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Is Vancouver exaggerating the low vacancy rate by only looking at statistics for purpose-built apartments
Question: I understand Gregor and the Vision team misusing statistics for political purposes, but now the City is parroting the same in stating that "rental vacancy rates are at an all-time low of 0.8%" A simple review of CMHC data shows there have been many other times in the last thirty years plus when the […]
Who absorbs the cost of CACs when a whole strata sells to a developer?
Question: When a strata "winds-up" and sells the property to a developer, which party generally absorbs the cost of the community amenity contribution assessed due to rezoning, the strata owners or the developer? We are currently undergoing this process and have been told by our realtors to expect 100% of our current assessment plus only […]
Does a developer going through a rezoning also have to go through the development-permit process?
Question: Do you know, if a developer is going through rezoning, do they also have to go through the entire development permit process or is it combined? Answer: Hmm, a tricky one. I checked with my Valuable City Hall Sources and they said … it depends. Some, like Rental 100 projects or laneways, are combined. […]
What is happening with the new Vancouver chief planner job?
Q: What's going on with the City of Vancouver's search for a new Chief Planner? Surely they're getting close Frances. Any news? A. Good question. I had heard there was a first round of interviews in May, second round in early June. Four candidates on shortlist. Told last week by city manager that announcement was imminent. […]
Why did the value of my building go up when I made no improvements?
Q: Why did my assessed value of the building portion of my property go up by over 40% when I made no substantial improvements to the house before the July 1, 2015 date? My house was built in 1954. Don't homes typically depreciate over time unless substantial renos (permitted) are completed? Curious to know the […]
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Report from Montreal, Canada's other bi-cultural city
March 20th, 2009 · 13 Comments
Unbeknownst to many of you, I snuck out of town in disguise and am currently hiding out in the Plateau area of Montreal for a few days. But I must be really old because it's only 11 p.m. and here I am, sitting at home instead of wandering up and down St. Laurent or St. Denis, along with everyone else in the city, on the prowl for great live music.
I love Montreal, which has a grubby liveliness to it that is the opposite of Vancouver's spanking new downtown, and equally a sense of its traditions and history, something that our transient city is only slowly developing. But there is a strange sameness in the way the two cities are split between two cultural worlds.
Here it's the French and English worlds, of course (with all those immigrant satellites clustered all around). We went to a modern dance production tonight and a young woman in the audience and her mother asked me afterwards what one of the characters had said in the middle of the performance. They were there because the young woman had to review it as part of a class assignment. And they've lived in Montreal all their lives, but didn't know enough French to understand a few sentences of fairly basic storytelling.
As we walk the streets around McGill, we hear predominantly English. When we walked east along Mont Royal, it was so uniformly French I felt as though I were caught in a biopic of Duplessis.
How strange, I thought, at one point. But in the next minute thought about how we live in Vancouver, where there's an anglo world and a Chinese world, complete with a plethora of newspapers, television and radio stations, cultural events, charitable organizations. None of us think it strange that those two worlds exist in parallel, with news of the major events in each filtering through the barrier, but not much about day to day life.
But, of course, just when I'm convinced the two solitudes here in Montreal are as solitary as ever, there's a small moment where it seems as though the worlds aren't so separated. The night before last, I went to a book launch — The Cello Suites by Eric Siblin — with a trance-inducing performance by an internationally known local cellist of the first suite. When it was done, I looked around at the crowd and thought, "Aha, old English Montreal of the first order, out supporting local culture as part of their social duties." Lots of well-dressed NDG/Westmount types, wine and cheese, many greetings among them and asking after nephews and wives and work colleagues. There was even a guy who looked like a ringer for Mordecai Richler. The same gray hair combed back from his forehead, the same half glasses. Wow, I thought. Even though Mordecai is dead, they've found someone to come and preside over the Anglo literary events of the city like a patron spirit.
And then "Mordecai" started talking to the man next to him. This doppelganger for the man who thought the French were ruining Montreal — he spoke perfect Quebecois French. Clearly a member of the French literary establishment, out to support a promising young Anglo author. So maybe not such separate worlds after all.
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