The Globe asked me to bring together architect Peter Busby and condo marketer Bob Rennie to talk about building green.

Although the two have worked together on more than one project, Peter is a passionate crusader for green buildings and he keeps pushing forward with new strategies all the time, while Bob has come to have his doubts about some aspects of green building: expensive, not actually very green, and something that burdens consumers with more debt — which makes them work more, drive more, and burn more greenhouse gases.

Here are the results of that debate — currently going on in other forms between other developers, architects, city planners and marketers as the building industry struggles to figure out what green building actually means.

It’s a year and seven weeks from the election. That means it’s time to stop doing things that get everyone riled up, according to a time-honoured tradition of all governments, and start doing less fight-inducing things.

So it wasn’t surprising to hear from Vision Councillor Geoff Meggs this morning that the Hornby bike-lane vote will be the last of its kind for this term. According to him, the only other bike work that people will see are a non-separated Comox-Helmcken connector to the Central Valley Greenway bike route (originally budgeted in the last administration) and various bits of road work to make some sections smoother to ride along and so on.

(I do have someone emailing me faithfully and persistently this week, however, saying there are another two blocks on Pacific, from Hornby to Davie, that are going to become a separated lane? Anyone know anything about this?)

Now we’ll wait to see what really happens along Hornby — what the impact is on businesses, whether cyclists start shopping en masse downtown, whether city staff and councillors keep tracking “feedback loops,” as the mayor called them, to make sure any businesses having a hard time get some kind of help or adjustments.

The debate and speechifying finally wrapped up at 11:38 last night and, to no one’s surprise, the Hornby bike-lane “trial” was approved — unanimously, with even NPA Councillor Suzanne Anton voting in favour, though expressing concern about the process and the snippy remarks some councillors made that she felt trivialized business concerns.

(And much debate already about Councillor Andrea Reimer’s tweet during the public presentatiions (“Let the theatrics begin – Can Fed of Small Biz makes emotional appeal: vote for bike lane is a vote against biz, seniors & disabled.”)

Get used to this bike lane, people, because I think this is the kind of move that becomes very hard to go back on by any council. Any attempt to dismantle it will be portrayed by bike advocates and the general media as Vancouver putting its lips up to an SUV muffler to inhale exhaust.

One result of the numerous concerns expressed by business is that both staff and councillors will be hyper-alert to any signs of dissatisfaction. The mayor said last night that everyone needs to pay attention to the “feedback loop.” But I’m waiting to see what kind of attention is paid. Many supporters said that businesses should welcome the lane, that it will bring new kinds of business opportunities, that cyclists are increasingly buying the European-style commuters bikes with baskets, signalling the arrival of the cycling shopper, and so on.

So if a business says it’s not doing well, will there truly be sympathy or will that business be blamed for not having leaped into a grand opportunity to market to the cycling set?

By the way, although the trial is officially designated to last for six months, a somewhat exhausted-sounding Jerry Dobrovolny, the city engineer who has been responsible for carrying out the VV’s aggressive bike agenda, said it would be preferable to have the trial extend over four seasons to see what the impacts are at different times of the year.

There is social housing all over the city, but most people don’t realize it.

Coal Harbour, the nice section of Kitsilano next to Jericho Beach, north False Creek, the West End, south Granville — there are unobtrusive apartment buildings everywhere.

For a long time, that’s gone unquestioned. But in the past week, the issue has been raised again, particularly because Michael Geller, a well-known development consultant, housing aficionado, and urban-planning commentator, has made the point in a number of interviews and conversations that he thinks desperately needed condo sales at the village may be impeded by the presence of social housing.

Michael is somewhat mortified at how his comments likely sound to most people, saying he realizes that when he tries to discuss the issue, it goes so against the conventional wisdom in Vancouver and sounds so elitist that he comes across as “disgusting.” But he’s continuing to talk about it so insistently that I decided to check with some of the other well-known condo marketers in town to get their opinions. You can read them in my story here.

Those two marketers essentially said “people understand they’re living in a diverse city and they don’t expect segregation.”

I should add a bit more of what they said. (Just can’t fit everything into the print edition.) Although both said they have no problem selling high-end condos next to social housing, both made it clear that they think there has to be a careful mix.

George Wong said he doesn’t think it works to try to put social housing and market housing in a single building. As well, he said that some of the highest-end buildings in Coal Harbour were designed specifically to keep out even lower-income buyers, by making all of the units, even on the ground-floor (typically the cheapest in Vancouver) large.

Cameron McNeill also said buyers are very accepting of social housing, but there has to be a balance. He felt that 110 core-need units is not an excessive amount for a community with 1,100 units.

Something that I personally have noticed is that many condo buildings in Vancouver have a wide mix of incomes, even though they don’t have any social housing in them. The people on top in the penthouses may have paid a couple million or more, but the income level goes down with each floor. The lower couple of floors are often filled with first-time buyers. That’s without even talking about the renters, who add another level of diversity.

All without a dime spent on social engineering.

In the ongoing debate about the proposed Hornby bike lane, this note just went in from DVBIA director Charles Gauthier, outlining concerns passed on to him about it from a commercial realtor.

Another perspective to enrich this debate, which I think is an important one. It’s about far more than just this bike lane. Cities everywhere are trying to work out how to incorporate ways to make cycling safer and more viable, while producing as little impact as possible on other uses.

What Vancouver chooses as a solution will affect the future of more cycling lanes. If the city makes a decision that has a negative impact on a lot of businesses and ends up being perceived as a public failure, that will impact future willingness to put in more lanes. (Historical example 1: The bad implementation of the Burrard bike trial in 1996 killed any future trials for more than a decade.)

If the city can find a solution that a majority (it will never be everyone) can support, the chances of more bike lanes and more cycling are higher.

On to the latest analysis:

From: [email protected]
Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2010 19:27:52
To: Mayorandcouncil@Vancouver. Ca<[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
Cc: Jerry Dobrovolny<[email protected]>; Peter.
judd@vancouver. ca<[email protected]>; Lon
LaClaire<[email protected]>
Subject: Additional comments re. the proposed Hornby Street bicycle
lanes from a commercial realtor’s perspective

A former commercial realtor sent me this e-mail and agreed that I could
forward it to you on the condition that I not identify him/her. He/she
is concerned with reprisals that may arise if his/her identity is
disclosed.

I hope that you will give the comments your utmost consideration as you
deliberate tomorrow. The points below underscore that there is no
business impact analysis undertaken prior to following through on these
kind of projects, and there should be so that you have a full
understanding of the impacts.

The comments are as follows:

1. Retailers lease space for their type of business. A ‘destination’
retailer with infrequent purchases, doesn’t depend on front door
parking. People seek out those retailers, and drive around the block if
need be, for their services.

A ‘convenience’ retailer rely on frequent customer trips, facilitated by
easy, close and accessible parking.  Hornby is filled with such
convenience retailers that lease space on that street because it offers
convenient, and ample parking. Removing those stalls, and
relocating them 1-3 blocks away is hardly ‘convenient’ for customers,
who may then shop elsewhere if it’s more convenient.

Loss of 158 parking stalls on Hornby is significant. Here’s a
conservative estimate of that. Conservatively, 158 parking stalls,  used
an average 1 hour a day, 10 hours a day, 7 days a week, with 1.25
occupants per vehicle, represents almost 14,000 potential customers,
too many for Hornby’s small businesses to lose. Relocating those stalls
1 – 3 blocks away doesn’t replace that loss.

2. Hornby is the wrong street for a bike lane, due to the large amount
of businesses, and the heavily used parking stalls. I recently observed
the following on a weekday, mid-morning:

Hornby has 3 times more retailers (approximately 62 storefronts) than
Howe, Seymour and Richard streets (they each have about 20-23
storefronts).

Hornby has almost twice the parking as Howe and Seymour, (both of those
streets had parking on only one side of the street). Mid morning, every
one of Hornby’s metered stalls was occupied! Not so for Howe and
Seymour. Richards has parking meters on both sides of the streets, but
at the same time (mid morning), 104 of the parking spots on Richards
were empty.

Therefore, Hornby’s parking is heavily relied on, and would be duly
missed, while the streets to the east of Hornby have enough empty stalls
for a bike lane, or, didn’t have parking on one side, to allow for a
bike lane.

My point being, why didn’t the City evaluate this in more detail (# of
businesses, parking usage), and look at alternative north/south bike
lanes east of Hornby? Why haven’t alternative, ‘less disruptive to
business’ north/south routes been explored?” Parking on Hornby is highly
sought after, not so on other streets, so why isn’t a bike lane
proposed for the streets where there would be no impact to parking?

The City fails to realize businesses take all the financial risk.
Businesses sign 5 year leases based on a fixed set of factors, one of
them being parking. The businesses pay the property taxes, which would
be higher because of the ample street parking. That parking leads to
higher sales, which leads to higher rents being charged, which leads to
higher building values, which leads to higher property taxes which the
businesses pay.

Charles
Charles Gauthier
Executive Director
Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association

Development consultant, ex-planner for Simon Fraser’s UniverCity, and candidate for the NPA in the last election, Michael Geller is front and centre these days talking about the Olympic Village here and on his blog.

Michael’s latest analysis, posted on his blog and emailed to many of us (including city manager Penny Ballem) with more details than the public version, is appended here for everyone to discuss.

Michael is very knowledgeable and he’s one of a circle of people I’ve gone to him for years to get help understanding development issues and the people in that world. I’d like to hear what the counter-arguments are to what he raises here, as I’m sure there are some. (For another perspective entirely, you can read the latest column by Ian Reid, former NDP chief of staff, here.

One irony, by the way, of this discussion and the media storm about the village is that the more it gets hashed over in public, the more the financial problems are exacerbated. What everyone wants (or at least taxpayers in Vancouver want) is for the units to sell at as high a price as possible. Yet, like kids with a scab, we can’t resist picking away at everything that’s gone wrong — a collective anti-marketing campaign of the first order, practically guaranteeing that every time there’s a go-round, the price drops again.

I predict this isn’t the end. I have people on the phone weekly telling me about other issues I should check into, so I imagine the same is happening with other reporters.

Brace yourselves.

Anyway, here is what Michael has to say.

As we all analyse how we got into the current situation, and how we get out of it, here are a few matters that I think need to be checked out with real estate experts as you write future articles and the city prepares further fiscal analyses related to the Olympic Village Project:

1. Is the Mayor correct in saying it’s naive to bring more units onto the market, in response to the suggestion that the social and rental housing units be sold?

2. What is the average cost of the condominium units, in terms of dollars per square foot, and what is the likely rent? On this basis, is there a business case for renting these units out, as Raymond Louie is quoted as saying? Would the city ever recover its costs and land payment? (as an aside, my understanding is the average price is in the range of $1100 to $1300, or more. The rent is not likely to be more than $2.50 a foot, given the larger unit sizes. On this basis, the numbers will not work, especially when adding in the future repair and renovation costs, etc.unless there is a significant increase in market values.

[Read more →]

There are many, I am sure, who feel about the Olympic village the way they do about trying to sell the house after a divorce. Just anyone take it off our hands, please, at any price, so we don’t have to deal with this any more.

Dream on, my friends. The village’s problems may be with us for a long time, a topic I explored in the new urban-focused page of the new Globe.

They will also be plaguing the Vision Vancouver council, which rode in on a promise to fix the mess, something Gary Mason looked at today as well. Among their problems — the fact that an assessment of the village’s value, done for internal purposes, shows that it is worth far less than what the city’s into it for.

This out from Peter and Shahram Malek, after the city’s news conference saying yesterday their company failed to pay the full amount on their first loan instalment and that the city is going after their assets.

STATEMENT FROM MILLENNIUM

September 30, 2010

We have heard the City’s concerns today about the taxpayers investment in this community, and share the City’s interest in protecting the value of the asset for the public and Millennium. We care passionately about this project and what we have accomplished here.
 
Not everything in an accountant’s report describes how we arrived at this place. There have been many hurdles to get over – including delivering the Olympic and Paralympic Village on time, which we did. We created the Olympic Village – now called Millennium Water – for Vancouver, for British Columbia and for Canada. That commitment has never changed.
 
We are in active negotiations with the City.
 
While we are in negotiations with the City, we understandably will not have a lot to say publicly. However, in the weeks to come, we will continue to work tirelessly with the City to develop a mutually acceptable plan that protects the value of the asset for all stakeholders.
 
We will make ourselves available to the media for further comment next week.
 
Shahram Malek, Director, Millennium
Peter Malek, President, Millennium

So much news breaking about city issues these days, it’s hard to keep up. But here’s the Sun’s story on the latest calculation for the Hornby bike lane.

And here’s my more complete story.