A delicious find in the Vancouver viaducts report going to council today. (That would be Tuesday, Oct. 20, the day after the federal election and when the world started spinning in a different direction.)
Which was: Long ago, when the province sold the Expo lands to Li Ka-shing for what many called a fire-sale price, it wrote in a provision to the agreement that the province would get some of the profits if Concord ever got permission from the city to build more than 12 million square feet on the land.
At the time, it seemed unlikely.
But here we are. Concord is now within 400,000 square feet of that limit and will exceed it when it builds its Northeast False Creek towers, whatever level of density the city finally agrees to give. (Apparently the viaducts take-down could result in a million more square feet of density in the area, but it’s not all Concord’s.)
And the city wants the anticipated share of the money the province is going to get, in order to pay for housing. (First response out of the province appears to be along the lines of Drop Dead, Vancouver, but this is just the start of negotiations, I’m sure.)
My story on this is here. I will post the agreement attached to the land sale later for my armchair experts to peruse. (IanS?) And maybe someone can actually figure out what the sale price is, because I sure can’t from looking at the complicated calculations in the agreement.