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Line in the sand for next election: Support new kinds of housing in single-family neighbourhoods. Or don’t.

July 10th, 2018 · No Comments

As I’ve remarked a couple of times, I’ve seen a revolution unfold in Vancouver the last couple of years — something I thought I’d never see. That revolution is powered by a new generation of people who’ve gotten interested in housing and who have made it a mission to lobby for new development as a […]

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Vision councillor Kerry Jang makes it official: He’s not running again

January 23rd, 2018 · 4 Comments

Got this note from Councillor Kerry Jang yesterday, confirming what city-hall people have been hearing for a while, which is that he won’t be running again. Not a surprise, as he has a busy second life as a psychiatry professor at UBC. Jang has been Vision’s point man on issues like shelters, marijuana dispensaries and […]

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The archive of by-election coverage

November 8th, 2017 · 1 Comment

Catching up on posting some older stories here. First up: the stories before and after the Oct. 14 by-election, which provided a story with endless interpretation possibilities (Vision dead; no, progressive vote on the rise; no, NPA on the rise; no, people-power politics on the rise; coalitions the politics of the future; yada yada). First […]

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Vancouver mayor sets a decisive new tone in housing and transit talks

March 6th, 2017 · 4 Comments

There have been times in the last year when I’ve wondered whether Mayor Gregor Robertson is just phoning it in. He seemed absent, even when he was here, and disengaged. But that person was not in evidence last week. The mayor, in one of the strongest speeches I’ve heard from him in a long time, […]

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Vancouver’s unclear rules on lobbying raise questions as ex-chief of staff looks for work

February 16th, 2017 · 3 Comments

Gregor Robertson’s former chief of staff, Mike Magee, has told any number of councillors that he has no plans to do any lobbying work for developers or others as he strikes out in his new post-city hall career. But he is visiting with people in the development community and, not surprisingly, observers are unclear about […]

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TransLink kicks off its first service bump in a long time, amid many questions about when the big chunk of federal money will arrive

January 19th, 2017 · 2 Comments

TransLink is going to be rolling out many, many announcements about improved service in the next while — all aimed at reminding people that their tax money is going to good use. They had their first on Tuesday. (My story here.) But amid the celebrations over more cars for Canada Line service, 15-minute service on […]

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The empty-homes tax is done. Well, maybe … except for an exemption to come for “family use”?

November 17th, 2016 · 4 Comments

It was one confusing council meeting at one point Tuesday, as Councillor Kerry Jang made a motion to amend the empty-homes tax, basically asking staff to study new data coming in in 2017 and decide whether there should be some kind of exemption for secondary homes “frequented for family purposes.” Your guess is as good […]

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Empty-homes tax might go even higher than original two per cent proposed, with higher penalties

September 20th, 2016 · 9 Comments

Vancouver councillors debated the proposed empty-homes tax this morning, with some unexpected results. (Well, at least to me, so perhaps I’m clueless.) The NPA councillors came out AGAINST the tax, which I thought would have been seen as very popular with their base. (See my story for their various reasons.) And then Vision councillors started […]

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UBC economists recommend a surtax on vacant properties, as the call for new strategies to moderate housing speculation grows

January 19th, 2016 · 22 Comments

As likely most of you who read this blog know, a group of UBC and SFU economists and/or business professors put out a joint statement yesterday calling for a tax on vacant homes. That follows an interesting op-ed piece published last week by SFU public-policy prof Rhys Kesselman for a surtax on expensive properties whose […]

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NPA, LaPointe apologize to Vision mayor, councillor over statements during election

September 21st, 2015 · 10 Comments

We could see this one coming after the last Supreme Court judgment. VANCOUVER, Sept. 21, 2015 /CNW/ – During the 2014 civic election campaign the NPA, through its election materials, and mayoralty candidate Kirk LaPointe, made allegations of impropriety on the part of Mayor Gregor Robertson and Councillor Geoff Meggs in seeking a campaign contribution […]

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