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Coming to Vancouver downtown: More noise, more efforts to control noise

November 24th, 2010 · 20 Comments

Vancouver’s plan to put 7,000 people in close proximity to two stadiums, an outdoor civic plaza and (potentially) a casino is unique in North America. Not surprisingly, it’s raising questions about how to deal with some of the inevitable conflicts, noise being one of them. The city, trying to minimize the likelihood of any lawsuits […]

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Elderly Chinese man becomes first pedestrian known to die in Vancouver after being hit by a cyclist

November 22nd, 2010 · 104 Comments

Kwok Chan’s family contacted me on the weekend, concerned and upset about an accident that took the life of their father last week, four days after he celebrated his 80th birthday. Although they politely hesitated about blaming anyone too quickly, they were distraught that they didn’t know how exactly their father had lost his life […]

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Vision to hold first-ever telephone town hall for its members

November 22nd, 2010 · 44 Comments

I’m sure no one here will want to miss this.

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New Vancouver city hall rule: Staff should be seen but not heard

November 22nd, 2010 · 62 Comments

I’ve seen three new councils come in to city hall in the past eight years and every one has experienced some discomfort about the way reporters go to staff for information, information that is occasionally at odds with what the councillors are saying. There’s occasional grumbling about the level of power they seem to exert. […]

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Tags: City Hall Talk

Goodbye to Mr. Vancouver: Chuck Davis

November 22nd, 2010 · 2 Comments

Tom Hawthorn, who chronicles the transitions of those who have made B.C. the place it is, has a lovely story here about the life and passions of Chuck Davis. Chuck, one of the handful of people in Vancouver who have fought to tell its historical story in spite of this city’s tendency to amnesia, died […]

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Olympic village future: Renting, block sales to Aquilini, block sales to offshore, more money per day in interest

November 19th, 2010 · 37 Comments

After the news that the Olympic village was put into receivership Wednesday, all of us reporter types went galloping off in all directions to try to figure out more what this means now and in the future. I focused on the possibility of block sales of some condos to investors. CBC focused on the possibility […]

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Court document for Millennium Water receivership

November 19th, 2010 · 1 Comment

As requested, the court document about the receivership appointment. RECEIVERSHIP As well, anyone wanting to follow the trail of documents in the receivership process can do so through Ernst & Young’s website here. (Currently all they have up is the same court doc in my link above.)

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City-Millennium bargaining went to deadline on how much developer should hand over besides Oly village

November 17th, 2010 · 57 Comments

Here’s my more complete story in the Globe on what transpired today (and the days leading up to it) related to the Olympic village moving into receivership. But these 700 words have a hard time capturing everything that has been happening in this incredibly complex deal. (A sample of how badly it’s going to be […]

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Olympic village goes into receivership

November 17th, 2010 · 20 Comments

This story has been brewing for weeks. Okay, years. Here it is, the start anyway, of the city’s news release. More to come. The City of Vancouver and Millennium agree to receiver The City of Vancouver and Millennium Southeast False Creek Properties, the company that owns the Millennium Water development, have today negotiated an agreement […]

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Small retailers follow the trend: Buy, don’t rent.

November 16th, 2010 · 9 Comments

One of the sadder urban events for many of us is when a long-time business is forced out of its location when an area gets hip and rents go up. I still haven’t really recovered from the way Galloway’s got pushed off Robson Street back in the 90s sometime. I’ve tried to work out in […]

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