Those newcomers vying for a seat on Vancouver city council might want to check into the meeting that’s still going on here at 9:30 at night, to see if this is really what they want to sign up for. Councillors are grappling with what sounds like an unresolvable dilemma of trying to find new artist space for the people who are going to be kicked out of 901 Main when Amacon redevelops it. (That’s the grand old building between the Georgia Viaduct and the Cobalt Hotel that has been a haven for years for artists — a space they were able to have because they were the only ones willing to pay rent for slum conditions, as one artist has pointed out.)
That’s just one of six heavy items on tonight’s public-hearing agenda, which also included a fight over a roof garden restaurant at the Opus Hotel, the new official plan for the area around BC Place, which will allow extra density for towers around the stadium to help pay for the new roof, and a proposal to put a youth hostel in the middle of a residential block near Commercial Drive.
Eighteen speakers still to go.