For years I covered drug-addiction issues in the Downtown Eastside and people would inevitably talk about the lack of addiction treatment in the province. Other critics would also say that, out of Vancouver’s alleged Four Pillars approach to drugs, only one pillar was really getting funding: harm reduction.

That always puzzled me because a lot of money seemed to go to enforcement, in the millions every year spent on police doing nothing but drug busts and street patrols. Prevention, yes, I could see how that was underfunded for sure. But treatment — well, I just didn’t know. How much treatment was there really?

My story this month in BCBusiness is what I found when I went looking. It’s true that there’s a tight funnel when it comes to getting a provincially funded treatment bed. 

In my research, I found that according to national surveys, about three per cent of people in B.C. report having serious drug problems, which works out to more than 120,000 in the province.

Yet in a region like Fraser Health, for example, the biggest health authority in the province serving 1.2 million, meaning potentially 36,000 with drug problems, there are 155 residential treatment beds that can serve up to about 1,000 people a year. Not everyone needs a residential program — in fact, too many times people spend far too much money on a residential program that is not needed — and the province’s research is showing that walk-in treatment programs can be as effective as residential for many.

But 1,000 spots for 36,000 people still means enormous waiting lists for those who need the intensive boost of residential treatment.

That’s just on the government side, though. When it comes to what’s available if you have an employee-benefit program or a family willing to pay the bills, B.C. is swarming with addiction treatment. Only problem: no one has a definitive answer on which works and which one doesn’t.

In giddy anticipation of their one-year anniversary, TransLink sent out an updated count of their ridership this morning. Not too surprising to anyone who rides the line regularly, which seems to be packed at all times and is particularly jammed with suitcase-toting people heading out to the airport at all hours.

Figures released by TransLink today show average weekday ridership exceeded 104,000 for three months in a row.  In May, an average 104,682 people rode the Canada Line every Monday through Friday.  In June, it hit 106,320 per day and July’s total was 107,198.  Daily averages (for all seven days a week) were 94,223, 97,969 and 99,210 for the same three months.

Original ridership projections forecast that the line would reach an average 100,000 passengers every day, including weekends, by 2013.  According to TransLink’s CEO Ian Jarvis, should this strong ridership trend continue we will easily beat the targets set when the line was approved the annual breakeven point will be reached earlier than 2025 as originally projected. The business case for the Canada line assumed that the additional system revenues it generated plus the savings from bus runs that it replaced would cover the operating and TransLink capital contribution over the 30 year agreement. .

I’d heard that interesting things were going on in Northeast False Creek as developers, residents and the city meet regularly to talk about this future neighbourhood.

But I didn’t know what until I went to a community meeting Thursday night, where David Negrin of Aquilini talked to local residents about the company’s desire to build an ice rink/community centre for the area. The rink is needed for Canucks’ practice but, since they’d only use it on weekeday mornings, when ice-rink use tends to be at its lowest, it would be available for the community the rest of the time, along with other space that Negrin said would be part of the centre.

As I note in my story today, residents like the idea so far. And obviously developers would rather see the money they’re required to contribute to community benefits to go to the immediate area where they’re building — it helps them sell their products. But the city is saying it wants Aquilini’s community-benefits fees (along with any fees the other property owners in the area will have to chip in) to go to helping pay for the Aquatic Centre renewal and central library upgrades.

This is an interesting tussle and the first time I’ve seen a developer openly at odds with the city about where their community benefits should go. Usually they just hand over the money and the city decides. Not so this time, and Aquilini clearly has residents onside with this. I await further results.

It doesn’t take much research to discover that hundreds of cities are wrassling with the problem of what to do about their garbage in the future. More landfills in more remote communities doesn’t seem to be the optimal way.

So lots of places are trying to figure out what they can do instead. Can they learn to recycle enough so that existing facilities can handle the little bit that’s left over? If that doesn’t work, are modern-day incinerators that use new technology to reduce pollution and toxic chemical formation the answer? Is there anything else?

Green types prefer the recycling/alternative options. But they’re not the only ones. Incinerators are tough political sells, even though all kinds of science says they’re light-years safer than they used to be.

Metro Vancouver’s directors clearly had a hard time answering those questions Friday and essentially opted for: let’s explore both incineration and alternatives in more detail.

Some saw it as a pro-incineration vote. But Coquitlam Mayor Richard Stewart (a former Liberal MLA and not someone prone to extremes) saw it as more of an anti-incineration vote, since his motion (the one eventually passed) called for staff to ask for bids on alternatives and also called for an independent reviewer to assess them. More verbiage on this in my story here.

Slow to post on this Wednesday urban design panel meeting — so many other things to do!

But for those following these issues closely

1. A revised Marine Gateway plan did get unanimous approval from the urban design panel. Still a long way to go though — public hearings, info meetings in September and development permit board still to come. And even though the panel approved it, some people made the kind of observations that make me glad I don’t have to sit in a room having my work reviewed. (Some comments: office tower still reminiscent of Fairview Slopes 1970s, main residential tower still tentative, not bold enough, cantilevered tower still feels oppressive, etc.)

The basics, though: the Busby firm did make some changes to the large residential tower to make it seem less bulky — it’s been narrowed in both its width and length and the number of steps increased from five to seven in this slant-stacked tower (think Lego blocks arranged to form a diagonal). That meant removing 90 of the 120 rental units that were going to be part of the STIR program.

That means, PCI head Andrew Grant told me when I asked, that the project will have to provide other community benefits since the density of the 450 market units was there to help pay the subsidy needed to build the rental units. There may be some dickering there yet, with staff trying to up the number of rental units and reduce the number of market units — or maybe not. There hasn’t been a warm reception from neighbourhoods to density for rental, so staff may opt to get a different kind of community benefit out of the project.

The pathway through the project has also been given a wide opening on Marine to make it more obvious that people should enter there. That means about 15,000 less square feet of retail space.

Otherwise, the project has the same unusual look and shape as the first version — definitely something new and different for Vancouver.

2. Next up were the plans for the casino/entertainment complex plus two hotels that will be built around BCPlace (with proceeds from the sale of the land to help pay for the roof). As several panel members noted, this is definitely going to bring a different look to Vancouver.

No tower and podium, no 1970s Fairview slopes. One hotel — meant to be the one for the younger, hipper people who only come to lose a single paycheque, as opposed to their house — is currently shown as looking kind of Daliesque — bent and curved and clad in recycled copper that frames each window in what looks like artfully rusted metal. (Excuse my non-architect descriptions.) The other hotel is more Marriott-like, glass, though with a V-dip in the top.

At the base between the hotels, where the casino is, the lower section has be angled roof planes and, if the model is to be believed, canopies of copper-coloured metal strings and other futuristic Las Vegas-like elements.

Architect James Cheng led off the panel discussion by saying, approvingly I think, that it will change Vancouver urbanism and Jane Durante described it as “eccentric” and something that’s “going to loosen some ideas of what’s acceptable.” Apparently it got about 6-4 support. (After three hours, I bailed.)

Finally, the 60 West Cordova project — Ian Gillespie’s no parking, no frills, no speculators building planned for the empty lot just east of Woodward’s — got a hearty okay, with some commenting that other downtown projects should also be approved without parking.

Now — waiting for any of these projects to actually get built. The city has had about one development permit board meeting in the last seven months because so few projects seem to make it to that stage.

For reasons not clear to me, Vision has decided to put out updated figures on its campaign contributions since the legally required financial disclosure date of March 2009.

Below is the news release summarizing the figures and I’ve got a complete copy of the donors attached. I’ve given this a quick look and, yes, lots of development money on this list. For all those scrutinizing the list to prove that councillors are in the pockets of developers and that’s why they created the rental program, what’s interesting to me is the big chunks of money from developers who actually have shown no interest in STIR projects.

What I did find interesting is the size of the donations ($15,000 from the Walls through their main company and also Yaletown Park), 10,000 from Intracorp., etc., and also the donations from groups I haven’t seen before, i.e. Terasen, Newway Concrete (they did the Olympic village concrete) and others.

I look forward to the close analysis of this list by faithful readers here.

VISIONVANCOUVER.supplementaryreport

Vision news release:

Vision Vancouver files supplemental report; retires campaign debt
July 29, 2010
Vision Vancouver announced today that its 2008 campaign debt has been retired, and has reported on its financial contributions for the period of March 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010. The report goes beyond the requirement of the Vancouver Charter by disclosing both campaign contributions as well as expenses related to paying off the campaign debt. Vision Vancouver is now the only civic party in Vancouver to have disclosed a full list of donors since the last election.
“I’m pleased to announce that our campaign debt has been paid off,” said Ian Baillie, Executive Director of Vision Vancouver. “It is clear from this report that Vision has strong support from people across Vancouver, whether they’re in business, the labour movement, or politically active citizens.
“With this report, we are continuing Vision’s commitment to financial transparency, and we are now the only municipal party in Vancouver that has disclosed its donors since the last election. In the interest of accountability, I encourage the other parties to provide a list of their donors to the public as well.”
Key areas of the report:
Total donations: $433,560.83
Total contributors: 1488
Total number of individual donations: 2925
 
Breakdown by sector:
Corporations: $285,849.49
Labour: $27,620
Individuals: $95,805.64

Here’s my story on the new $36-million community centre in the Olympic village, which is spectacular and mostly empty so far. It was always going to be facing a ramp-up period, during the 10 years for the build-out of that whole area.

But the first chapters are even slower than anyone expected, because of how long it’s taking to sell the village condos.

As an additional note, I have to say how totally lovely I find it down there. I went down twice today, once in the afternoon and once again just now.

The public plaza with Myfanwy MacLeod’s enormous sparrows looming over it is a living work of art. So are the Amsterdam-like streets (narrow, paved with special blocks so that, even though you’re allowed to go there in a car, you drive slowly because it feels more like pedestrian space), the beautiful luminous glass panels on various buildings, the most lovely bit of seawall walkway in the whole city, and more.

As always, it makes me sad that the prices of these units are unaffordable to people like me (household in the top 10 percentile for income, but this is still unattainable) and many others. I had thought of buying a place down here for when my knees can’t take the four flights of stairs in my Edwardian any more, but the land price and construction costs combined to make it unthinkable.

Not sure if that’s what’s keeping others away, but it certainly isn’t bustling yet. I saw a couple of people moving in today. This evening, one couple emerged from a building, out to walk their dog. But they looked like they might be the only ones living in their building so far.

I regret having to post another piece of bicycle news, but the other things I’m working on are not ready yet. So here’s the latest from Cycle Hall.

City launches consultation on downtown bike lane;

Ridership on Dunsmuir sets new record

The City of Vancouver invites public input on the development of a separated bike lane in the Downtown core to connect existing lanes and provide greater separation between cyclists and vehicles.

Under the proposed plan, a separated bike lane on Hornby Street would connect the existing Burrard Bridge and Dunsmuir Street separated bike lanes and also connect with the seawalls in Coal Harbour and off Beach Ave. on the English Bay end.

[Read more →]

In an earlier post, Councillor Suzanne Anton voiced her objections to the Vision councillors’ decision to lower the height allowed for a social-housing project at Broadway and Fraser from 11 storeys to eight.

Here is Councillor Raymond Louie’s response.

Councillor Anton’s desire to have a ‘signature’ 11 storey building at the corner of Broadway and Fraser is directly at odds with what council heard from over 70 speakers, the Urban Design Panel, the Director of Planning and three nights of public hearings. Rather than question our need to ‘prove’ that we were listening , I think the question should be, “was she listening at all?”

What’s she’s ignored is that 103 units of social housing have been approved as part of a strong partnership between the provincial government and this city council. As a result, over one hundred individuals will be off our streets and gain access to support services that give them a fighting chance to lead better lives. Given the demand we saw at the Broadway and Fraser HEAT shelter this past winter, we know that these social housing units are needed and needed in this area.

She’s also ignored that 24 units of rental housing were approved if BC Housing finds the money – something they hadn’t done by the time of the public hearing, nor were they able to provide assurances the money would be forthcoming.

Providing the option of allowing the rental housing to be part of the eight storeys gives the project an element of flexibility while still ensuring that community concerns about height were heard and responded to.

The public hearing process is designed to give citizens a voice and what they said was very clear, 11 storeys is too high. Councillor Anton’s eco-density dogma should not be able to trump this. Yes, we do have a responsibility as council to meet city-wide priorities such as providing affordable housing for those in need, but it must be done in partnership with communities, not in spite of them.

This was the Province’s front-page, full-picture story today.

Not a good moment in the ongoing cyclist-car driver wars in Vancouver.