Frances Bula header image 4

Owners of second homes, empty condos consider renting, lying, selling, and more as vacancy tax looms

June 27th, 2017 · 1 Comment

Vancouver’s impending empty-homes tax — the first in the country — is prompting a lot of angst as owners facing bills of $4,000 to $100,000 a year decide what to do. You urban-life keeners will remember that most of the units identified as empty are condos. The city’s electrical study identified 10,800 homes in the […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

A rare housing choice: Living in a rowhouse without having to be in a strata

April 19th, 2017 · 5 Comments

For almost as long as I’ve covered the urban-issues beat in Vancouver, people have talked about how great it would be if we had fee-simple townhouses — that is, townhouses where the owners don’t have to belong to a strata. They just own their particular row/townhouse individually, with some agreement about how to handle common […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Cadillac Fairview open house brings unhappy opponents together

December 4th, 2015 · 1 Comment

I dropped by the Cadillac Fairview-hosted open house last night (handily held in the very same hotel as the Urban Development Institute’s Christmas party, thanks), where more than 400 people had shown up in the first two hours to take a look. This was CF’s effort to “engage the public” by displaying nine basic design […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

What happens when cities put their own money on the line for development

February 18th, 2013 · 3 Comments

Big cities like Vancouver and Toronto have embarked on their own development projects over the years. But now we’re starting to see places like Surrey and New Westminster put cash on the line to try to make money from the real estate they hold or invest in development to spur more private-sector interest. My story […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Rob Ford wins in Toronto, but (many) sort of right-wingers here don’t see him as a model

October 25th, 2010 · 18 Comments

Rob Ford, the un-PC guy from the burbs, is the new mayor of Toronto, in case you didn’t know. Start reading here. In the meantime, the party that is hoping to shake Vision Vancouver and Gregor Robertson off their perches in Vancouver are looking for who should lead them into battle. They have no one […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Olympic village prompts questions about city policy of mixing rich and poor

October 5th, 2010 · 35 Comments

There is social housing all over the city, but most people don’t realize it. Coal Harbour, the nice section of Kitsilano next to Jericho Beach, north False Creek, the West End, south Granville — there are unobtrusive apartment buildings everywhere. For a long time, that’s gone unquestioned. But in the past week, the issue has […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Development consultant analyzes mistakes and raises questions for Olympic village

October 3rd, 2010 · 49 Comments

Development consultant, ex-planner for Simon Fraser’s UniverCity, and candidate for the NPA in the last election, Michael Geller is front and centre these days talking about the Olympic Village here and on his blog. Michael’s latest analysis, posted on his blog and emailed to many of us (including city manager Penny Ballem) with more details […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Geller reports from Shanghai World Fair

May 26th, 2010 · 12 Comments

I fear that Michael Geller is starving to death on his visit in China, due to a lack of internet connectivity. Here is compilation of a couple messages he has sent out this week and I’m adding a link to his blog post at the Vancouver Sun. This is quite the popular place for Vancouverites […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Vancouver’s two main political parties plan the future

April 29th, 2010 · 45 Comments

My assignment: Compare and contrast the annual general meetings of Vancouver’s two major political parties, the Non-Partisan Association, once all-powerful, now hunting for its way forward, and Vision Vancouver, the new ecocapitalist party, still riding high on its 2008 win. (Someone once said being a journalist is like having homework the rest of your life. […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Architect takes up city’s new mini-suites policy

August 10th, 2009 · 8 Comments

It will be interesting to see, in five years, how much new housing is created by some of the city’s “gentle densification” policies, as they call them: laneway houses and lock-off suites inside condos. As other media reported last month, almost two dozen people lined up to apply to build laneway houses as soon as […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized