No short- term renting under the current law

JEFF LEE
Sun

Vancouver council will decide today whether to relax laws governing temporary accommodation in residential zones during the 2010 Olympics.

The move, if adopted, would likely see upwards of 1,000 applications from homeowners who want to rent two or more rooms for 30 days or less. Currently, the city does not allow such short-term rentals in residential districts.

The catch will be that anyone wanting to set up such “ bed and breakfast” lodging will also have to apply for a business licence.

Coun. Geoff Meggs said Monday he’s in favour of the zoning bylaw relaxation because it would create extra rooms for visitors without endangering current rental housing.
Under the proposal, houses for Olympic rentals cannot have been occupied by a tenant or boarder after Sept. 1. “ The idea is to take the pressure off our existing stock of rental housing,” Meggs said. “ We’re actually trying to expand the stock of housing during the Olympics by protecting units that already have renters.”

A report to council notes that there are virtually no hotel rooms available in Vancouver during the Games. Vanoc has reserved 80 per cent of the 12,000 hotel rooms in downtown Vancouver and many hotels are withholding the remaining stock. About 350,000 ticketed spectators are expected, creating intense pressure for renters. It says residents wanting to rent a single room for one or two people don’t need a business licence. But renting multiple rooms or an entire unit would require a licence, which staff want to set at $ 150. That’s higher than the $ 108 now required for long-term rentals, which staff say is necessary to recover the costs of the application program.

But Meggs said he had already heard from homeowners and other councillors who say the proposed fee is too high. “ We’re not throwing away the rule book. But let’s be pragmatic. Lots of people are not going to bother applying for a business licence,” he said. “ The risk they run is if their neighbours get fed up with people coming to and from the garage and make a complaint, they could be shut down and face a fine.”

Council will also vote on a recommendation to allow the Vancouver Organizing Committee to park its fleet of 800 buses on a piece of industrial land in south Vancouver.

Four great locales to sample in the U.S. Southwest

Barbara Braidwood and Rick Cropp
Province

Enough rain, wind and snow. Pack away that heavy coat and hat. What you need is sunshine and blue skies in the warm dry desert air where everyone but a curmudgeon will find true happiness.

Will it be the invigorating glitz of Las Vegas, the panoply of world class activities in Phoenix or the mellower pace of desert mountain cities of Palm Springs and Palm Desert?

Las Vegas

You know about the gambling, world-class shows and noshing. But here’s a highlight you may not know about: Las Vegas (www.visitlasvegas.com) boasts the world’s largest chocolate fountain (Guinness World Records says so) spanning nine metres from ceiling to floor.

It’s at the Jean-Philippe Patisserie (www.jpchocolates.com) at the Bellagio Hotel & Casino and circulates 950-kilograms of chocolate at a rate of 115 litres per minute.

We certainly don’t tend to think of museums in Las Vegas, but there are some unusual ones that are worth a gander. Pack your pockets with coins for the Pinball Hall of Fame (www.pinballmuseum.org) so you can try your hand at being a pinball wizard.

The Atomic Testing Museum (www.atomictestingmuseum.org) relates the beginning of the atomic age when dozens of bombs were tested nearby.

Meanwhile, the Neon Museum, (www.neonmuseum.org) preserves the area’s neon signs. The boneyard tours will show you some fantastic examples of the craft.

And then there’s Liberace Museum & Foundation (www.liberace.org). Need we say more?

If you love to haggle, this could be your best time to visit Las Vegas. Grab coupon booklets or attraction flyers at the airport or at your hotel. After you pick what you want, perhaps a helicopter flight for lunch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon with a finishing flourish of a low altitude flyover of the strip (already slashed from $390 US to $287 US in an ad we saw), call and ask if there is a better rate. Ask about any standby discounts or mid week or even weekend discounts.

Hotel rooms are as cheap as $30 US and ask for any complementary incentives. For instance, the Venetian has a credit for shows, gaming or the spa while several other hotels have restaurant or cabana credits.

Pop into a pawnshop. Right now they have the largest stock of luxury items ever.

Walking the strip, gazing at the incomparable architecture and peeking into the interiors of the hotels, is some of the best free entertainment around.

Don’t miss the evening version of water, music and light at the Fountains of Bellagio (every 15 minutes). We think it’s still the best free show in town.

PHOENIX

Yes, you can golf, shop or watch professional sports until you can’t stuff in another hotdog or hit the culture trail of art galleries and theatres until your eyeballs hang on your sunburned cheeks.

But a different view of Phoenix (www.visitphoenix.com) comes from the air, the fringes of the city or even from underground.

When you need a break from all the good food, sports and golf, take a balloon ride, dig up a little history, drive out, way out, into the desert or climb a mountain.

Phoenix really did rise from the remains of another civilization, and traces of the 3,000-year-old Hohokam people — who disappeared around 1500 — remain. Beneath the downtown Phoenix Convention Center are the remains of about 40 Hohokam pit houses (www.phoenix.gov/ PUEBLO/museum.html) and hundreds of items recovered during the construction are on display.

Afterwards, go to the nearby Phoenix Museum of History (www.pmoh.org) for a view of the city’s history up to the present day. Unlike Canada, where trees and brush so often obscure your view, with any elevation at all in Phoenix you can see for miles.

The city has mountains on two sides and a hump in the middle called Camelback Mountain. Camelback’s sheer red sandstone cliffs can be circumvented or challenged with trails to the top (350 metres above the desert), where there is a spectacular outlook. The easy trails at the bottom are a stroll for anyone with a good pair of walking shoes, but the top is a bit of a struggle.

Mountains at the edges of the city are higher and offer much more diversity, from really easy to death-defying trails. The North Mountain Visitor Center has exhibits illustrating the Sonoran Desert‘s richness as well as maps of hiking trails snaking around the more-than-600-metre mount.

Ballooning provides a little easier way for the whole family to attain nearly the same altitude. Arizona Ballooning (www.arizonaballooning.com/Maps/maps.htm) and Hot Air Expeditions (www.hotairexpeditions.com/general.htm) can take you up for a bird’s eye view.

PALM SPRINGS

AND PALM DESERT

The valley that holds Palm Springs and Palm Desert (www.VisitPalmSprings.com or www.palmspringsusa.com) and other small towns is surrounded by wilderness desert with hundreds of visible trails meandering up the hills and mountains. It may seem impossible to get lost if you stroll close to the valley bottom, but take care if you are going to tackle the snow capped peaks. Some soar to more than 3,500 metres and as soon as you enter the forest, landmarks disappear.

Another way to see the desert with a bit more range is to take a tour with Desert Adventures (www.red-jeep.com). Their trademark red jeeps offer tours of the San Andreas Fault and nearby Joshua Tree National Park and their adventure drivers will regal you with tales of Native American history and culture, old mining lore, ethno-botany, geology and the tours will bestow panoramic vistas.

We loved the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens (1-760-346-5694; www.livingdesert.org). There is a trolley system to take you through the nearly 5,000 hectares, but walking over a crest to find the head of a giraffe poking above the trees is a thrill you won’t want to hurry through. Some of these animals, living in gargantuan cages among the cactus and cliffs, are the last of their species.

Palm Springs has long been a playground for millionaires and movie stars. The valley has pockets of ritzy shopping and art galleries, but for our money the best shopping is in the second-hand shops. Whether it is restless décor syndrome or funky furniture fads or ancient movie stars leaving entire estates to be liquidated, Palm Springs has some of the most unusual second-hand goods anywhere.

One-of-a-kind, custom-made doodads and clothes are even more bizarre or fashionable depending on your predilections. The store Modern Way (1-760-320-5455, http://www. psmodernway.com/page6a.html), has some good examples.

On Saturday and Sunday mornings the College of the Desert Street Fair (1-760-776-0152; www.codstreetfair.com) is filled with such items as hand-tooled belts, feathered sun hats, soaps, jewellery, food, handbags, paintings, metal work and semiprecious stones. Go early. By 11 a.m., the place is jammed. (If the parking lineup is long, leave your car across the road from the college in the residential area.)

Thursday evening, make your way to Villagefest (1-760-320-3781, www.villagefest.org), an open-air market on Palm Canyon Drive (between Amado and Baristo Streets). The road closes to car traffic and vendors set up booths with arts and crafts and food. Wander around and then plant yourself for some unmatched people watching.

Barbara Braidwood and Rick Cropp (RickandBarbara@telus. net) are Vancouver based writers.

© Copyright (c) The Province

James R. Healey
USA Today

General Motors  is teaming with Segway, the scooter company, to develop a battery-powered vehicle to cut urban congestion and pollution.

The companies plan to announce the partnership Tuesday in New York, where they are testing a prototype of the partially enclosed, two-seat, two-wheel scooter. The venture is called Project PUMA, for Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility.

The companies hope to recruit partners, such as cities or colleges, to set up Puma travel lanes, like bicycle lanes. They’d be used to test the vehicles and their on-board wireless communicators designed to keep them safely apart and even operate them while drivers do other tasks.

The Pumas also could be operated manually. Not intended for highway use, they would hit about 35 miles per hour and go up to 35 miles on a charge.

“There’s no technology that has to be invented here. It’s really just putting the pieces together,” says Chris Borroni-Bird, director of the project for GM.

Nonetheless it could take years to get to market. “It’s not going on sale anytime” soon, he said.

The partnership with Segway began about 18 months ago, predating GM’s emergency survival loans from the government.

GM is developing the electronic wireless systems for safe, autonomous operation. Segway is responsible for the self-balancing, electric, two-wheel chassis. The prototype has “training wheels” front and rear, helpful at stoplights. Pumas would use lithium-ion batteries, like those Segway uses in its stand-up scooters.

Though being unveiled in New York, the Pumas might appeal most in densely packed cities in places such as India and China, Borroni-Bird says. There they would seem a big step up from bicycles. Americans, who are used to cars, might not take them as seriously.

He forecasts energy consumption equivalent to 200 miles per gallon of gasoline. That falls to about 70 mpg adding in fuel to generate electricity used to charge its battery.

Marisol Bello
USA Today

A small but growing number of cash-strapped communities are printing their own money.

Borrowing from a Depression-era idea, they are aiming to help consumers make ends meet and support struggling local businesses.

The systems generally work like this: Businesses and individuals form a network to print currency. Shoppers buy it at a discount — say, 95 cents for $1 value — and spend the full value at stores that accept the currency.

Workers with dwindling wages are paying for groceries, yoga classes and fuel with Detroit Cheers, Ithaca Hours in New York, Plenty in North Carolina or BerkShares in Massachusetts.

Ed Collom, a University of Southern Maine sociologist who has studied local currencies, says they encourage people to buy locally. Merchants, hurting because customers have cut back on spending, benefit as consumers spend the local cash.

“We wanted to make new options available,” says Jackie Smith of South Bend, Ind., who is working to launch a local currency. “It reinforces the message that having more control of the economy in local hands can help you cushion yourself from the blows of the marketplace.”

About a dozen communities have local currencies, says Susan Witt, founder of BerkShares in the Berkshires region of western Massachusetts. She expects more to do it.

Under the BerkShares system, a buyer goes to one of 12 banks and pays $95 for $100 worth of BerkShares, which can be spent in 370 local businesses. Since its start in 2006, the system, the largest of its kind in the country, has circulated $2.3 million worth of BerkShares. In Detroit, three business owners are printing $4,500 worth of Detroit Cheers, which they are handing out to customers to spend in one of 12 shops.

During the Depression, local governments, businesses and individuals issued currency, known as scrip, to keep commerce flowing when bank closings led to a cash shortage.

By law, local money may not resemble federal bills or be promoted as legal tender of the United States, says Claudia Dickens of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

“We print the real thing,” she says.

The IRS gets its share. When someone pays for goods or services with local money, the income to the business is taxable, says Tom Ochsenschlager of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. “It’s not a way to avoid income taxes, or we’d all be paying in Detroit dollars,” he says.

Pittsboro, N.C., is reviving the Plenty, a defunct local currency created in 2002. It is being printed in denominations of $1, $5, $20 and $50. A local bank will exchange $9 for $10 worth of Plenty.

“We’re a wiped-out small town in America,” says Lyle Estill, president of Piedmont Biofuels, which accepts the Plenty. “This will strengthen the local economy. … The nice thing about the Plenty is that it can’t leave here.”