Expect a wild show tonight at Vancouver city council.

The man behind the CityHallWatch website, Randy Helten, has invited neighbourhood activists from across the city to converge on the steps of City Hall to protest what he calls the "broken planning and rezoning system" in Vancouver.

Later in the evening, a public hearing will begin in connection with Wall Financial Corporation's application to rezone Shannon Mews on the city's southwest side. The company wants to increase the number of housing units from 162 to 735 on the four-hectare site, which is nestled within a single-family neighbourhood.

In a phone interview today, Helten said he has seriously considered running for Vancouver city council because he's dissatisfied wih the options on the ballot for the November election.

"But I am not a political animal and I also have a 10-year-old son who is at a critical phase of growing up," he added. "I look at the personal sacrifices required to go for a public position, and it would be quite big, I think."

Helten hasn't completely ruled out seeking a council seat. But he said his "personal approach" is focused on building strength within communities at the grassroots level because he thinks that's the best way to bring real change to the planning process.

In the 2008 civic election, Helten supported Vision Vancouver and its mayoral candidate, Gregor Robertson. However this time around, he's dissatisfied with both major mayoral candidates, including the NPA's Suzanne Anton.

"Having no decent options for voting is a huge problem," he acknowledged. "I'm just speaking the truth, as I see it."

Helten was the first speaker at city council on the night last year when Robertson made his infamous, expletive-laden comment that the speakers were "NPA hacks".

"My message to the mayor on the night of the F-bomb incident was...everything will work better if every action is based on trust—and builds trust between the players," Helten said. "If that's the basic rule of society, if that's there, everything goes a lot easier."

However, he claimed that because city processes are tilted in favour of developers, it creates more costs for taxpayers because the citizens erupt in anger, causing longer public hearings and eating up more staff time overseeing these meetings and writing additional reports. That's why he's organized the protest to try to change the status quo.

"There might be a little bit less profit for private interests," Helten acknowledged, "but in the long run, for society as a whole, it would be a much better deal. The meetings would be shorter. Staff would not have to spend a huge amount of resources to reverse engineered decisions that they're told to create. Developers would know the rules and not have to spend all this money on consultants and p.r. firms and spin masters. Everything would work better."

He also said that citizens would not have to sacrifice thousands of hours cumulatively to fight decisions, creating more harmony for all the parties.

The city has adopted a "crowd-management strategy" to cope with neighbourhood opposition at rezoning hearings.

At the Shannon Mews hearing tonight, lower seating in the council chamber is reserved for registered speakers and staff only. More than 120 people have signed up to talk to council.

Every speaker will be required to check in at a kiosk on the ground floor, where they will receive a number. After they've finished, speakers will be encouraged to leave the chamber.

Observers and the overflow speakers will be permitted in the balcony and in an unreserved area in the lobby.