Officials say the project will result in an integration of studios and resources, but will not produce staff reductions

Brian Morton
Sun

STUART DAVIS/VANCOUVER SUN Project manager Ken Golemba in the plaza in front of the CBC Building in downtown Vancouver. The site will be renovated by 2009.

Vancouver’s downtown CBC building is undergoing a full-scale renovation that will add a multi-use plaza, community space for a non-profit organization, and a more “collaborative working environment” for journalists.

The project, which is estimated to cost between $34 million and $38 million, is being funded through the sale of the property’s parking lot to a real estate development company, which will build condos on the site.

Although the project will result in an integration of studios and resources, staff reductions are not anticipated, project manager Ken Golemba, the CBC’s former operations manager for English television, said in an interview.

“No, that’s certainly not planned,” said Golemba. “The idea of integration is to make better use of the resources.”

Golemba also said the project was not precipitated by staff cutbacks over the past decade, which had left empty space in the CBC-owned building.

“This has nothing to do with any staff reductions. The building is over 32 years old and is in need of renovation.

“As we’ve evolved, the building has become a maze of interior walls, and it’s difficult to move people around. We’re trying to get four newsrooms working closer together.”

The redevelopment of the concrete structure at Georgia and Hamilton, which is home to the CBC’s second-largest English broadcasting centre, is scheduled for completion in the fall of 2009.

Key changes include:

n An enclosed public promenade for passersby to enjoy an “interactive space” and observe the CBC newsroom in action.

n A multi-use plaza featuring a 372-square-metre community performance space, outdoor stage, courtyard and water garden.

n A new newsroom and state-of-the-art production centre integrating studios and all of CBC/Radio Canada’s news and current affairs journalists. Large areas will be visible to the public, with one of the studios opening directly onto the plaza for live news coverage.

n About 780 square metres of community space to house a yet-unnamed non-profit cultural organization.

Golemba said the project is being funded by the sale of the building’s parking lot to Concord Pacific, which plans to build two condominium towers there. Parking will be moved underground.

Work on the condo towers is expected to commence next week.

The non-profit organizations will not pay rent to the CBC, just their own operating expenses.

Golemba said the integrated news room model is already in use in Edmonton and Ottawa.

“This is going to be a very open public space to welcome our community,” he said. “A lot of people don’t know what goes on in this building. You [will be able to] peer right into the newsroom and see it operating.”

Golemba said the CBC in Vancouver has not experienced any major staff reductions since 1997, when 30 to 50 people were let go. “Since then, we’ve gained new programs, and gained a number of staff back.”

Jim Thompson, spokesman for Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, a non-profit group advocating for more and better Canadian programming, said in an interview that he wasn’t aware of the Vancouver redevelopment, but fears there might be pressure to reduce staffing as the news operations are coordinated.

“We would hope there would be no further cutbacks, although the CBC is under tremendous financial pressures,” he said. “And the plans for the CBC by the current government are completely unknown.”

A total of 434 people work in the building, Golemba said.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

William Watson
Sun

A CanWest News Service story recently reported on construction industry concerns that new Kyoto-inspired changes in national building codes could raise the price of new homes by as much as $15,000.

It quoted the president of the Ontario Home Builders Association: “We will basically have to unlearn everything we’ve learned over the last 30 years and retrain virtually our [entire] industry workforce to build houses to a higher energy-efficiency standard.”

For a whole industry to unlearn and re-learn everything it knows could be very expensive.

Even so, a new report from the federal government, the Canadian Gas Association and the Canadian Electricity Association said aggressive new regulation probably wouldn’t cut the growth of energy demand by more than half.

Other people told CanWest the cost of new energy-efficiency codes wouldn’t be as high as feared.

Once everyone gets used to the change, there are economies of scale. A regulatory change in Quebec a few years ago supposedly added only $3,000 to the price of a home.

And, said the man from the Sierra Club, it’s all a matter of balancing costs and returns: “It’s a question of whether you pay a bit more at the beginning and a lot less [in energy costs] every month, or whether you pay less at the beginning and a lot more every month.”

Duh? Well, how stupid are we?

If building a better-insulated home pays back in reduced energy bills, real estate agents should be able to explain that to prospective buyers. When thousands of our own dollars are involved, maybe tens of thousands over the life of a home, even the most innumerate among us generally is able to noodle around a calculator and figure out what’s best for the pocketbook.

And if making more environmentally efficient buildings can put cash dollars in buyers’ pockets, you’d think builders would be falling all over themselves to learn new tricks without having to be frog-marched into it by government regulations. They’re in the business of attracting customers, after all.

Which raises the deeper policy question of why we need building codes in the first place.

If it’s the 19th century and you’re living cheek by jowl with your neighbours in wooden row housing, maybe you want to make sure the guy half a mile down the road doesn’t start a conflagration that ends up burning your hovel down. Suing him after the fact — or more likely his estate — won’t do you much good.

But in the 21st century, even fire safety codes are of questionable value in many places.

When single-family dwellings are separated by spacious backyards, fires don’t tend to spread. Build or buy yourself a fire-prone house and you alone are the likely victim.

Yet, as explained on a helpful federal government website on “Canada’s code development system,” we now have national plumbing, farm building, housing, safety, accessibility, environmental and fire codes, though because all these are provincial responsibilities, they’re only law if provinces adopt them.

The history of codes suggests they arose because a multiplicity of municipal codes made it difficult for “designers, product manufacturers and contractors to conduct business in more than one region.”

The feds don’t say so, but local regs may have acted as a protectionist device for local suppliers; only they were intimately familiar with the rules, having probably helped write them.

Yes, if you do insist on legislating how things must be done, it may be very hard for producers to comply with multiple local codes. One code may therefore be better than many.

But zero codes may be better still. If you don’t have any codes, industry standards are bound to emerge as best practices spread by word of mouth and consumer demand.

If local governments don’t insist and builders do things differently from town to town and city to city, they probably won’t.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

Karen Turner
Sun

A shed is a convenient storage spot for pool accessories and garden tools. Photograph by : Julie Oliver, CanWest News Service

Jackson, 11, Avery, 6, and Nolan, 10, leap into the family’s new salt-water swimming pool — their parents’ affordable, easy maintenance alternative to a family cottage. Photograph by : Julie Oliver, CanWest News Service

Owning a cottage is an all-time Canadian dream. A cabin in the woods on the fringe of a quiet lake, where swimming off the dock and toasting marshmallows over an open fire are favourite summer pastimes, offers a relaxing escape from hectic urban life.

It’s a place where breakfasts are big, suppers are late and the only fashion decision you need to make is whether to wear a bikini or a one-piece to the beach.

While our cottage lacks a sandy waterfront, its split-second commute and easy access to pristine salt water are hard to beat. The best part is that our dream retreat only cost us $11,000 and a healthy helping of sweat equity.

This spring, my husband Anthony Clayton and I decided to turn our backyard into a suburban cottage by installing an above-ground swimming pool in the corner of our lot.

Years ago, before there were four sons to feed and shuttle from soccer fields to swimming lessons, we talked about investing in a recreational property where we could spend summer weekends splashing around in the water and dining on barbecued steaks and burgers.

But our cottage dream never got any further than scouting the real estate listings.

Talk is cheap, but waterfront properties aren’t.

Besides the hefty price tag, there’s also the upkeep of two properties to consider and the lost time spent loading and unloading the van for the commute back and forth from the city. A stay-at-home cottage, we had decided, was our best solution.

Though in-ground swimming pools are beautiful, they cost about four to five times more than an above-ground system, not including landscaping, lighting and decking. That expense, as well as the long-term commitment to a fixture in our backyard, was not what we wanted.

Having just moved into our four-bedroom house last August, budget played a key role in our decision-making. And with a large deck already jutting off the back of the house and a yard fully hedged with 30-year-old cedars offering maximum privacy, an above-ground pool plunked into the back corner of the yard was a perfect fit.

We started our search in March, comparison shopping 21-foot round, all-resin pools.

Having grown up with a conventional chlorine pool, my husband insisted on buying a saltwater system, which is not only easier on the eyes and skin, but doesn’t require mixing a lot of toxic chemicals to keep algae and bacteria at bay.

By shopping early, we lucked out and saved ourselves more than $500 on a saltwater conversion kit on sale for $450. More dickering ensued and we shaved another $100 off the cost of having a light installed inside the pool for night-time swimming.

With the ladder, pool-cleaning equipment and filter and pump, our new pool cost just under $5,700 installed.

Next came the levelling of the ground where the pool would sit.

This would have cost several hundred dollars given the slope of our yard. By doing the digging ourselves, we saved another $400.

Many more blisters were earned from lugging river rock to form a wide border around the base of the pool. Easy maintenance was our objective, so we skirted the pool with landscape tarp topped with coloured pebbles to avoid having to mow unwanted grass and weeds.

I put my novice green thumb to good use and planted beds of bushy ferns, black-eyed Susans and hardy hostas near the entrance of our yard and next to the new garden shed to camouflage the sides of the pool. Screens of lattice provide a graphic backdrop to the greenery and hide the clunky pump and filter.

They also keep the boys from darting through the gardens to retrieve wayward balls and overboard pool noodles.

Of course, no cottage would be complete without a dock to jump off or sit on with your feet dangling in the cool water.

To connect our pool to the existing wood deck, my husband built a raised extension out of pressure-treated lumber that follows the curve of the pool. The “dock” floats just above the pool lip, offering enough spring for the boys to do perfect cannonballs into the water at full sprint.

We may not have loons bobbing past our dock, or white sand for building castles, but our cottage in the city is private, convenient and ultra-relaxing. And family and friends are always welcome.

LESSONS LEARNED

– Shop early to secure the best installation date so you can start enjoying your pool sooner rather than later.

– When you pay to have a pool installed, it doesn’t include the electrical connection or filling the pool with water. Budget at least $400 for these additional expenses.

– Be sure to apply for your pool permit as soon as possible, because the pool can’t be installed until the permit is approved and in hand.

– Spend the extra money (about $200) on a pool light because it allows you to safely use the pool after dark and provides a moody backdrop for evening outdoor parties.

– A pool heater is a wise investment to maximize your swimming season. A gas heater for a 21-foot pool starts at about $1,000, about double the cost of an electric heater.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006