Others are talking today about the Province being ultimately on the hook for everything that has to be delivered for 2010. If there’s really a choice, I’d like to ask the question of why not just pass this albatross on to Victoria (& let them put up the $500 million out of that provincial surplus)?

Is anyone considering the larger implications of giving the City of Vancouver the power to borrow as much money as they like, whenever they like it, without consulting citizens? [Unless this permission is a one-time deal, which it doesn’t sound like.] After this fiasco, do we really want to give City Hall the power to go out and invest in even whackier deals in secret whenever they want from here on?

“Not running for mayor,” which crystal ball are you using to calculate condo market prices in 2012 and carrying costs for the intervening period? Or for that matter, to estimate completion costs , including all eventual over-runs? You’d be the richest person on earth if you could really predict all that!

No one else can – which is the whole problem here. The city has gotten itself into the business of market speculation, something it had no business doing, and it’s put a billion dollars of our money & assets, not to mention our credit rating & our credibility, all on the line without either consulting or informing us. Not only that, but they were imprudent enough to do that just as the whole game was starting to collapse.

“I’d like to ask the question of why not just pass this albatross on to Victoria (& let them put up the $500 million out of that provincial surplus)?”

I guess the argument I would make for those in the province who don’t live within Vancouver City limits, is that the province seems to have had no influence or any part of the decision of where the athlete’s village would be and any decisions along with it.

Yes there is that wording that states the province will cover any cost overruns from the staging of the games, however technically this is an asset which is to be sold, and not a cost associated with staging the games.

As a Vancouverite, sure I’d like any loss to be divided amongst everyone else in the province but considering how the rest of the province feels they get screwed every time their tax money is spent in the cities, that isn’t likely to fly. (Especially since as someone pointed out the Liberals main electoral base is not in the cities.)

Jaymac said: “Let’s face it, all the various democratically elected governments supported the Olympics as did the citizens of Vancouver.
At face value, past Councils seem to have placed City taxpayers in a loss position. We can’t run from that. …”

I can’t argue with any of that! I seem to remember everyone from Emerson on down mugging for the cameras at the ground-breaking, and I expect they’ll all be there too for the ribbon cutting unless this goes totally off the rails.

I sure hope the optimists are right but I’m hearing very divergent predictions (discussion among industry insiders on the Fortress thread is not at all reassuring!), and I’m very unhappy about being put in the position of having to worry about what costs we’ll need to bear if the rosy scenarios don’t pan out. Seems to me it was a lot more than the foolishness of the past Council that got us here and that no one benefits from this going south, so perhaps sharing the costs is the most reasonable way forward.

What I really don’t like is the Mayor’s suggestion that we get out of this by just giving the City the power to sign loans from henceforth for whatever they want, whenever they want. Not after this. And I suspect I’m not alone.

“I’d like to ask the question of why not just pass this albatross on to Victoria (& let them put up the $500 million out of that provincial surplus)?”
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Because as the Auditor-General pointed out, provincial and federal costs involved in the Olympic Village was $30 million, which has already been provided by VANOC to the City.

More importantly, from the Auditor General’s report from September, 2006:

The *indemnification* extends to costs and liabilities flowing from the Host City Contract where either municipality *acted pursuant to instructions from the Province*.

Certainly the province did not provide the City with instructions on the development of the Olympic Village lands, with the city retaining title, selling to Millennium for $193 million, providing a completion guarantee to Fortress, 1/3 social housing, developing a more expensive sustainable community, commercial space, and on and on.

Dawn –

In response to: “Much of the partisan chatter in this thread is, as patriotz put it so well, “like Richard Nixon blaming the Democrats for Watergate.””

Since you think this is about partisanship, I will assume that in this metaphor “Richard Nixon” is the NPA and “the Democrats” are VV/COPE?

Although, IF you want to use this ridiculous metaphor at all then let’s at least clarify who has supported the Olympic Village Development from the start:

“Richard Nixon,” in this flawed metaphor, consists of the following people: Larry W. Campbell, Fred Bass, David Cadman, Jim Green, Peter Ladner, Raymond Louie, Tim Louis, Anne Roberts, Tim Stevenson, Sam Sullivan, Ellen Woodsworth, Suzanne Anton, Elizabeth Ball, Kim Capri, George Chow, Heather Deal and B.C. Lee. (at least as far as their votes go)

And, “the Democrats,” and here is where you will see that the metaphor is quite flawed, are: Gregor Robertson, David Cadman, George Chow, Heather Deal, Kerry Jang, Raymond Louie, Geoff Meggs, Andrea Reimer, Tim Stevenson, Ellen Woodworth.

… notice the problem yet?

No? Okay, well, quite a few of those names over-lap. Also, if we’re talking about actual political-affiliation and you are comparing VV/COPE to the Democrats in America, then “Richard Nixon” is comprised of 11 so-called “Democrats” and only… wait, are you seriously comparing the NPA to Richard Nixon?? I can tell you that I have voted for NPA nominees in our city elections but I have NEVER voted Conservative on a Provincial or Federal level in my life. Heck, I sway more to the Green Party side in most of those elections…

This has nothing to do with partisanship. Larry Campbell would never support the NPA after all. He was COPE! And from what I’ve heard, some of the things that VV have done recently in regards to this issue have not impressed him.

One is allowed to speak out against one’s government without being accused of partisanship. In fact, I would hope that citizens would do so in a democracy. Just because we elect our government doesn’t mean that we don’t have the right to question what they do. By questioning what they do, we make sure that the people we elect stick to their promises and stay strong leaders. Right now, I see a lack of leadership… and I want my mayor to be a strong, moral-boosting leader during times of financial crisis. I don’t just want to hear him telling me that I’m going to be stuck paying more taxes forever and there is nothing he can do about it because it has nothing to do with him (it was that last council, after-all, consisting of many of HIS current councillors, he keeps informing us… want to come up with a metaphor for THAT?? Gosh I would hate it if my team-leader kept saying that about ME every time he talked to the media).

At this point, the blame game isn’t important AT ALL, let’s just get that darn thing built in time so we don’t blow that contract and get ourselves in trouble! Because… that’s the only productive thing we can do at this point.

Yet we all know that if the NDP come to power, the real estate market will go into a crapper like we have never seen. Just look what happened in the 90’s. As soon as the Liberals came in, it took off. Now the market can see the NDP may be coming back and it’s falling like a rock.

Oh come on off it. I suppose the NDP is responsible for the RE bust in the US, UK, Ireland, Spain, etc, too?

Get this through your head you moron – for the past eight years there has been a global housing bubble and prices are crashing everywhere because they were too high. Regardless of which government is in power anywhere.

Oh BTW were you around for the great RE bust of the early 80’s? Who was the BC government then?

Anyway, I don’t think the NDP is going to win the next election, so people like you are going to have to find another scapegoat for your burst RE fantasies. Maybe Gregor Robertson? Yeah, that’s the ticket.

…as does pointless partisan pot shots, like asserting the NDP will impact the real estate market.

Jay Wong–

Good point.

Unfortunately (or for fortunately, depending on your point of view) the project proposed in 2005 is not the one that is being built now.

If it were I, personally, given my POV, would not be so concerned about paying (at least some of the) extra for it.

However, Mr. Sullivan’s admin. b/w the views of senior management at the time gutted a considerable proportion of the ‘social’ aspects of the project almost immediately after taking office in late 2005/early 2006.

Sam Cooper wrote about this in considerable detail in The Tyee at the time.

.

It’s important not to throw the baby out with the bathwater here….

IMHO, the only real mistake was going with Millenium. If this development had gone one of the lower bids, we’d be better off (but it would still be costing us).

The important point to note is that without the Olympics (and it’s hard deadline), there would be nothing on the site, and the re-development in the area around there wouldn’t have occurred either (at least to the same extent). At the end of the day, there will be 250 non-market housing units there too. I’m willing to bet anyone that we would never had got those units without the Olympics.

So, assume the city ends up being on the hook for ~$400m for 250 units. That’s about $1.6m per unit. Expensive no doubt. But, consider we just paid $320k/ROOM for the Pennsylvania restoration….

Super expensive social housing seems to be the way we work here in Vancouver. Maybe that’s where we’re different from everywhere else…

Foo, surely we could have found a builder to do 250 – 500 nice, cheerful apartments with cool green features as a turnkey project at a site like Little Mountain, fully funded by selling the prime SE False Creek lands to Millenium and just letting them play the condo game on their own?

Added bonus is the athletes would have been housed right across from the new Olympic facilities around Nat Bayley, which probably would have significantly reduced security costs as well.