The Vancouver School Board owns 223 properties worth more than $9.5 billion—schools, office lots, apartment units, and even a shopping mall (Postmedia, 2025). And yet every year, we are told there is not enough money to hire enough education assistants. Not enough to renovate a broken bathroom. Not enough to build a school where children aren’t taught in portables.
We are told to accept cuts, closures, and delays while the district sits on a land portfolio larger than most real estate firms. We are watching public servants act like real estate barons—guarding their assets like dragons sitting on gold, occasionally tossing a few coins out the window in the hope no one notices the scale of what’s being hoarded.
Fire sales and failed stewardship
Faced with pressure, school boards don’t craft visionary partnerships—they sign away schoolyards for 99 years at discount rates. They lease Kingsgate Mall for a fraction of its value and go to court to argue over who’s losing more. They hand off playgrounds for one-time payouts while children with disabilities go unsupported.
This is not just bad governance. It is an insult to families forced to crowdfund basic access.
When land is given away with no guarantee of public return—when a developer can promise affordable housing, back out, and walk away richer—it’s not partnership. It’s betrayal. And when that betrayal is hidden behind closed-door meetings and in-camera votes, it becomes hard to tell whether the board is naïve, indifferent, or simply weak.
Public land is a trust, not a stockpile
Public land is not meant to be hidden under a mattress while children are left unsupported. It should be used—carefully, powerfully, creatively—to meet urgent community needs.
That means:
- Retain ownership—yes. But do something with it.
- Partner smartly—with enforceable contracts, guaranteed public returns, and no empty promises.
- Build holistically—schools with housing above, clinics below, parks on the roof.
- Tap federal and provincial dollars—unlock housing and infrastructure funding that school boards cannot access alone.
It is time to stop letting school boards plead poverty while sitting on enough land to rebuild the entire system. If they lack the skill to partner wisely, then build that capacity. If they lack the courage to act, then elect trustees who can.
Because the current model—where children wait years for support while millions sit tied up in mismanaged leases—is not just inefficient. It is disgraceful.
Our stance
- We believe public land must serve public dignity. Sitting on billions while children suffer is not caution—it is cruelty.
- We demand real partnerships, not predatory giveaways. That means enforceable guarantees, long-term benefit, and local control.
- We reject the narrative of scarcity. What we lack is not money—it is imagination.
School land is not a commodity. It is a birthright. Let’s stop hoarding and start building and inclusive future with the infrastructure we need.
See: Public school districts often claim they are woefully underfunded while simultaneously sitting on enormous real estate portfolios
