Someone made a good point yesterday re this matter.
Why would you create a neighborhood where policemen, firemen, shopowners etc. and other such people would actually be allowed to live and rub shoulders with the hoi-poloi, the creme de la creme!!
Working people have no business in the rarified environs of the "new" west-side.
Oh they might toil and serve there, even risk their lives, but for goodness sake don't suggest that they actually live there!!!
Think of the social awkwardness factor alone - how would they interact with sleazy lawyers, granny-bilking stock promoters, sweat shop owning, animal torturing esl's, arrogant corporate hacks/yes-men and their trophy wifes(and mistresses), unscrupulous, greed-driven developers and slick, real estate peddlers.
No these people definetly all belong in a special place together.

I'm waiting to see how many of the so-called Olympic legacy promises are turfed before the world's best skiers get to play on trucked-in snow in 2010.

Wow, the development community is back in control at city hall and now Vancouver residents who actually got a vote on the Olympics shell game, will see precisely how they were manipulated by the people already making millions from the games construction and ancilliary projects.

P.T Barnham must have spent a day or two in Vancouver before he coined his famous phrase about people who just can't resist a good story.

someone at the meeting Thursday ought to point out 3 pertinent facts:

1. Sullivan was elected with fewer than half the votes cast (46.6%) and had only 2.8% more votes than Jim Green.

2 Jim Green, Vision and COPE beat the NPA handily in all the polling areas around Southeast False Creek.

3. Of the votes cast for winning councilors, the NPA received 51.4% to 48.6% for Vision+COPE

1+2+3 = Sullivan and the NPA have no "mandate" is any meaningful sense of the term to overturn long-debated and considered judgments of the previous council without extensive public consultation.

The previous administration won with overwhelming majorities for both mayor and council, and engaged in significant public consultation on both the Burrard Bridge and False Creek plans.

It is a painful travesty of justice that an incoming administration, having gained power with one more vote than the opposition, can overturn out-of-hand all this work.
That has nothing to do with democracy in any meaningful sense and must not be allowed to happen.

Sustainable development is about balancing three priorities: economic, social and ecological priorities.

I think it is ironic that the plan is to create a sustainable neighbourhood, yet it has not been able to meet the criteria for economic sustainability. Now it appears that its social sustainability component will be weakened, and the ecological sustainability of the plan (as envisioned in an early Sheltaire group report) will also be weak. Even if the social and ecological components were able to be implemented according to the initial vision, since the economics of the plan are not replicable without massive government subsidies, the SEFC plan does not meet a major objective of showing the development community how sustainable development may be accomplished -- that is, how they can and should be doing this, too. The project is not replicable, so what has the development community (and everybody else) learned?

I think this project has faltered from doing a poor job of managing expectations: it was foolish to promise it all on a toxic site on some of the most expensive real estate in Canada, and now the planners & politicians involved are paying the price. Just the cost of cleaning the site soaks up a significant chunk of the surplus $$ that would have been required to fund innovative social and environmental initiatives.

A proffessor of mine once said that. "when about 30% to 40% of a society's or country's population deeply object to how things are run, a revolution takes place.

Now revolutions can be peaceful or violent. Sad to say the 'ins' control most of the media, police, etc. and censor peaceful change, so we are left with the 'other' alternative.

Samwise of the NPA had better realise that the social fabric of Vancouver is tearing and the fallout will be nasty.

Change will come, but at what cost?

I still can't get over the cost of real estate here. People making $70,000 are considered "modest market housing" and get a subsidy.

Well, we complain about the brain drain, but all the "best and brightest" are still fighting to buy real estate in British Columbia. Now, we know that this is not really the case, with people maxing their credit to sustain a life style while assuming that their wages will go up.

But do we care? The economy is "booming", therefore we should all be able to buy the homes we want....

Or is this wishful thinking.... I think it is safe to say that that the economy is "booming" for some more than others.

To go back to the top. Why was taking 50 million out of a fairly large fund such a awful thing. Money sitting in a bank doesn't really do much for the citizens.

Oh I get it, that was to make housing for the folks with the low paying jobs. The bigger reason in my view was because the NPA don't like anything the previous council had done, especially if Jim Green was in on the deciding. Heck they didn't even like Phillip Owen when he started working on the four pillars approach to drug addiction.

Years ago Harry rankin argued the folks working in those industries down in that area should remain. It was around Expo time and the NPA wanted everything flatted for the big event. The upcoming big event lasts two weeks so lets flatten part of it and keep the rest for the well healed.

Not sure if this has been discussed, but what about waiving the parking requirements to reduce costs. Each parking space adds something like $40,000 to the cost of a condo. I suppose expecting this community of the rich to rely on cycling or transit is out of the question.

Leo McGrady, of law firm McGrady, Baugh & Whyte, says keeping the short-listed developers up to speed may not be enough. Based on bidding process principles, he says developers not short-listed in the current phase of development may be able to bid again based on changes to housing mix and could possibly litigate if refused. - The Tyee.

Is this the same Leo McGrady, who is legal council to the Tyee, Larry Campbell, Jim Green, and a number of public sector unions.

Is this the same Leo McGrady, who was last quoted saying that Sam Su llivan's 7 year old admission that he gave a donation to a Hooker knowinging that she was a drug addict should be a police matter?

Or the same one who sued Jamie Lee Hamilton over posts on her blog?

Be wary of dropping legal opinion into articles without showing the basis.

I like Grumpy's idea of revolution. I work for the city and am one or two paycheques from not being able to pay my rent for a bachelor suite on the eastside. If rents and housing prices keep climbing faster than wages, then I'll be forced to move even further east. If I'm forced to move to some God forsaken hole like Surrey, than I'm just going to keep on going east until I hit Montreal or Halifax.

more than once over the past year City Manager Judy Rogers warned City Council about the problems inherent in the financing of the southeast false creek project. it is not that the money is not available it is what will be the cost to the rest of the city. Vancouver has a large and growing need for affordable housing. the fifty million not recovered from southeast false creek means that much less for the purchase of more land for affordable housing. Our choice may be between going first class for a few or providing for the greater need.

yinyang, could you please clarify your concluding statement?

Dangrice, I appreciate you don't like Leo McGrady, but BC's mainstream media don't usually make a habit of referring to Gordon Campbell as a long time property developer with lots of developer friends and financial contributors either.

BC Olympics honcho John Furlong is also a life-long developer as are many tied to the local Olympic committee, yet mainstream media never links them to any of their practicing developer friends.

If it is a concern, I'd suggest pushing for complete clarity, but I suspect friends of theirs would be quite successful in lobbying against such a move under the current administration.

Housing prices in Vancouver are absurd. Relatives who live in a small town close to amenities say you can buy a fairly nice house with a yard in their neighborhood for $20,000. Their property taxes are less than $500 per year.

What's driving up house prices and property taxes in Vancouver? Here's a hint. A Hell's Angels kingpin was recently arrested as the result of a sting operation where $1.5 million worth of cocaine was seized. This individual owns a string of residential properties. See http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20060119/HELLS19/National/Idx. He's not the only one. An entire multi-unit apartment building in Greater Vancouver was purchased by drug dealers and converted into a marijuana grow-op recently. This is their reaction to municipal laws requiring landlords to frequently inspect their properties to detect grow-ops. If the individuals who run the grow-ops also own the buildings, they don't have to worry about inspections by landlords.

If this trend continues, within 20 years the only people who will be able to afford to live in Vancouver will be drug dealers who will own most of the real-estate and drug addicts who will live in deluxe, taxpayer-subsidized waterfront housing close to their suppliers. Non-addicted people who actually work for a living in Greater Vancouver will keep paying more and more taxes to finance all of this, but they'll have to live in Chilliwack and spend four hours a day on the road travelling back and forth to their jobs.

Our current version of "social justice" involves confiscating billions of dollars in taxes from working people and handing it over to drug dealers after temporarily passing it through the pockets of drug addicts. While the left and right are busy arguing about how to fix the problem, the drug dealers are laughing all the way to the bank - and the real estate office.

The only way to turn things around is to legalize drugs and tax them heavily. Even hard drugs should be legalized then taxed at a rate of $100,000 per gram. Nobody will pay that tax, but at least the lefties who are against a crackdown on drug dealers will finally come onside if they start to view drug dealers as greedy business people who are not paying taxes instead of viewing them as romantic rebels. Lefties aren't saying crooked Enron executives should be released from prison on the basis that they were "feeling marginalized" and their acts of theft were "a cry for help." Al Capone was finally imprisoned for non-payment of taxes - not for selling bootleg whiskey or murdering other gangsters.

Singapore, Taiwan and Saudia Arabia deal with their drug problems by executing drug traffickers. But Canadians are not interested in such a harsh approach for many reasons - including the fact that innocent people can be framed. That leaves legalization and heavy taxation as the only viable option. When a 20-year-old suddenly buys an entire city block of apartment buildings for cash without being able to show where the cash came from, it's obvious where the money came from.

Interesting comments Cycling Commuter, but the Hell's Angel guy who was just busted happed to live and work in Cambridge Ontario, near Kitchener.

I understand it's quite a long morning commute from there to downtown Vancouver, but then maybe he takes an expressway or something.

Beside, it's apparent his alleged crimes were in Thunday Bay, where police dragged him
to in chains, rather than in Cambridge, but still some 1,800 or so kilometres
and one hell of a commute to Vancouver.

And, if you do know of an apartment block that has been purchased and turned into a major grow-op in Vancouver
, why are you blathering away in vague terms about it on Tyee instead of
talking to law enforcement people?

Seems if it really is a big issue with you, you might try to do something about it.

Thank you very much,
but I don't want Singapore, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia or any other such
despotic regime used as a model for anything in Canada.

OK. If 80 per cent of SEFC is market housing ... it means 80 per cent of people living there will most likely vote NPA. [Assuming very wealthy people who buy high end condos are for the most part pro NPA voters]

Now if there was an equal mix of high, middle and low income housing ... you'd get more Left wing progressive voters in the city.

Makes sense for the NPA to change the housing mix to 80 / 20 for the votes alone.

The previous COPE council is partly to blame here. Some of the councillors were better at infighting ... than being the governing party.

So now we get more condos in SEFC that will sell for astronomical prices. Like there weren't enough 600 SF condos selling for $300,000 a piece in Vancouver already!

Except in Vancouver many people who are comfortable do vote for Cope. People who want their city to be a sustainable, progressive city and not handed over to the developers no questions asked, are prone to vote COPE. And, even more so now that the NPA is more radical.

The new outrageous hike in private property tax while they lower business taxes will lose more votes for the NPA than mid-upper income exclusivity would bring.

Yin yang, are you saying she is saying an expediture that results in more social housing results in less money for more social housing?
Yikes.

And, ying yang, a city must have blended neighbourhoods if it is to be safe, productive and vital. So the 'first class' issue seems odd to me. Firstly, it isn't first class. I doubt the social housing will be penthouse apartments. Secondly, we know ghettoizing any income bracket leads to problems within a city.

First, not firstly! lol

Redrivergirl, this is a complete rip off of the sentiments of Vancouverites who were lured to vote for this wealthy persons' holiday project based on promises of provincial politicians. They are still answerable as are returned city politicians.

What next, red City of Vancouver snow fences to keep the local riff-raff away from the visiting chattering classes?

Right on Fransesca. You read that one well and I share in your pain over the infighting.

Rather than having your child circumcised, do you think we'll ever find a way to rid young people of this idea they have to be on top even with friends?

There is much irony that the politicians who stressed cooperation just didn't seem to understand.

Francesca:

The idea of councils approving development decisions on the basis of market segments & future voter capture -- yow! It gave me the chills. Although I suspect this is too far-seeing for most councils, it does give food for thought!

The problem is that even homes that are meant for mid-income households sometimes get bid up when they are perceived as valuable. For example, the neighbourhood of Murray's Corner in Langley Township was planned for a mid-market segment. But the project had an innovative layout and good homes, so they were bid up by doctors and airline pilots. So a centrist or left-leaning council who might have approved the development to secure future votes would have lost this gamble ...