All the blog posts, with a select collection of blog posts from old website pre-2022.
Some of the older posts are archived here not so much for posterity as transparency/ Comments have been turned off.
Re-elect to City Council
On Vancouver’s new cup and bag bans, and associated fees
January 1, 2022 saw the introduction of Vancouver’s new bylaws and fees designed to reduce the use and waste of single use items and very specifically plastic bags and disposable cups.
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In Vancouver, social housing probably doesn’t mean what you think it does
As the city defines it, a building is considered 100 per cent social housing if it’s rental housing that includes a minimum of 30 per cent low-market rents.
A fanciful promise to “make it easier to build social housing than mansions” failed to win support at Vancouver council last week.
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BC’s outdated wrongful death law
Unanimous support from my colleagues at Vancouver CIty Council to encourage the province to update BC’s Wrongful Death Law. We are the only Canadian province who have not updated our wrongful death legislation – which currently fails “non-breadwinners” children, elders, the disabled, and disproportionately high number of indigenous peoples.
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Roadmap for clearing the tent city at Strathcona Park
Finally we have a coordinated response rolling out for Strathcona Park; with City, Parks and new provincial government at the table.
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Local State of Emergency Declared in Vancouver
Emergency Operations team (led by City Manager, Deputy City Manager and our Fire Chief) powers to react more swiftly to issues as we need to keep our city safe: ie shutting down unsafe situations, thwarting hoarding and price gouging, procuring emergency supplies and even temporary expropriations.
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Considering a Local State of Emergency
The City is preparing to declare a State of Local Emergency.
While that sounds scary, it’s no reason to panic. SOLE is a legal tool that allows us to shut down risky establishments, mitigate price gouging & hoarding, and keep our City COVID-safe.
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Why a forty-storey view-corridor-penetrating rental tower makes perfect sense for peak capitalism Vancouver.
Vancouver political watchers were on the edge of their seats as the first of three towers proposed to slice into the Vancouver skyline’s long-protected view of the mountains met with a council decision Tuesday July 22.
The timing of this approval is convenient, developers of the site, Crown corporation PavCo have now cleared the way and set a precedent for two more proposed view-busting towers by Concord Pacific. Had they applied first, the fact Concord have been top donors to Vision Vancouver for the last decade would have raised uncomfortable questions of the outgoing council about who we were sacrificing our view corridor for.
As expected by some, the Vision majority on council voted to approve the 400’ tower proposed by PavCo for 777 Pacific. But in a surprise twist, the skyscraper would only be approved if the units weren’t condos — rather, market rate rental units.
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Why the views matter
With the first of three mountain-view-penetrating proposed towers heading to Council for vote tomorrow, there’s a lot of talk both for and against the context and importance of Vancouver’s view cones. #SaveOurSkylineYVR
It’s easy (cynical) to paint false dichotomy: It’s just a view after all. The mountains will still be there even when obscured behind condo towers; meanwhile there’s more important issues like housing crisis, opioid crisis, economic growth, right?
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Integrity of office and public trust.
Integrity of office and public trust.
Yesterday morning I tweeted news that the City’s top properties guy: Bill Aujla, manager of Real Estate and Facilities had tendered his resignation to go and work for the Aquilini Group as VP of Real Estate.
No Tower on the Drive? More fallout on the BOFFO-Kettle deal
Fallout over the BOFFO-Kettle deal that would have seen a new drop-in and supportive housing along with close to 200 market condos built atop an assembled parcel of private and public owned land and Commercial and Venables.
As I commented to the Sun reporter yesterday and on Twitter as the story broke – it’s impossible to have an informed opinion on this issue because there is absolutely no transparency. Indeed, as close to half the property in question here is owned by the taxpayers, there should be an onus for even MORE clarity when it comes to negotiating Community Amenity Contributions. There isn’t.
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