Off to the 9:30 press conference this morning, where the premier and Housing Minister Rich Coleman are about to announce another big end-of-year buy of residential hotels and older apartment buildings for the third year in a row. All part of the plan to secure this private stock so it can be used for housing low-income, homeless or at risk of homelessness, people.
You can read my Globe story here but I only had some of the details. More will come out at the news conference, especially about some of the pilot projects the government wants to try with some of these buildings.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Bill Lee // Jan 30, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Why do I have an iffy feeling about all this? And that
they are part of gentrication projects on the sites and the
so-called profits, used to build low-income housing in out
of the way (and difficult transport, no jobs) places, while
the former rooming houses become million dollar downtown lofts.
Why not turn current low density (single or two story) buildings
into building sites for 6 storey well-designed apartments?
And have they bought more of the failing condo sales from the
SFU (ex-Woodward’s ) site now that the University can’t afford
to buy there or use it?
2 julia // Jan 30, 2009 at 6:12 pm
I am really perplexed at the dollars per square foot that are going into some of these projects. The Pennsylvania hotel is a great example. I am hearing rumours that costs were pushing $1,000 a foot! is that possible? Has anyone looked at the costs?
someone should be able to buy 4 times the space for those sorts of dollars. why not buy some struggling condo projects before they are completed and finish them to a standard that is appropriate and affordable. our money would go farther, the housing would be spread across the city to decentralize the problem and taxpayers would get great bang for their buck.
We need to do a better job of stretching our dollars in these circumstances.
3 Shepsil // Jan 30, 2009 at 6:28 pm
If we follow the money where will it take us? Who owned these properties and why would Campbell’s Liberals buy them in a falling market just before an election? Those are the questions that need to be answered.
4 Not running for Mayor // Jan 30, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Bill Lee no idea what you are talking about. SFU fully plans on using the all their space and are set to start classes Jan 2010.
The BC government and city should be teaming up with developers and getting social housing built into large project at the time of construction ala Woodwards. The city could trade density for units, the province could pick up the DCLS and other fees for that additional density.
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