A Sun Yat-Sen Moment, After Things Get Weird

Well, I have to say, Sunday was a long, strange day, for many reasons. And one of the odder moments occured about 10 minutes before I took the picture of the fish….

Since posting some opinions about the Historic Area Height Review earlier in the week both here and on the Bulablog, I wanted to get some more pictures of the tower sites that had been approved. But I had a busy week and didn’t have time to do it during daylight hours until Sunday morning, during a little down-time between hockey games in Burnaby and Richmond.

On the right of the picture below (taken on Carrall) is the sign on the NW corner of the Sun Yat-Sen Garden’s white wall. The two-story grey building in the middle is 8 Pender, the site of the new tower that Council approved. The red building is one of the Heritage buildings on the north side of Pender, with the 8-storey hotel behind, and, on the far left, the Pennsylvania at Hastings and Carrall. Fifteen storeys is planned for this site, nearly double the height of the West Hotel.

So there I was, taking lots of pictures, wondering if this wasn’t just a dead issue and a waste of time, when suddenly a couple of large SUVs come squealing around the corner and pull up beside the grey building. As I’m walking up the block taking pictures, I notice that these two SUVs have illegally parked right on the bike path of the new Carrall Street Greenway.

“Assholes,” I say under my breath, as one typically does when you see jerks in SUVs doing, well, jerk-type things.

A group of 5 or 6 well-dressed, well-coiffed guys hop out and convene a little meeting on the sidewalk. These guys are players. They look like money. They act important.

And not only are they driving two big, black, emission-spewing SUVs, they don’t even bother to turn off the engines as they chat over on the sidewalk. Wow! The arrogance! These are the kind of guys that people love to rant about on blogs and call-in shows, you know? Too rich to care about gas prices or bike lanes or parking fines or pollution. Oh look! They parked by a fire hydrant, too…

Anyway, I’m getting a little agitated as I’m walking up to the group. I’m trying to formulate a cutting satirical remark that is nevertheless subtle enough that it might not lead to me getting shit-kicked into the pavement by the five of them.

Then one of the guys walks over to the side of the building and, pointing to the wall, says, “It’ll be right here.” He draws an imaginary line that extends up (way up) into the sky.

Wait a second. These guys are here on a Sunday morning having an animated discussion about the tower that’s going up at Carrall and Pender?

That’s weird since, here I am, camera in hand, taking pictures of the tower site and I’m trying to wrap my head around what a fifteen storey tower will look like on this spot, too.

One of the guys looks me up and down, glances at my camera, and shoots me a real nasty look as if to say, “Why the hell are you taking so many pictures of this thing for?” He clearly didn’t like me poking around them, snapping photos, and I thought he was going to tell me to bugger off.

I smiled.

And then I kinda recognized this guy. And then I definitely recognized the guy who was pointing where the tower was going to be. And, oh yeah, I recognized one of the other guys, too.

Now, that’s really ironic. I mean, what the heck are these guys doing in Chinatown having a mini-charette about this tower on at 10 am on a Sunday morning?

Looks to me like the clock is ticking on the Vancouver’s Historic Area much faster than we thought…

Fear of Commitment: The Morning After Walk of Shame

Players will say anything to bed a mate. Big promises, compliments, pick-up lines, rosy pictures of the future, declarations of love. Anything that will get you invited to the old dance, eh?

But when it comes time to following through on those promises — of making a long term COMMITMENT – players vanish into thin air. The morning after, they embark on their walk of shame, never to be seen again. Hey, they got what they really wanted… what did you expect?

Zero respect for other people. Using them for your own gratification, then tossing them aside like so much garbage. Pigs!

Well, VANOC has proven to be no better than a slimy Guido, making big promises to win the Games, but once they got the prize, what happened to all the promises?

Claims of a Carbon Neutral Games are one thing, but quite another was the promise that the Games would be unique because they would show the world social responsibility in action. The billions of dollars flowing through Vancouver would have a hugely positive impact on the Downtown Eastside, leaving a legacy of jobs and housing that changed the milieu from desperate to admirable. Community consultation, fiscal transparency, civil liberties, everyone would be shown nothing but the highest respect.

VANOC even put it down on paper, in a document that could be held up by all to measure their success: The Inner City Inclusive Commitment (ICIC).

But, from everything I have seen happening in the inner city these past six years, pretty much every one of the ICIC promises has been broken, forgotten, not addressed at all. And, to cap it all off, over the past two weeks a police sweep has depopulated the DTES to a virtual ghost town, leaving an empty feeling in one’s belly not unlike the feeling you get when you’ve just been used for a one night stand.

But don’t take my word for it. You be the judge. Here are some of the many promises, quoted verbatim, in the Inner City Inclusive Commitment. Personally, I can’t find one on this list that has been kept. Can you?

Excerpts from: “The 2010 Winter Games Inner-City Inclusive Commitment Statement”

Business Development

- Develop opportunities for existing and emerging local inner-city businesses and artisans to promote their goods and services

Civil Liberties

- Provide for lawful, democratic protest that is protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

- Commit to a timely public consultation that is accessible to inner-city neighbourhoods, before any security legislation or regulations are finalized, subject to lawful and legitimate confidentiality requirements

Employment

- Create training and a continuum of short and long-term employment opportunities for innercity residents to encourage a net increase in employment

Financial

- Provide disclosure of all financial aspects of the Games, including expenditures and revenues, in the bidding and organizing phase of the Games

- Commit to a comprehensive annual financial audit

Health

- Showcase a commitment to public health issues, including a comprehensive alcohol and drug strategy

Housing

- Ensure people are not made homeless as a result of the Winter Games

- Ensure residents are not involuntarily displaced, evicted or face unreasonable increases in rent due to the Winter Games

- Provide an affordable housing legacy and start planning now

Input to Decision-Making

- Work with and be accessible to an independent watchdog group that includes inner-city residents

- Develop full and accountable public consultation processes that include inner-city residents

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“Going Green”: VANOC Releases Staff/Volunteer Training Video

In an apparent attempt to counter The Suzuki Foundation’s criticism of the “Carbon-Free Games”, today VANOC released to the media their “Going Green” training video for the thousands of volunteers and staff working during the Games. Training and orientation sessions have been ongoing since January for those working at the many Olympic venues, and VANOC is hoping to counter criticism that they aren’t doing enough to educate about the environment.

The volunteers that I overheard after seeing the training video had mixed reviews, including, “Interesting…” “Ew, that was just weird.” “Totally Predictable.” “Whatever.” And, “OMG, that was fugly.”

One volunteer even claimed that he had seen the video on Youtube. “It was over a year ago, dude. Like, it’s super news. VANOC is so lame!”

VANOC spokesman, Yesman Ina Soot, confirmed the allegation and explained the reasoning behind copying a cartoon video from Youtube and using it for training purposes, stating that, “Our intentions were to produce this training video at the least cost to both the taxpayer and the environment, and I think we delivered in spades on both counts.” He added, “Internet piracy is a carbon neutral video production option: it didn’t cost the environment or taxpayers a penny to produce. How could any responsible Government be expected to say “No” to such an option, if it so readily exists?”

When questioned about the message VANOC was sending by using a satirical cartoon video as a means to educating staff and volunteers about climate change solutions, Yesman looked quizzical, and said, “There is nothing satirical about this training video.”

He continued, “Hopefully, the deep lessons learned – especially after the death of the polar bear trapped in the Hummer at the end — will resonate with all our workforce, and they will take that message forth and spread it to everyone they greet during the Games: the Western lifestyle doesn’t have to change for us to Go Green. All the people who are always so negative and talk so much that they eventually “kill the polar bears” will not stand in the way of our govenment’s determination to take action and Go Green.”

See for yourself, watch “Going Green“, the VANOC staff/volunteer training video. It just might inspire you, too!

2010 Games: As Carbon Neutral as a Cow’s Fat Ass

Today the David Suzuki Foundation released its report reviewing VANOC’s oft-stated claim that the 2010 Vancouver Olympics will be the first ever carbon neutral Olympics ever staged. While the Suzuki found many things to praise in VANOC’s efforts, including measuring GHC emissions for seven years (from bid to Games), the LEED Gold standard design of venues and the Athletes Village, and other efficiency efforts, Suzuki concludes that the 2010 efforts only amount to a “Bronze” performance.

Perhaps the most controversial part of VANOC’s performance is the shifting offset target, which was originally estimated at about 300,000 tonnes. VANOC reduced the total target somewhat arbitrarily in 2009 to 270,000 tonnes. Even more controversially, VANOC then stated that, rather than offsetting all emissions, they would only offset what they determined were “direct” operational emissions, which only amount to 118,000 tonnes, less than half of the total emissions generated by the Games.

The majority of what VANOC calls “indirect” emissions, nearly 150,000 tonnes, come from spectator air travel to the Games, and are not being offset. Obviously, an Olympic Games without spectators would be an unqualified failure, so one wonders how this key and significant component of emissions to a world event can be arbitrarily ignored?

Furthermore, other large events like the World Cup of Soccer 2006 and the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen in 2009 offset ALL travel emissions, setting a standard that VANOC chose, in the end, to totally ignore. As the Suzuki report makes clear, “without offsetting spectator air travel – which accounts for about half of the climate impact of the Vancouver Olympics (as confirmed by VANOC’s own measurement of the climate impact of the Games) – the Vancouver Olympics cannot make an unqualified claim to be carbon neutral.”

Other significant discrepancies in VANOC’s claims for carbon neutrality are also highlighted in the report:

-       Carbon Neutrality: “VANOC has so far committed to offset 118,000 tonnes of its emissions, which is substantial, but still represents under half of Games-related emissions.”

-       Quality of Offsets: “Gold Standard offsets are recognized around the world for their high quality… (but) are only part of the voluntary offset program for the Vancouver Olympics, and will likely make up a small percentage of the total offsets used.” Note: most of the offsets are being purchased through a little-known and unaccredited BC firm started in 2006 called, Offsetters.

-       Environmental Education: A huge opportunity missed: with an estimated 3 billion people watching, it is an unprecedented opportunity to educate and raise awareness of climate change solutions, yet “The Vancouver Olympics failed to create a high profile for climate solutions around the Games in its public communications.”

-       Transportation: The Games “will not leave the region with a significant legacy in sustainable transportation.” The Canada Line was built at the expense of the Evergreen Line, a much higher transportation priority for the region that would have had a much more significant impact on emissions. And, while rail travel expansion should have been a priority, “Instead, the Sea to Sky highway was widened at a cost of $600 million, and diesel buses will be brought in temporarily from across North America to shuttle spectators to and from Whistler. The new highway will encourage more vehicle traffic after the Games, exacerbate urban sprawl, and result in increased greenhouse gas emissions from transportation for the region.”

-       Lack of Transparency: VANOC claims to have reduced emissions by about 15% through efficiencies over “business as usual” practices, however “VANOC’s assumptions about what constitutes “business as usual” have not been made public, so it is not clear how they arrived at 15 per cent.”

See the press release and full report at:

http://www.davidsuzuki.org

Heightened Senses: A Late Night Walk in the Rain

What’s that you say? Public support for any tower proposal was virtually non-existent?

At the risk of being tossed in the klink for a sideways glance on Day Six of the DES popo pre-Olympic sweep, last night I took a late stroll around Chinatown to check out the only TWO tower sites approved, right? Huh? Right? Um, well, unless we consider… the financial considerations… cause someone, I’m not sure who, might have maybe inquired, so we thought maybe we’d look into it, on the City’s dime…

Nothing like a walk in the rain to heighten your senses! It’s money well spent, so to speak. Unlike other things….

I reconfirmed in my own mind that the Budget Rental site one could sorta swallow a high rise on, given Fung owns it and it’s still under the height of the Sun – pretty much anything will improve this intersection, And hey, now someone will be there to complain to Alex Tsakumis about the pissing drunks, loud groups of girls, too many furries coming and going, or the constant reek of McDonald’s deep fryers from across the street in Tinseltown.

But 8 East Pender on the SE corner at Carrall (bordering the new Greenway no less) is right across the alley to the north of Sun Yat Sen. So how the heck is this site any different than the site Council nixed at Keefer Square or the Cultural Centre site that didn’t even make it to Council? It’s still 150 feet over and above Sun Yat Sen, and much closer to it than Keefer Square. Remember, the business plan here says: go for UNESCO World Heritage Site. But, but… the Scholar’s Room won’t see this one unless you stand on your tippy toes, so, yeah, its totally OK, and there’ll be no shadows coz it’s to the north? A fine logic, indeed.

Yes, a tower and podium proposal to set it back …yawn… and lessen the spatial impact, but then, on the other side, across the street on Pender, a string of heritage pearls lie low, awaiting polishing. Either way, aspect ratio be damned, the sun will hardly illuminate the pearls, you know. And we’re gunning for FIFTEEN storeys here! Blah! It won’t matter what size plate you serve this thing up on…

And speaking of nimbys, I bet all these new high risers on Carrall will band together and force Rennie to take down Everything Will be Alright, or at least turn it off by nine pm so they don’t have to stare at it every bloody night from their roosts.

And, in an ode to how fast council quorums can make real estate decisions, the For Sale sign is already up on the old (unprotected heritage) service station in Keefer Square – the one tower site that got nixed by Council. I guess there’s really no point in updating the Heritage Register at this point, eh? It certainly wasn’t on the agenda presented to council by Planning, because hey, this review is all about high ideals, right? Groans (from speculative heights). More groans.

Twelve storey Paris-style apartments traversing the Hastings parade route! Think of it, even higher than the ugly Luxling! Quick, wall that whole sucker in before an Area Plan process is approved! The 20% is already institutionalized; so there’s really no limit to what we can do here now, old boy! Ever been to Greenwich, mate?

For Wendy P, and all the starving or successful artists who used to live around here, a final thought to ponder about the INTENSIFICATION! policy that’s behind all this, as quoted from a Skyscraper:

“These changes should allow the populate to increase from 8000 today to just under 17000 upon build-out in about 20-40yrs.” (Sic)

Most of you will be dead by then anyway, eh? It doesn’t really matter if it’s livable.

And either way, I’ll still be a ghost.

So I’ll give it a rest, already…

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Resigned, I Appeal to Creativity

(New Woodwards going up, with the Dominion building in the background. At the time it was built in 1910, it was the tallest building in the British Empire. If I’m not mistaken, Harbour Centre, on the right, was for many years Vancouver’s tallest building, too.)

OK, Toderian did reply regarding the HAHR, with what’s a pretty reasonable shakedown of the process, I guess. Now that I’m resigned to more height and high rises (WTF can I do?), I offered up a challenge that may appeal to our planners and builders and architects’ sense of pride and integrity. Hey, I still have some vestiges of idealism left in me! Anyway, below is my latest salvo on the bulablog…

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Admittedly, I am somewhat mollified by Mr. Toderian’s comments, and the decisions by council in the context of his explanation. The Budget site, being across from Tinseltown (and same block as Shanghai Alley but outside the Chinatown gates), seems a decent choice if a high rise had to go anywhere, since the heritage in that area is pretty much screwed already, and a heritage tower (the Sun Tower) is almost kitty corner to the west – it won’t necessarily stick out like a sore thumb.

(Woodwards going up, seen from Alexander Street. The green domed building in the background is the Sun Tower, built in 1912, which replaced the Dominion as the tallest in the British Empire — see the theme?)

On the other hand, Pender and Carrall (I assume the southeast corner, since the other corners are heritage?) does not really seem like a good place for a tower at all, for all the reasons I pointed out earlier, including its proximity to many great 3 storey buildings across the street. I’m not sure a high quality design could counter its placement near the core of Chinatown, although, as David H. pointed out a few threads back, there is a fair amount of junk around here already (one of which would be demo’d to make way for this high rise), so maybe it would work?

I still don’t buy the more density=revitalization argument, and have no idea why this appears to be a given and unchallenged. I fear that those who put it forth are really only interested in making money, and don’t give a damn about history or architecture or revitalization at all…

I am very suspect about tiering so quickly up to 120 feet to the south, that’s a really big jump, and will create a serious wall-in effect, which will really become the antitheses of human-scale. The streets are too narrow for this to work without making it claustrophobic.

(Lux building going up, a new social housing unit. The old heritage Lux Theatre — anyone remember the raves here back in the 90s? — was demo’d to make way for this. It pushes the max height limit, and is very imposing; imagine a whole street of these faux-heritage monstrosities, and you get what I mean by the streetscapes getting walled in. BTW, this was a Carnegie Community Action Project rally against the Concorde condos. A sign of things to come, perhaps?)

I would also point out that, heading south from Gastown, the sheer number of non-protected sites vastly out-numbers the protected ones (see the HAHR models or VanMap). Which means that the newer buildings will, over time, eventually overwhelm the heritage buildings, leading to the denuding effect. And that’s where this becomes really problematic, and where Urbanismo’s oft-repeated message about design quality, and Lewis’ concerns over human scale and ratio, will certainly come into play.

So, will we end up with more junky faux-heritage sites that everyone agrees are crap, or will architects and Planning demand something more, say, Gaudiesque; take some real risks and maybe make the 21^st century buildings something cool and unexpected, adding some real excitement to the district? Hopefully, the lessons of Concorde’s Greenwich proposal will not be forgotten, and the standard of design will be held to only: ultra high. There won’t be much hope for a UNESCO World Heritage site if we build to the lowest common denominator, and remake the streets where the sun don’t shine but for three weeks a year when it’s directly overhead…

(Concorde’s massive lot on Hastings, where the old San Francisco Pawn Shop used to be. The ultra ugly, bland-as-hell design of their Greenwich building proposed for this site met with huge opposition, not just from DTES activists, but heritage groups, designers and architects, and even Planning department thought it was horrible. The recession hit soon after it went back to the drawing board, and it’s sat empty since. I’m sure Concorde’s Terry Hui, whose yacht Councilor Ray Louie frequents, is happy that he can build an even larger monstrosity — his buddy Ray was the main Council pusher to accept the height increases….)

Nevertheless, resigned to the changes, I hearken back to the original debates on the bulablog last May, where I suggested near the end of one the threads that maybe one of the future Form Shifts should call for innovative and exciting designs for the heritage district.

It seems to me that, if we are going this route of higher buildings that will remake the district (and it will, given the high proportion of non-heritage sites), then let’s try to make it an exercise in building a new legacy of 21^st century heritage, one that could be bold, daring, and yes, maybe controversial. Let’s make it a challenge for our architects and designers and planners, and hold them accountable to the highest possible standards and creativity. Isn’t that why you all got into the building profession? Not to make money first and foremost, but to build beautiful, cool, exciting and creative buildings? To make the city you work in great? If the status quo is changing, let’s also change the status quo of Vancouverism, and shift away from the monotonous, lazy, tiresome designs we’ve all grown so utterly sick of…

Think about yours and the City’s legacy as you go forward to build in this historic district, please!

Just my humble suggestion…

(The building sticking out near the middle of the skyline is the first Woodwards tower going up (and not yet at full height), which gives some perspective of just how out of place it is on the low rise heritage side of downtown. This was taken from Stanley Park, near the lighthouse, but it’s even more dramatic how out of place it is when you approach from the harbour on the Seabus.)

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Towering Stupidity: More Historic Area High Rises Approved

Over the past week, Vancouver City Council approved most of the recommendations of the Planning Department’s Historic Area Height Review. I’ve been debating this issue with City planners, architects, developers, and local residents for some time on Frances Bula’s blog. While influential people like Jim Green and Councilor Raymond Louie think building high rise towers and increasing maximum building heights in a Heritage District is a good thing and will help revitalize the area, other influential people like the Condo King, Bob Rennie, and former council nominee Michael Geller do not.

Last week, the City’s Director of Planning, Brent Toderian, one of the most powerful bureaucrats in City Hall, even came on the Bula Blog to defend the View Corridor and Historic Area Height Review, and even took the time to address old Gassy directly regarding some of my questions and criticisms. I guess even layman like me, if they care enough and make well-researched criticisms, can stand toe to toe with the big boys. As fond as I am of bashing Toderian for the HAHR, I give him credit for taking the time to discuss these issues openly in an online forum, where he opens himself up to a lot of abuse (although I notice that, the times he does this, people suddenly start playing nice and getting all deferential to him… interesting…). I certainly toned down my usual hyperbole when addressing him directly, but I have, nevertheless, done my best to counterpoint his past justifications for towers in the Heritage District, which, I believe, is just plain shortsighted stupidity.

So anyway, here’s my Bulablog comment in reference to Brent Toderian’s:

Mr. Toderian, thank you for your willingness to provide your comments here, and to address my questions in the earlier post. I especially look forward to hearing your thoughts on the approval of the towers in the Heritage District. Here’s my take – what I would have liked to say to council if I could have been there. I offer these points with the caveat that I’m no expert, just a hometown boy and long-time Gastown resident who cares deeply about this city’s history and heritage. So, to all experts out there, please feel free to counterpoint or correct some of my assumptions.

As far as I can ascertain, there is little or no research to support the argument that building towers will help “revitalize” a depressed historic neighbourood. In contrast, there is a fair amount of research to suggest that the opposite is true. I point to a UNESCO report, “Balanced Urban Revitalization for Social Cohesion and Heritage Conservation” (UNESCO International Urban Seminar, Jan 2007), with papers from multiple urban planning experts from around the world focusing on redevelopment in historic city centres.

As far as I can tell, every single one of these experts disagrees with the key assumptions the HAHR tower proposals make. Not a single one of them recommends (and several outright condemn) building towers as a means to revitalization.

Simply put, conservation of heritage and preservation of historic context revitalizes and provides assets that all strata of society enjoy the fruits of. Destroying history or denuding heritage with large-scale developments exacerbates existing social problems. To quote one the papers: “dominant physical structures lead to a fragmentation of the city’s neighbourhoods and landscape.”

In eastern Europe, after the fall of the iron curtain, the rapid destruction of heritage and occasional appearance of towers around historic cores created “interventions, dominated by private real estate developers, (that) changed the original urban landscape and architectural environment, and cultural heritage has constantly been at risk.” It is described as negative/loss, not positive/gain.

In contrast, “The valorization of cultural heritage and environmental resources is a strategic priority for the political action of the municipality of Naples. …These are investments for the future, which will not only produce significant results for cultural and urban development, but will also raise the economic activities and the employment rate of the communities involved, and at the same time, reduce the social inequality.” My distaste of the HAHR stems from the fact that a 3^rd option – the valorization and stewardship of cultural heritage, and tightening (not relaxing) the restrictions – was never put forward for public consideration. That seems to me to be a glaring mistake.

The lessons of all these UNESCO papers are clear:

Adding density is a moot point, for like the well-planned historic centres around the world, our Heritage district is already one the densest areas of the city, despite the height restrictions the HAHR proposes changing.

Economic “rebalancing”, if that is our goal, can easily be achieved without towers given the density inherent in the district. In fact rebalancing is already rapidly occurring west of Main through development within the current height limits. The changes to this western side of the DTES in the last few years have been remarkable, to say the least.

The trade-off for amenities argument is, I think, an extremely weak justification for destroying or denuding historical assets, and recent history suggests that the amenities gained would fall far short of what is really needed, even if 20 towers were built.

The argument that developers can’t make money on renos and low-rises is also suspect, given that many of the UNESCO papers are concerned with cities in Eastern Europe, Southern Italy, South America, etc. that do not have the wealth or resources Vancouver does. If they can find ways to do it, and do it right, why can’t we? Nixing the heritage density bonus program, for example, was a shortsighted decision. Fixing its very clear structural problems is what needed to happen. Shutting it down just opened the door to adding this justification for towers and raised heights.

No land in the core left to develop? Every day I stare at the railyards that stretch from Main to Waterfront Station and the huge tract of land that represents, and shake my head when I hear the claim that “Northeast False Creek is the last undeveloped waterfront in downtown Vancouver.”

But what is the reasoning behind towers and added height from an architectural/historical integrity perspective? Anecdotally, I don’t know any locals who live or work in my neighbourhood, rich or poor, who think the Woodwards towers are anything other than horribly out of place. And how many people cringe at the thought of Shanghai Alley reduced to placards in a tower courtyard? Then again, how many even have a clue what once was there? Now that it is gone, it is close to being forgotten.

So I ask, what legacy do you believe you are leaving to future generations by this plan, Mr. Toderian? What do you think the decision to build towers in the heritage district – perhaps the most important heritage district in Western Canada – will look like in 40 years?

Well, looking back 40 years after nixing the “Project 200” proposal, most Vancouverites thank our lucky stars that the north side of Gastown didn’t get overrun by towers. Most view it as a prescient, city-shaping decision (however it came about) on par with the decision to protect view corridors. People look at the “200” proposal with utter disdain, do they not? Whatever one thinks of the neighbourhood now, there is no denying that the potential for it to be great is still there. But that is only true because no towers were allowed to destroy it.

You are now the steward of Vancouver’s architectural history and its heritage district, but this proposal does not seem to me to respect that heritage, nor does it appear to be based on any factual evidence to support its justification as a key to revitalization and future prosperity and pride for the whole city. I know a tight rope of compromise was walked when developing this plan, but I think all that resulted was a plan that comprises our historical legacy.

The socio-economic status quo needs to change, for sure, but the scale and character of the area does not need to change to achieve this. If it’s already well-planned and high density, why mess with it? Revitalization can occur without desecrating the district with more towers. As some of the UNESCO papers suggest, you may actually end up creating more problems and more social fragmentation, destroying our heritage and the public assets they represent, and not solving any existing problems.

So I can’t understand for the life of me why towers were ever even considered?

For the whole story, other comments etc. here’s the link to Toderian’s letter and the reply above.

And here’s the link to the earlier tower/view corridor discussion, which prompted Toderian’s initial reply, probably a more interesting discussion, so far…

And finally, a link to the micro condo debate, which is also kind of interesting.

Caveat: although I love these debates and am very interested in the outcomes for the City’s legacy, most people probably find them boring as hell!

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The Taxman Cometh, and She’s a Babe in High Heels

“To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.”

– Edmund Burke, 18th Century Irish philosopher and statesman

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About two weeks after “Black Friday” in late August when I got the mass email from the Provincial Government that all BC Lottery funding to the Arts was being chopped by Campbell’s Liberals like so much dead beetle wood (see September 09 posts), I received a phone call from the Canada Revenue Agency.

Already reeling from the Provincial cuts and facing the likelihood that the arts program I’d run for nine years was going to go belly up, the Feds now wanted an audit. Let’s really put the boots to those charities!

Fuck. Really? Now that we can’t afford legal and accounting advice, you want to audit us?

The woman on the phone was pleasant enough and very sympathetic to our plight, but, of course, there wasn’t any choice in the matter.

Well, months later, she finally arrived on the boat from Victoria after braving a sailing delay, stopping for a capsized ferry righting, and construction/Olympic closures all the way into town.

Silly me, I was expecting a frumpy, joyless, bespectacled hag with bad breath and a wart on her nose. I opened the door to a tall, fashionable, totally hot babe.

She wafted in on a cloud of delectable perfume, her long hair flowing and feathered, her big, green eyes sparkling with confidence and no-nonsense vigour.

I was still a little stunned when we sat down at the table to get to work. And then she did one of the sexiest things I have ever seen a hot babe do:

She flashed me her badge.

Well, we got along great. She was articulate, good humoured and full of information. The audit process was tough, but fair. We have nothing to hide but years of good works and due diligence, so I was never too concerned about the audit, per se, other than it being an excruciating way to spend an afternoon; getting henpecked by a picky bean counter for hours on end.

But it was a whole lot less painful looking into those lovely eyes all afternoon.

I was actually sorry to see her go….

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Jock Worship