Sun

Francis Bula
Sun

VANCOUVER – Private developers planning to build around the Olympic athletes’ village may be facing stiff development cost charges.

A staff report going to city council Thursday recommends they be charged a total of $32 a square foot in development-cost charges and community-amenity charges, intended to help cover the costs of developing parks, a community centre and other neighbourhood benefits in the new sector.

That’s significantly higher than the $26 figure floated last year, which developers thought was high already.

Planner Trish French said the higher fees are being proposed because the city has a clearer idea of what all the amenities will be and because construction costs have risen.

Vision Coun. Raymond Louie said he has some concerns about the fees going that high, because the city needs to see as much land developed around the site as possible to help pay for the costs of city facilities. But if fees are set too high, some people may decide it’s impossible to make a profit.

Then the city won’t receive any fees.

A private consulting company’s report to the city said 90 per cent of the land would be developed at the $32-a-square-foot fee, while only 80 per cent would be developed if the total fees were set at $44 , a number staff proposed initially at a private workshop in the spring.

The fees levied on private lands would potentially raise $132 million of the $254 million needed for the parks, community centre, library, streets, lighting, and affordable housing. The city would pay the other $122 million.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

Still best investment for many, says David Bach

Dave Hall
Province

House prices have already skyrocketed in Vancouver. Photograph by : Ric Ernst File, The Province

WINDSOR, Ont. — With Canada’s real-estate boom not expected to go bust for the foreseeable future, a personal-wealth expert and bestselling author is recommending that prospective homebuyers do “everything humanly possible to get into the market.”

Despite skyrocketing prices across most of the country, real estate is still the best investment many of us will make, said David Bach, author of The Automatic Millionaire Homeowner.

“It’s an acknowledged fact that renters have an average net worth of less than $2,000 while homeowners on average have a net worth exceeding $140,000. So it’s imperative that people seeking to increase their net worth get into the real-estate market,” said Bach.

“Even in the Toronto market, where prices have skyrocketed in recent years, it’s possible to get in if you consider making a 25- to 30-minute commute from where prices are more affordable.”

In the Lower Mainland, the trek to possible affordability will take a bit longer than half an hour, but the general principle does apply.

The farther out you go, the more moderate prices become, although prices are rising just as quickly up the Fraser Valley as they are downtown in Greater Vancouver these days.

For the vast majority of people, their home is the largest asset they will ever invest in and it’s become a huge part of their retirement nest egg, with many retiring off the equity in their home by downsizing.

Bach, who is also an adviser to Scotiabank on financial issues and trends, warns, however, that real estate is not a riskless transaction, and “location has much to do with that. There’s been a huge appreciation in real-estate values in Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary, but that isn’t true everywhere.”

Bach said the biggest myth about buying real estate is that “you need a large down payment, where in actual fact you can get in with five per cent down or even less.

“And it’s relatively painless to save for a down payment if you feel more comfortable with one. I call it the latte factor. Just think about the small items you buy every day without thinking — lattes, muffins or lunch — and imagine how much you could save if you cut some of them out. Within two years, that could be a $10,000 down payment to get you started.”

Bach said there’s unlimited interest in the real-estate market because, “unlike the stock market, real estate is something you get to enjoy and live in.”

ScotiaBank senior economist Adrienne Warren said she believes that high prices can be sustained in the long term.

“Stable interest rates are seemingly here to stay, and that attracts long-term housing investment,” said Warren.

“And our strong dollar versus most other currencies is attracting more foreign investment from those who see Canada as a very affordable market.”

© The Vancouver Province 2006

Jeani Read
Province

Reality TV and realty TV got even closer than their spelling this week as the Lower Mainland housing market became the star of its own show on Shaw.

Home buyers and renovators can now watch what could well be segments of their own dinner conversations — only with experts — 15 times a week as Shaw teams up with Canada Home Guide (canadahomeguide.ca) to bring you Open House.

The show will include new properties, local industry news, the latest trends affecting home buyers, sellers, service suppliers and product retailers and features industry experts on topics such as building, financing and insurance as well as renovating.

The website canadahomeguide.ca has always been devoted to connecting consumers with realtors, homebuilders, and rental property owners and other service suppliers and product retailers before, during and after a move.

Open House will be new each week and so far the schedule is: Mondays at 6, 6:30, 8 and 8:30 p.m., to be repeated 11 times on Tuesdays throughout the 24 hours.

© The Vancouver Province 2006

The U.S. government says Mexico

$84 million goes to work at former Expo 86 location, B.C. remediation report says

Neal Hall
Sun

PRIORITY CONTAMINATED SITES: British Columbia’s contaminated Crown land cleanup includes urban industrial sites in Greater Vancouver and as far afield as a pulp mill at Ocean Falls and mine tailings in the West Kootenays. Reclamation workers enter the abandoned Britannia Beach mine. This entry point now has a new purpose — channelling water rushing through the mine to create hydroelectric power. Photograph by : Stuart Davis, Vancouver Sun

The provincial government is spending $187 million to clean up contaminated sites on Crown land, with most of the funding allocated to the Britannia Mine site and the former Expo lands in Vancouver’s False Creek, according to a report released Friday.

B.C. Agriculture and Lands Minister Pat Bell said he thought the release of the first government report on contaminated sites on Crown land was particularly timely during Environment Week.

The work undertaken by the Crown Contaminated Sites Program “exemplifies the premier’s goal to lead the world in sustainable environmental management,” the minister said.

About 94 per cent of B.C. is Crown land, owned by the province, which is responsible for managing and protecting the land and cleaning up the environmental damage mainly caused by industrial use dating back to the 1800s.

Brian Clarke, director of the Crown contaminated sites branch, said in an interview Friday that the government’s 29-page report details the current sites being cleaned up and future sites being identified for cleanup. It is the first time the government has issued a progress report on what is being done, he said.

“It’s a step that we’ve taken to respond to a report by the auditor-general in 2002,” Clarke explained.

He said there are at least 2,000 potentially contaminated sites around the province — mainly old mines — and the branch tries to identify its top-10 sites each year that are worth investigating to see if cleanup is needed.

Clarke said an estimated $99 million will be spent on the old Britannia Mine, 50 kilometres north of Vancouver, and $84 million on the former Expo site, now called Pacific Place.

Before the 82-hectare site hosted the Expo 86 World’s Fair, it had been an industrial site for more than 100 years that included two coal gasification plants and the CPR Railyards.

After the fair, it was sold to Concord Pacific Development Ltd., which built hundreds of condominiums in the last two decades.

Earlier this week, the government celebrated the opening of the Britannia Mine water treatment plant, which removes heavy metals from water draining through the old mine, then discharges the treated water into Howe Sound. The mine closed in 1974. At its peak in 1929, it was the largest copper-producing mine in the British Commonwealth.

Other urban industrial contaminated sites under remediation are Meadow Avenue in Burnaby, on the Fraser River, and the foot of Oak Street in Vancouver.

Other sites under remediation are:

– The Yankee Girl Mine in the Kootenays near Ymir, south of Nelson. Mining for gold, silver, lead, iron, zinc and cadmium began in the 1800s and continued until the 1950s. The Salmo River was cutting away at the tailings (the rock left behind after the valuable minerals are extracted), but the province built an erosion barrier and further work is being done this year to determine what to do with the tailings.

– Malakwa. A former landfill near Sicamous was being exposed by erosion of the Eagle River. Waste material was removed and the riverbank is being replanted with shrubs and undergrowth to stop erosion.

– The former Ocean Falls pulp mill sites on the central coast.

Remediated sites include:

– Goose Bay, an abandoned fishing camp and rundown cannery on the coast 483 kilometres north of Vancouver, underwent a cleanup last year. It was contaminated by a toxic stew of old heating oil, asbestos, PCBs, lead acid batteries and drums containing hazardous materials littering the site.

– The Pitt River, about 72 kilometres outside of Vancouver. An old landfill beside the river was spilling debris in the river. The upper part of the Pitt River is considered a significant salmon spawning stream. Tonnes of debris were removed by barges, and vegetation will be planted this year to stabilize the riverbank.

One of the future projects under investigation is the Gasworks located at 12th Street and Third Avenue in New Westminster, the site of a coal gasification plant in 1897 and later used for bulk coal storage, a metal foundry, paint factory, wood treatment and automobile repair shop.