The place of industry in a sustainable, livable city is crucial. We need to reassess our attitudes towards industrial land use, and formulate new policies which will accommodate post-industrial industries in the post-industrial city.

Check out Neil Reynolds column in the Globe yesterday where he recounts the results of studies showing the relationship of city taxes to growth in population and employment. Provide a low tax environment and the jobs will come.

Vancouver Block at 736 Granville is actually zoned as light industrial. This is due to the number of jewellers in that building. The building features a proper ventilation system for extracting the fumes from the soldering and smelting operations.

@ Max 6.

Thanks for the link. The idea of putting teenage girls anywhere in this neighbourhood needs another critical look.

This is a similar idea to Cllr Jang’s photo op on tin box housing for similarly teenage girls, this time with kids in the same neighbourhood. And he takes it another couple of steps further because the tin boxes are not particularly liveable and stick out like a sore thumb (further identifying the prey for the pimps and johns) while costing the same as traditional housing which could be integrated visually into the neighbourhood.

Both of these ideas need to be reconsidered.

What is particulary appalling about this latest scheme to extract public money in exchange for the lives of those less fortunate is the obvious conflict of interest between the principals involved and the obvious lack of accountability.

Mind you I am not sure what is worse, the City’s approval of such a scheme with little or no regard for those effected or yet another poverty pimp organization using taxpayer funds to justify and fund their organization.

If these enablers really had the best intentions of those they supposedly cared about they would look at alternative locations and programs to house, care and support those they are supposedly helping.

It’s kind of sad that the over $1 million/day spent on the DTES doesn’t buy you much anymore.

As has been shown over and over again (and regretfully not realized by all levels of government) is that throwing $ at a problem doesn’t necessarily solve it.

As a final note, I note with interest that many grass roots organizations in the DTES do not support this hair brained scheme nor the waste of public monies for non accountable organizations that rely on such funds.

@ Max #8, there are different ways in which a heritage designation applies to a building. It could be because of the design and features of a building. It could be because of interior designs or features of the building. It could also be because of the historical significance of the building.
That being said, there is nothing to stop the demolition of a heritage building. The heritage protection program just gives the building owner ‘incentives’ to keep the building or at least keep the portions of the building designated as having historical significance.
For instance, when I worked at Equitable Real Estate and we undertook the $13.5 million upgrade of the Vancouver Block, the big marble staircase inside the building was actually not a heritage feature and the city wanted the staircase redone as the staircase functioned as a chimney.
We were able to save the staircase by turning the staircase and landings into on continuous fire compartment from the 1st floor to the 12th floor.
The lobby we had to redo from scratch as the original marble slabs were not hung in a seismically restrained manned. The original panels were actually hung by drilling small holes in the edge of the panels, inserting a piece of wire and then squishing in plaster to secure the wire. The new panels are hung using stainless steel rods that penetrate the entire thickness of the panel. Also, the panels are in 4′ * 4′ sections as opposed to the original 12′ * 6 foot sheets. I forget what the thickness of the new panels are, but the original panels were 2″ thick. That’s a lot of weight to be hung by wire and plaster.

The poverty industy is alive, well and thriving in the DTES for several reasons. 1( the word or idea of ‘adovcate’ has become a money making verb. 2) ‘advocates’ make huge money off of the poor 3) high paid uion jobs would be lost 4) society lacks the will to change things even though they have the power to do so.

The biggest obstacle right now, is the loss of union jobs.

There is no way the PHS or any other groups, running the majority of the SRO’s or other social housing units are going to sacrafice union jobs for the addicted, it is much more profitable to sustain them and provide below substandard housing/living, free needles, free crack pipes and free drugs because then the ‘advocates’ are always significant, they always have something to fight for and to pander to the community for. If you look at most ‘non’ profits, you will notice they are ‘for profit and make a lot of money off of the ‘poor’. Their balnce sheets – they have HUGE $$, many prime assets by they way of buildings worth million in the DTES – big real estate. And the people suffering for their ‘profit’ are the down and out, the ‘low income, poverty stricken’ that they claim to so honerably represent.

These people , the addicts, the mentally ill, the low income, all are being warehoused, and once a year they are made ‘important’ by being praded out for statistical purposes (annual homeless count) And then the good Mayor decrees he has ‘lowered the rate of ‘street homeless’ for political points, nothing more, nothing less. If he really wanted to help these people, he would have his major American backers and doners contribute directy to housing in this city – work with Habitats for Humanity rather than propping up his camping and contributing to other ‘advocate’ programs that benefit them – profile wise. After all, his backers, back, many other groups, anti-salmon, anti- oil tankers, they take porfit of all that is green washed to over $100 M year, yet they can not come up with a feasible plan to help those that got them into power – the homeless in our city.. Remeber our good Mayor got into power because he claimed he would ‘end homelessness’? and supposedly was propelled to do so because of the hideous death of a woman named ‘Tracey’? (came out later that was another adventageous political lie)

And now we have Atria who has seen a significant increase in their ‘government subisides’ a group that is SUPPOSE to help women in distress, now thowing 16-19 year olds to the wolves: the pimps and the drug dealers in the DTES, and under the guise ‘o’well, the police will protect us’. Are you freaking kidding me? At what point did the police sign up to babysit the government’s stuipidty?? At what point did all humanity and decency get chucked out the window ‘for greed and profit’.

This story and the sad possibility of true realizaion sickens me, and needs to be stopped, in its tracks.

These ‘foster’ kids have had a rough enough time in life. And now, we allow our municipal and provincial government officials to put them into harms way – drug, prostitution,beatings, death????… all so for some ‘non-profit, for-profit’ can to make money off of them.

And dog parks get more reaction and critical thinking from our local poli’s.

I am done, this is NO go for me and I will fight it. I am sickened that ANY politician has to second thought this ‘idea’. The province has failed, BC Housing has failed and the City has FAILED. And any Politician reading this with a …hmmmm perhaps I should do something because there is an election coming up….. idea, from us ordinary citizens Don’ t fu**ing run – you aren’t worth your grain in salt, if you can’t see the OBVIOUS right from wrong stanidng in in front of your nose.

Disgusted in Vancouver,
Max.

@ Bill:

Read it, and it laid the failed green schemes out pretty well.

@Richard,

I don’t think I suggested that the Green Economy shouldn’t be persued just because Margaret Wente said so but rather read her column and consider the facts she is presenting. By all means, please rebut what she has to say but don’t dismiss her just because she writes an “opinion” column.

I agree that subsidies can be a problem but not all subsidies are the same. In the case of the Green Economy, government creates the demand for the product through mandating “clean” power or specified energy efficiency standards and then subsidizes the production of the product to meet those standards resulting in a higher cost to consumers both through taxes and user fees. At least with coal, oil and automobiles, the demand for the products is consumer driven and not artificial.

@Bill 17,
The tar sands alone in northern Alberta received last year tax breaks and subsidies to the tune of $2.5 billion dollars.
The price of gasoline is artificially low through tax breaks and tax incentives to the refiners and distributors.

@Bobbie Bees #19

Again, even if you are right is that such a bad thing? Gasoline factors into the cost of pretty much every consumer product so lower gasoline prices is benefiting all consumers. As well, it will benefit low income consumers more.

Contrast that with subsidized wind or solar power where the cost of the electricity is higher than conventional sources. There, it is the producers of the energy that benefit with higher costs passed along to the consumer. There, it will fall disproportionately harder on the low income consumer.

Hmmm…Margaret Wente. Green energy. Hmmm. Let’s see (excerpts from her column):

Meantime, Costco, the giant retailer, has pulled the plug on its electric car-charging stations, which it had installed in its California parking lots. The reason is that nobody uses them.

It’s true no one is using those chargers anymore. What Wente isn’t telling you is those chargers, which began to be installed in the 90s, were for the first generation of electric cars like the EV-1 and are no longer compatible with the newer tech of the Nissan Leafs and Chevy Volts. Costco hasn’t [yet] upgraded them. Apparently this is controversial.

The city of Seattle, for example, got $20-million from the U.S. Department of Energy to retrofit houses and make them more energy efficient. The money was supposed to create 2,000 jobs and retrofit at least 2,000 homes. But by this month, only three homes had been retrofitted and only 14 jobs created. Even the greens admit the program is a total flop.

Ah, yes. However, could there be contributing factors…

By the time Seattle won the [$20 million federal grant to invest in weatherization], homeowners were battered by unemployment and foreclosures. – Seattle P-I, August 16, 2011

Now you could certainly argue that $20 million might have been more effective in another project. Say a high-speed rail line to Portland or such. But really, $20 million is a drop in the bucket for a budget the size of the U.S.’s

In Massachusetts, the state government poured $58-million into a company called Evergreen Solar Inc. But Evergreen couldn’t compete with cheaper solar panels made in China.

Ah? Get it? It’s not because there isn’t a demand for solar panels, it’s that they can be produced for lower cost in China. And which manufacturing sector could that not be said for? This phenomena is mentioned in another example.

In Salinas, Calif., a company called Green Vehicles received a couple of million dollars in government grants to develop an electric car for freeways….

Yep, the Green Vehicles Triac closed down. On the other hand, Tesla Motors is the thing and Nissan, Chevy and Toyota are all introducing electric models this year.

Maybe he should take a look at Spain, which also set out to become the solar-power capital of the world. Everything went fine, so long as the subsidies kept flowing. But when the world economy went south, the Spanish government couldn’t afford them any more and pulled the plug.

I wonder what would happen to the Tar Sands, if the government stopped subsidizing it.

I wonder what would happen to North American and European agriculture, if the government stopped subsidizing it.

I wonder what would happen to the film industry, if the government stopped subsidizing it.

I wonder what would happen to the aviation industry, if the government stopped subsidizing it.

I wonder what would happen to the defence industry, if the government stopped subsidizing it.

I wonder what would happen if the solar power industry had more lobbyists than the oil and gas industry.

“…let the market decide the winners and losers.”

It amuses me to no end how “fiscally conservative” free market mythmakers like Margaret Wente or Michael Campbell or folks named Bill and Max will stomp their feet and scream bloody murder over a few million spent to subsidize green tech or the arts or homelessness initiatives, and yet don’t seem the least bit concerned by the fact that banks across the western world needed to be bailed out to the tune of trillions of dollars a mere two years ago. Talk about yer hucksters!

@A Dave #25

If I accept what you claim is true, which I don’t, then you are saying that others have pillaged the public treasury by trillions so Progressives should be able to take at least a small piece of the action. Not a very strong argument in favour of the present course of action by the Visionistas.

And if the costs to the public were only a few million, it probably wouldn’t be a big deal but the cost is much more than that. Progressive sponsored industries go way beyond solar panels and includes the poverty industry that Max has described in many posts. Add in the aboriginal industry (over a billion in legal fees on land claims alone), legal aid industry and all the money spent on consultants and lawyers for environmental hearings, royal commissions etc and what have we got to show for it? So far the Progressives have demonstrated a talent for extracting public money to work on problems without ever solving any.

I’m not sure how you get “property rights” out of all that, though I suppose that the work of environmental groups can be logically linked to “relatively clean air and water”.

I should also chime in that money spent on lawyers and legal aid is always money well spent. Lawyers need to work too. 🙂

@ Chris Keam and Ians

I never said that land claims, poverty, legal aid or the environment do not need to be addressed but from the results, it appears the Progressives who are trying to “fix” the problems or “right” the wrongs are improving their economic lot in life much better than those they profess to want to help. And its always “we just need more money” and all the problems of the poor, delays in getting timely health care, back logs in the justice system, and unsatisfactory results in education would all go away. This is truly unsustainable.

The world economic order is changing and we are no longer rich enough to be this stupid.

Thank you for reminding us that there is more to green products than those related to the AGW scam. Environmentalists who chose to bet the farm on global warming to achieve more influence and money have done a great disservice to businesses such as yours and to real environmental issues that have received less attention as a result. Good luck and all the best of success!