Your thoughts on this? Mayor Robertson announces members of Housing Affordability Task Force Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson announced the members of the Mayor’s Task Force on HousingAffordability today, having assembled a diverse team of industry and community leaders with expertise ranging from non-market housing and sustainable urban planning to finance and real-estate development. “The members of the Housing Affordability Task Force bring a broad and diverse array of experience, leadership, […]

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A group in Langley has been pushing to amalgamate the two Langleys (Township and City) for a few months now. Their efforts appear to be in limbo, after their 6,700-name petition was presented to both councils and went nowhere. But I had fun talking to various mayors around the region about why they think small […]

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The two-day Cities Summit last week was a tweet-orgy for urban wonks, such as myself and everyone I know. But, as I noted in my story, the real purpose of the get-together was to act as a giant flashing digital billboard for Vancouver: We’re more than just mountains and glass condos, honest! Come here and […]

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There’s a lot being written about what led to the end of Brent Toderian’s time as Vancouver director of planning and, connected to that, what the next director will need to do or not do. To sum things up briefly, 1. Developers did him in (if you believe developers control the city 2. Vision did […]

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And the latest chapter on this. Today’s story, which tries to get at what was really going on behind this abrupt ouster of city planning director Brent Toderian, along with his own observations. By the way, I have it on good authority that, despite what the mayor’s statement made it sound like, this was NOT […]

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From: City Managers Broadcast Account Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 12:45 PM To: All Staff (COV) – DL Cc: Corporate Management Team (COV) – DL Subject: COV Broadcast From City Manager:  City to Seek New Planning Director Today, as you have likely heard, Council has confirmed the decision that our Director of Planning, Brent Toderian, […]

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My news of the day, which started circulating among developers and architects last week: city planning director Brent Toderian being told his contract is being terminated. Council is supposed to vote on it in camera today, but it’s widely known among those close to city hall. Here’s the profile I did of Brent a few […]

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After I did a story recently on the drop in parking at downtown commercial garages and the less-than-expected increase at meters, a Toronto editor asked me to find out what was going on with office buildings. As I discovered, the parking requirements are dropping there too. Not without some resistance, though. The resistance isn’t coming […]

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BC Place and PavCo have no idea what they walked into by putting up three digital billboards on the side of the arena when it re-opened after renovations last fall. We’ve tended to look at the flashing signs — and the local resident complaints about it — as just some local piece of whininess or […]

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The media duststorm over the Rio Theatre being forced to give up showing movies because it got its liquor licence really has me puzzled. Why? Because it was reported last October, when Vancouver city council endorsed giving the theatre a liquor licence, that it wouldn’t be able to show movies if it got the licence. […]

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