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.

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.

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?