Rick Vugteveen

New Westminster City Council balks at 'Manhattan' density plan | Urbanized The proposed building heights and density for the Lower Twelfth Street Area has been deemed too much for downtown New Westminster.

This article has the latest: dailyhive.com/vancouver/lo....

My 2 cents is that it will be great to see the area redevelop but it is wise to pause for a moment to make sure there's a plan to designate potential parks or institution (read: school!) space. Not many large undeveloped lots like this.

I'm very curious about what this would look like once the Expo Line Surrey-Langley extension is complete. Given bridge bottlenecks and distance from highways my hypothesis is that a fairly large area will become green and yellow.

There was a community plan for the area back in 2004 that talked about exactly this (see screenshot) but it was never actually investigated in depth. Not happening.

Have you been tracking the progress and debates about what level of density for this area and what the uses should be?

Bread Friday. Open invite.

Friday is typically WFH for me as well. Let’s make it happen! This Friday at about 1pm is looking good.

Good reminder! I need to try this. Actually the closest restaurant to me. Could be awesome for work from home days.

You are a close follower of municipal politics. From your non-partisan journalistic perch, would it be fair to say that Fontaine is hyper-partisan and generally antagonistic in his dealings at council? Pot calling the kettle black on this one - and then some!

Hopefully! There likely are ways to bring that cost down but any way you slice it we are still talking expensive infrastructure. Can still be worth the investment, especially in high traffic, high density areas where it would be a transformative change.

I'm talking CapEx. St George St Rainway is budgeted at $36M, split roughly 50/50 between the city and province. I believe that is for 5 blocks (Broadway to East 5th).

Have you come across newwestloststreams.ca? I love your vision but huge $$$. If the city was to prioritize I think 7th Street has the most potential. Super wide and cuts through the heart of the city. The grade would make for nice water flow. I believe also next in line for mobility lanes.

I'm tapping out on Gasworks. Same with "Muni Evers" Park. Those public washrooms built into the waste water treatment plan are going to be retro by the time they finally get used!

Thanks for noticing!

What out what you wish for, there used to be coal powered gas lights around these parts!

It would be nice if the contract wasn't already awarded, allowing for some additional flexibility. There might be other options that come to light. Based on what is known what you suggested is likely the best approach.

Presumably a custom fabrication job. My Dad works in a machine shop. They build custom stuff like this for municipalities all the time. However it is very expensive and the performance of the lighting itself in this case may be limited due to style. Still think it will be worth doing.

Thanks for live tweeting! Nice to be done with kids sports and be able to quickly get up to speed. Sounds like my time was better spent! 🤣

Imagine a world where the spend on roads shrunk from 33% to 25%. That would be enough to double how much spent is spent on Parks, Sports & Recreation.

A loophole that is so good that it is political suicide to even suggest changing it. Even a reasonable change such as a neutral tax shift to lower income taxes while putting some form of a cap on the principal residence exemption would be a non-starter.

Nice honest materials.

Has anyone gone through each of those ridings to confirm that what is left is the advance votes, not special ballots? If advanced votes I think you are right that we could end up with a Liberal majority, or at least past 170.

Still quite a few polls yet to report. Anyone know if the advance ballots have been reported?

This is 100% what is happening when you see Conservatives leading in some of the safest NDP ridings.

May we never forgive Trudeau for winning an election on electoral reform and bailing on it.

America discovers Chantel.

Making the case for electoral reform.

New Westminster--Burnaby--Maillardville results after 5/193 polls reported: Liberal 188 / 34.6%, NDP 177 / 32.6%, Conservative 163 / 30%.

Boy howdy close race in #NewWest so far

If Vancouver East is actually going Liberal then there’s still many more Liberal seats to come in Metro Vancouver as the polls start to come in.

Only one poll in so far but wow, it would be absolutely wild to have Peter Julian in 3rd. #newwest

he should have done the hip flip

Election day in a country that has had a fair and free vote for generations.

Where all the opposition parties are free to take power.

Where virtually everyone will accept the election result.

After my last year, it’s a history and a privilege I’m more grateful for than ever.

Let’s get at it.