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Entries from January 2016

Bing Thom: He lives on for many people in this city every day

October 25th, 2016 · 3 Comments

I was in a classroom yesterday morning where yet another person, one of a series I’ve heard in the last week, talked about how important architect Bing Thom was to Vancouver. Alden Habacon, UBC’s senior advisor on intercultural understanding, told the roomful of young people that Bing was the first person to say that Vancouver […]

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City looks at limits to density, mandatory social housing units for new Chinatown projects

October 24th, 2016 · 1 Comment

The efforts to “do something” about Vancouver’s historic Chinatown are never-ending. And it’s not just in Vancouver. Cities from Edmonton to San Francisco are also fretting about what is happening to their Chinatowns, either because they went into decline and are empty or, somewhat the reverse, they are being infiltrated by a host of non-Chinese […]

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Vancouver takes unusual step of going to court for injunction to stop Airbnb host

October 24th, 2016 · No Comments

Unbeknownst to any of us, city staff tackle Airbnb hosts behind the scenes, letting them know that their ads have been noted and their neighbours have been complaining. Usually, that’s enough, according to the city’s chief licensing inspector Andreea Toma. But that didn’t work with one particular owner, East West Investments, which owns eight units […]

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New TransLink CEO says he welcomes Uber as a complement to public transit, waves the optimism flag about the future

October 18th, 2016 · 8 Comments

TransLink CEO Kevin Desmond has been on the job a little more than six months now. Things have been going mostly well, I’d say. The volume of anti-TransLink stories has gone down — even though the agency is out doing a public consultation about a $3-a-house tax hike and five- to 10-cent fare hike to […]

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First Nations hire one of the region’s savviest development experts to steer projects on their big holdings

October 18th, 2016 · No Comments

You, the general public, may not have paid too much attention to this, but a lot of others on various inside tracks are taking note of the fact that David Negrin, who used to manage development for Aquilini and, before that, Concord Pacific, has been hired by the three local First Nations, who hold a […]

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As Vancouver’s new chief planner begins his job, architect/urbanist warns about Vancouver’s “toxic conversation”

October 4th, 2016 · 15 Comments

  When Vancouver’s new planning director, Gil Kelley, made his first public appearance last Wednesday in a speech at the Vancouver Playhouse, he did so at the invite of an organization called the Urbanarium. One of the group’s key members, architect Bruce Haden, started the evening with a thought-provoking and very candid introduction about the […]

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