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November 23rd, 2009 at 9:45 pm
There are NO parks in that area, apart from a sliver near Science World, and a tiny square near the astroturf soccer fields.
The Creekside Park planned for that area was a PRE-CONDITION for Concord to get the contract to develop False Creek. The FC plan went through an extensive consultation process (I met people who were there) and Creekside was part of the deal.
So they are now flat out breaking a deal made with the public as a pre-condition to development. Concord and the COV have stalled and delayed for years, and the while paying lip service to their legal commitment. Then City staff engineered a re-wording of the deal which allowed Concord to develop other areas before making the park. Now the SOBs have practically taken the park out altogether. We have been royally scammed.
so it has nothing to do with NIMBY – it was a DEAL, and the SOBs at the COV and Concord flat out lied to the public here and broke their promise. Now the area has sh**loads more people, and zero amenities. no open space. no community centre. zilch. (BTW, roundhouse is Yaletown, and not local to the NEFC)
November 23rd, 2009 at 9:31 pm
You can try and spin the numbers any way you like but the fact is that there is no way Calgary is a denser urban area than Vancouver.
Calgary city is 1360 people/km2 (from above data).
If you take a Vancouver area including Vancouver, Burnaby, Richmond, New West, Coquitlam, Delta, Surrey, North Van, West Van and Poco you get a population 1,957,000 and an area of 1300 for a population density of 1506 people/km2. This is including an airport and resorvoirs and railyards and big open farms and big parks and universities etc. etc. etc.
November 23rd, 2009 at 9:20 pm
@Warren:
When did we start downvoting cited facts. Not every statement that might support our view is correct. Calgary is no where near as dense as Vancouver. If you have any doubt about that you’re clearly not living in reality.
November 23rd, 2009 at 9:19 pm
“The real story is how desperate city hall is to get back building permit revenue.”
……
Burnaby Metrotown is following suit.
- Bosa’s new residential/commercial complex coming up soon at the corner of Kingsway and Willingdon.
- Polybon’s residential 36-storey highrise + townhouses at Nelson/Bennett, a stone throw away from Kingsway.
- Station Square where BestBuy/FutureShop and Holiday Inn are located, next door to Metrotown and leaky Corniche towers, is slotted for mega redevelopment, residential again no doubt.
Above facts one can say. But there are stuff that one can’t mention. Just beware that when GREED gets out of hand, Metro Vancouver won’t be any different from Santa Clara or Saipan. Some people just can’t handle their own greed and bankers/BOC/CHMC are no different from Alan Greenspan: “I don’t see it coming”.
November 23rd, 2009 at 9:14 pm
thanks patriotz you make sense as usual.
November 23rd, 2009 at 9:11 pm
@Disbelief:
Well, wait till you see what happens with housing prices in the United States, you’ll throw out all the books and lame theories that you studied in University.
November 23rd, 2009 at 8:56 pm
The real story is how desperate city hall is to get back building permit revenue. Any look at their finances shows how dependent the city bureaucrats have become on developers. And now in order to stave off more cuts like a dtes junkie they approve a project that generates short term gain for poor long term planning. Maybe it’s time for some introspection — the joke of a Olympic rental permit program is a great example of tax dollars hard at work.
Dudes, it’s a recession. Start looking long and hard at the city’s pay structure and start living like the rest of the city’s taxpayers.
November 23rd, 2009 at 8:45 pm
It makes sense this could become a ghetto.
Currently Spectrum is considered the bottom of the barrel when it comes to location and class of occupants.
Citygate is not much better and Woodwards is vying for the top spot it just hasn’t completed yet.
The citygate folks have wanted a park , from concord pacific, for years and years already.
Both areas are the armpit of Vancouver.
1.Main and Terminal
2.Beatty and Dunsmir
3.Cordova and Abott
Now imagine paying $2,500 a month in mortgage payments to live in the POOREST postal code in all of Canada!
November 23rd, 2009 at 7:50 pm
A Federal MP in ‘Question period ‘referred to BC LIBs plan to implement the HST in BC as ‘hoodwinking’ the population. Gee, word seems to getting around eh?
November 23rd, 2009 at 7:39 pm
@Warren:
Calgary city contains:
Huge parks (Nose Hill, Fish Creek, etc). Note that Pacific Spirit park is not part of CoV.
Huge railway yards (CP and CN). cf PoCo and Surrey respectively.
A reservoir (Glenmore). cf North Shore or Burnaby Lake.
Huge industrial areas. cf Delta, etc.
An airport. cf Richmond.
A large ring of undeveloped land. cf Langley, etc.
A large university campus. UBC is not part of CoV.
In other words Calgary city is a metro in itself as ted says.
November 23rd, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Vancouver metro is a lower number than calgary from your own stats. I have no idea what Calgary metro is other than the huge swaths of farm land that surround the city. Nice cherry picking. There really is no such thing as calgary metro. Calgary does not have suburbs or municipalities. It is one city. Meanwhile Vancouver by itself is not where the city ends you can see burnaby, richmond and the north shore are cleary part of the city. there is no clear distincion where vancouver ends.
November 23rd, 2009 at 5:36 pm
5yr closed is 2%
P -0.25
Bansters et al know that it takes 3 generations to unlearn experience aka history, and another generation to fix it.
November 23rd, 2009 at 5:35 pm
used stats from wikipedia. If you have been to both Vancouver and Calgary and looked around, any thought of Calgary more dense is laughable.
It’s definately more dense but has little to do with People/sq km. The prices in Calgary are almost as expensive as Vancouver.
November 23rd, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Not sure where you are getting your baked stats on density.
Calgary city: 1360 people/sq km
Vancouver city: 5070 people/sq km
Calgary Metro: 211 people/sq km
Vancouver Metro: 735 people/sq km
I used stats from wikipedia. If you have been to both Vancouver and Calgary and looked around, any thought of Calgary more dense is laughable.
November 23rd, 2009 at 4:51 pm
@observer:
I think part of what is supporting the market is that turnover of housing is so fast that a decent chunk of available housing is constantly in a state of renovation/pre-renovation/post-renovation.
I know in my neighbourhood for the last 3-4 years the amount of housing which is unavailable due to renovation is about 10%. Right now the duplex next door is without tenants and awaiting planning approval, there’s another two in the same state within a block of me and a rental complex of 8-10 units that was bulldozed 2 1/2 years ago and has sat empty ever since.
This is a consistent pattern throughout the neighbourhood and it’s been at about that level for years now. Because of the inflation in prices owners aren’t in any rush and really don’t care much if the renovations take 2-3 years to complete because it just means the place will be worth more when they finally sell.
There was a big rush of activity last year around this time when prices were falling though which indicates to me that there will be a lot of properties listed in a relatively short time once a consistent downwards (or even neutral) trend emerges.
November 23rd, 2009 at 4:50 pm
In fact I just looked Greater vancouvers population density is way lower than Calgary’s. People just cherry pick vancouver proper to show how dense it is. Considering the bulk of condos are downtown and vancouver proper is a very small area of course its somewhat dense. And ther is no industry in vancouver.
November 23rd, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Patriotz you bring up a good point about density. Here in Calgary everyone thinks they need more density like vancouver. Living in both cities I feel Calgary is more dense in its neighbourhoods. The average lots in Calgary are more than half the size than vancouvers. I was shocked to see you packed in every house was here. Vancouvers densification is a myth. Also stats on densification mean nothing if they don’t compare apples to oranges. One thing helping Vancouver is the large amounts of condos in downtown. Calgary needs to catch up in this area but in all other residiential areas it is more dense. Also I would say vancouvers was an overbuild as the demand isn’t there, if it was it wouldn’t be specuvestors owing the majority. But what the stats don’t show is that Calgary has all of its industy inside the city and there are large swaths of land not developed at all.
I believe Vancouver could densify a lot more. In fact other than allwoing for more condos downtown Calgary has gone overboard. I would never buy one of these shoeboxes with no yards.
November 23rd, 2009 at 4:25 pm
Has anyone bothered to do a verifiable no BS no spin study of the supply and demand for housing (rental+owner combined) in Vancouver? I’ve never seen anything authoritative about this and it is puzzling it hasn’t been done (I think the silence means something). It is the first thing one should do in city planning.
I think the civic plaza smells like a hidden bailout of millenium. There is probably no need to move the art museum or library there except to help prop up the amenities for the olympic condos. But these are obviously more important than keeping city staff jobs or having less crowded transit.
November 23rd, 2009 at 4:20 pm
I wonder how “green” this plan really is. From what I can tell a lot of Vancouver isn’t mixed at all. There isn’t enough space in many homes for a decent sized dog, much less a couple of kids.
And then there’s the office/ commercial space issue. I don’t see any effort being made to attract any employers to Vancouver. Wouldn’t a key part of high density be bringing quality, middle class jobs into the city? I would think you’d need government agencies, financial jobs, IT, white collar jobs and the like.
I mean we can’t all work at those packed casual places surpa and his buddies frequent.
Annecdotally, food and bevvy are really taking a hot in this town. This time last year students were hired before they got out of school. Over the weekend I heard fro
some former classmates. They have all had to look outside the city and many have had to find work in other fields.
It’s not hard data but it’s information. Make of it what you will
November 23rd, 2009 at 4:16 pm
hey patriotz, my thinking exactly – that was what i was referring to when i said “if there is anymore” – seems like translink blew their wad for their owelympic pals. still, the canada line is nice but clearly not cost-effective given the density issues. agree with purp, density is way better on cambie though than it would have been on arbutus.
as someone who sold my car in ’94 and haven’t owned once since, i am a frequent transit user and impressed with the canada line – it cut 10-15 min off my 25 min commute to work and is so much nicer than the overcrowded bus. it also doesn’t drive by me half empty as i wait in the pouring rain at the bus stop or give me attitude for no reason.
ps: not disagreeing with your purp on how pretty our little city is, just saying it is so because we have loads of green space especially bordering the seawall and its a shame the new development isn’t incorporating more, especially with all the density it plans to bring.
November 23rd, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Hey Arit, you asked when I’d be at the airport. I’ll be there around 6 pm. I’m a bit reluctant to post that here. Supraboy seems a little obsessed and frankly the last thing on earth I need is for him to get all dolled up in his best lady boy outfit and go stalking me through the airport screaming “scullboy!! You jealous!!! You jealous of me and my rich daddy!! I buy three condos and daddy buy me three more!! ”
brrrrrr what a mental image.
November 23rd, 2009 at 4:07 pm
#19 Drac, Thats pretty funny “Carney threatens to raise rates if people don’t back off debt spending” Oh that is just side splitting. Hasn’t the federal government just added 700 billion to the national debt by buying back all the mortgages from the banks and hiding them inside the CHMC file?
November 23rd, 2009 at 3:31 pm
@mk-kids:
Underground rapid transit is only cost-effective if the area served is developed to Toronto, Montreal, or New York levels of density. Cambie is nowhere near dense enough to make RAV pay. Compare to Yonge or Bloor streets in Toronto.
You want Calgary density, you get Calgary (ground level) LRT. You can’t have it both ways.
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Superboy
Looks like things are inflating yet again. Gold prices shot up. I think 1200 is a high possibility before year end.
Don’t confuse the sectors. The forces that drive Real Estate and Gold are very different. They are essentially polar opposites. I guess there are no books in that dungeon your parents have you locked away in.
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Regarding the loonie and alternate ways of preventing appreciation that other countries are using.
http://www.progressive-economi.....ies-wings/
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:58 pm
I really wish douchetards would actually listen to the lyrics of a song.
“Na na na na na na na na
hey hey hey goodbye
he’ll never love you
the way that I love you
cause if he did no no
he wouldn’t make you cry.
He might be thrilling Baby
but my love’s
so dog-gone willing so kiss him
go on and kiss him goodbye.
Na na na na hey hey hey goodbye.
Na na na na na na na na
hey hey hey goodbye
he’s never near you
to comfort and cheer you.
When all those sad tears
are falling Baby from your eyes
he might be thrilling Baby
but my love’s
so dog-gone willing so kiss him
go on and kiss him goodbye.
Na na na na hey hey hey goodbye.
Na na na na na na na na
hey hey hey goodbye
na na na na na na na na
hey hey hey goodbye… ”
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:39 pm
21 Vic – the city usues the notion that high densisty ADDS to greenness as it reduces transport needs cos they can walk/trasit to to work – as long as all those folks then work downtown – but where one asks?
As for the ELS thing – friends in that industry tell me that the past 6 months have been brutal. Massive drop offs in numbers of Asian students, which I guess is also adding to the downtown/west end vacancy increases.
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Looks like things are inflating yet again. Gold prices shot up. I think 1200 is a high possibility before year end.
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:27 pm
http://watch.bnn.ca/#clip238118
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Greenest city in the world by 2010..and still have the highest density? The only way I can see that happening is by building the park on the roof top — which has its own set of problems.
DTES is a disaster and it sounds like they just want to steam roll that area and just build condos.
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:22 pm
@Mk-kids “I think all our future rapid transit (if ever there is anymore)” – Interesting commment, you doubt whether more rapid transit would be built? What do you think would prevent that?
Re. the Arbutus corridor route, putting aside the nasty NIMBYism during that debate, it IS actually better located down Cambie route (past VGH/city hall/Oakridge etc.) than through the lower density arbutus corridor.
Personally, I think the entire whole downtown waterfront area is spectacular with the seawall and all the parks from Kits all the way to Canada Place. I think sometimes Vancouverites take for granted how nice our waterfront really is. Take a look at Seattle for an example of terrible planning.
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:20 pm
@realpaul:
The government (and the BOC) has said for a while now that the current low rate won’t last through the summer. Carney’s hinted from time to time that hikes may come sooner if people don’t back off on the debt spending (which has become worse not better since he started saying it).
Not exactly a secret, just one of those things that doesn’t get reported by the mass media.
The impact on Vancouver could be pretty heavy with even a small movement because there are many people out there who can’t even afford to lock in right now, they’re living at the very edge of affordability and even a 1-2% increase in rates will sink them.
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:12 pm
A rental ghetto seems like a logical progression: they’re working day and night to turn the DTES into a quaint little yuppie fiefdom. It has “character”, is (unlike the rest of Vancouver) scaled for pedestrians, and has a great view of the north shore. All the bars are being converted to more douche-friendly environments, and if you’ve got a swingin’ new restaurant, a DTES/gastown location in a must have.
There seems to be this belief that everyone on the DTES (and how you feel about the issue personally is of little relevance) are just supposed to vanish into thin air once their stomping ground is stolen from them. I’m sorry, they have to go SOMEWHERE, so why not just a few short blocks over to where everyone is trying to make some cash back on their tanking condo (God knows they won’t be able to sell it in a year) by renting out…to ANYONE.
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:11 pm
i listened to an investment conferance this morning. There was a lot of talk about intrest rates going up ‘very quickly’ several hundred basis points. The advice was for companies to lock in any loans in a hurry. Hmmmmmmmmmmm, these business guys know something that the government ain’t saying?
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Yeah boombust, isn’t that just the way the world works, huh? And yet Cambie wasn’t well-to-do enough to move the thing entirely like the Arbutus Corridor folks…
Seriously if they had put that train above ground up Cambie it would have ruined the area entirely – not just the noise but te sight of it too. I think all our future rapid transit (if ever there is anymore) should be subterranean, especially if it is in an urban neighbourhood.
November 23rd, 2009 at 12:38 pm
“I live close to the Canada Line and am very happy it is underground.”
Funny (as in strange, not ha ha)that it was put underground through a well-to-do neighbourhood.
Any thoughts about that?
November 23rd, 2009 at 12:36 pm
With respect to the lack o green space with the new development, I think it is shameful. I spend a lot of time on the seawall from Granville Island around Science World to English Bay and it is generally really crowded. I look at the area north of Science World, around to Yaletown and there really is a lack of green space. What makes False Creek south, Yaletown and the West End desirable is the amount of green – small parks, tree-lined roads, art installations, views of tress and water. Now, if they built this area with “living” walls & roofs and large tree lined streets and an expanded seawall bike/ walk path… that might be a good compromise.
November 23rd, 2009 at 12:30 pm
I know someone who lives along that Main Street stretch of skytrain and holy crap, it is SOOOOO noisy! I would never live there, I don’t care how great the view is. I live close to the Canada Line and am very happy it is underground.
November 23rd, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Don’t forget that awful racket that the Indy used to bring one weekend a year. Thank god that’s gone.
November 23rd, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Yes, I forgot to mention the residents of CityGate bring NIMBY to a whole new level. These people have the dregs of Main St on their back door, yet complain constantly about any proposed changes in their area. They are the reason the Skytrain crawls along that stretch. It was “too noisy” (!!). Nevermind that it was there long before them.
November 23rd, 2009 at 11:56 am
This article reeks a bit of NIMBYism. To Warren’s point there’s parks and public space all around this area.
Calling this proposed development a ‘ghetto’ is absurd.
This land has been undeveloped for almost 25 years, let’s just move forward.
November 23rd, 2009 at 11:17 am
Why would this area be a ghetto more than any other area?
The park rule “issue” seems a little silly when you are putting this neighbourhood in between a big park north of Expo Blvd, and right on the False Creek seawall. Clearly there are prime outdoor public areas all around this area.
November 23rd, 2009 at 11:13 am
I think some of the bears’ hate-based commentary are just total sour grapes. What is wrong with this development.. a rental ghetto.. come on… geesh. Relax.
November 23rd, 2009 at 10:57 am
Here’s what SCULLBOY should watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsaTElBljOE
LET’S STAND UP AND SING BOYS AND GIRLS! NAH NAH NAH NAH, HEY HEY HEY, GOODBYE!
Only thing that came out of Nova Scotia is Sidney Crosby. Scullboy is ready to play some hockey!
November 23rd, 2009 at 10:55 am
I believe it should read:
NAH NAH NAH NAH, NAH NAH NAH NAH, HEY HEY, GOODBYE!
November 23rd, 2009 at 10:49 am
SCULLBOY IS OFFICIALLY OUT OF HERE! NAH NAH NAH NAH, HEY HEY HEY, GOODBYE!
November 23rd, 2009 at 9:16 am
“ESL schools here. There was a report recently that this category is a huge contributor to BC’s economy”
That has slowed considerably. Numbers are way down.
November 23rd, 2009 at 8:40 am
Let’s look at it this way, perhaps Vancouver is taking a lesson from cities and states across the line, how their revenues have all but dried up from the housing bubble and credit crisis, Vancouver, moving aggressively on the next big tax revenue stream and potentially the last for the cities core, locks in the tax net for years to come, capturing revenues. Wait a minute, government officials learn lessons, maximize income utilization and give the electorate what they want? What was I thinking?
Maybe this initiative can be placed in the contrary indicator column as one more small piece of evidence that we maybe beyond the housing shift, point of no return ( no pun intended).
November 23rd, 2009 at 8:21 am
From previous thread:
@Boombust:
Quebeckers do not have a cultural preference for owning over renting and thus will not pay more to own than to rent. That’s ALL it takes to prevent a bubble – just say no to high selling prices.
Also true of Germany BTW.
November 23rd, 2009 at 6:40 am
Not a ghetto but a paradise for international students attending ESL schools here. There was a report recently that this category is a huge contributor to BC’s economy.