at public hearings identify whether they were residents of Vancouver.

Housing data and land economics

Hardwick’s approach to city planning is strictly rooted in urban land economics and the analysis of machine-readable data. She has frequently challenged the narrative that she opposes housing growth, characterizing the "supply-side" argument as "gas-lighting" and stating that her objective is to "make things more affordable" by addressing land inflation. She argues that while blanket upzoning triggers speculative price increases, these effects can be alleviated through proper, evidence-based planning rooted in land economic transparency and empirical data, rather than just increasing density. Her legislative focus was centered on a demand for land economic transparency and a rejection of "aspirational" housing targets. She argued that these targets lacked empirical support and were instead calibrated to meet the financial projections in the city's business model and budget.

Hardwick cited a 2014 report by Coriolis Consulting—which concluded that Vancouver had 20 years of existing zoned capacity for growth without the need for additional rezonings—as the empirical basis for her argument that upzoning is not a prerequisite for housing growth. She maintains that rather than guaranteeing affordability, upzoning policies trigger the BC Assessment "Highest and Best Use" (HBU) valuation model. This model assesses property based on its potential development value rather than its current use. Hardwick—frequently citing academics such as Patrick Condon—contends that this mechanism causes speculative spikes in land value that displace existing affordable rentals and small businesses before construction even begins.

In 2020, Hardwick successfully introduced a unanimous motion to "Recalibrate the Housing Vancouver Strategy," which called for a comprehensive review of housing targets to ensure they align with actual housing needs, local context, and empirical data rather than just projected growth. However, she characterized the subsequent staff response as an inadequate report because it failed to include the underlying machine-readable data—specifically Excel spreadsheets and GIS shapefiles—required to substantiate the city's 72,000-unit target.

Hardwick argued that without access to this verifiable data, the city's targets lacked empirical grounding. Consequently, she issued several formal inquiries regarding the failure of staff to provide machine-readable housing data and frequently abstained or voted against related motions, citing a fundamental lack of data transparency. These voting patterns were later highlighted in independent analyses of her 2018–2022 council record, which noted her consistent opposition to projects she felt were not based on defensible data.

Stance on housing

Hardwick’s legislative record on housing is defined by a focus on land economic transparency and neighborhood-scale development. Hardwick opposed a proposed 5-storey development in Kitsilano (2nd & Larch). While critics framed this as opposing rentals, Hardwick stated she was opposing a "bait and switch" involving unaffordable luxury rentals that ignored the neighbourhood context and displaced existing affordable options.

Regarding MST Development Corporation's Heather Lands project, Hardwick scrutinized the underlying assumptions of the development plan and objected to the destruction of the Fairmont Academy, a Heritage A building. She highlighted the building’s historical significance, which included its use as a former RCMP headquarters, as a primary reason for its preservation. She questioned the reconciliation of "Indigenous ways of being" with 18-story high-rise developments and expressed concern that the partnership was being used to override established heritage protections and community amenity agreements, a process she characterized as a failure of due process. Hardwick ultimately voted in favor of the rezoning.

In 2022, she opposed the Broadway Plan, stating that the density targets needed to be recalibrated to align with actual census data and warning that the resulting land speculation would displace residents. With respect to the Skytrain extension to UBC, she advocated for "distributed surface rail" instead, which she argued would support human-scale development at a fraction of the cost. In 2023, she opposed multiplex proposals (such as sixplexes), stressing that adding more supply on top of highly collateralized $3 million lots creates "luxury density" rather than attainable housing. Hardwick argued that this is a flawed solution to a problem fundamentally caused by land speculation, noting that Vancouver already accommodates gentle density through existing policies like secondary suites and laneway houses.

2022 Vancouver municipal election

Hardwick resigned from the NPA in April 2021 to sit as an independent councillor. Five months later, she helped found a new civic party, TEAM for a Livable Vancouver. On March 13, 2022 was acclaimed as TEAM's mayoral candidate for the 2022 municipal election. Hardwick came in third in the mayoral race with 9.97% of the vote. Consistent with her push for community-led planning, her 2022 campaign proposed $500 million for co-op housing and neighborhood-specific zoning plans.

2025 Vancouver City Council by-election

Following the resignations of councillors Christine Boyle and Adriane Carr, Hardwick ran for one of the two vacant Vancouver City Council seats in the April 5, 2025 by-election. Campaigning again under the TEAM for a Livable Vancouver banner alongside running mate Theodore Abbott, she centered her campaign on a critique of the Broadway Plan and the Vancouver Plan. Hardwick argued that these plans' density targets were driven by speculative land inflation rather than the evidence-based, community-led planning she advocated for during her 2018–2022 term. Hardwick placed third in the race with 17,352 votes (25.53% of the popular vote), trailing the winning progressive candidates Sean Orr (COPE) and Lucy Maloney (OneCity).

Electoral record

Vancouver municipal by-election, April 5, 2025: Vancouver City Council Resignation of Christine Boyle and Adriane Carr
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	Elected
	COPE	Sean Orr	34,448	50.69	Y
	OneCity	Lucy Maloney	33,732	49.63	Y
	TEAM for a Livable Vancouver	Colleen Hardwick	17,352	25.53
	Green	Annette Reilly	15,045	22.14
	TEAM for a Livable Vancouver	Theodore Abbott	11,581	17.04
	ABC Vancouver	Jaime Stein	9,267	13.64
	ABC Vancouver	Ralph Kaisers	8,915	13.12
	Independent	Jeanifer Decena	652	0.96
	Independent	Guy Dubé	459	0.68
	Independent	Karin Litzcke	433	0.64
	Independent	Rollergirl	404	0.59
	Independent	Charles Ling	352	0.52
	Independent	Gerry McGuire	276	0.41
Total number of voters			67,962	100.00
Rejected ballots			0	0.00
Turnout			67,962	15.09
Eligible voters			450,503	–
Percentage of votes shown is percentage of voters who voted, not votes cast.
Source: City of Vancouver

2022 Vancouver municipal election: Mayor
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	Elected
	ABC Vancouver	Ken Sim	85,732	50.96	Y
	Forward Together	Kennedy Stewart (incumbent)	49,593	29.48
	TEAM for a Livable Vancouver	Colleen Hardwick	16,769	9.97
	Progress Vancouver	Mark Marissen	5,830	3.47
	NPA	Fred Harding	3,905	2.32
	Independent	Leona Brown	1,519	0.9
	Independent	Ping Chan	1,154	0.69
	Independent	Françoise Raunet	1,116	0.66
	Independent	Satwant Shottha	994	0.59
	Independent	Imtiaz Popat	411	0.24
	Independent	Lewis Villegas	363	0.22
	Independent	Mike Hansen	314	0.19
	Independent	Gölök Buday	195	0.12
	Independent	Ryan Charmley	183	0.11
	Independent	Dante Teti	142	0.08
	ABC Vancouver gain from Forward Together		Swing		+11.02
Source: City of Vancouver

2018 Vancouver municipal election: City Council
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	Elected
	Green	(I) Adriane Carr	69,739	39.52	Y
	Green	Pete Fry	61,806	35.03	Y
	NPA	(I) Melissa De Genova	53,251	30.18	Y
	COPE	Jean Swanson	48,865	27.69	Y
	NPA	Colleen Hardwick	47,747	27.06	Y
	Green	(O) Michael Wiebe	45,593	25.84	Y
	OneCity	Christine Boyle	45,455	25.76	Y
	NPA	(O) Lisa Dominato	44,689	25.33	Y
	NPA	Rebecca Bligh	44,053	24.97	Y
	NPA	(O) Sarah Kirby-Yung	43,581	24.70	Y
	NPA	David Grewal	41,913	23.75
	Green	David H. Wong	40,887	23.17
	Vision	(I) Heather Deal	39,529	22.40
	COPE	Derrick O'Keefe	38,305	21.71
	NPA	Justin P. Goodrich	37,917	21.49
	COPE	Anne Roberts	36,531	20.70
	OneCity	Brandon O. Yan	36,167	20.50
	NPA	Jojo Quimpo	34,601	19.61
	Independent	Sarah Blyth	29,456	16.69
	Vision	Tanya Paz	28,836	16.34
	Vision	Diego Cardona	27,325	15.49
	Vision	(O) Catherine Evans	25,124	14.24
	Independent	(O) Erin Shum	23,331	13.22
	Vancouver 1st	Ken Low	21,908	12.42
	Independent	Adrian Crook	17,392	9.86
	Vision	Wei Q. Zhang	16,734	9.48
	Coalition Vancouver	Ken Charko	16,366	9.28
	Coalition Vancouver	James Lin	16,191	9.18
	Independent	Wade Grant	15,422	8.74
	Independent	Taqdir K. Bhandal	15,326	8.69
	Vancouver 1st	Elizabeth Taylor	15,184	8.61
	Coalition Vancouver	Penny Mussio	14,886	8.44
	Yes Vancouver	Brinder Bains	13,948	7.90
	Yes Vancouver	Stephanie Ostler	13,530	7.67
	Coalition Vancouver	Jason Xie	13,424	7.61
	Yes Vancouver	Glynnis C. Chan	13,218	7.49
	Coalition Vancouver	Glen Chernen	13,148	7.45
	Coalition Vancouver	Morning Li	12,614	7.15
	Vancouver 1st	Nycki K. Basra	12,133	6.88
	Yes Vancouver	Jaspreet Virdi	12,124	6.87
	Coalition Vancouver	Franco Peta	11,193	6.34
	Yes Vancouver	Phyllis Tang	11,902	6.75
	Independent	Rob McDowell	11,828	6.70
	Independent	Penny Noble	11,435	6.48
	Independent	Graham Cook	11,084	6.28
	Vancouver 1st	Michelle C. Mollineaux	8,819	5.00
	ProVancouver	Raza Mirza	8,783	4.98
	Vancouver 1st	Jesse Johl	8,609	4.88
	Independent	Barbara Buchanan	8,180	4.64
	ProVancouver	Breton Crellin	7,856	4.45
	Vancouver 1st	Elishia Perosa	7,489	4.24
	Independent	Anastasia Koutalianos	7,469	4.23
	Independent	Abubakar Khan	7,239	4.10
	Vancouver 1st	John Malusa	6,597	3.74
	Independent	Lisa Kristiansen	6,506	3.69
	ProVancouver	Rohana D. Rezel	6,336	3.59
	Independent	Françoise Raunet	5,891	3.34
	Independent	Hamdy El-Rayes	5,381	3.05
	Independent	Hsin-Chen Fu	5,007	2.84
	Independent	Justin Caudwell	4,488	2.54
	Independent	Harry Miedzygorski	4,308	2.44
	Independent	Gordon T. Kennedy	4,297	2.44
	Independent	Ashley Hughes	3,965	2.25
	Independent	Kelly Alm	3,440	1.95
	Independent	Marlo Franson	3,316	1.88
	Independent	John Spark	3,287	1.86
	Independent	Katherine Ramdeen	3,082	1.75
	Independent	Spike Peachey	2,863	1.62
	Independent	Larry J. Falls	2,768	1.57
	Independent	Elke Porter	2,515	1.43
	Independent	Ted Copeland	1,946	1.10
'(I)' denotes incumbent city councillors. '(O)' denotes incumbents of other municipal positions.

2005 Vancouver Municipal Election: City Council
Candidate		Party	Votes	%
	Suzanne Anton	NPA	60586
	Peter Ladner*	NPA	58142
	Raymond Louie*	Vision	52795
	Kim Capri	NPA	52719
	Tim Stevenson*	Vision	51527
	David Cadman*	COPE	51155
	George Chow	Vision	51107
	Elizabeth Ball	NPA	50865
	Heather Deal	Vision	50624
	BC Lee	NPA	50047
	Ronald Leung	NPA	48430
	Fred Bass*	COPE	48248
	Colleen Hardwick Nystedt	NPA	46737
	Valerie Jenkinson	NPA	46077
	Heather Harrison	Vision	45719
	Kathi Thompson	NPA	45314
	Tim Louis*	COPE	43349
	Ellen Woodsworth*	COPE	42724
	Anne Roberts*	COPE	41739
	Patrick Maliha	NPA	39165
	Ann Livingston	Green	27168
	Kevin Potvin	Independent	10806
	Michelle Jasmine Chang	Independent	9016
	Jamie Lee Hamilton	Independent	8153
	Patrick Britten	Nude Garden	6595
	Lea Johnson	Independent	6253
	Beverley Ballantyne	Independent	6153
	John W. Angus	Independent	5728
	Wendythirteen	Independent	4247
	John Patrick Gordon	Independent	3887
	Phyllis Loke	Independent	3562
	Marc Boyer	Independent	3388
	Greg Aulin	Independent	3335
	Don Briere	Independent	3125
	David Wilson Applegath	Independent	2718
	Steve Wansleeben	Independent	2478
Total			1083681	100.0