Squamish is amazing.

Squamish is a special place. The people of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw have known this since time immemorial. I am grateful for the opportunity to live within their traditional territory. Municipal elections are an opportunity for each of us to choose who we believe will make decisions in the best interest of the communities we live in and the communities we live with. To serve in local government carries a responsibility to listen, to become informed, and to make difficult decisions that impact people every day. To help make difficult decisions in the presence of conflicting perspectives, I strive to follow these three core principles:

open and humble community consultation
informed and respectful debate
timely and transparent decision making

The Council directs many aspects of our community. It is responsible for prioritizing resources (your property tax dollars) to keep Squamish an amazing place to live for all members of our community, both present and future.

fiscally and environmentally sustainable core infrastructure
fair and responsible development zoning
reasonable and reliable recreation amenities

Andrew Hamilton

My views on some current issues.

Council does a lot more than deliver on a short list of campaign promises, so rather than telling you what I "promise to deliver", I will share my views on some current issues. If you have an opinion on any of these issues, or if you would like me to include an issue that is important to you, please email me so that I can include it in my FAQ page.

Housing Affordability

Housing affordability is a complex issue. Part of the reason Squamish is such an expensive place to live is that Squamish is an amazing place to live. Another factor is that we are located in a river delta surrounded by mountains, which limits the land available for development. Any economics 101 book will tell you what happens when demand is high, and supply is limited.

What control does Council have on housing affordability? The most direct long-term control Council has over housing affordability is zoning. By allocating a mix of housing sizes and styles through zoning, Council can work to maintain a supply that keeps pace with demand. An important question in zoning is whether the increase should take the form of density or sprawl. Generally, I believe infill development (density) will lead to a more economically and environmentally sustainable community compared to greenfield development (sprawl).

Here are some books and reports that have influenced my perspective on our housing affordability challenges:

Climate Action

There is no question in my mind that the Earth's climate is changing due to the carbon that humans are emitting into our atmosphere. As an individual citizen, I feel limited in what I can do to effect meaningful change without sacrificing what I consider a reasonable standard of living. As a Councillor, I feel limited in what I can do to effect meaningful change because many of the 'big' decisions are outside local government's jurisdiction. But those limitations do not change the importance of making changes or the value of those within our control.

Here is one small example of what I mean. When I'm working in town, I usually ride my bike. That is an individual choice I am fortunate to be able to make because I work in town (a couple of days per week), I can afford an e-bike (with fenders), and I am physically able to ride a bike (for now). Not everyone can or will make the same individual choice as I do - and that is good, because society would be pretty boring if we were all the same. One of Council's roles is to build a community that promotes individuals' ability to choose. If there are bike paths and streets that folks feel safe riding on, they are more likely to cycle to work, to school, or to the store. If folks can work in town, they are more likely to choose to ride. If public transit is more frequent, people are more likely to use it. And for each person who chooses to use a bike or a bus to get where they are going, there is less traffic in the way during the times I drive - either by choice or by necessity.

Transportation is just one example to highlight what I feel is within Council's control - build a community that provides the infrastructure for folks to make individual choices that meet their needs in a way that reflects their beliefs in the impacts of their choices on our climate.

Here are some of the books that have influenced my thinking on climate action:

The "P" Word... Parking

"I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream parking!"

Parking is one of those topics that tends to generate powerful emotions. In my view, the core challenge is that we have a finite amount of space and many potential uses for that space. How people choose to allocate limited resources among alternative uses is the fundamental question of economics. If we want to ensure there is sufficient parking available, we need to think clearly about how our local government regulations affect the parking supply and demand. Let me use ice cream to illustrate.

People love ice cream, and they want more of it. They tell their local government to make sure they can get ice cream wherever they go. So the local government starts giving ice cream away on the street, for free. The people want even more ice cream. So the local government enacts a bylaw that all shops must supply ice cream to their customers. The shops are okay with that because they can cover the cost of the ice cream by increasing the price of the things they sell. The people want even more ice cream. So the local government enacts a bylaw that all homes must come with ice cream. Home builders are okay with that because they can cover the cost of the ice cream by raising the home's price. The people want even more ice cream. Because ice cream is freely available on the streets, in the shops, and at everyone's home, it is unlikely that a business will invest in opening an ice cream shop for fear they cannot cover their costs. So the local government decides to build their own ice cream shop. The municipal ice cream shop cannot cover its costs through ice cream sales, so the shortfall is covered by property tax.

Now replace the word "ice cream" with "parking" and "ice cream shop" with "parking lot" in the paragraph above. Parking is a classic example of an economic shortage caused (in part) by parking minimums required in our zoning bylaws and free on-street parking policies.

The cost of parking is distributed into our food prices, our home prices, and our property taxes. Whether we drive a car or not, we all pay for parking. If we want parking to be both plentiful and available, we need to think clearly about how our regulations incentivize or disincentivize the supply of parking in our regulated free market economy.

Here are three parking reforms that Donald Shoup (economist and professor of urban planning at UCLA) describes in his book “The High Cost of Free Parking":

Charge the right prices for on-street parking. The right prices are the lowest prices that will leave one or two open spaces on each block, so there will be no parking shortages. Prices will balance supply and demand for on-street spaces.
Spend the parking revenue to improve public services on the metered streets. Let people see directly where their meter money is being spent; don't let it go to 'general revenue'.
Remove off-street parking requirements. Developers and businesses can then decide how many parking spaces to provide for their customers.

Here are some of the books that have influenced my thinking on parking:

About Me. [hear my name]

I am an instructor of Computing and Data Science at Capilano University, a husband, and a father of two boys. I have a PhD in physics from the University of Alberta and participated in the discovery of the Higgs Boson at the European Center for Nuclear Research. My career in research and academia has allowed us to live in several countries, including the United States, Switzerland, and South Africa. I hope to have the privilege of growing old (well, older), enjoying the people, trails, lakes, and mountains of Squamish. Squamish is an amazing place, and I would like to help continue making it even more amazing.

Get in touch, andrew@andrewforsquamish.ca

Disclosure Statement.

My campaign is completely self-funded. I am acting as my own financial agent. I have not, and will not, accept campaign donations. I will spend less than $500 on this campaign because I do not believe that money should buy your vote.

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