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editor
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 Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 11:07 am Post subject: NEW! LEAKY CONDOS in the Media (Hardly ever!) |
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Leaky condos in B.C.'s real estate-hypin' media? HARDLY EVER!
The popular media's treatment of the ongoing LEAKY CONDO debacle in B.C. (and elsewhere on the globe) certainly dispels the now quaint British notion of an independent press. Don't look to the fifth estate for help or even much in the way of ciriticism of what we now call the new failed housing economy. Consumer advocacy has somehow gone the way of Action Line and Ask Andy - remember them?
What follows are a few examples of the often ridiculous, irksome or just plain crazy-making news stories about B.C. housing - especially condos - making headlines, stories which, for reasons known only to their creators, manage either to evade or elude altogether the elephant in the room:
| Quote: | Who profits from the proliferation of leaky, substandard, box-style housing and what is the real cost to consumers and to the environment when it fails?
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| Quote: | | Note: Visitors are warmly invited to submit particulars of your own examples. Please send them to editor@bccondos.ca and we'll post them here. |
In no particular order:
Vancouver Sun
Local Real Estate Industry's Friend with Occasional, Well-earned Pangs of Guilt and Shame
Sun alleges reporter's condo deal damaged his and newspaper's integrity
Jeff Lee
Jan. 22/05
| Quote: | Vancouver Sun reporter Wyng Chow destroyed his own integrity and put the newspaper's credibility in jeopardy by accepting a benefit from a developer he was covering as a real estate reporter, the Sun's lawyer said Friday.
In a final argument before arbitrator Rory McDonald, Donald Jordan said Chow, 56, crossed the line when mixed a personal dispute with Concord Pacific Ltd. with his job as a business reporter. And he said Chow's acceptance of a "deep discount" on a condominium he bought from the company in 2001 showed a "lack of a moral compass" that justified the newspaper firing him last month...
...(Chow's counsel Carolyn Askew) accused the newspaper of engaging in a selective attack on Chow, a 32-year employee, instead of addressing the basis of a telephone tip to editor-in-chief Patricia Graham that included an allegation that Chow had received a "sweetheart deal."
The anonymous tipster complained the newspaper was overly positive in reporting on real estate matters, and accused it of tailoring coverage to drive advertisers to its Homes section. The tipster named Chow as an example of what was wrong with the newspaper's business coverage (emphasis added) (-- p. H2) |
| Quote: | | Note: No, sorry to say, bccondos.ca did not provide the tip, but we're pleased to see the local trombone shamed for its relentless cheerleading of an industry in crisis, an industry so riddled with standards and durability issues that it threatens to cripple the local economy. We double-dog dare the editorial board to run even one more story paying homage to the exploits of a Howe Street high-flier condo salesman. How many of those sales, we wonder, are now or soon will be leakers? |
Link to this entry
http://bccondos.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?p=862#862
Last edited by editor on Thu Jun 26, 2008 11:05 am; edited 18 times in total |
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editor
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| Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 11:13 am Post subject: |
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Leaky condos still a disaster, a three-part series by William Boei in the Vancouver Sun May 9, 10 and 11/06.
We had quite a few criticisms of the series as you can see but liked the headline and the spacing of material over three days, which might have raised a few red flags for spring buyers.
Link to this entry
http://bccondos.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?p=863#863
Last edited by editor on Thu Jun 26, 2008 9:45 am; edited 3 times in total |
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editor
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| Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 11:49 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Canadian Geographic
Magazine Subscription
Futureville
Vancouver has the fastest-growing
downtown core in North America and is
becoming a showcase for the greatest urban
experiment since the 1950s.
By Charles Montgomery
May, 2006
A quick note about the author from his shamelessly self-promoting website:
| Quote: | | Charles Montgomery is an *award-winning writer and photographer who tells stories about people, landscapes, history and myth. (emphasis added) |
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That our once-beloved magazine would publish real estate advertising copy masquerading as a news feature broke our collective heart, causing us to doubt not only the veracity of all CG stories but the organization's purported commitment to environmental protection. For shame!
Link to this entry
http://bccondos.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?p=864#864
Last edited by editor on Thu Jun 26, 2008 5:37 pm; edited 6 times in total |
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editor
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Posts: 878
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| Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 12:07 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Western Living
Real estate ad flier posing as a glossy magazine.
Green and greener
Energy efficiency ratings for a few
cities in Western Canada
By self-appointed expert Marcie Good,
a sports writer, for goodness sake, who apparently
"interviewed dozens of planners, environmental
experts and critics and commentators,"
whatever that means, according to the text on p. 31.
August, 2006
| Quote: | | Vancouver's downtown has become a world-renowned model of virtuous development. (emphasis added) Here are Jane Jacobs' lessons carried out and elaborated: (-- p. 45) |
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Anyone with working eyes, ears and half a brain can see that Vancouver's downtown is now an echoing ruined canyon of leaky, oversold highrises so densely packed that any rare patches of greenspace are either in shadow or inaccessible due to reconstruction scaffolding and temporary pedestrian tunnels. To wit:
And yes, here we go again with the B.C. bud-inspired rooftop gardens taunt to the multitudes who have lost and are losing still! everything to the B.C. government's biggest love interest, leaky condo developers. What's most offensive about this publication is the loss of what might be a few truly good ideas amid all the PUFF PUFF PUFF and BLOW of real estate advertising copy promoting the myth that Vancouver housing stock is just fine. The upcoming sister flier devoted exclusively to condos doesn't promise anything better, either.
Link to this entry
http://bccondos.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?p=865#865
Last edited by editor on Thu Jun 26, 2008 9:50 am; edited 8 times in total |
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editor
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| Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2006 1:20 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Vancouver Magazine
Strata Hell
Condo owners who threaten murder. Treasurers who steal cash. Welcome to the weird world of strata cuncils
By Steve Burgess
September, 2006
| Quote: | *Dog mapping is just the beginning. In 2002, Drew and June paid $239,000 for a condo in a small building in Kits near West Eighth and Stevens, with only three neighbours. All three were single, fifty-ish women. First skirmish: the couple's decision to install laminate flooring. "The woman downstairs was weeping on the phone," Drew says. "She said they had a bylaw against hardwood floors because of the noise. Well, they didn't yet - but they were thinking about one."
Meanwhile Drew and June's bedroom wall was ballooning out due to water leakage -- "but only on dry days," Drew says. Turns out the upstairs neighbour was watering her plants and storing the hoses on the balcony, where they drained into the couple's bedroom. No action deemed necessary, the council decided. By a vote of 3-1, Drew and June now have a heritage house in New West.
The troubles flow both ways. Good strata councils must also deal with bad owners. Veda lives in Fairview Slopes near Oak and West Eighth. When the building was assessed for envelope repairs of about $700,000, the lone commercial occupant refused to pay. "She thought she bore no responsibility for the residential part of the building," says Veda. It took two years and lots more money just to get the case to court, incurring more debt to the residents.
Renting adds another level of complexity, with both sides unsure of their obligations...
Tony Gioventu is executive director of the Condominium Home Owners Association (CHOA) (scroll down for a heads-up on this dubious outfit). He's heard some horror stories that could be served up with popcorn. A condo development in Maple Ridge, for example, where "the treasurer had a gambling addiction and drained the operating and reserve funds." Or a downtown development where "the treasurer and secretary had credit cards and ATM cards in the name of the strata council, which they used for personal stuff." There have been cases of boozy parties and even donations to political campaigns, all made with strata council funds. "If the strata council won't provide you with financial records and bank statements," Gioventu says, "you can almost guarantee there's trouble." (-- pgs. 73-74) |
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| Quote: | | * Dog mapping - a procedure in which each dog's markings are recorded by the strata corporation to ensure prohibited but grandfathered pets are not replaced. Happens when strata councils pass a bylaw to restrict pets beyond a certain size. |
This article provides at least some warning of the very real dangers inherent in communal ownership/management, but then we turned in the same issue to the following assault on our sanity:
| Quote: | Crime Stopper
Development planner Mary Beth Rondeau knows what makes safe neighborhoods, and it isn't tougher laws and mere cops. It's doing a better job of designing our communal urban spaces.
By Dee Hon
| Quote: | Combine the brainpower of criminologists, urban planners, police and architects, and you'll get a concept called Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design...If you rid the world of trees and honey, you'll make bears' lives much bother. Arm yourself with drafting software, business licence requirements and zoning bylaws, and you do the same to bad guys.
Those are the weapons in the holster of City of Vancouver development planner Mary Beth Rondeau as she wages war on crime. You won't meet many crime fighters like her. The 49-year-old *former Olympic swimmer may be the only city-employed planner in the world whose job is CPTED sheriff. Every major new development is subject to her scrutiny. (-- pgs. 30-31) |
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Even the briefest look at downtown crime stats reveals that Rondeau's theories far exceed her grasp. Ugly, densely-packed and frequently leaky highrises (see above) have destroyed what was as recently as 2003 a fun downtown. By failing to allot land parcels for retail and restaurant outlets in favor of more and more and MORE high-priced condo boxes, planners have ensured that our theatre district is now utterly vacant by 10 p.m. - except for the panhandlers and drug addicts, who occasionally swarm concert goers foolish enough to use transit at night.
In view of the above, we find the reference by Rondeau to Jane Jacobs nothing short of astonishing. The two couldn't be further apart.
| Quote: | | *Note: Is youthful success in amateur sports somehow a pre-requisite to a highly-paid planning position in Vancouver? |
Link to this entry
http://bccondos.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?p=881#881
Last edited by editor on Thu Jun 26, 2008 10:01 am; edited 7 times in total |
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editor
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| Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 9:42 am Post subject: |
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Green roofs? B.C. 'BILLIES can't be trusted, say insurers:
What are insurers telling condo buyers about B.C. 'BILLY construction?
The Vancouver Sun
Insurers put the brakes on green roofs
By Frances Bula
April 14/07
| Quote: | ...No one who works in the green-roof industry had heard of any other jurisdiction in North America or Europe where insurers were refusing to insure green roofs. But in B.C., where problems with leaky building envelopes in condo buildings provoked a major crisis among consumers and the construction industry, anything involving water in proximity to residential building walls provokes nervousness.
"There are some issues that should be considered in the particular context of British Columbia before further application of green-roof systems in residential developments proceeds, in order to avoid another potential systemic building envelope failure," wrote Ken Cameron, CEO of the homeowner protection office, to municipalities in his warning letter.
Cameron also said the problem with green roofs on condo buildings is the question of whether strata councils have the skills to make sure they're maintained properly. There is no issue at present with commercial, institutional or residential rental buildings getting insurance for green roofs, since single owners are presumed to control maintenance standards. (emphasis added) (-- p. A12) |
| Quote: | | * Note: ...As you know, under the Homeowner Protection Act (Act), all new homes constructed for sale must be built by a Licensed Residential Builder and be covered by home warranty insurance, unless the home is exempt under a provision of the Act. Home warranty insurance is provided as a private contract of insurance by one of the four insurers authorized to offer this coverage by the Financial Institutions Commission (But see also Canadian Council of Insurance Regulators, yet another tier of the hopelessly opaque insurance industry). The willingness of private insurers to provide such coverage for multi-unit residential projects featuring green roofs is limited at this time and in fact some have indicated they will not provide coverage for buildings that will incorporate a green roof design. In addition, there are some issues that should be considered in the particular context of British Columbia before further application of green roof systems in residential developments proceeds, in order to avoid another potential systemic building envelope failure. (Excerpt from the Jan. 16/07 letter signed by HPO CEO Ken Cameron) |
More on HPO at Condo Link Reviews.
More on strata council best practices.
More on sustainable housing.
IT'S ALL TRUE!
... Here's the real reason lawyers are anxious to donate funds to UBC law faculty's bldg fund:
| Quote: | Canadian Geographic
Vancouver Real Estate Pumper
Hardly Better than a Freebie
Insert for the Recycling Bin
Queen of green
Inspired as a girl to make the world a little
more environmentally friendly, Cornelia Hahn
Oberlander has taken her cue from nature to
become Canada's premier landscape architect
and green-roof champion
By Sarah Scott
| Quote: | ... The three-block-long park is planted on top of an office building that stretches between Robson Street and the Vancouver Art Gallery. Designed to look like a concrete sky-scraper lying on its side, the building houses the Provincial Law Courts, a UBC satellite campus and government offices. The roof has hanging gardens, pine trees and rhododendrons, three waterwalls to block out sounds of the city, plus a rink that was once iced over for skaters but is now used by skateboarders and salsa dancers. Robson Square, as it is known, has been celebrated for the interplay between the soft contours of Oberlander's roof garden and the sharp geometric lines of architect *Arthur Erickson's construction. It is a place where lawyers and provincial bureaucrats do their daily business, but it has also become an oasis for anyone seeking an escape from the city's concrete core.
Yet today, as she drives past lines of pink dogwoods loaded with blossoms, Oberlander knows her award-winning roof garden is not altogether intact. The trees, bushes and vines were uprooted from the building in early 2006. The roof had been leaking. It leaked so badly that the entire garden had to be replaced. Oberlander and Erickson insisted that at least 40 of the 101 mature trees - mostly pines, maples and dogwoods - be rescued, while the rest were composted. When the repairs are completed in 2008, the architects will have installed a $21 million green-roof system that should not leak. (emphasis added) The 40 surviving trees, gnarly characters that have become heritage beauties, have already been reinstalled in their original locations, while new rhododendrons, memorial roses and laurel fill the old concrete planters, just as they were. (-- pgs. 88-89) |
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More on B.C. 'BILLIES' laughable, head-banger insistence on those ridiculous GREEN roofs.
Link to this entry using
http://www.bccondos.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?p=981#981
Last edited by editor on Thu Jan 03, 2008 12:14 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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editor
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| Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 12:39 pm Post subject: |
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Vancouver Magazine
How to Play the Real Estate Game
The *Density Game
By Tyee Bridge, James Glave and Michael Harris,
acolytes of the Madison Avenue Advertising Copy
School of Mock-Journalism
April, 2007
| Quote: | Vancouver's response to sprawl and its acidic side effects - urban decay, cloverleaf gridlock, gobbled farms and wetlands - has been a bag of urban renewal tricks, with an emphasis on densely populated, mixed-use neighbourhoods. Thanks to the efforts of municipal savants like former co-director of planning Larry Beasley and marketing geniuses like Bob Rennie, condo living was rebranded from a squalid lowbrow compromise into a pret-a-porter downtown cocktail party, complete with those granite countertops and stainless steel appliances.
In the past 15 years, our downtown population has doubled; the success of our density effort even coined a global urban design buzzword, Vancouverism. Now, at least for a certain upscale, trend-conscious audience, the term density no longer connotes the nasty scratch-and-claw of the urban jungle. It has visionary loft to it, the conceptual shimmer of a halcyon metropolis. A condo, a futon and a latte for every citizen - at least for those who can handle the mortgage.
...Sullivan's initiative makes candid use of the ecological footprint model of UBC community and regional planning professor William Rees (whose environmental 'model' like so many others fails to take any account of 30+ years of housing failures littering the Lower Mainland and elsewhere throughout the province).
...You can already see it happening: townhouses in West Vancouver, infill housing in Shaughnessy, Dunbar's shrill but ultimately futile resistance before the steamroller of densification. (emphasis added) (-- pgs. 45-46) |
| Quote: | | Note: * Density here should be read as a comment on the corporate bilge stinking down what ought to be a thoughtful report criticizing steamroller civic approval for more and more and more inaccessible, barrier-full, substandard, mismanaged, poorly planned and frequently just plain unwanted by the neighborhood multiunit, multifamily, multistorey condo development. |
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http://www.bccondos.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?p=982#982 |
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