MAC BULK
Province
Archive for April, 2009
Privacy act doesn’t apply to contact info
Sunday, April 5th, 2009Council invoking act to make it difficult for owners to call a special general meeting
Tony Gioventu
Province
Dear Condo Smarts: Our owners have just found out the council has overspent our annual budget by 30 per cent on frivolous items. We petitioned for a special general meeting to remove our strata council, but the property manager and council refuse to call the meeting and refuse to give us the list of owners and alternative mailing addresses.The Strata Act says they must keep these records, and they have to provide them on written request, but the property manager said the Privacy Act overrules that and they don’t have to give them to us.
We have many absentee owners, so issuing proper notice to the proper addresses is critical. Does the Privacy Act overrule the Strata Act?
— G.G., Coquitlam
Dear G.G.: The B.C. Personal Information Protection Act does not override the operational requirements of the Strata Property Act, as long as personal information of the owners, tenants and occupants that is collected by the strata is not compromised.
The Information Act does not override the section of the Strata Act regarding the mailing obligations for notice of meetings.
PIPA is very important, however, in how it relates to the collection of personal information.
That might include phone numbers, banking or credit card information, emergency contact information and strata lot insurance particulars, but it does NOT apply to contact information.
PIPA gives owners and tenants some control over their personal information by imposing rules on the collection, use and disclosure information.
Consent to collect personal information may be implied. For example, a person pays a strata fee by cheque. By providing the cheque, they have consented to the collection of that information, but not the disclosure of that information beyond the strata requirements.
Consent might also be specific. A person may consent in writing to a strata corporation collecting emergency contact information, or personal health information that might be valuable.
Another example of the collection of personal information is an owner who has made an application for an exemption from rental bylaws on the basis of hardship. That might require the provision of personal financial or related information necessary to verify the hardship.
Under PIPA, if the strata uses an individual’s personal information to make a decision, it must keep that information for at least one year after the date of that decision.
– Tony Gioventu is executive director of the Condominium Home Owners’ Association. E-mail [email protected]. The association’s website is www.choa.bc.ca.
© Copyright (c) The Province
Convention centre abuzz with excitement
Sunday, April 5th, 2009Building features 46,450 metres of meeting space — and 60,000 bees
Lena Sin
Province
More than 26,000 people showed up to check out the new Vancouver Convention Centre. Photograph by: Arlen Redekop, The Province
It seems fitting that B.C.’s latest architectural landmark boasts neither height nor avant-garde boldness.
Rather, Vancouver‘s new convention centre holds bragging rights to 60,000 bees on its roof — and a flourishing sea life below its floors.
After four years of construction and a budget that ballooned to $882.3 million — nearly twice the original budget of $495 million — the convention centre officially opened to the public yesterday.
More than 26,000 people showed up for the open house on a sunny Saturday, and many seemed impressed, despite the cost overruns.
Standing in what is now Canada‘s largest ballroom, complete with five-storey-high ceilings, Thomas and Jessy Scaria decided the waterfront centre was money well spent.
“It’s a beautiful showcase of Vancouver. You’ve got the beautiful landscape, the mountains and the sea,” said Thomas. “You hear a lot of other people saying [the money] could have been spent on other issues, but a city has to showcase itself. They did a good job.” With 46,450 square metres of meeting space, the new convention centre is triple the size of the old one next door.
The site will serve as the broadcast centre for the 2010 Olympics.
And it already has 180 events booked, including 57 international conventions that could not have come to Vancouver without the expansion. The conventions are booked through to 2016.
It will take an estimated nine years to recoup costs, based on spending by out-of-town conventioneers.
Despite the global recession, Warren Buckley, president and CEO of PavCo, is confident of the centre’s ability to compete for contracts.
He said that no one has cancelled bookings as a result of the recession.
“We’ve had no cancellations. We’re blessed, candidly, because the Olympics moves in here in the fall and takes over our space until the spring of 2010, and will actually take us through what we’re hoping is . . . the [difficult] economic time period,” said Buckley.
Perched on the edge of Burrard Inlet, about 40 per cent of the glass and concrete structure is suspended over the harbour. Underneath, “stair-step”-style frames were installed around the waterside perimeter to encourage growth of sea urchins, starfish, barnacles, mussels, kelp and sea lettuce.
Meanwhile, the six-acre green roof is the largest in Canada, with 400,000 indigenous plants and grasses and several beehives installed to house a colony of bees.
Allan Garr, a Vancouver journalist with a passion for gardening and beekeeping, is now the convention centre’s beekeeper.
Jaime Galley of Vancouver was delighted with the West Coast-inspired design.
“I think the space is absolutely fantastic and it’s unlike anything else in the city,” she enthused.
“There’s definitely a natural inspiration with the interior. Like the beautiful wood mosaic walls and exposed wood beams and green roof — it’s just great.” “I’m very impressed,” agreed friend Philip Ma. “From every angle you look, you can see the harbour view . . . It’s a big, big improvement over the old one.” – The open house continues today, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Vancouver Convention Centre is at 1055 Canada Place, near the Waterfront SkyTrain station.
© Copyright (c) The Province
Most hotels booked solid for Games
Friday, April 3rd, 2009Only 550 rooms still available 10 months before start of sport extravaganza
Damian Inwood
Province
Simon Pettigrew, general manager of the Four Seasons Hotel, poses in the hotel lobby in Vancouver yesterday. All 372 rooms have been pre-booked by VANOC for the 2010 Olympics. Photograph by: Gerry Kahrmann, The Province
Most Vancouver hotels already have “no-vacancy” signs up when it comes to renting rooms for the 2010 Olympics.
In fact, a report going to city council Tuesday says that a scant 550 rooms are still available, 10 months from the start of the Winter Games.
And, says the council report, that leaves about 210,000 ticket-holders who’ll be needing to find somewhere to stay.
“In terms of managing expectations, there won’t be a lot of downtown hotel rooms available because, if there were, we’d be trying to buy them for clients right now,” admitted Terry Wright, Vancouver 2010’s head of operations.
“It’s more likely [spectators] will be in the suburbs or they’ll be in somebody’s spare bedroom or in a furnished apartment rental.”
City planners are recommending that council pass a bylaw that will control the renting of rooms in private homes during the Olympics.
According to the report, the official online source for spectator accommodation, www.2010DestinationPlanner.com, says no hotel rooms are available in Vancouver next February.
The Vancouver 2010 Organizing Committee (VANOC) booked 80 per cent of the 12,000 rooms in downtown Vancouver, says the report.
Simon Pettigrew, general manager of the Four Seasons Hotel, said all of his 372 rooms have already been booked by VANOC.
“As part of putting the Games together we contracted with VANOC for a certain percentage of our rooms,” he said. “We were fortunate that VANOC came back and asked us for more rooms, so we’re 100-per-cent committed over the Games period.”
Stephen Peters, manager of the 503-room Pan Pacific Hotel, said all he has left are 23 suites, running between $2,200 and $14,500 a night.
“With the exception of the suites, all my guest rooms are precommitted and will be occupied,” he said. “It’s very doubtful we’ll see any leakage. You’ve already seen NBC, for example, cut back their Olympic program by 35 per cent, so we’re already keenly aware of what their requirements are. So I’m assured we will run a full house.”
Peters said a colleague told him there are 12 or 13 local condo rental companies that own multiple buildings that still have a lot of inventory.
“I think there’ll be a lot of people leaving Vancouver who’ll take the opportunity to make some money and rent their personal or private accommodation,” he said.
Peters said he’s been told home rentals will go at a daily average price of $300 per room.
“So if you’ve got a four bedroom house, you’re looking at $1,000 to $1,500 a day and you can get a contract for 30 or 45 days,” he said.
Walt Judas, 2010 strategist for Tourism Vancouver, said VANOC still needs rooms for extra workers like bus drivers who don’t live in Vancouver.
He said visitors will find it tough to find anything in Vancouver and will have to go to the suburbs.
“In 2006, people stayed in Milan and commuted to Turin by train,” he said.
Judas said some rooms usually become available closer to the Olympics.
He said it will only become a crisis if thousands of people arrive with Games tickets from outside Canada and the Lower Mainland and can’t find anywhere to stay.
“Then we are in trouble,” he said. “But I don’t think that will happen.”
NDP Olympic critic Harry Bains said VANOC needs to find an “innovative” way to handle the demand.
“They have to make sure that our guests do not go through an unpleasant experience,” he said.
© Copyright (c) The Province
City pushes for fines up to $10,000 for illegal Oly rentals
Friday, April 3rd, 2009Damian Inwood
Province
The city wants to ding Vancouver residents with fines of up to $10,000 if they illegally rent out their homes during the Olympics.
Right now, the maximum fine allowed is $2,000 per violation, but a report going to council Tuesday will ask the B.C. government to amend the Vancouver Charter so that heftier fines can be levied.
The report recommends relaxing bylaws covering temporary accommodation during the Olympic period. Under the proposal, residents would be able to rent one bedroom to no more than two people without a permit. But “owners wanting to rent more than one bedroom must apply to the city to create a B&B,” says the report.
That would require a $150 business licence.
Anyone found breaking the bylaw would be fined $50 per day up to a maximum of $2,000, the maximum currently allowed under the charter.
No one will be allowed to rent to Olympic guests if they have tenants after Sept. 1 to prevent short-term evictions.
A property use inspector (PUI) will monitor Internet sites in the lead-up to 2010 and advise property owners of the rules.
“During the Games, PUIs will respond to complaints from neighbours, as well as tenants, for noncompliance with the proposed bylaw,” says the report.
© Copyright (c) The Province
Real estate sales bounce back
Friday, April 3rd, 2009There’s a glimmer of hope that the bottom is here, as some prices inch higher
Fiona Anderson
Sun
Real estate sales showed a bit of life in March compared with February, up 53 per cent in Metro Vancouver, 48 per cent in the Fraser Valley and 34 per cent on Vancouver Island.
In some areas, prices are showing signs of recovery as well.
The numbers are still down significantly from last March, but they are encouraging, said Paul Penner, president of the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board, where prices have inched up slightly.
“All the stats are encouraging,” Penner said. “They are going in the right direction.”
Fraser Valley realtors had more than 1,000 sales in March, the first time that level has been reached since last July.
However, sales are still down 24 per cent from a year ago.
Benchmark prices are also down, just over 10 per cent from last March, although many areas had small price increases between March and February. Over-all, the average benchmark price was 1.3 per cent higher than in February, at $409,662, although condominiums were down slightly and townhouses were flat.
Things are looking better, Penner said. “Traffic is way up, the amount of phone calls coming into the offices has increased dramatically. The activity is definitely up,” he said.
However, Penner won’t predict if the market has reached bottom.
“Hopefully this trend will continue and I haven’t seen anything that would lead me to believe it won’t,” Penner said.
Vancouver-area sales jumped the most among the boards reporting numbers Thursday, yet volumes were also down about 24 per cent from last March.
Benchmark prices were down month over month for detached homes and townhomes, although not for condominiums.
In March the benchmark price for a detached home in Greater Vancouver — which extends from Squamish to South Delta and Pitt Meadows — was $649,342, down from $653,452 in February, and 15 per cent lower than it was in March 2008.
Townhouses were $420,563 in March, compared with $426,268 a month earlier, and 11 per cent cheaper than in 2008. Bucking the trend, condominium prices rose from $333,134 in February to $337,099 in March, but were still 13.5 per cent lower than a year earlier.
Jamie Boyle, a realtor with Remax Select Properties in Vancouver, says the market has really improved in the last six weeks.
“Compared [with] February, March was nuts,” Boyle said.
Boyle has the proof. He recently received 17 offers on a property near Prince of Wales secondary. After only a couple of days on the market, it sold for $1.208 million, above the $998,00 asking price.
Boyle has seen multiple offers this year but usually they are below the asking price, he said.
His sale was unusual because of the uniqueness of the property, which was in a great location, and larger than an average city lot.
“I must have had 100 phone calls [on the listing],” Boyle said. “I think it bodes well for the market.”
The Vancouver Island Real Estate Board — which covers Vancouver Island north of Victoria and Saltspring Island — had 31 per cent fewer sales of single-family dwellings [the only statistics it provides] in March compared with a year earlier, despite the 34-per-cent jump in sales from February.
Prices for the month were up 3.45 per cent — from $307,919 to $318,550 — though still six per cent lower than a year ago.
“I think consumer confidence is starting to return,” said Ray Francis, president of the VIREB.
Prices have dropped and, with low mortgage rates, people are willing to get into the market, he said.
“And we live in the most beautiful place in the world, or at least in Canada.”
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
Woodwards W32-108 W Cordova & W43-128 W Cordova almost Finished
Friday, April 3rd, 2009From amenities to view from the top, mixed-use redevelopment has mass, glass and class
John Mackie
Sun
View from the top of the tower is just a small facet of the impressive facility on the site of the original Woodward’s store. Photograph by: Ian Lindsay, Vancouver Sun
Ornamental ironwork on the facade of the W Tower is intended to handle ivy that will provide cooling for the structure. Photograph by: Ian Lindsay, Vancouver Sun
The public had its first look inside the $330-million Woodward’s project Thursday. It was impressive.
Not only is it big (980,000 square feet of space spread over four buildings), the project is diverse, with 536 condos, 200 social housing units, Simon Fraser University‘s School for the Contemporary Arts, all sorts of community amenity space, and three major retail-commercial components: London Drugs, Nester’s Market and TD Canada Trust.
A Who’s Who of politicians — including Premier Gordon Campbell and Mayor Gregor Robertson — turned out to heap praise on the project and its developer, Ian Gillespie of Westbank.
Campbell even saluted the hard work and dedication of longtime political foe Jim Green, who worked on revitalizing the site for over a decade.
People will start moving into Phase 1 of the market condos — the 43-storey W Tower — by June. The rest of the project will open in phases through October.
The W Tower is a little different from the glass towers popping up around town.
One of its defining features is some ornamental grillwork inspired by the steel structure of Vancouver‘s original skyscrapers, the 1908 Dominion Building and 1912 Sun Tower. The grillwork runs up the full 380-foot height of the south and east faces. The grillwork’s primer-red colour makes reference to the nearby Dominion building, but soon will be covered in vines to create a “green wall” to provide shade in the summer, a la the Sylvia Hotel.
The building’s eco-friendliness is enhanced by 18 trees that have been planted on the rooftop deck, which offers breathtaking views of Coal Harbour, the port, Gastown and other parts of downtown. The deck will be available to all condo owners, a radical departure from most projects, where the top floor is reserved for the owner of a pricey penthouse suite. There will even be a rooftop hot tub for residents, as well as a lounge. The rooftop amenities are called Club W.
The tour included a stop in suite 1710, a 1,200-square-foot, two-bedroom corner unit facing northwest. It’s quite grand, with an open plan in the living-dining area that accentuates the spaciousness. Floor-to-ceiling windows, a polished cement ceiling and parquet floors give it a modern feel, but you’re surrounded by brick heritage buildings, which gives it a totally different vibe than a Yaletown tower.
The 32-storey Abbott Tower will be a mix of condos on the upper floors and non-market units on the lower ones. Nester’s will be on the main floor at Cordova and Abbott.
SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts will be in a new nine-storey building on the southwestern side of the site. It will include several performance spaces and theatres, including a dramatic space in the basement with a 40-foot ceiling that will seat up to 400 people.
Above SFU are 125 units of non-market housing operated by the Portland Hotel Society. London Drugs will be located on the main floor of the SFU building along Hastings street.
The seven-storey brick building at the southeast corner of the site is all that’s left of the Woodward’s department store that occupied the site from 1903 to 2006. It is the original part of the Woodward’s store, which was basically a mish-mash that included 14 different additions. TD Canada Trust will be on the main floor; non-profits will occupy the offices above.
The iconic Big W neon sign will be placed on top of the heritage building, but it will be a replica. The original Big W had deteriorated to the point it couldn’t be repaired. The original will be placed in a glass display case in the inner courtyard, complete with a bird’s nest that was hidden in the sign for years.
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
Vancouver Trade & Convention Ctr Expansion opens today
Friday, April 3rd, 2009Facility has 60 new gatherings booked that would have been too big for the old building, president says
Bruce Constantineau
Sun
The Vancouver Convention & Exhibition Centre expansion is nearing completion on the Vancouver waterfront. An open house is scheduled for Saturday and Sunday. Photograph by: Steve Bosch, Vancouver Sun
The Vancouver Convention & Exhibition Centre expansion that began life as a $495-million project officially opens today as an $883.2-million facility with more than triple the old centre’s meeting space.
Featuring Canada‘s largest green roof with 400,000 indigenous plants and grasses spread over more than two hectares, the new centre will offer conventioneers about 500,000 square feet of meeting space and a 55,000-square-foot ballroom with five-storey ceilings and unique North Shore mountain views.
Cost overruns aside, PavCo president Warren Buckley said the investment was needed to keep Vancouver from losing more international convention business due to a lack of meeting space.
“We began losing business 10 years after the original centre opened [in 1986] because we couldn’t attract the kinds of conventions that wanted to come to Vancouver,” he said in an interview.
Buckley said about 60 new conventions that would have been too large for the old centre have already booked into the new space, with most occurring between now and the end of 2012. He said 2011 and 2012 are shaping up to be the largest Vancouver convention years on record.
About 100 international meeting planners are in Vancouver this week to view the new facility.
Buckley said the global recession hasn’t kept meeting organizers from planning new conventions in three or four years, when the economy is expected to be in better shape.
“We have not lost any conventions that are on the books,” he said. “Some have asked for help on things like [cutting their costs] on opening receptions. They have sharpened their pencils, but haven’t walked away.”
The original convention centre on the east side of Canada Place will shut down between the end of April and September this year for a $36.2-million renovation.
Buckley said the new facility is essentially complete, although certain pieces of artwork and signage won’t be installed until the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee vacates the facility after the 2010 Games next year. The convention centre will serve as the International Broadcast Centre during the Games.
The American Bar Association will hold the first major international convention at the new facility, when 1,700 delegates use the centre from April 16 to April 18.
The largest conference booked so far is the Special Interest Group on Graphics and Interactive Techniques meeting in 2011, when 25,000 delegates are expected to spend about $30 million in the city.
A public open house will be held at the new centre on Saturday and Sunday between 10 a.m and 4 p.m.
Funding sources for the new centre include the province of B.C. ($540.7 million), the federal government ($222.5 million), Tourism Vancouver ($90 million) and convention centre revenue ($30 million).
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
