Granville Island to house $4m `French Quarter` for 2010 games
B.C.`s francophone community plans to build and operate a $4-million "French Quarter" on Granville Island during the 2010 Winter Olympics.
The proposal, part of a $7-million plan to promote francophone culture around the Olympics, has received support from the Vancouver Organizing Committee, the federal government and the Senate committee on official languages.
VANCOUVER - Vancouver Whitecaps president Bob Lenarduzzi says team owner Greg Kerfoot had no plans for condos or any commercial development when he purchased land on the waterfront for his proposed new soccer stadium.
The former Vancouver soccer star said a front-page story in Wednesday`s Vancouver Sun headlined "Stadium plan includes condos" conveyed the impression that Kerfoot`s plan to build a $90-million stadium was as much a real estate play as it was an investment in professional soccer.
The city of Prince George, in the grips of a forestry downturn, was the weak spot in a major realtor`s semi-annual survey of real estate prices.
Century 21`s 2008 spring national house price survey showed that the price of a typical bungalow in that city`s lower College Heights neighbourhood dipped two per cent year over year to $219,000, and showed no change in another subdivision at $190,000.
The British Columbia and Alberta governments have introduced amendments to their respective insurance laws to live up to the spirit of the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA), aimed at removing trade barriers between the two provinces.
The amendments include improved coverage, better access to insurance contract information, and improved dispute resolution mechanisms, the B.C. government said in a news release.
Received tons of email...Not - all favorable. Some people wish to bet me money - some a case of beer, that real estate is going to go down...just wait and see. Likely they are all the people who never bought anything. If you go to www.realestattalks.com you can see some 46,000 people arguing for more than 14 years the ups and downs of Vancouver real estate. It is always the same guys and gals that argue collapse and (yep) often the same that argue that eventually we will always be higher (because of monetary expansion creating it).
Some schools in School District 57 have inferior Internet service and district officials are asking the provincial government to level the playing field.
An application is being made to the Provincial Learning Network (PLNet), the province`s agency mandated to hook schools up to the World Wide Web.
Permits for nearly $5.9 million worth of construction were issued during March, according to Prince George city hall. The total is down from $7.3 million over the same month last year, but the 2008 year-to-date total now stands at $19.8 million, still up from $15.6 million for the first quarter of 2007.
Significant permits for March include the $2.25-million student union centre at UNBC, a $508,000 renovation of the Ministry of Transportation and Ministry of Environment offices at Plaza 400 downtown and a Fatburger restaurant in the Westgate shopping centre, a $375,000 project.
British Columbia appears to be standing almost alone in Canada with a provincial decline in individual earnings, says a Statistics Canada survey released yesterday.
The new survey, titled Earnings and Incomes of Canadians Over the Past Quarter Century, 2006 Census, shows earnings in B.C. dropped overall by 3.4 per cent from 2000 to 2005 and by 11.3 per cent when you look back to 1980.
The average price of a single-family house in Greater Victoria bounced back up again last month to set another record.
At $630,295, the average price was pushed up by sales last month of 28 houses of more than $1 million, including two for more than $2 million, the Victoria Real Estate Board said yesterday.
This region`s previous record was set in December when it reached $624,450, again skewed by several sales of more than $1 million.
Two Greater Victoria private schools are tied at the top of this year`s Fraser Institute`s provincial rankings for the elementary grades, but don`t expect to hear any gloating.
Both St. Margaret`s and St. Michaels University School were rated as perfect 10s. The top-rated local public schools were Frank Hobbs at #80, Torquay at #89 and Campus View at #100.
BC Hydro dips its toe into the controversial waters of the Site C dam
VICTORIA - BC Hydro is launching into full-scale public consultations on one of the more controversial power projects in provincial history, the Site C hydroelectric dam on the Peace River.
Hydro this week announced a "we want to hear from you" campaign, with a household mailer, community outreach, open houses starting in June, and more detailed public hearings extending into the fall.
As food shortages swell, doubts surface on biofuel policies
BELLE PLAINE, Sask. -- A growing global food crisis has not curbed the appetite of Canada`s newest biofuel plant, which is busy stockpiling a mountain of wheat near this town west of Regina.
Huge trucks loaded with grain roll into the $130-million plant, weigh in, then swing round and add to the growing pile of wheat behind a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire.
A Russian log export tax is helping blunt the impact of the U.S. lumber market collapse for coastal forest company TimberWest Forest.
TimberWest is the province`s No. 1 log exporter. But with U.S. demand and prices in the tank, the company is letting its trees continue to grow rather than harvest them, triggering a rare quarterly loss of $23.3 million for the company.
Money Mart usually wins, but jury is out on this case
`If Money Mart sues you," read the headline on my column a month ago, "you`ll probably lose."
I sat in on small claims court Wednesday to test this theory.
And the verdict is . . . pending. The jury (well, the judge, who`s not a full provincial court judge, but rather a special-purpose adjudicator) is still out.
A $2.6-million contract to resurface about 10 kilometres of the Hart Highway was awarded to Penticton-based Peter`s Bros. Construction Ltd., Prince George North MLA Pat Bell said Friday.
The Millar Addition Citizens` Coalition -- fresh off its successful fight against locating an energy plant next to its neighbourhood -- has its eye on a new issue.
This time residents are not protesting, but rather want to put an idea forward.
Victoria clashes with owner, acts to save buildings
Victoria city council has taken the first step to saving two prominent downtown heritage buildings from demolition.
In an almost unprecedented move, council has voted to start a process that will give heritage designation to the Janion and Morley`s Soda Water Factory buildings even though the owner hasn`t requested it.
It`s too soon to say how the summer tourism season will perform but hoteliers are seeing group bookings filling rooms in the second quarter of this year.
Reid James, general manager of the Hotel Grand Pacific, anticipates a 75 to 80 per cent occupancy rate this quarter from April through June, which is "pretty good" for the 300-room hotel, which caters to conferences. Group bookings "gives us a base to build on."
