John Wood is out $25,000 because of a septic system that failed less than one year after it was installed.
The expense has taken a large portion of the pensioner`s life savings. Of greater concern to the Hixon resident is a new set of provincial sewer system regulations that came into effect in May 2005.
REVELSTOKE, B.C. -- The Three Valley Gap Chateau and ghost town is the dream of the late Gordon Bell.
Today, the dream continues with the tourist attraction on the Trans-Canada Highway, 19 kilometres west of Revelstoke.
Gordon and Ethel Bell opened a small restaurant and hotel here in 1959, setting the stage for a tourist attraction that continually changed and expanded under Bell`s determined leadership. Although Bell died last fall at the age of 74, visitors will see new attractions in the 2008 season.
MAPLE RIDGE - People who patronized the Home Restaurant at 21667 Lougheed Highway in Maple Ridge are being warned their banking information might be at risk.
Province gives $10 million to improve Chinatown neighbourhoods
VANCOUVER - Premier Gordon Campbell slipped into Vancouver`s Chinatown Thursday to drop $10 million for improvements to the city`s "founding neighbourhoods" as part of the province`s 150th-anniversary celebrations.
In a tightly secured media conference at the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Garden, the premier said the money is meant to help build on other efforts the provincial government is making to improve the Downtown Eastside, like buying residential hotels, expanding homeless-outreach programs, and investing in the Woodward`s project that combines housing and the Simon Fraser University School of the Contemporary Arts.
You probably don`t give out personal information such as your Social Insurance or credit card number to strangers over the phone, but Telus is concerned you might. That`s because the latest identity-theft scam involves a con artist posing as a Telus employee.
Letter to Langley Township council brings up bribery
The possibility of bribery at Langley Township has been raised in anonymous letters to councillors, the mayor and senior officials.
The letter writer slipped a $5 bill into each of the 11 letters, suggesting the recipients buy themselves a coffee, sit down and look into the allegations.
"I work here at the Township and I don`t want to lose my job," the letter said.
Homeowners of B.C. -- welcome to the little chill.
B.C. householders fearing that the U.S. recession will hammer real-estate prices can relax -- the provincial market will gradually cool rather than collapse, Toronto-Dominion Bank predicts.
B.C. resale home prices are expected to post an average gain of 9.1 per cent this year, slowing to a 5.6-per-cent increase next, the bank said yesterday. In both years, B.C. should enjoy Canada`s second-fastest price growth after Saskatchewan, the report said.
Greenpeace warned yesterday that Canada`s logging practices threaten to turn the country`s vast northern forest into a source of global warming, but the forestry industry says it is already taking steps to fight climate change.
Logging and other development in the boreal forest release the carbon that the trees have trapped from the atmosphere over decades, potentially producing more greenhouse gases than from burning fossil fuels, the environmental group charges in a new report.
Langford Mayor Stew Young would like to see at least two pedestrian overpasses over the Trans-Canada Highway to link north and south Langford.
Langford council this week agreed to seek provincial funding for a pedestrian overpass, estimated to cost about $1.5 million, to be located near the new interchange being built at the highway near Spencer Road.
Victoria city council last night approved the construction of a seven-storey office building at 1321 Blanshard St.
Jawl Investment Corporation has started demolition on the property, bound by Yates and Johnson streets, and it plans to build an office that could have 900 people working in it. B.C. Ferries Corporation is rumored to be considering the building for a new head office.
NANAIMO -- Nanaimo`s Great Canadian Casino is planning a major expansion.
Chris Dikeakos Architects Inc. has submitted a development proposal to the City of Nanaimo, on behalf of the GCC, for a massive upgrade and expansion to the 19,000-square-foot casino, located adjacent to Port Place Mall downtown.
When Lloyd Wilder drew up plans for a new lodge, golf course, ski hill and swimming pools at Fairmont Hot Springs during the 1960s, he was creating the first four-season resort in the Columbia Valley.
After it was built, visitors flocked to visit the resort, which, along with Radium Hot Springs was the cornerstone of early tourism to the now-popular region just across the Alberta border into British Columbia.
METRO VANCOUVER - TransLink is purchasing 103 new buses to serve Metro Vancouver and is adding 14 more SkyTrain cars to its current order of 34, expanding the SkyTrain fleet to 258 cars, the agency said in a news release Friday.
The bill will total $150 million, "and it`s money well spent," TransLink chairman Dale Parker said in the release.
Blueberry grower Paul Gill used to be able to pick up the phone and order a truckload of sawdust for immediate delivery to his family-run Surrey farm, where he spreads it around young plants to keep moisture in and weeds out.
Sawdust was once considered a waste product, spewing out of the sawmills that used to dot the Fraser River.
If it were not for a variety of niche customers -- from pulp mills to small users like Gill`s M&M Pacific Coast Farms -- the mills would soon choke in sawdust.
BC Hydro scaled its hunt for green electricity down to the micro level on Friday, announcing that it will welcome prospective producers of incremental bits of power any time they`re ready to join the grid.
Projects of 10 megawatts or less are eligible and Hydro says it will take all it can get -- promising a streamlined application process for small-scale producers.
Last Saturday, I wrote about Royal Indian Raj International Corp., a private Vancouver-based company that has been soliciting money from investors to build a $3-billion "smart city" near Bangalore, India.
As described by Manoj Benjamin, the company`s chairman and CEO, Royal Garden City would include 35,000 residential units, and have a combined retail value of more than $9 billion when completed in 2015.
That`s just the start. The company is also planning three other mega-projects in Mumbai, New Delhi, and Kolkata.
Good intentions can fall by the wayside when new homeowners pledge to pay down the mortgage as quickly as possible. Unexpected expenses crop up -- and there are plenty of those in a new home -- and just the cost of living can derail many plans to become mortgage-free sooner.
But there are ways to drive down a mortgage. Available repayment methods can lop years off the amortization period and save thousands of dollars in the process.
The price of new housing in Greater Victoria held steady from January to February of this year, Statistics Canada said yesterday.
Year-over-year, contractors` selling prices inched up 1.6 per cent in February, the federal agency announced.
"It is levelling off and it is always a function of a bit more inventory out there so people can be more selective," Victoria developer and builder Gordon English said.
High-tech watering system eliminates the guess work
With watering restrictions looming May 1, yard lovers in the region might want to leave the hose hassle to some ground-breaking technology this year.
Irrigation systems that allow homeowners and commercial users the ability to program timers for the days and hours and duration of watering -- even from their home PCs -- have been around for years. But there`s a new kid on the block that uses real-time technology to take watering and plant health to another level, says Steve Gitzel of Wes-Tech Irrigation Supply Ltd. on Alpha St.
Given the ever-present threat of climate change, homebuyers are warming up to the idea of energy-efficient housing.
It`s not only beneficial to the environment, but it can help lower the aggravation in paying the monthly utility bills.
A new federal housing initiative now aims to prove those bills can be brought down to virtually nothing by building homes that can produce as much energy during a year as they consume. It`s enough to have any homeowner turn green with envy.
