Kathy Delisser really needs to visit her opthalmologist. Evidently she’s so severely short-sighted as to be unable to see the homes of the several thousand people who dwell within her so-called “entertainment zone”, and get treated to her “lively” light show every night. It’s hard to say whose is the lamer attempt at an excuse: Delisser’s, or that of the captain of the wrecked Italian cruise ship, who claims that the reason he was so quick into a lifeboat was that he slipped and fell into it.
gmgw

I have it on good authority that opposition to the billboard is being funded by American foundations, who secretly wish to have all billboards to themselves.

Why would you choose to live downtown beside a large stadium (which has been there since the early 1980s) and then complain about the lights (or noise?) Please explain this to me. Why would the city even pay any attention to this? Someone…please…?

Have you people ever been to major cities? Whether Picadilly Circus or Times Square: there are bright lights, advertising, large screens, busy intersections, live concerts, street music and people choose to live there and accept that they are *downtown*.

B.C. is a very big province. There are thousands of square kilometers of quiet space without bright lights. There’s a nice suburban cul-de-sac calling your name.

Pathetic.

@ Sparti 4: “I have it on good authority that opposition to the billboard is being funded by American foundations, who secretly wish to have all billboards to themselves.”

Is that perchance in reaction to a proposed Gateway Light Project to bathe the world in Hollywood’s artificial glow, or part of the Urban Light Denial Industry?

@ Spartikus #7:
Having walked around Piccadilly Circus as recently as this past October, I can assure though that there is a complete absence of residential towers in the area; certainly there is no massed housing that is affected by the signage to be found in Piccadilly & environs. People do choose to live in Soho and the West End, of course, despite the drawbacks of huge nighttime crowds and an incredibly busy ambience, but then Soho et. al., by night or day, is an immeasurably more interesting and stimulating neighbourhood than anything remotely to be found here in dreary Parvenuver.

I can’t speak to Times Square but I suspect the situation is much the same. Maude’s analogy is completely specious. Moreover, it ignores the substantial difference between the physiological/psychological effects of steady versus constantly-changing ambient light (with the additional dollop in this case of ongoing changes of colour). The stadium’s previous lighting was certainly bright, but unchanging (apart from its illuminated sign, which was quite small in comparison with the stadium itself) and while I certainly wouldn’t want to have lived across the street from it, I think those who did found some kind of accomodation with it. The new, constantly-changing illumination is much more onerous. Ever tried to sleep in an inadequately-curtained hotel room with a large, flashing illuminated sign nearby? Same principle. Accusations of NIMBYism on the part of long-term residents of the neighbourhood affected by the new lighting are really out of place here.
gmgw

Good point gmgw. Anti-nimbyism in this case is it’s own nimby. There are are, and will be more residents in this area + there is a stadium with very large, intrusive signs = conflict. What to do? Solve problem.

Not a brilliant planning idea to mix these not complimentary uses in the 1st place (and Planning and Pavco want to put more to get the best return, but IMO this area should be reserved for office and sport related institutional uses, etc.).

One solution might be Lewis’, and/or reduce sizes + lower + screen to above + etc. The ever changing lighting around the base of the ‘dome’ is a bit too bright and in your face. It would be better if the dimmer was turned down, and greener too.

Two comments –

BC Place could (in addition to measured it has implemented already) mitigate the impact by requiring advertisers to use darker colours (i.e. not all white)

Condos have blinds – use them!

It’s people thinking they have the “right” to have their blinds open 24/7 that gives the City ugly one-sided condo towers like the new one proposed for 1300 block of Richards:

http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/rezoning/applications/1300richards/documents/elevations.pdf

Yup – that’s a 43 storey blank wall – because it faces across the alley to another tower (which already has windows facing the alley). Why don’t they offset the tower? Because there’s a view cone to the south.

There are lots of other towers dowtown that have spandrel panels (opaque glass) where they face another tower instead of see-through windows – all because people don’t close their blinds.

@Guest #14:
You think someone who’s spent three-quarters-of-a-million-plus for a condo with a(presumable) view, however limited, should be forced to look at blinds instead for 12 hours a day, like some kind of high-rise troglodyte? Are we kind of unclear on the concept of “view” here??
gmgw

WRT blinds –
Have a look northwards at any of the Concord towers (or any tower) on a bright sunny day (including weekends) and count how many units have the blinds completely closed.

As for paying for the view, here’s what’s going up across the street from TV Towers.
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=195095
Maybe it’ll block the view of the screen.

oops, here’s the link.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/10/05/bc-place-video-screen-complaints.html

The problem is not so much one of nimby-ism. It’s much more serious than that. I think it’s the problem of a general suburban-rural attitude which is pervasive among so many who choose to live in one of the very few truly urban areas of this city.

To follow-up: while the main floors are typically retail, on the upper floors there are plenty of residences around Picadilly (though truth: not towers as in this case). Regardless, the screens at Picadilly (there are many) look to me as though they are about 40 times larger. London is but one example of a large city where this exists: people live in the area, accept it as part of living in the “downtown core” and there is no outrage as a result.

The prospect of bright screens at a stadium is quite foreseeable (I have been to many in North America and Europe) and I have yet to see one which does not have a large bright screen. I have yet to read a similar story elsewhere: if someone can find one I’d be curious to read about it.

Finally like I said: BC is a big place, lots of quiet rural areas. People who do not like all that comes with living downtown (and those developments which are reasonably foreseeable) should not.

@Guest:
We live on an upper floor of our building, with east-facing windows which are directly exposed to sunlight. On clear summer mornings the sun beats fiercely down on our balcony (though we restrict the amount of exterior light we allow in year-round). For this reason we leave our blinds partially closed most of the day, allowing just enough light in to keep the plants alive. I suspect your Concord residents adopt the same practice. Even indirect sunlight can adversely affect prints (when we first moved in, unused to the exposure, we naively put up some framed, rare 1930s colour movie lobby cards- they faded irretrievably in a matter of months, yet received no direct light), furniture, carpets,wall hangings, books, CDs, DVDs, and what-have-you. I have a large, framed map of Paris, dating from the 1830s, hanging on one wall. There’s no way I would risk exposing it to even indirect sunlight. Keeping the blinds closed in daytime is a commoner practice than you might think. No wonder people want to be able to open them in the evening.
gmgw

Yuck, comma splice in last para. I’m not wearing my glasses obviously. Sorry.

Chris #25,
What is your Vision pet name, please?
Do they walk you, take you to the park or something ’cause I see you jump at everybody.
Just calm, down for the weekend , please.
Bye bye.

Remember that BC Place has already turned off the Terry Fox Plaza screen from 4:00pm to 8:00am. I’m not sure if that’s only on non-event night or if that’s every night, as I had previously heard that it was being turned off on non-event nights.

PavCo, the provincial government agency that manages BC Place, has tinkered with the largest one that faces Robson Street, lowering the intensity, reducing the flashing and even, recently, turning it off altogether between 4 p.m. and 8 a.m.

The point regarding the view is that you have to compromise.

You may buy a condo for the view, but you adjust to account for other factors of living – particularly in a dense urban environment.

The complainers want the screen gone.
No compromise.

[That’s what led Vancouver from having the most neon in North America to desperately trying to preserve the last few examples in an exhibit at the Vancouver Museum (nestled behind the tour-bus hating residents of Kits Point.].

No Fun City.

@Maude-have you ever been to Picadilly Circus or Times Square? Not the same situation at all. And when those condo owners bought it ws also a closed stadium without Gordo’s Half a Billion Boondoggle opening roof and LED light show.

@Chris Keam-would have been nice if Gregor or Meggs had thought to ask Pavco what their plans were before reconstruction began. Speaking of Meggs, do these condo owners lie within the provincial riding of Vancouver-Fairview perchance?

Big booboo this lights, in down-town!
Wow!
They think downtown is some sort of a kibbutz. You want that move to Cortes Island, Hollyhock to be more precise.
Ta da

@Michelle #34:
Have you actually seen the stadium lighting under discussion? Doesn’t sound like it. If you want to sound like a complete twit, though, you’re certainly going about it the right way.
gmgw

Brilliant: “And when those condo owners bought it ws also a closed stadium without Gordo’s Half a Billion Boondoggle opening roof and LED light show

What I am saying is: whether open or closed, LED or not, having bright screens around a stadium is very much a reasonably foreseeable development. Buying your home in the viscinity and then complaining about you surroundings is not.

I am pointing to a larger problem in Vancouver of people with a suburban attitudes to life (wanting quiet and isolation) living an urban area. Vancouver has become too whiny; a place with too many “first world” “my-latte-is-too-foamy” problems.

Guest: “…(nestled behind the tour-bus hating residents of Kits Point.].”

Indeed, I remember this (having been a resident of kits). I also remember (even more astonishingly) many people living in Kits across from the beach complaining about the public using the beach. The pertinent issue was the basketball hoops and some of the neighbours wanted them dismanted or lowered (rendering them effectively useless). They even managed to wrangle a referendum on that matter (which thankfully failed). Quite pathetic.

Like I said: BC is a large place with lots of suburban neighbourhoods and rural areas. If you don’t like urban life…you are free to move; (…it will be fun…you can compete with your neighbours over who has the greener grass and bigger barbeque).

Well I appreciate your thoughtful response.

I do in fact have compassion for real problems…but admittedly little compassion for minor ‘first world’ problems.

To disgaree once again on the issue of basketball: “nightime” basketball is not possible there and never was. Typically past 9:00pm or thereabouts it is too dark to play basketball. It was however evening and daytime basketball… busiest on Fridays and Saturdays. Is that too late to be playing in a park on a sunny weekend?

I recall hearing of city council meetings where one allegedly nuissanced individual had actually brought a tape recorder on which they recorded people playing ball during the day; frantically fastforwarding to the part where ‘a guy swears’.
What left me with a gut-wrenching sick feeling was that most of the people playing on the courts were (and are in fact) not white people with their families; there were racial undertones to the whole thing.

But my point is proven by the failure of the referendum: the majority of the neighbourhood agreed that the complaining was senseless.

…leaving bars are no match for the light coming from this new technology. It was a miscalculation on both Pavco and the City’s part that these screens would be a good idea.

Get out there and have a look for yourself and even maybe ask those opposing to see what they’re complaining about before coming back here repeatedly declaring “Get over it, you spoilt urbanites.”

@Paul 43

I took a look just now.

Today at 5:30pm, with a Women’s CONCACAF olymipic qualifier being played the screen is off.

@Maude, #’s 38/40:
One last Kits Beach comment, and a forgotten vignette from Vancouver’s cultural history: I was there the day in July 1967 when a bunch of local longhairs decided to stage an impromptu mini-rock festival (this was before the term was conceived), featuring the Grateful Dead, who were in town for a several-day’s gig at a club called Dante’s Inferno (later the Retinal Circus, and now Celebrities, on Davie) and were always willing to play a free outdoors gig in those more innocent days. The event was staged on the grassy boulevard south of where the tennis courts are now located, facing Cornwall. A sound system was procured, several local bands were drafted, and the United Empire Loyalists (then one of the top local longhair bands, featuring bassist Rick Enns, who’s still playing around town) even got to play a whole, if short, set. The Dead were hanging about, mingling with the crowd; it was a very relaxed, laid-back scene. The Dead were about to set up when an armada of police cars arrived. Apparently no one had thought to apply for a permit, probably reasoning (correctly), that it would have been rejected; and the neighbours, who were vigilant even then, apparently had quickly scurried to their phones and reported that a bunch of hippies were playing loud music and doing God knows what else across the street. The Dead, shrugging (they’d seen stuff like this plenty of times back home), left in their own convoy, and the rest of us drifted back up to 4th. This was in the days when the Dead still breathed psychedelic fire, before they degenerated into a mellowed-out country-rock band, and it would have been fascinating indeed to see them rattle the windows and walls of the upstanding citizens of lower Kitsilano.

Forty-five years later, I now understand the neighbours’ point…but dammit, it was the Grateful Dead…!
gmgw

Kits Point sure would be different if the barracks and streetcar shown in this 1945 photo were retained:

http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/archives/photos/matthews/prints/sub1/A23415.jpg

@gmgw

Interesting. Your Grateful Dead experience (though infinitely more interesting) seems somewhat parallel to my basketball hoop experience.

You see, I had just scraped together a small downpayment and bought a small condo in Kitsilano. (I consciously did not use my money for a place downtown). This controversy over basketball I suppose was an awakening to what would become part of my understanding of Vancouver: a place where people (usually in the minority) have a propensity to complain about things quite vocally. I hope I’m wrong and this is not a defining characteristic…but the examples are ceaseless.

As the article points out, in most places, the screens would be welcomed as a sign of liveliness…thereby making Vancouver unique in a way which is not positive in my view.

It is my hope that Vancouver can become a truly vibrant, interesting, dynamic and cultured place where people know how to enjoy themselves; a downtown stadium or entertainment area ought to attract the type of residents that would not complain about developments that would be expected there.

Admittedly this is an issue at the bottom of a long laundry list…and I suppose not the best one to rail about.

I am relatively young and am based in Vancouver but have spent much of the last 10 years in Europe. I moved overseas in September semi-permanently to pursue studies and hope to return…*but* there are many important things to do with quality of life and culture which seem so inhibited in Vancouver (and many people of my generation, in their 20s and 30s, would agree…and unfortunately they are leaving).

I could list many examples: The City of Vancouver’s historically prohibitive attitude to live music and other cultural venue; and their complaints-based approach.

However you need look no further than the treatment of the Rio Theatre…(by the province) and the impossibility of supporting a small, interesting, cultural multimedia venue.

Now that is something to rail about…