Frances Bula header image 4

Entries from January 2016

Vancouver’s new convention centre: “Better than we expected.”

November 19th, 2009 · 29 Comments

This just out in Canadian Architect, my look at the convention centre expansion along with assessments from various architects and people who care about buildings around town. Please excuse the paucity of posts on other issues. I’ve been off this week for personal reasons. Feel free to take the threads where you want in order […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Council gets letter missiles from both sides on Northeast False Creek debate

November 17th, 2009 · 34 Comments

Council is going to decide today on whether to generally endorse the NEFC high-level review, permitting staff to carry on in the same general direction towards a mixed residential-office zone geared to the “entertainment district” being created down there. I would note, for those who seem to think this is some kind of irreversible decision, […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Malware warning

November 16th, 2009 · 4 Comments

Hi all. I’ve seen myself and had messages from several of you that when you attempt to post a comment on the site, you get a warning from Google saying it is an attack site. (Doesn’t show up if you just look at the main site.) This only happens if you are on Firefox, not […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Vancouver mayor reflects on first year, successes and mistakes

November 15th, 2009 · 2 Comments

Ah, the one-year anniversary, here it is already. There was a round of media interviews and analysis of the Vancouver Vision council’s first year. Here’s my interview with the mayor and his thoughts on his record. The Province’s Jon Ferry took this tack. For the truly obsessed, I transcribed my interview with him, editing my […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Much agreement, a few punches thrown at Vancouver politics session

November 15th, 2009 · 5 Comments

It was a pretty civilized session Saturday morning at the Wosk Centre as the Michael Geller-organized panels analyzing the past year of Vancouver politics mostly agreed with each other — including the observation that the two main political parties, Vision and NPA, have so few policy differences that they seem to be reduced to picking […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Library, police, parks, everyone tightens belts in Vancouver

November 13th, 2009 · 12 Comments

You can tell it’s a serious economic crisis when even the Vancouver police are cutting back on . But that’s what’s being proposed, along with some serious choices at the library and elsewhere as everyone buckles down for the storm. The budgets for some of those departments were made public or were at least talked […]

[Read more →]

Tags: City Hall Talk

When this blog isn’t enough: Vancouver politics panel Saturday

November 12th, 2009 · 25 Comments

All of you civic-politics junkies who were wondering what to do with your Saturday morning this weekend, your troubles are over. Michael Geller, with Gordon Price and Bob Ransford, has organized a morning of panels to discuss and debate Vancouver politics of the past year, as we approach the one-year anniversary of the civic election. […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Can Vancouver model work in an entertainment zone? The question

November 11th, 2009 · 19 Comments

Readers of this blog have been following the debates about the new community to be created at Northeast False Creek for a while. Most MSM haven’t been paying much attention to it yet, likely because it’s just drawings on paper so far. But it’s going to get more public attention in the future, I guarantee. […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Fire at Little Mountain housing complex

November 11th, 2009 · 4 Comments

Close watchers of Little Mountain know there was a fire there last night. Here’s CBC’s story on it, the most comprehensive I could find. Given the controversy there, people will have all kinds of theories, of course. The fire seems to have destroyed only one building, the one closest to 33rd and Main as far […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Sustainable Urbanism Case Study No. 1: Take many uses and mix

November 10th, 2009 · 15 Comments

Urbanismo beat me to the punch in noticing this before I put it up, but here is a story I had in the Globe’s Report on Business section today about the trend to mixing uses in developments and sometimes single buildings. From everything I can see, Vancouver is the leader in this (just as we […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized