Comments on: Developer McAllister named as chair of mayor’s new advisory committee on village

By: Curious Guy

Curious Guy — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 06:39:02 +0000

Rob MacDonald info:
http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/BC-Politics/2009/01/23/RecessionForSissiesToEndQuicklyUnlessNDPElected/

By: A. G. Tsakumis

A. G. Tsakumis — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 07:00:17 +0000

If you really wanted to have added to the bottom line, at the outset, you would have had absolutely not one stitch of social housing at that site. Frankly, it was never an ideal area and the disparity between the upper end condos and lower end condos was just too great. Make them all market and make up the social housing elsewhere.

Yes, astute observation that Grant and MacDonald in particular are long-time NPA backers, but I think this is a problem that crosses party lines, in that, any help is great.

As for Wall and Concord, Frances is right, they would be perceived as in a conflict, mind, Rob MacDonald has done a fair bit of JVing with Wall, so you’ve got a ton of expertise there already. And not enough can be said about Aquilini’s Negrin. Top notch.

Kudos to Jim Hoggan for putting the whole thing together.

By: fbula

fbula — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 03:47:25 +0000

Responses to questions asked so far.

1. The deadline for filing accounts of campaign donations is three months after the election, so in March.
2. I think that Concord and Wall are quite properly avoiding any comment or intervention on the Olympic village, since of course they’d be viewed as being in a conflict of interest/sour-grapes snit/something.
3. Interesting idea on retaining the ground leases, but I think that would mean the city would have to take over entirely as a result of Millennium going bankrupt for that to happen. I could be wrong on that one, but they do have an agreement for sale. Yes, they’re lending Millennium money, but that’s a different piece of paper.

By: tommi

tommi — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 03:27:53 +0000

I wonder what the density-hating, condo-shunning people will think of this committee, which consists of only developers. I know one of their arguments against this would be that it was developers who created this mess to begin with, so, why bring in more?

On a related note, has Vision or NPA yet released their party campaign donations yet? We’ve seen the donations made to individuals, but, not the party. I know Vision made a big deal out of this and promised to release their list before the election. Haven’t seen either list yet. It would be interesting to see how much developers donated to each party.

By: LP

LP — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 17:11:05 +0000

On a curious note, neither of the losing bidders, Concord or Wall, have representatives on the committee.

One would think they would have more knowledge then the others due to the time and money they spent developing their bids.

So were they asked and refused, or were they not asked and why?

Just curious!

By: T W

T W — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 16:35:25 +0000

The main and welcome impact is that the internal institutional bias at City Hall is dampened down or removed entirely. And also the recognition that the Olympic Village fiasco will have a collateral impact on all Vancouver developers, not only the Vancouver citizens

By: Steve Drinkwater

Steve Drinkwater — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:31:10 +0000

One way in which the selling price of the Millennium Water/Olympic Village condos can be lowered, thus making them easier to sell, is for the City to retain ownership of the land and assign long-term ground leases to the condo owners.

This approach is not new – it is in fact widely used for much of the housing already built along the south shores of False Creek.

Although the City would forgo the sales revenue for the land, it would be a valuable addition to the City’s Property Endowment Fund.

By: Listen Close

Listen Close — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:27:57 +0000

Props also to the fact that Mayor and council were able to recruit a team of advisers that consists of some very prominent NPA supporters.

By: A. G. Tsakumis

A. G. Tsakumis — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 11:09:12 +0000

If anything is won as a result of this group it will not surprise me…

Let me tell you, these folks are some of the best real estate minds in this province: Particulary Negrin, Grant and MacDonald (very much MacDonald)

These are people who genuinely understand the predicament and will have REAL solutions.

Kudos to putting them together and getting this done.

Bravissimo!

By: Shepsil

Shepsil — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 03:25:11 +0000

I am trying to understand why the Mayor has asked for all this “free” advice from industry “experts”.

It makes sense to bring them onside in helping the city make the Olympic Village a success, but what is their incentive here, other than to further their own interests. This is not necessarily a “win win” situation.

One could also say this is akin to “hiring the foxes to guard the henhouse”.