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 of my recent finds.

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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 UBC prof Andy Yan to post or link to the slideshow he used last night when we spoke at the very well-attended “Foreign investment in Vancouver real estate” panel.

Before everyone goes running off in all directions (you’d never do that, would you?), I feel I need to emphasize that the thoughtful people I talk to keep emphasizing that we need to be precise when we’re talking about who is distorting what in the local real-estate market. There are often three categories that commenters jumble together, but they’re different.

Those categories: 1. All investors in general, whether local or offshore 2. Strictly offshore investors 3. Immigrants moving here and buying places they plan to live in. I’d add, too, that people already know there are a lot of investors buying Vancouver condos. Various methods of research (whether they apply for homeowner grants; where property tax bills are mailed to, etc) indicate that about 50-60 per cent of condos in Vancouver are owned by people who don’t live in them.

The point made in this story is about the large number of those investor-owned condos that are apparently not even being rented out long-term to anyone local.

Okay, ready, set, go.

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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 spaces for both social-enterprise innovators and tech innovators. “The idea of having the social enterprise under the roof with the commercial guys is very healthy.” He saw it as having the possibility for producing a synergy where the commercial people could show the social-enterprise people how to run better buinesses, while the social people could show the commercial people how to incorporate more social values.

He pointed out to me that Vancouver currently has a social-enterprise centre  out at UBC (did not know that) and a number of tech hubs in the central city. A hub like this could bring the two sides together in one place.

As always, text of my story below here.

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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 new NORTH-FACING entrance onto Eastern Parkway. It eliminated the original daunting staircase there, for both accessibility purposes and to open op the former basement for public use. There are a lot of parallels and lessons that might apply to the VAG situation. Not necessarily literally, but in some form or fashion.

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 room, but nearby as presenters came and went, exchanged information, talked about their main questions and points.)

Here’s the case everyone made, along with some telling details about the feedback city staff got.

It’s all here.

FRANCES BULA

Published Wednesday, Mar. 13, 2013 09:54PM EDT

Last updated Wednesday, Mar. 13, 2013 10:04PM EDT

I storified this, but haven’t figured out how to move it over yet. (Learning all the time. Tech help so far unable to overcome my issues.) In the meantime, here’s the link.

Suddenly, the Broadway line is front and centre. After several years of not saying too much, Vancouver has really built up a head of steam the last couple of months (sorry for that bad pun and more to come) championing a Broadway subway line.

Here’s my story from last week with the mayor and the president of UBC saying a line is critically needed to support the medical/tech hub along central Broadway.

Now there’s a public meeting scheduled with the mayor and Councillor Geoff Meggs to talk to the public about the line. (Tomorrow, 2-4 p., St. James Community Hall in Kits)

I’ll be waiting to see who comes out to this. I know that rapid transit is very popular with riders (especially those who, like me, are tired of the lurching cattle car that is the 99B line) and, these days, developers, who have suddenly discovered that first-time condo buyers, in particular, are more willing to buy in places where they won’t also have to spend a fortune on a car.

But a subway line, which the mayor and the engineering department are backing to the hilt, is not going to be popular with everyone.

As I think we’re all coming to realize, a subway line is now a powerful argument for cities and developers to push for much greater density along the line. While that makes sense from a city planning point of view, residents of established neighbourhoods are not going to be as enthusiastic about the prospect of having to go to war to curb planners’ and developers’ unbridled enthusiasm for packing bodies in above the line.

The insistence in Vancouver on a subway line is also going to bring out the quite substantial group of people who are not succumbing to what is a certain degree of hype about subways. I’m hearing already from some, who have a lot of questions about the numbers (200,000 more people — the equivalent of a whole nother downtown — to be added along Broadway, really?) and the prices and a few other things.

So … see you Sunday.

(By the way, sorry for long absence. I didn’t go anywhere. Just got busy and, whoosh, before you know it a week has gone by.)

The Bosman Hotel has, for the last three years, essentially provided a mini-Riverview ward for those who need it in the middle of the downtown. It worked so well that even downtown business groups are worried about what will happen if it is simply shut down with no reasonable alternative for the most troubled of the residents.

Here’s the latest on where it stands, as the province and Ottawa wrestle over who should provide what money to keep something like that model going.

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And it’s pretty clear they’re totally fed up with the provincial government, which, they point out, took all the power away from the mayors five years ago and now is telling them that they — with no budget and no mandate to do so — should develop a regional vision for transportation and sell it to the public before the province will consider any new funding mechanisms.

But don’t believe me. Read for yourself.

13 02 28 Letter to Minister Polak-1