From: City Managers Broadcast Account Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 12:45 PM To: All Staff (COV) – DL Cc: Corporate Management Team (COV) – DL Subject: COV Broadcast From City Manager:  City to Seek New Planning Director Today, as you have likely heard, Council has confirmed the decision that our Director of Planning, Brent Toderian, [...]

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My news of the day, which started circulating among developers and architects last week: city planning director Brent Toderian being told his contract is being terminated. Council is supposed to vote on it in camera today, but it’s widely known among those close to city hall. Here’s the profile I did of Brent a few [...]

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After I did a story recently on the drop in parking at downtown commercial garages and the less-than-expected increase at meters, a Toronto editor asked me to find out what was going on with office buildings. As I discovered, the parking requirements are dropping there too. Not without some resistance, though. The resistance isn’t coming [...]

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BC Place and PavCo have no idea what they walked into by putting up three digital billboards on the side of the arena when it re-opened after renovations last fall. We’ve tended to look at the flashing signs — and the local resident complaints about it — as just some local piece of whininess or [...]

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The media duststorm over the Rio Theatre being forced to give up showing movies because it got its liquor licence really has me puzzled. Why? Because it was reported last October, when Vancouver city council endorsed giving the theatre a liquor licence, that it wouldn’t be able to show movies if it got the licence. [...]

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Okay, just felt I had to say that in advance of a great film festival that my pal Rod Mickleburgh and a couple others have organized at the Vancity Theatre starting Friday. You can see the full schedule here. Come on down, all news junkies! Or anyone! And, in honour of the occasion, I feel [...]

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Thanks all for the previous comments on the billboard, which I’ll incorporate into a story in the future. Now I’m looking for people who have feelings about our new glowing spaceship downtown, BC Place the building as a whole. Anyone? Email me or call please — see About for the contacts.

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Metro Van chair Greg Moore definitely seems to be trying to set a new course for the region. For one, the directors are all heading out of the regional district to have a retreat in Chilliwack Jan 26 and 27 — the first I’ve heard of Metro ever doing something like this. Second, it appears [...]

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There’s been much buzz in the development world about the news that Peter and Shahram Malek recently bought the property at 1550 East Hastings for almost $5 million, with what would appear to be a plan to develop it for condos. As my Globe story notes, this is just a little more than a year [...]

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Residents around BC Place started complaining about the exceptionally bright, big digital sign that went up on the building last fall. I thought maybe the unhappiness would eventually fade away, but the residents have formed an informal lobby group and Councillor Geoff Meggs got a motion passed unanimously at council this week asking PavCo to [...]

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