The Happiest New Year to all who visit, blog, and post here at northvancoverpolitics.com. I would like to extend an invitation to all to comment on anything that happened in 2012 and what your aspirations are for the New Year.
Best of the New Year to everyone!
John Sharpe
29 comments:
Kudos to John Sharpe for looking after this blog.
Thank you for making the ability to prove I'm not a robot easier (if in fact you did). Sometimes the numbers were impossible to read on the dark background.
I still can't believe that the DNV OCP didn't go to referendum on the November 11, 2011 municipal ballot. Why not? It would have encouraged more people than 21 percent to get out and vote, and the sky-high height limits at town centres would certainly be lower.
Most people I have talked to in the DNV moved here because of a slower development pace, not 32-storey highrises.
Letter from today's Vancouver Sun.
Re: Awarding of TransLink contract ruffles feathers, Letters, Dec. 20
So let’s see if I have this correct. It’s okay for thousands of Metro Vancouver residents to shop for lower-cost items in another country (U.S.), but it’s not okay for TransLink to shop for a lower cost Seabus in another country (The Netherlands). Both practices cost jobs and tax revenue in B.C.
We should also be asking, as Vaughn Palmer did, how it is that The Netherlands, a wealthy “first-world” country, with labour and environmental regulations at least as tough as ours, can underbid a B.C. company that’s practically on the doorstep of the Seabus route.
David A. Rodger, North Vancouver
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/opinion/letters/TransLink+seabus+purchase+another+example+cross+border/7761511/story.html#ixzz2GrGaUQye
Good thing the NDP is not in power or we'd have ended up with Made in BC "Fast Cat Seabus" that would have cost us far more and not worked.
Hi George,
So are you voting for Yamamoto? Or the nonexistent Green party candidate? Forget the BC Conservatives. And what about Keating?
Now that is a question to ponder!
8.3. Community Engagement on the Lynn Valley Implementation
Plan
File No. 13.6480.30/002.002
Recommendation:
THAT staff be directed to undertake an intensive and focussed community engagement initiative in early 2013 to seek further feedback to shape and refine the Lynn Valley Town Centre Implementation Plan.
Do your own math.
These so-called community input meetings are exactly the opposite. They are to push it on to the people as fact.
Ever been to one?
DNV Community Input, definition: We tolerate your opinions but do not listen to any opinions not in line with ours.
So, no, you've never been to one.
So why was the "charette" material on easels from 2007 still on the "public input" meetings for the OCP? Their material never changed throughout the years. Nothing substantial.
It was not public input, it was public brainwashing.
The basis of the OCP is similar to what is found and being developed across North America, everywhere - especially in suburban automobile-oriented municipalities, planners are working towards environments that actually serve the full, inclusive community, not just middle-aged baby boomers.
Why do those opposing the OCP fail to recognize the very real problems that are evident now and will increasingly impact our collective quality of life? We hear a great deal about what people don't want, but almost nothing framed within a view of the wider complexity of the demographic and economic realities that will impact everyone in the next twenty+ years.
"You can ignore reality, but you can't ignore the consequences of ignoring reality"
"You may not be interested in change, but change is very interested in you."
I watch the US political situation and wonder at how polarized they are.
I'm feeling like we are just the same but on different subjects.
On one side we have a group that seems to want to retain the 1960's status quo. Little to no development, very high level of services, very low level of taxation, a cap on vehicle traffic and more socialized government "in the moment" intervention at every level from subsidzed housing to million dollar turf fields with no thought at all to replacement of crucial infrastructure.
On the other side we have folks that encourage development that will produce a highter yield of tax revenue back to the gov't to fund infrastructure replacement and the gov't services.
Is it possible that we could move away from the US style deadlock? Could everyone move a bit from their entrenched positions, check out reality instead of their idealized world and meet somewhere in the middle?
How about doing something different? Let's agree that we want to retain a certain N. Shore lifestyle for the majority of residents. Let's agree that will come with a cost - now and in the future. Let's set aside the social engineers and ask how much that cost is going to be and how we can afford it. Is there a shortfall of funding? How much? What services are fundamental to our lifestyle and can't be reduced and maybe should be enhanced? What a nice to have but we really can't afford them? What type and how much development (f any) do we need to facilitate our lifestyle? What plan do we have to trim costs and produce a revenue stream back into the gov't and community that will sustain our preferred N. Shore lifestyle?
I like the earlier poster's closing comments as I think that he/she is right about the consequences of ignoring reality.
We all are pretty clear on the entrenched positions. How about some movement and positive suggestions?
Something different?? It's called community-driven planning, not unelected Metro Van people demanding that municipalities take a "certain percentage" of the development and influx of people.
Won't work. Taxpayers and residents are sick and tired of being manipulated.
Anon 2:53PM said, "Won't work. Taxpayers and residents are sick and tired of being manipulated."
The way they voted would say otherwise.
Anon 11:47 's suggestion for positive suggestions/solutions is right on the mark. There is a requirement for solutions that address the "3 Rs": Rational, Reasonable and Realistic. What has been disappointing for me is to hear repeated cries that one's occasional mountain view trumps the logic and reality that not everyone can afford a single-family home and that anyone wanting to live in a $400,000 apartment amounts to an assault of someone else's right to drive to downtown without glimpsing a building above the height of a second growth Douglas fir. Oh, the Horror, the HORROR!
DNV residents need to accept that we have all had it good for many years, but the cost to replace what exists has come and we need to figure out how we will begin to pay for it to continue. If we are willing to plan and prepare now it will still work pretty well when it comes time to view those same mountains from a wheelchair.
If you are unable to look around you and see what would work better for you in another 15 years then you are merely like the person in the proverbial joke, falling off the top of an 80 storey building. As they pass the 6th storey they they call out to the wide-eyed observer at a window, "Don't worry! Everything's fine so far!"
That's all it is; plan ahead. You won't be the same person tomorrow. You won't want the same things tomorrow. Yow won't need the same things tomorrow.
D.C.
How about $$$ = Developers = loss of quality of life for DNV residents.
Anon 10:16PM, how does anything that DC said translate to him being a Nazi. Please enlighten us as to how we should move forward. Rather than hiding behind the anonymity of the computer to hurl insults, how about actually contributing to the conversation?! It is so bizarre that you could criticize people for recommending moderation in discussion and action. For bringing out the Nazi insult you should be truly ashamed of yourself.
Anon 10:16 PM, To call someone a Nazi in these circumstances is not only facile, but a shameful diminishment of the very real suffering and death inflicted on millions by the Nazi regime.
My fear is that many DNV residents would, if left only to their own motivations, will avoid doing the right thing, until as Churchill said, all other possibilities have been exhausted.
The economic evidence presented at Metro Van's recent Municipal Financial Symposium framed the problems and illustrated the consequences for failing to act responsibly and with foresight. It needn't happen here.
In the words of the immortal Walt Kelly, "We have seen the enemy, and he is us."
I echo that the "Nazi" comment was infantile and inappropriate.
Of course we should discuss what we need to retain, what we can't afford and should abandon, how much our current and future needs, (especially infrastructure) costs and how we are going to acquire the funding to pay for it.
I am sick and tired of the "No" group. Yes change is uncomfortable but not adapting is even more uncomfortable. Just ask the buggy whip makers.
What comparative advantage does the N. Shore have when compared to the other metro munis? How do we develop and exploit that advantage to the benefit of the residents so that we can continue to enjoy much of the lifestyle we all cherish?
I will be selling my single detached family home in the District because I hate the traffic. And the sirens and the needles in the parks, and everything that goes along with densification. All negative.
Our non progressive municipal councils don't care about our future, only theirs.
Please note that the densification is not occurring in the neighbourhoods of any municipal councillors, except Hicks and he is away up on Underwood.
Anon 5:27PM, how is the council 'non progressive'? Anyone supporting the development of our communities would, in my mind, be progressive. I would suggest that the NIMBY's are the non progressives.
I don't know why the pro-developers on the blog are so worried about the 'no group'. Seems to me the DNV council passes almost all applications for development anyway effectively dissing the so-called nay-sayers. You've been getting your way and chances are it will continue.
Hey John, how come you allow the Nazi slur to remain? Is it because you dislike the views of the person who is being called Nazi? Is your censorship (excuse me, moderation) only going to come into force when your friends are the target? Do we have a case here that some posters are more equal than others?
As to your recent comment, one needn't be pro-developer to be pro-development. There are plenty of developers who I dislike because they build garbage. On the other hand, there are some who are willing to pay for and promote/build good design that improve upon the built environment.
Anon 9:55 AM It is only proper that the Nazi slur remain. It sits there of evidence of the unwillingness of some to engage through ideas and realistic complexity of life, planning and leadership.
At the point where a person wants to squash legitimate debate by driving it down to shameful trivialization, that should be noted. Don't sanitize it or pretty it up. leave the ugliness there for all to read and know. It is what it is and everyone sees it for what it is.
Anon 9:55
I saw that no names or slander occurs.
Removed out of principle.
Hello John Sharpe, Since it was I who was termed a Nazi, i think it should be my call as to whether or not the insult is removed or not. I am not hurt by the slander as it is so inappropriate and outlandish.
Please replace the post.
It is important that these kinds of posts and character assassinations are revealed and roundly and publicly condemned as unacceptable. That is not accomplished by removing them. there is danger to revising history for appearances sake. Put it back.
Thanks, Doug Curran
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