I’ve heard any number of bureaucrats and politicians express alarm at the state of public dialogue these days, as citizen groups start social-media campaigns at the drop of a hat to oppose casinos, funeral parlours, traffic going by their front windows, and more. As a result, many are looking for new ways to talk. Surrey […]

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I bowed out from April Fool’s efforts this year, but not everyone did. There seems to be something about city planning that inspires creativity in the “plausible but not actually true” genre. Like — the condo project by Bow-Haus on Cambie that lifted up the former single-family house on the lot and put it on […]

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This was a deliberately provocative article, so I’m expecting lots of challenges. Yes, there are many other futures that can be detailed (built $23 billion in transit and had no money left for anything else, is one I’m sure will turn up here). I found out a lot more about some of the details as […]

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I had noticed a few months ago that I was starting to see a different kind of development pop up on the city’s rezoning and development-permit lists: small buildings, slivers almost, carefully shoehorned into the streetscapes of Chinatown and the Downtown Eastside. Kerry Gold wrote about one of them for the Globe back in February, […]

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Being as that we in the media now have such restricted access to city staff in Vancouver, who used to be free to tell us about interesting things they were up to that we should keep an eye on, I have now started trying to scrounge news about the city from BCBid. This was one […]

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Here’s another can of gas on the debate that’s been bubbling in Vancouver ever since the first condo building on the old Expo grounds got marketed first in Hong Kong, rather than to locals as everyone debates: Are we selling off our city to global real-estate speculators and vacationers? I’m hoping to get permission from […]

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My story on same is here. I should add that, after my deadline to file had passed, I heard from Jim Fletcher, a partner at B.C. Social Ventures Partners and someone taking a keen interest in the new centre. He said what is the best aspect of the proposed new hub is that it combines […]

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Frank Ducote spotted this on a recent Brooklyn trip — a plaza so very much like our art gallery — and asked me to use my vast technical skills to post the picture. Oh Lord, here goes. He also wishes to say: A few years ago the Brooklyn Museum undertook a major renovation, including a […]

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When VAG director Kathleen Bartels made her pitch in late January to an international and local panel assessing whether the City of Vancouver should give the gallery the right to build on the last open block in downtown — a piece of city land — I was there. Sort of. (No, not right in the […]

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It’s all here. FRANCES BULA Published Wednesday, Mar. 13, 2013 09:54PM EDT Last updated Wednesday, Mar. 13, 2013 10:04PM EDT A developer has negotiated an unusual partnership with the city to swap lots in return for building social housing downtown. In a pitch that neither side has rushed out to advertise widely, Brenhill Development proposed […]

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