Frances Bula header image 4

Budget angst hitting cities across the land as taxes go up to pay for things other governments skipping

December 5th, 2019 · No Comments

Budget and property-tax-increase time is never a fun period in the year. But it’s feeling especially fraught this year, as there are big debates and objections and announcements about big new hikes in various cities. It seems to me that it’s all a product of the secret burden cities have been carrying for years, where […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Plan by Squamish Nation for unique, super-dense development on False Creek sets off wave of praise

November 12th, 2019 · No Comments

So, we kicked off last week with the story that the Squamish Nation has updated its plans for the land it owns around the south end of the Burrard Bridge, with a project that would have 6,000 units in 11 towers, one of them 56 storeys. My story in the Globe and the follow-up story […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Cities say they’re making big changes by allowing duplexes, triplexes in former single-detached-only homes. But how is that working out?

November 5th, 2019 · No Comments

Cities like Minneapolis and Portland are getting huge coverage in the U.S. for saying that they are ending the restriction of single-detached-only homes in large areas of their cities. Vancouver is part of that movement in Canada. But, as I discovered when I went to do a follow-up story on how this is all working […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

In honour of the Internet’s birthday: The time I discovered the Internet in 1993

October 30th, 2019 · No Comments

Way back when, I was a social-issues reporter at The Vancouver Sun. No one really knew what that meant. It wasn’t supposed to be traditional social issues, but more like trends and social-science research. I can’t remember how I got started on this talking through computers network thing. I believe it might have been Larry […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Vancouver’s big suburb to the east makes plans to create a downtown

October 29th, 2019 · No Comments

Apparently Google loved my story about Burnaby, Vancouver’s beloved neighbour that has served as its bedroom community for decades, is going to create a downtown at the mega-fortress-mall of Metrotown. (Full text attached below) Burnaby did originally have a kind of town centre at Edmonds, but that sort of disappeared in the 1970s, as the […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Metro Vancouverites on the move: Walking more, taking more car trips to shop, car-pooling more

October 10th, 2019 · No Comments

Like many reporters, I just love census data and census-like data. So it was Christmas Day when TransLink released its big set of data from its 2017 “trip diary,” a massive study the agency does every five years to monitor how people are getting around in the region. Lots of great info to ponder. Their […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

The search for what to do about dog poop, Vancouver edition

September 3rd, 2019 · No Comments

Engineers at Metro Vancouver tell me that they get asked about this topic by reporters more often than any other issue, including sea-level rise or drugs in sewage. What to do about the by-products of the tens of thousands of dogs in the region seems to endless fascinate people. The breaking on news on this? […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Two-thirds say our housing crisis the result of “basic flaws of capitalism,” others say cheaters; critics say false choice

June 13th, 2019 · No Comments

Okay, 361 people voted in my silly little poll asking if our housing crisis is the result of “basic flaws of capitalism” or cheaters taking advantages of a basically good system. And 64 per cent picked door number 1, although I have to note that a number of Twitter commenters said I was posing a […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

The Vancouver dilemma: How to build new apartments without displacing tenants.

May 16th, 2019 · No Comments

I had a story in Tuesday’s Globe about a couple of old and very inexpensive apartment buildings on Oak Street in the heart of Marpole, which are up for redevelopment. (Full text of story after the break.) The owner wants to build 91 new units to replace the 1959 and 1964 buildings on site with […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Squamish plan for massive development by Burrard Bridge gets a surprisingly warm welcome

April 14th, 2019 · No Comments

So my big story for the week was the news that the Squamish are moving ahead with plans to create a huge new development by the Burrard Bridge. My story was in the Globe Thursday, with a follow-up including the mayor’s comments on Friday. (I’ll post the full stories below.) The reaction on often-toxic Twitter […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized