I never imagined, when I was spending my 20s studying the contemporary French novel, that I would enjoy reading financial statements as much as I do. But it turns out they’re just as fun as Boris Vian or Michel Butor, in their own way, like seeing where the millions go at the city. The city’s […]

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This letter in from Sarah Isaacs: Response to Vancouver council dumbfounded over backlash to rental program (April 13, 2010). As a resident of the West End – epicentre of the opposition to the City of Vancouver’s Short Term Incentive for Rentals (STIR) program – I wish to clarify how little our opposition has to do […]

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Public-policy nerds, transit buffs, anxious Broadway merchants, anxious off-Broadway residents: start your engines. TransLink held its first quiet stakeholders’ meeting Thursday to introduce the tentative six options for Broadway rapid transit. As people kept reminding me, these aren’t fixed in stone. The idea is to put preliminary ideas out there to get public feedback and […]

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As Joyce Kilmer didn’t put it, I think that I shall never see, A condo lovely as a tree. And that’s how city staff seem to feel too, as you’ll see if you carefully read this report where they decline to provide a would-be developer with six additional floors of density in order to preserve […]

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I was at a leadership prayer breakfast this morning when this news popped up on the net. Mayor Gregor Robertson, Housing Minister Rich Coleman and First United Church minister Ric Matthews, whose church has been turned into one of the shelters, were all looking very happy and cordial as they discussed the news announcement afterwards. […]

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Great media frenzy yesterday, as people rushed to put out the news about the city’s report on its Olympic costs. My version here, including former mayor Philip Owen’s assessment. Those in the know will remember he and his council insisted the city shouldn’t have to pay for anything. But some wildly varying numbers were used […]

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This just got posted on the city’s internal wire, news that Sue Harvey, who was the city’s cultural services director for years and recently ran the city’s live sites during the Olympics, is not going to go back to that director post. She doesn’t seem to be quite retiring, as she talks about doing other […]

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For those not following me on Twitter, where I re-tweeted this, here’s the latest from the mayor’s trip to New York, which he posted at 1 a.m. NY time as far as I can tell. “toured brooklyn navy yard. leading edge industrial zone creating green jobs. false creek flats? south van?

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For those who haven’t spotted it, The Tyee and Monte Paulsen have an interesting series starting on affordable housing. The series looks at how shipping containers, which are ubiquitous around the world, can be used for housing. I admire them for taking on this topic. And I’ve seen shipping containers used ingeniously in a few […]

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It was the best kind of theatre, being at council last week when West Enders showed up to voice their concerns about the Vision council’s program to create permanent rentals, the Short Term Incentives for Rental or STIR. Councillors tried to keep the bemusement out of their voices, but weren’t all that successful as they […]

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