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Entries from January 2016

Former UBC president Arvind Gupta issues defence: “It was clear I did not have the full support of the board.”

January 27th, 2016 · 3 Comments

This just out STATEMENT: DR ARVIND GUPTA Today UBC released a number of documents related to my resignation as President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of British Columbia. As a result, I am compelled to comment on the documents, their content, tone and the accuracy of what they portray. What was published is a one-sided […]

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TransLink prepares for a change year: New board members, new managers, new approach

January 27th, 2016 · 8 Comments

I asked to interview TransLink’s new board chair, Don Rose, recently to get a sense of what course corrections the agency is making these days. A couple of days after I talked to him, former interim CEO Doug Allen’s confidential report on what’s right and wrong at TransLink got released through Freedom of Information.

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City looking for volunteers for homeless count

January 27th, 2016 · 2 Comments

This out from city: We are recruiting volunteers for the 2016 City of Vancouver Homeless Count. The count will take place throughout the city inside shelters during the evening of Wednesday, March 9, 2016 and on the streets during the day on Thursday, March 10, 2016. By volunteering for the count, you will be helping […]

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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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Buy anywhere to build equity. Rent where you want to live. The new Vancouver strategy

January 19th, 2016 · 14 Comments

I started hearing this kind of story that last few months almost, it seemed, every time I went out of the house. People who told me they were renting out the condo they purchased years ago, but had moved on to renting a larger house somewhere. My son-in-law was urged by a friend to buy […]

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Giant Oakridge project gets scaled back amid concerns re construction costs, retail economy

January 13th, 2016 · 7 Comments

This is a first for Ivanhoe Cambridge, the global real-estate investment firm, and for the city — a $1.5-billion redevelopment project scheduled for Oakridge Centre is being scaled back. My story here details the many reasons the company gave and that retail consultants also suggested: high construction costs, a hugely long period of construction that […]

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Museum, Urbanarium look for ways to have civil, frank, less polarized talk about Vancouver development

January 13th, 2016 · 2 Comments

I know people who read this blog are getting a little fried with real-estate discussions these days, which all seem to end in stand-offs and abound in contradictions. In spite of that, you likely want to retain some space in your calendar for an interesting effort being put on by the Museum of Vancouver and […]

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Here’s my wish list for Vancouver 2016. What’s yours?

January 2nd, 2016 · 68 Comments

This wasn’t a great year for Vancouver (the city, the region). A transit plebiscite turned into an unproductive brawl that pitted drivers against transit users and then failed miserably. The level of angst over the pace of change in the region and the increasingly incoherent real-estate market, with single-family houses and commercial properties trading for […]

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