City watchers are still buzzing about a meeting held behind closed doors last month at UBC’s School of Community and Regional Planning. It was all about what Michael Geller describes as Vancouver city hall’s “diminishing respect for the importance of urban design and planning.” The biggest deal breaker was the re-zoning application for the contentious…
Category: Vancouver
Never Never Land: Where a boy never grows up and promises never come true
Vancouver’s annual two-day homeless count recently wrapped up, and it’s clear that Vision Vancouver’s promise of ending homelessness this year is something straight from Never Never Land. Critics have missed the point when they say that Gregor Robertson was unrealistic or naïve when he made the promise in 2008, when he first campaigned for office,…
Heritage Disappearing While the Dust Settles
Finally — finally — the city is moving with its Heritage Action Plan to update Vancouver’s heritage policies and registers, which themselves are fit for a dusty museum shelf they’re so old and out of date. But the whole process has been like molasses in January, dribbling slowly now into spring and on into summer….
Crimes in the Making – Vancouver’s Affordable Housing Crisis
In a world drowning in wealth; in the richest era ever in the history of humankind; in one of the richest nations on the face of the planet and one of the richest cities in that nation, it’s a crime we have people living on the streets of Vancouver. It’s even more of a crime…
Pay It Forward, City Council
Mayor Gregor Robinson lost no time pushing for a pay raise for himself and city councillors. The same day they were sworn in, he called for an independent review of the benefits and salaries council members receive. In my opinion, our city council is actually well paid. One of the few good things I can…
Support Transit — But the Dice are Loaded
Metro Vancouver Mayor’s Council has determined the referendum question for raising funds for improved transit. The vote will come this spring, and basically it goes like this: Do you support a 0.5 per cent increase in the provincial sales tax in Metro Vancouver to raise about $250 million a year to fund a $7.5-billion, 10-year…
Why I Oppose Sullivanism
The Georgia Straight recently published a cover story titled “Sullivanism versus Jane Jacobs”, detailing former NPA Mayor Sam Sullivan’s continuing efforts to push high-rise densification onto the city. In the article, Sullivan praises former Mayor Tom “Terrific” Campbell’s reign of free market ideology. The issues are clear. Do we let capitalism run roughshod over democratic processes and the…