Posted Sep 21, 2007, 11:12 PM
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Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 1,979
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A quick tale on how painful and arduous the rezoning and expropriation process can be if an existing tenant or landowner does not want to cooperate.
Elsie Roy park, the new park near the Brava towers downtown, was supposed to be double the size it is now, taking up a full city block by removing the alleyway down the middle. The city started the rezoning process before ground was broken on Brava (that was about 3-4 years ago now). A couple of the property owners on the block took the (very generous) deal that the city offered to buy them out. One in particular decided they were not going to move because they held a good location on the block and wanted more. They are still there to this day, facing Brava, happily running their little business.
The city had to change the plans for the park and only build it using half the block. My friend, who was one of the landowners who took the money and ran, is sitting on a nice pile of cash. And the whole of downtown is short of what would have been a very nice park. And now, that block looks a mess because half of the existing buildings are abandoned.
So don't hold out hopes for the city buying land around Canada Line stations and rezoning them for high density. It just takes 1 person to be greedy and the whole redevelopment can either become too expensive or just not happen, if they hold a key location.
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