Condo Living-The Worst Kind of Canadian Living?

[someone123]

There were older 4 or 5 storey wooden ones from the 90s and 2000s and they were awful, loud, low-end buildings in a lot of cases. There were some nicer concrete ones with very generous layouts (1,600 square foot apartments) popular with seniors downsizing from large houses. The newer builds, some of which are visible farther away in the photo above, are almost all concrete now and tend more and more to be in a tower format, with the average suburban building being in the 12-20 storey range nowadays.

When I posted this photo I was thinking more about the nature of how exurban development changed and how you'd need something like population-weighted density to understand what's going on in this scene.

One thing I find a bit silly is how planning rules have shifted to creating pseudo wilderness areas and setbacks around bodies of water. I'm not sure it's that significant environmentally, but people get a lot less waterfront access. Some environmentalist NIMBY groups push for land near them to be set off limits, but in the end I wonder if it's not worse than just having a more compact urban area.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by someone123

One thing I find a bit silly is how planning rules have shifted to creating pseudo wilderness areas and setbacks around bodies of water. I'm not sure it's that significant environmentally, but people get a lot less waterfront access. Some environmentalist NIMBY groups push for land near them to be set off limits, but in the end I wonder if it's not worse than just having a more compact urban area.

Oh it's absolutely better to have a compact urban footprint. No question at all. Those policies are mostly the best environmental protections that are politically feasible rather than the actual best. Also, it depends on the policy, but some of those type of planning restrictions aren't directly about helping the environment and more about utilizing ecosystem services. That's the term for letting natural processes (often with human cultivation or guidance) perform functions that would otherwise require greater investment in traditional "grey" infrastructure.

For instance, a lot of waterways have a flood risk and/or poor drainage, so having a buffer space between them and development reduces the need for water management. This is especially important when a lake or river has adjacent wetlands, typically in the form of marshy areas since they can absorb water reducing the effect of heavy rain events. I forget all the details, but the province actually has restrictions on the destruction of wetlands and requires new ones to be restored or created if one is destroyed. These things tend to be as much about saving money as anything since ecosystem services tend to cost about 1/4 as much as using traditional methods to achieve the same thing.

Also, there are some cases that creating such buffer spaces around water bodies actually increases access since you don't have it bought up as private property that outsiders can't access without trespassing. So enjoyment isn't limited to those who can afford waterfront real estate.

[someone123]

I'm not talking only about private access, although that's a piece. Public developed access could be something like a boardwalk or park, or a semi-private use would be a restaurant or boat club built onto a lake. Because this one-size-fits-all buffer approach tends to be used now there's little variety and interest in these areas. The developed parts have 0 water interaction and every water-adjacent area is left superficially natural looking (it's not really natural because it's just a tiny area and larger fauna etc. are locally extinct, there may be no ecologically meaningful waterway connections for fish, etc.).

There was an interesting proposal for mixing development in with the Birch Cove area. It reminds me a bit of development you see around Stockholm. A lot of people were horrified and they said the only correct answer was to ban all development and implement a buffer because there is water and development bad. A lot of the folks with this view seem to be Boomers who already own large homes built in what were once similar areas. A lot of them think that lower density is more environmentally friendly.

Flood risk does exist but it's probably pretty minimal for a lot of these small rocky/hilly lakes. And you can sensibly develop in flood zones; they don't have to be left empty. These days it seems a lot of people take occasional flooding to mean that people are idiots if they ever want to use the land for anything. You hear this view around here a lot with the Fraser Valley flooding; farmers are idiots for cultivating a field that floods every 30 years, and the government should clear everybody out.

[whatnext]

You can't make this shit up:

Is This BC’s Most Dysfunctional Condo Strata?
How one of Coquitlam’s largest strata corporations dissolved into chaos, with two different councils claiming authority.
Patrick Penner Yesterday Tri-Cities Dispatch

Just after midnight on Oct. 25, 2025, seven men clad in dark clothing and armed with pry bars entered the elevator of a Coquitlam highrise.

In two minutes, they ripped out new notice boards installed by a recently elected strata council, tossing the debris into garbage bags.

Within an hour, all seven elevators across the Grand Central complex had been stripped bare, leaving behind tens of thousands of dollars in damage...

...While six of the men are unknown, the council told attendees the man holding the elevator door open was Hans Liu, a director of Prosprise Realty — the property management company hired by the recently ousted council.

Uneasy murmurs rippled through the room as the video played....

... Now, control of one of Coquitlam’s largest strata corporations is being fought in the courts, with allegations of mismanagement, fraud and defamation being levelled.

The result is that two different councils and two competing property management companies claim authority. Conflicting narratives are circulating through the complex. And owners have been left confused, angry and desperate for a resolution....

.....When Ng first began attending strata council meetings at the massive Coquitlam complex, he said it quickly became clear something was wrong.

Meetings were always held over Zoom. Councillors refused to turn their cameras on. Owners were required to hold government-issued ID up to their webcams and state their unit numbers or be kicked off the call. Anyone who asked pointed questions was muted or removed.

Debate and discussion never occurred. Councillors could often be heard speaking Mandarin with one another and would only ever utter one-word responses in English to agree with Hai Zhou, the strata president....

https://thetyee.ca/News/2026/03/02/D...-Condo-Strata/


This not the first tike I've heard of stratas run by someone representing offshore owners controlling a huge amount of votes.