VANCOUVER - A Vancouver governed by the Non-Partisan Association would be open again as a home for resource businesses, including B.C.’s emerging LNG industry, and would cut some of the programs of the current Vision Vancouver administration, party mayoral candidate Kirk LaPointe said Tuesday.

In a speech broad on policy but not nearly as detailed as his Vision counterpart, LaPointe said he believes a key to affordable housing is improving the economy and prosperity of the city. When people have higher-paying jobs, they can afford better housing, he said.

LaPointe disagreed with the idea of the Vancouver Economic Commission being involved in venture capital funding for startups and wants it to focus solely on attracting private-sector investment in businesses that create those high-paying jobs.

And he said the city will give back to neighbourhoods the right to determine how they develop and densify, as opposed to what he said was the “ad hoc and spot rezonings” being allowed under Mayor Gregor Robertson.

LaPointe unveiled the policies at Crab Park on Vancouver’s Burrard Inlet waterfront, against a backdrop of industrial and resource activities that he said Robertson appears ashamed of supporting, but which the NPA believes is a backbone of the city’s economy.

LaPointe pinned his plans to encourage housing affordability — particularly for seniors and young families — on the nearly two decades-old CityPlan, an unfinished master plan to control and direct community development.

In making the pledge, LaPointe also turned his back on his predecessor NPA mayor Sam Sullivan’s Eco-Density program, a planning exercise that replaced CityPlan and which was the forerunner of Vision Vancouver’s current planning process.

“We need to step back to take our next steps ahead. To address this challenge, an NPA government would revive CityPlan, an neighbourhood-based city-wide zoning plan that lays out the principles behind how we should change and behind community preservation,” LaPointe said. “This would move us out of the shadow of Eco-Density and the adoption of its principles by Vision Vancouver.”

That community power, he insisted, could even go so far as to allow neighbourhoods to veto high-density projects.

LaPointe poked a nerve raw for some Vancouverites who believe Robertson’s party is too cosy with certain developers, who he said “know the secret handshake” to get their projects approved.

On several fronts, LaPointe was specific. He said he would dismantle the city’s Rental 100 program, a rental housing policy that rewards developers who commit to renting out units for at least 60 years. LaPointe said he agreed with critics who believe the program doesn’t make units more affordable.

He also said he would order a study of the issues underlying foreign absentee home ownership, with a view to trying to get more of those homes rented to or sold to local residents.

And LaPointe reiterated a promise to reform the Community Amenity Contribution program and other developer fee programs that are used to create extra density, which he said “under Robertson has created a culture of coercion, a system of soft extortion, and a secretive system that has corroded confidence in our city.”