Welcome!

By registering with us, you'll be able to discuss, share and private message with other members of our community.

SignUp Now!

June 2012 B.C. Economic Fundamentals

Ally

Research Assistant
Registered
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
16,743
Calgary family finds piece of paradise in BC





Calgary couple Lorraine and Karl Johannson wanted to buy a vacation home that suited their family, but with an eye to retiring there.




They found their dream in the luxury beach cottage community of Qualicum Landing on Vancouver Island, B.C.




`Qualicum Landing had so many things to offer,` says Lorraine.




`We wanted the beach front, and we liked the style of the house. We also loved the fact that it`s a gated community.






Read the full article here.
 

Ally

Research Assistant
Registered
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
16,743
Where it's cheaper to buy (or, more likely, rent) in B.C.





A price-to-rent ratio used in the U.S. to determine whether it`s cheaper to rent or buy shows a huge gap between rents and house prices across Greater Vancouver.




Take the house price and divide it by what it costs to rent for a year to get the price-to-rent ratio: Price divided by (Monthly rent x 12) = X.









(Estimates for additional costs of homeownership, such as taxes, maintenance and insurance are factored into the equation.)








If the number is higher than 15, it`s generally not a good time to buy.




If the ratio is less than 15, buying is a better deal than renting, if you plan on living there for at least five years to offset moving and closing costs.






Read the full article here.
 

Ally

Research Assistant
Registered
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
16,743
Shell moves closer to Kitimat LNG terminal



Royal Dutch Shell says it has given a tentative go ahead for a liquefied natural gas project in Kitimat, B.C., alongside three Asian Partners.





The Anglo-Dutch energy giant says it will have a 40-per-cent stake in the project, called LNG Canada.





PetroChina, Mitsubishi Corp. and Korea Gas Corp. will each hold a 20-per-cent interest.





Liquefied natural gas, or LNG, is gas that has been chilled into a liquid state, making it easier to transport to overseas markets by tanker.





Read the full article here.
 

Ally

Research Assistant
Registered
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
16,743
Shell awards $4 billion pipeline contract




Shell Canada Limited has awarded TransCanada Corporation a $4 billion contract to develop a proposed pipeline to transport natural gas from the Montney region near Dawson Creek, B.C. to a liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in Kitimat, BC.




`We appreciate the confidence that Shell and its partners have placed in us to build, own and operate this natural gas pipeline in British Columbia,` said Russ Girling, TransCanada`s president and chief executive officer.




`We will work collaboratively with them, Aboriginals and other stakeholders as we launch into the initial phases of consultation and regulatory review.`





Read the full article here.
 

Ally

Research Assistant
Registered
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
16,743
Labour limits in the Peace



The Northeast`s economic boom is a double-edged sword for businesses that are heavily dependent on the area`s major resource industries, but at the same time have to compete for labour.





Despite an ongoing labour shortage, the advice of the Bank of Canada`s Senior Representative of Economics, Dr. Farid Novin, is that industry leaders should continue to invest in projects, in order for Canada to compete in the international market.





`The only problem we see in the Peace Region is the shortage of labour, which is a good sign. It means that industries are doing well,` said Novin, who recently met with various industry leaders and companies to examine the regional economy and help conduct the national Business Outlook Survey (BOS) ` released every year by the Bank of Canada





Read the full article here.
 

Ally

Research Assistant
Registered
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
16,743
Lack of pipeline leaves refinery starved for crude





Metro Vancouver`s only oil refinery is increasingly being squeezed out of supplies from the only oil pipeline that serves the West Coast.




So Chevron Canada, owner of the Burnaby refinery, which supplies Metro Vancouver consumers with 30 per cent of the gasoline and fuel they use, is asking the National Energy Board to declare it a priority user of Kinder Morgan`s Trans Mountain pipeline to secure its crude supply.




During some months Chevron`s supply request is reduced by as much as 70 per cent, said Ray Lord, public and government affairs manager for the refinery. He said historically high demand from shippers ` many from outside B.C. ` is the cause of the reduction.






Read the full article here.
 

Ally

Research Assistant
Registered
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
16,743
What's our real bill for the Surrey RCMP complex? Mayors fret




E Division's 76,162-square-metre "Surrey Green Timbers" complex will have capacity for 2,700 personnel when it opens next year. Public Works and Government Services Canada's biggest B.C. office project is tucked behind Fraser Health's Jim Pattison Outpatient Care and Surgery Centre, beside the Surrey Nature Centre. The seven-storey development with parking spots for 1,800 vehicles on 14.8 hectares is surrounded by trees and is not apparent to passersby on either 96 Avenue or Green Timbers Way.




When they broke ground on May 7, 2010, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews and B.C.'s then top-ranking cabinet minister Stockwell Day announced French construction giant Bouygues Batiment International and its Canadian facility management subsidiary ETDE had been chosen to build the private-public partnership with financial backing by a since-spun-off arm of HSBC, InfraRed Capital Partners. The same trio also collaborated on the nearby Pattison hospital.





Read the full article here.
 

Ally

Research Assistant
Registered
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
16,743
No relief for natural gas producers as Apache's Kitimat plant delayed



Beleaguered natural gas producers in Western Canada are going to have wait a little longer for relief from severely depressed prices. Janine McArdle, the senior executive in charge of the Kitimat LNG project at Houston-based Apache Corp., said the facility`s planned startup will take an extra year as the company continues to look for firm contracts with buyers in Asia.





Apache`s proposed natural gas liquefaction plant on the northern British Columbia coast, which it owns with Encana Corp. and EOG Resource Inc., would be the first in line to ship large quantities of LNG to Asia.





The first cargo is now expected to leave Canada in 2017, a year behind the latest plans. The project has regulatory approval, but Apache needs to be sure it has a market for the gas and that the project is economic before taking a final investment decision, Ms. McArdle, senior vice-president for gas monetization at Apache, North America`s largest oil and gas independent producer, said Wednesday.





Read the full article here.
 

Ally

Research Assistant
Registered
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
16,743
Clark calls natural gas 'green energy' as long as its used for LNG






Premier Christy Clark said Thursday that natural gas is to be declared a source of clean energy as long as it is used to support the development of a new liquefied natural gas industry in British Columbia.




The changed status of natural gas marks a major departure in the province`s clean energy policy by declaring a fossil fuel to be green energy under certain circumstances. Gas-fired power plants used to make LNG or to propel gas along pipelines will be considered green energy, a move that will enable the oil and gas industry to produce cheap electricity without compromising the requirements of the Clean Energy Act.






Read the full article here.
 

Ally

Research Assistant
Registered
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
16,743
What could Vancouver city hall do with $675 million?





How many problems does the City of Vancouver have that couldn`t be solved with $675 million?

That`s the question that flows from an idea put forward in my Vancouver Sun column (accessible here). It`s a modest proposal to begin selling off portions of immensely valuable and under-used land that is tied up in three city-owned golf courses.







My personal view is that Metro Vancouver has plenty of places for people to play golf. But the city itself is getting strapped for land to create the kind of residential density it needs to moderate housing costs, and to provide the widely-accessible amenities that ensure a dense urban community will be a pleasant place to live.





Read the full article here.
 

Ally

Research Assistant
Registered
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
16,743
The housing market is teetering. Happy now?





How long has it been since we last heard complaints about offshore Asian buyers driving up Metro Vancouver house prices?




Eons? Last month? Is there a difference when it comes to the short attention span of urban folklore?




Whatever the time, suddenly the shouting has stopped. From the enclaves of our tonier neighbourhoods, where angry residents were forced out of their homes after first cashing a cheque several hundreds of thousands of dollars above their asking price, nary a peep is heard. They've moved on. Probably to a spec-built neo-Craftsman mansion in the suburbs.






Read the full article here.
 

Ally

Research Assistant
Registered
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
16,743
Boom town, BC: Energy projects revive once-struggling communities





The magnitude of British Columbia`s energy boom is hard to gauge in a city like Vancouver, where job-growth statistics and billion-dollar announcements can get lost amid the glassy towers and bustle of urban daily life.




But in the tiny village of Xa`xtsa, a six-and-a-half-hour drive from Vancouver at the north end of Harrison Lake, the boom has been a total game-changer.




After enduring more than a decade of economic hard times after jobs in the forest dried up, members of the remote Douglas First Nation community are in the midst of a powerful transformation generated by several run-of-river projects on their reserve and throughout their traditional territory.






Read the full article here.
 

Ally

Research Assistant
Registered
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
16,743
B.C. 2035: How best to deal with B.C.'s soaring energy demands?





The need for electricity in British Columbia could jump by 50 per cent in 20 years, without taking into account conservation, BC Hydro believes.




The provincial Crown corporation is counting on its Site C Dam along the Peace River to supply some of that power, and hopes the $7.9-billion dam ` which still has to go through the environmental process ` will be generating electricity by 2021. It has taken decades to get to this stage; it was chosen as a potential dam site in 1976 and rejected in the 1980s and early 1990s by previous governments on the premise the province did not need the power.




Now ` with new mines opening throughout the province, and three liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants in the northwest ` Site C is needed, the province says.






Read the full article here.
 

Ally

Research Assistant
Registered
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
16,743
Affordability still an issue in Vancouver




It`s not surprising that there was little media coverage of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's spring rental report, given that it contained pages of tables and no concise summary of the results.




It's pretty dry reading and lots of page scrolling to find relevant information for Vancouver.





Read the full article here.
 

Ally

Research Assistant
Registered
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
16,743
Island/Coast focused on economic recovery





In 2011, the Vancouver Island/Coast's economy continued to wrestle with the effects of the recent economic recession. Population growth, which has been the engine for much of the region's economic activity over recent years, was at a ten-year low.




According to the BC Check-Up, Regional Edition, after a partial recovery from losses in 2010, our region's economy shrank last year, and recorded a loss of 16,700 jobs. This decline was the largest single-year employment drop since 2001. Employment declined throughout the region, but areas outside the Victoria Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) were hardest hit, absorbing 92% of job losses.





Read the full article here.
 

Ally

Research Assistant
Registered
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
16,743
Vancouver offers up new plan to build affordable housing





Vancouver neighbourhoods will become increasingly dense, adding row housing and intensive development around transit corridors under a plan by Mayor Gregor Robertson to provide residents with more affordable housing.




The housing affordability plan unveiled Monday is every bit as ambitious and transformative as the city`s conversion of industrialized False Creek to a dense, highrise community two decades ago.






Read the full article here.
 

Ally

Research Assistant
Registered
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
16,743
Remaking Vancouver into a more affordable place to live





It is a lot to ask.




How does a city government engineer affordable housing with no money, a limited land base and a constituency wary of densification?




Very carefully, it seems. There are a couple of intriguing ideas in the just-released report from the Mayor's Task Force on Affordable Housing - though they are ideas that have been tried elsewhere.




But the bulk of the recommendations were what former city councillor Gordon Price termed "incrementalism."






Read the full article here.
 

Ally

Research Assistant
Registered
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
16,743
Vancouver's affordability initiative could hike the price of a single detached home





Vancouver's new housing affordability initiative may have the effect of increasing the value of single detached homes, while providing a moderating influence on prices for condos and townhomes, according to Tsur Somerville, director, Centre for Urban Economics and Real Estate, Sauder School of Business at the University of B.C.




"If this is successful, I'd expect higher single family prices than they'd be otherwise," said Somerville Monday of the plan, which will see the city become more involved in the housing development business.




Somerville said there are already pressures to convert single family homes into denser types of housing, and that those pressures should increase under the plan.






Read the full article here.
 

Ally

Research Assistant
Registered
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
16,743
Vancouver sprouting cranes



Vancouver is building on its reputation as a city of glass and steel.





Look around the skyline and you`ll see it dotted by cranes, and everywhere there seems to be another hole in the ground making way for another apartment building.





Sixteen condo towers are under construction, according to a database by Skyscraperpage.com. and another 67 proposed high-rises are in the works.





Read the full article here.
 

Ally

Research Assistant
Registered
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
16,743
Vancouver mayor promises less financial risk in housing plan





Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson said he's open to turning part of Langara Golf Course into housing as part of the city's broad new approach toward creating denser neighbourhoods.




In response to questions from The Vancouver Sun's editorial board Tuesday, the mayor said he was interested in an analysis by columnist Don Cayo, who suggested the city could raise upwards of $675 million by selling 20 per cent of the 48.5-hectare golf course for a private housing development.




Cayo postulated in a Sun column last week that the city was sitting on billions of dollars in underused and developable land on its three public golf courses - Langara, McCleery and Fraserview. He suggested the city was generating only $1 million a year in green fees after expenses.






Read the full article here.
 
Top Bottom