7 responses so far ↓

• 1 Wendy // Feb 10, 2010 at 6:35 am

  Glad you wrote about this as it’s so crucial to the metro area’s future to preserve some waterfront industrial land. Our #1 economic driver now is the Port.

  Although it may not be the most attractive waterfront use, having industrial lands by the port will also cut down on GHG emissions as it will reduce the number of containers being hauled around by truck to more distant inland sorting facilities.

• 2 MB // Feb 10, 2010 at 9:48 am

  It’s a good thing to look at protecting industrial land uses.

  That said, the Port may be well advised to conduct a study on the effects on shipping of higher fossil fuel prices and the opening of a newly expanded Panama Canal in about three years. Both have the potential to reduce West Coast shipping dramatically.

• 3 MB // Feb 10, 2010 at 9:49 am

  The loss of agricultural land to port industry is troubling. Food security cannot be taken for granted forever.

• 4 Blaffergassted // Feb 10, 2010 at 11:25 am

  Kudos to the Port of Vancouver (and FB) for this.

  The service sector will never provide the good-paying jobs needed to sustain a family in this extraordinarily expensive city.

  And I was particularly pleased to read this part:

  Mr. Silvester said in a recent interview that the port has agreed it will not purchase any more agricultural land until there is a policy in place.

  But, he said, there needs to be some way of negotiating a swap of farmland near ports for potential farmland elsewhere.

• 5 grumbelschmoll // Feb 11, 2010 at 8:30 am

  In other cities, conversion of port land to higher uses has been extraordinarily lucrative. Maybe there is more than one motive involved here. Ports’ purpose is to provide for shipping, not to use our money for industrial land speculation, nor to contribute to the conversion of agricultural land. This is wrong.

• 6 Bill Lee // Feb 11, 2010 at 11:16 am

  We’ve already had the docklands of False Creek, Coal Harbour titivated into Condo towers.

  And the Whitecaps soccer team owner was trying to get free air rights over the docklands around Gastown for a stadium (and probably hotel and condos).
  The whole Vancouver waterfront side is ripe for speculation for housing if we can just get the trains to go south to Roberts Bank or Tilbury Island instead.
  The foreign media is suprised at how our port is still in the city and not moved out to a container port elsewhere–they don’t have grain elevators. And that we haven’t made the port a walking, tourist village with fake ye olde stores etc. Some have noted that the eastern half of the city can’t get directly to the water at all but have to come west to Kits beach or Stanley Park beaches.
  The water in the inlet is still dead, polluted and ready for infill as with Centennial Pier to create more “land” and use the dredged material (also heavily polluted) to fill in the shore. (Vanmap at the City of Vancouver site still has an option to show the classic shoreline on maps)

• 7 Bill Lee // Feb 11, 2010 at 3:50 pm

  But see the 3 year chart (click 3 yr) to see that shipping ain’t doing that well as indicated by the Baltic Dry Index. Certainly not when compared to “before the recession”
  So there really isn’t the need to expand the port. Besides protectionist shipping laws and a miracle at Prince Rupert might depress shipping through Vancouver.
  Land deals may be a matter of locking in brownfield housing as opposed to greenfield housing sites.

  http://navigatemag.ru/indices/
  Click 3 yr.

  What’s the BDI (Baltic Dry Index) ? Not a bad explanation of a measure of shipping traffic at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Dry_Index

  (Far too many charts for commodity shipping at: http://investmenttools.com/futures/bdi_baltic_dry_index.htm#bdi )

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