Just what Vancouver needs: A new kind of industrial building that stacks pre-fab floors into a zigzag tower on top of a podium whose leaf-like roof is a garden. Or how about this: A new kind of laneway housing where small, two-storey, pre-fab rectangular cubes face onto back lanes that are filled with gardens, a […]

[Read more →]

Some of the comments following a recent post showed me that people aren’t sure what these pre-fab housing units for the homeless will look like. People were asking whether there’d be bathrooms inside and so on, after I posted recently that the city is proposing to put almost 200 units on two city lots downtown. […]

[Read more →]

This just arrived on my doorstep, from a clearly unhappy city employee not thrilled with the removal of employee parking, which has been traded for bus passes et all. rom:   COV Broadcast Server Sent:   Wednesday, April 08, 2009 3:26 PM To:     City Hall Campus Staff – DL; Sustainability Group Staff – […]

[Read more →]

The city’s housing director came to council with a late report yesterday on a plan for interim housing — i.e. housing for the 500 or so people now in the emergency shelters the city set up in December and January that will give them a place to stay once the shelters shut down in June […]

[Read more →]

A Geoff Meggs blog is sometimes like getting to wander around city hall and pick up the latest stats off department-head desks. Here’s his latest post, with info on the level of building activity in Vancouver. Up a little — though not up enough that the Vision council will be cancelling any time soon their […]

[Read more →]

Lots of speculation about what is happening with the Burrard Bridge bike trial, which will involve closing two lanes of traffic. Councillor Geoff Meggs has a brief update on his blog here, but to add a few more details that I’ve heard from the inside. City doesn’t want to start any trials until construction is […]

[Read more →]

For those of you who have missed it, there’s an incredibly lively and wide-ranging debate about view corridors that’s been going on here under my earlier post. Former city planning director Larry Beasley posted his views on views this morning. Here they are: Frankly, the essence of our city is at stake. One of the […]

[Read more →]

As the city prepares for a little Woodward’s opening ceremony tomorrow, the word has gone around at 12th and Main that the lucky departments being considered for a transfer into the city’s space at Woodward’s are cultural planning, social planning and housing. That’s not sitting too well with many of them (about 35 people in […]

[Read more →]

Vancouver’s famous view corridors have prompted more anguished howls from architects than almost anything else I can think of over the years. Now, the city is looking at re-examining them. (And, as the sharp-eyed people at skyscraper.com have noted, the posting for people to run the public consultation went up on city website Friday. You […]

[Read more →]

This month’s Vanity Fair takes a look at the guys who run hedge funds, with those at Fortress featured in this story. As you’ll recall, Fortress is no longer involved in the Olympic village, after having agreed to have their $750-million loan bought out by the city. But the fund still owns the Whistler ski […]

[Read more →]