WESTCOAST NEWSB2 THE VANCOUVER SUN, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2005
NEWS UPDATE
Owners of property in resort employee housingdevelopment want resale controls removed
WHISTLER | The new mayor of Whistler is upset that propertyowners in an employee housing development are trying to getrid of controls on the resale value of their homes.
Sixteen residents in the Barnfield Farm subdivision are ask-ing the Supreme Court of B.C. to remove employee housingcovenants capping the value of their non-market homes.
“My reaction is one of great disappointment,” said MayorKen Melamed. “We had an expectation that there would beprice and occupancy controls and today the residents are chal-lenging those covenants.”
With most chalets selling for over $1.2 million and condo-miniums for over $600,000, Whistler has struggled to provideaffordable housing for resort employees. The town’s sky-highland prices have forced many employees to move to Squamishand Pemberton.
There are about 4,000 beds in below-market or restrictedemployee housing in Whistler, including the Barnfield homes.The idea behind the employee housing, said Melamed, is thatthe units are to remain affordable “in perpetuity.”
The Barnfield properties, under a formula set when theywere purchased in 1997, have appreciated annually at 1.5 percent.
This means that a $300,000 home built in Barnfield on a$100,000 lot eight years ago would now be worth roughly$440,000 — far below market value.
“We think they knew the formula going in and they say theformula was unclear,” said Melamed.
The controversy has sparked public anger, added Melamed,saying local newspapers have run letters critical of the Barn-field homeowners’ suit.
Bob Barnett, editor of the Pique, a weekly Whistler news-magazine, wrote in a recent editorial: “There were no publicdisplays of jealousy or disapproval when these people were pre-sented with the opportunity to build their homes in Barnfield.
“On the contrary, there was general support and congratu-lations when their names were drawn in a housing lottery. Butsome of that support is evaporating with the lawsuit.”
David Sharpe, one of the homeowners, declined to commenton the suit when contacted Monday, but sent to The VancouverSun an e-mail statement from the Barnfield HomeownersAssociation.
The homeowners, in the statement, acknowledged that theirsuit has provoked controversy in Whistler. They went on tosay that they are not trying to remove covenants restrictingthe Barnfield properties to Whistler resort employees.
The homeowners association also said it is seeking clarityfrom the courts about how the value of their homes shouldappreciate over time.
Mayor Melamed said he is worried that a successful suit bythe Barnfield homeowners could prompt other residents inemployee housing units to challenge covenants restricting theresale value of their homes.
Melamed said the suit shouldn’t threaten future employeehousing projects, including the 2010 Olympic Games’ athletesvillage, which is set to be converted into price-restrictedemployee housing.
Doug Ward, Vancouver Sun
Family of pilot killed in Terrace crashsets up scholarship for other airmen
VICTORIA | The family of one of the two Victoria pilots killedin a plane crash in Terrace last week has created a scholar-ship in his honour with the hope it will save the lives offuture young pilots.
Trevor Hardy, 31, was killed when the plane he was co-piloting for Nav Air Charter Inc. crashed and exploded atNorthwest Regional Airport Dec. 20.
Hardy was a friendly, popular, well-known figure in Vic-toria, said family. His passion for skateboarding and skiing asa young man later turned into his dream to become a pilot.
“He didn’t want a regular job, he definitely wanted some-thing that gave him some thrills,” said brother Brendan, 29.“I couldn’t wait for him to fly around the rest of the world.We knew that’s what he wanted.”
Hardy planned to one day fly for Air Canada, said hismother, Bonnie. Still, like many pilots, he found it difficult toput himself through flight school in Victoria and build upthe required thousands of hours of flight experience.
To prevent young pilots from “risking their lives” to makemoney and build experience, the family and Mike Herr, oneof Hardy’s lifelong friends, created the Trevor Hardy Schol-arship Fund for young pilots in training, said Bonnie.
“We just knew we had to redirect this money into some-thing that could make a difference in somebody else’s life,”she said.
The official memorial service is Dec. 27, 12:30 p.m., at theFirst Unitarian Church of Victoria at 5575 West SaanichRoad. Donations to the scholarship fund can be made atbranches of Coast Capital Savings.
Victoria Times Colonist
I RICHMOND I
Last year’s Green candidatechallenges current riding choice
The Green candidate for Delta-Richmond East,Jean-Phillipe Laflamme, is being challenged by theGreen candidate for the riding from the previousfederal election.
Dana Miller, who ran for the Greens in 2004,had hoped to run again in Delta-Richmond Eastbut says she was told by federal Green party offi-cials that she isn’t eligible.
Tom Cornwall, provincial organizer for the par-ty, said Miller wasn’t a member and was organiz-ing for another political party.
Miller says she has “a receipt here that says thatI’m a Green party member, that I’ve paid mydues,” she said, adding “this was an inside moveby [party leader] Jim Harris and his little cronies.”
She has been organizing for the Peace and Ecol-ogy Party but said it is not registered with Elec-tions Canada.
Cornwall said Miller’s membership dues will berefunded, but Miller said she plans to fight theexpulsion.
Richmond News
I VANCOUVER I
The city’s Jewish communitycelebrates Hanukkah
The image of a lighted menorah projectedonto a large screen set up on the lawn of theVancouver Art Gallery Monday night served asthe backdrop to about 200 people from Vancou-ver’s Jewish community who gathered to cele-brate Hanukkah .
“We’re celebrating victory,” said Rabbi BinyominBitton of the Chabad of Downtown Vancouver,standing amid small groups of spiritual revellerssinging and dancing to traditional Jewish music.
“With one light, we can take away a lot of dark-ness and depression . . . With one light we canlight up this world,” the rabbi said.
Monday marked the second of eight days ofHanukkah celebrations for Jews around theworld. The celebration recognizes God’s powerand presence when, more than 2,000 years ago, amenorah with only enough holy oil to burn forone day miraculously stayed alight for eight days.
Today, Jewish families celebrate Hanukkah bygathering together and lighting their own candles.
Darah Hansen, Vancouver Sun
STUART DAVIS/VANCOUVER SUN
With Olympic gold medallist Cassie Campbell at her side, Calgarian Chayse Jarvis, 9, joins otherchildren in promising to uphold the values of responsibility and respect in Canadian hockey. Thepledges were sewn into a quilt now on display at the World Junior Fanfest in Rollerland at the PNE.
Think of some of Van-c o u ve r ’ s l i va b l eneighbourhoods —along Fourth Avenueand Broadway on the
west side, on Commercial Driveon the east side, and increasing-ly along Main Street in the cen-tre.
There are street-level shops,restaurants and offices, condoson upper floors, apartments andsingle-family homes around thecorner. Many residents can findtheir daily needs within a fewblocks’ walk along safe tree-lined sidewalks, and transit ser-vice is frequent and fast.
Imagine such communitiesalong King George Highway inSurrey, North Delta’s Scott Roado r L o u g h e e d H i g hway i nCoquitlam.
It’s an achievable vision, twoUniversity of B.C. landscapearchitects said Monday as theirgraduate students showed offtheir end-of-term projects.
Patrick Condon’s master’sdegree candidates in UBC’slandscape architecture programproduced a huge map — ninemetres by 13.7 metres — show-ing what Greater Vancouvermight look like in 50 years withits population doubled to fourmillion.
“Places like Whalley or ScottRoad or Coquitlam Centre canpotentially become much moreinteresting places to be and pro-vide much more of the urbanand cultural amenities that peo-ple seem to want,” Condon said.
His students made a hugeassumption: that growth inGreater Vancouver can be con-centrated around “transit nodes”in the town centres that are out-lined by the regional district’sLivable Strategic Plan, ratherthan sprawling willy-nilly intothe Fraser Valley.
“Our communities becomemore complete, the green zoneis protected, there are alterna-tives to the car presented,” Con-don said.
“It’s a big assumption thatthose th ings are going beadhered to. We certainly hopethat they are. If they are, the mapshows what the communitieswould look like — much likethey do now, but in manyrespects better, in the same waythat most people think down-town Vancouver has becomemuch better as its populationhas doubled from 40,000 to80,000 in the last 10 or 12 years.”
The students’ map showsmore than 100,000 new build-ings in the region, many of themin the designated growth areasalong major transit routes, basedon the regional growth strategy,municipalities’ official commu-nity plans and populationgrowth projections.
“We asked them to do it in away that met a number of sus-tainability principles such asproviding as many jobs close tohouses as possible, making surethat you have a mix of housing
types, protect and/or restoreenvironmental systems andmake sure that everybody liveswithin an easy five-minute walkof transit services,” Condon said.
Lawrence Frank’s class in landuse and transportation in UBC’sschool of community andregional planning, meanwhile,focused on how the provincialgovernment’s Gateway Projectwill affect the region’s growth.
The Gateway plan calls fornew truck routes on the southand north shores of the FraserRiver, expanding the Trans-Canada Highway between Lan-gley and Vancouver and twin-ning the Port Mann Bridge.
But the students warned thatonly building more road capaci-ty could bring about a “tripleconvergence” as travellers whoused to take other routes, ortravelled at off-peak hours orused other means of transportall converge on the expandedhighway at the same time.
They noted that the Gatewayplan is part of a strategy to turnVancouver into a major contain-er port hub to distribute goodsfrom overseas throughout NorthAmerica, but that it would chan-nel all the resulting traff icthrough the Greater Vancouvermetropolitan area.
One alternative, they said,could be to expand rail capacityto move the goods through Van-couver, perhaps as far as Alber-ta, to an inland terminal fromwhere they would be distributedthroughout the continent.
They also said container trucktraffic could be distributedaround the clock, which wouldrequire the container ports toexpand their hours from the pre-sent 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., whichforces trucks to compete withdaytime commuters for roadspace.
And they suggested tentativeplans to make the twinned PortMann Bridge a toll bridge run bya private operator could result in
pressure to maximize theamount of traff ic using thebridge, since the more trafficthat crossed it, the more moneythe operator would take in.
Frank said that kind of sce-nario can be averted with cre-ative planning, such as applyingtolls only during peak traffichours to encourage traffic to useit at other times.
“I think it can be done,” hesaid, “but it may need a newmodel for investment, perhaps anew hybrid between public andprivate investment.”
Condon said there are hopefulsigns for denser development,especially in Surrey, despite itsapproval of several controversial“big-box commercial develop-
ments and far-flung businessparks.”
A recent study of the Vancou-ver, Seattle and Portland regionsby Seattle’s Northwest Environ-mental Watch found that onlyGreater Vancouver has subur-ban areas, notably Surrey, thatare becoming “substantiallymore efficient” in their land useand increasing average densi-ties.
“So the underlying trend lineis favourable,” Condon said.
The development industry isprepared to play ball withregional planners, said UrbanDevelopment Institute execu-tive director Maureen Enser, aslong as local governments pavethe way with viable policies.
“One of the challenges that weface as an industry is to be ableto increase densities aroundtransit nodes without beingpenalized for doing so,” Ensersaid.
That may mean reducing thehigh development fees buildersnow face if they want to devel-op in high-density areas.
“You have to make those unitsas affordable as possible,” Ensersaid. “Therefore you need tokeep those costs associated withdevelopment as reasonable aspossible, so the end product isfairly priced and it does becomean attractive place to live.
“If it ’s sensible, it ’s wellplanned and it’s easy to build theproduct that’s needed and thereis a demonstrated need, thoseare all ingredients for success.”
Frank said the coming months
VANCOUVER I Graduate students
envision communities becoming
more complete as the green zone
is protected and alternatives
to the car are presented
ARCHITECTS MAP
T H E D A I L Y S P E C I A L
THE DAILY SPECIAL LOOKS AT THE YEAR THAT WAS :
TOMORROW
BY WILLIAM BOEIVANCOUVER SUN
The pace of growthGreater Vancouver’s population will rise to over four million by 2044.
3%
2%
1%
0
4.0
3.0
2.0
1.0
02004 09 14 19 24 29 34 39 44
Lower Mainland population, trend projection 2004 to 2044:
Number of residents in millions
Annual increase
2.43
2.823.29
3.724.02
Source: Urban Futures VANCOUVER SUN
BONNY MAKAREWICZ/VANCOUVER SUN FILES
Whistler Mayor Ken Melamed says, ‘We had anexpectation there would be price and occupancy control.’
B3WESTCOAST NEWS THE VANCOUVER SUN, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2005
I WESTCOAST BY THE NUMBERS I
New year’s nutrition Christmas dinner is over but Lower Mainland fridges are still full oftasty — and fattening — leftovers. Still, our eating habits in 2006should help counteract any seasonal overindulgence. According to anIpsos-Reid poll, B.C. residents are Canada’s most likely to claim toeat healthy.
I RICHMOND I
Taxpayers can look forwardto minimum two-per-cent rise
Richmond taxpayers face a minimum two-per-cent tax increase in the new year — andthat’s just for the status quo.
If they want any extras, like more policeofficers, they will need to swallow increasesof three per cent or more, says Coun. EvelinaHalsey-Brandt, who chairs the finance com-mittee.
Taxpayers will be hit with steep utility billincreases and can also expect to payincreased TransLink levies, she said.
“I would like to go with a 2.01 per centincrease and skip the reserves this year, andI wouldn’t go with any additional [staff] lev-els,” Halsey-Brandt said.
The committee got its first glimpse of the2006 operating budget last week. Municipalstaff recommend a three-per-cent increase.
The average single family home will seethe annual utility bill rise to $867.50 from$764.64.
Nelson Bennett, Richmond News SOURCE: WHAT CANADIANS THINK VANCOUVER SUN
71% 54%Percentage of Albertans who
feel the same way.
Percentage of B.C. residentswho claim that nutritional con-tent is very important in theirgrocery-shopping decisions.
LAW AND ORDER
Suspects sought in hit and run crash that leftwoman with facial, abdominal injuries
RICHMOND | RCMP are asking for public help to find two sus-pects from a hit and run crash.
Police say a 1992 Asuna Sunrunner was northbound in the8200-block of No. 4 Road about 7 p.m. Sunday when a stolensouthbound 2002 Dodge pickup truck swerved into thesouthbound lanes, causing a head-on collision.
The driver of the Asuna, a 31-year-old woman from Rich-mond, suffered serious facial and abdominal injuries in thecrash. She was taken to Vancouver General Hospital. She isexpected to recover.
The driver of the Dodge truck and his passenger weredescribed by witnesses as men in their late 30s of East Indi-an descent. The two men left the scene on foot and have notbeen located.
Witnesses also described a grey Honda Accord occupiedby two women of East Indian descent that stopped at thecollision scene shortly after the crash but did not wait tospeak with police.
Police ask that these witnesses, and anyone else who mayknow something about the collision, to contact RichmondTraffic Services at Richmond RCMP, local 604-278-1212.
Despite personal setbacks, restaurant ownerraises over $80,000 for disaster relief
GALIANO ISLAND | If anyone deserves a break this holiday season,it’s Deborah McKechnie.
Earlier this year, in an operation even Solicitor-General RichColeman admitted was “overkill,” four B.C. governmentagents raided a bingo game for seniors run out of McKech-nie’s diner on Galiano Island.
Then, a kitchen fire closed her restaurant for a month dur-ing peak tourist season, a devastating blow for a small busi-ness like hers.
Yet, despite personal strife, McKechnie helped raise morethan $80,000 for disaster relief in the wake of the tsunami thatstruck southeast Asia and Hurricane Katrina that hitLouisiana this year.
“I need a break, I certainly do,” she said in a pre-Christmasinterview, laughing.
“Unfortunately small business in Canada does not includebreaks. So the break is that we are not in a hurricane, we arenot without food, we are not without love, and I’m happy to bealive and do my part.”
McKechnie says the disaster had a profound impact on onher. She saw the destruction on television, and then tried tomake a difference.
McKechnie, who had raised money for other causes in thepast, accepted a friend’s challenge and put her skills to workon tsunami relief.
With the help of a local Lions Club, she organized an artauction that raised more than $40,000 that was matched bythe federal government.
“I think if we can just show people that it doesn’t matterwhat you do, the smallest things can make the biggest differ-ence,” McKechnie said.
Lindsay Kines, Victoria Times Colonist
RCMP implementation of an emergencyresponse team irks city councillor
RICHMOND | The days of the RCMP doing what they wantand having council pick up the bill are gone, said Coun.Rob Howard, chair of the Community Safety Committee.
“Times have changed. Now we need more accountabilityand consultation,” added Howard, referring to the RCMP’sdecision to implement a full-time Emergency Response Team— partly at council’s expense.
“It’s probably a good idea in today’s world [to have an Emer-gency Response Team.] The problem is that there was no con-sultation.”
The RCMP Lower Mainland District’s directive is particu-larly disappointing, said Howard, considering “we thought anew benchmark had been established in the formation of theIntegrated Homicide Investigative Team [IHIT].
“When they formed IHIT we were very involved in theprocess and really on board. In this case, it simply came as adecision — ‘this is what we are going to do.’”
According to a city staff report, a business case was sent tomayor and council Nov. 7, but it “was not timed to allow forany meaningful consultation to take place regarding the City’sportion of the costs prior to the decision to begin implemen-tation in April 2006.”
The RCMP’s spokesman for the Lower Mainland, Staff Sgt.John Ward, said in fact there had been consultation withmunicipalities.
After the business case was sent to mayors, a working groupwas established in each community and the business case wasfurthered.
“They were certainly aware this was coming. What hap-pens between city staff and councillors, I can’t comment on,but there was involvement on the part of the cities.”
Eve Edmonds, Richmond News
are crucial as provincial Trans-portation Minister Kevin Fal-con prepares to reveal thedetails of the Gateway Projectand a new regional districtboard settles on a developmentstrategy for the next decade.
Frank said the region wouldbe foo l i sh to re jec t hugeinflows of cash from seniorgovernments and investmentfrom private partners to buildtransportation infrastructure.
But expanding road capacity
without coupling it to theregional strategy will send low-density development sprawlinginto the Fraser Valley, he said,and the region needs to estab-lish benchmarks so it can mea-sure how proposed projects
will affect its future.“We have to find ways to use
those funds in ways that don’tundermine our ability to havethe quality of life that we’veworked so hard to create.”
T H E D A I L Y S P E C I A L
CITY’S FUTURE
d Skelton has combed the archives and come up with the best quotes of 2005
IAN SMITH/VANCOUVER SUN
Concept of livable neighbourhoods in Vancouver, such as these work-and-live buildings along Arbutus, is expected to continue to spread.
STUART DAVIS/VANCOUVER SUN
UBC professor Patrick Condon (left) speaks with Masters in Landscape Architecture students Niki Strutynski and Greg Rouleauabout trends in population growth and land-use issues. Hanging behind them is a composite map of the Lower Mainland.
DARREN STONE/VICTORIA TIMES COLONIST
Esquimalt Lagoon was a popular place to walk off the effects of Christmas feasting inVictoria Monday.
IAN SMITH/VANCOUVER SUN FILES
Staff Sgt. John Ward of the RCMP says Richmondcouncil was consulted about a decision to set up a full-time Emergency Response Team.
