Olympic Village & Southeast False Creek Updates Discussion - Page 76

gillty · #**1501** Posted **Dec 9, 2009, 7:14 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by djh

And what if some time down the road they discover some major problem with that technology (remember asbestos? Remember CFLs were supposed to save the world until they got replaced by LEDs? And so on)

LED's have been around for like 50 years I dont think we have to worry about major problems being discovered.

jlousa · #**1502** Posted **Dec 15, 2009, 6:31 AM**

LEDs are fine it's the parts that drive the power to them that 🞵🞵🞵🞵. Spending 10s of thousands of dollars fixing the problem each time, after the third time you don't care for LEDs anymore.

Seems like Wall financial is going to be revising it's WCFC project, we knew they were looking at a rental component but looks like they too are jumping on the STIR bandwagon. Expect news shortly and construction to start as soon as April 2010.

hollywoodnorth · #**1503** Posted **Dec 15, 2009, 1:24 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by jlousa

LEDs are fine it's the parts that drive the power to them that 🞵🞵🞵🞵. Spending 10s of thousands of dollars fixing the problem each time, after the third time you don't care for LEDs anymore.

Seems like Wall financial is going to be revising it's WCFC project, we knew they were looking at a rental component but looks like they too are jumping on the STIR bandwagon. Expect news shortly and construction to start as soon as April 2010.

http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/developmentservices/stir/

cool stuff

jlousa · #**1504** Posted **Dec 15, 2009, 3:22 PM**

Personally not a fan of STIR as a citizen, I feel the city is giving away way too much, and apparently they are, as everyone is jumping at it and pretty well every single proposal has at least a STIR component in it. Feel the city should dial back the incentives quite a bit so that there is still some incentive but so that it's not this lucrative.

WarrenC12 · #**1505** Posted **Dec 15, 2009, 4:54 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by jlousa

Personally not a fan of STIR as a citizen, I feel the city is giving away way too much, and apparently they are, as everyone is jumping at it and pretty well every single proposal has at least a STIR component in it. Feel the city should dial back the incentives quite a bit so that there is still some incentive but so that it's not this lucrative.

I don't like it either. Let the market figure it out.

SFUVancouver · #**1506** Posted **Dec 16, 2009, 12:16 AM**

STIR is a short term project, hence the first two letters of the acronym. As-appoved the STIR program has a sunset clause after two and and half years, and we are nearly a year into its run.

osirisboy · #**1507** Posted **Dec 16, 2009, 3:49 AM**

🞵🞵🞵 does STIR stand for and mean? I have never heard of it before

jlousa · #**1508** Posted **Dec 16, 2009, 3:56 AM**

Short term incentive for rentals. It's a city initiative that forgoes DCLs and CACs as well as provide bonus density in exchange for market housing. It's a good concept but very badly implemented, hence why every developer is adjusting their proposals to take advantage of it. It's too lucrative and that's why everyone is jumping on board, the actual benefits to the public are pretty minor. All rental housing created by it is market rentals, the current proposals all expect to charge $2.00-$2.50psf. Why bother providing incentives if the citzens don't get a break, for those prices there is no lack of rentals in the city as ~40-50% of condo projects end up as rentals for the same rate. This is solely my opinion as a citizen.

To tie this back into the thread topic, WCFC will be seeking to become a STIR project to capitalize on the incentives.

flight_from_kamakura · #**1509** Posted **Dec 16, 2009, 5:26 AM**

i don't know, seems like a pretty good deal all around: you've got the committed rental stock (which will surely pay off in 20-30 years time, as it ages); you've got a way of stabilizing the dcls (though i guess revenue obv drops there), which means something for mr. budget; and you've got a package of incentives that keeps the construction industry (and related industries) going before it was clear that the condo market would rebound.

would have been great if the city had launched the stir in conjunction with some massive city-wide upzoning scheme - that'd have been a nice way to let the market sort it out, while getting the desired effects. really, these sfd hoods in their present configurations have just got to be nuked if vancouver councils ever want to get serious about significantly bringing down the costs per unit.

Spork · #**1510** Posted **Dec 16, 2009, 6:31 AM**

Vacancy rates were 0.2% on the DT peninsula in Oct 2008 (CMHC is slowww, but I can't see it being a lot higher right now). Supply is needed.

Alex Mackinnon · #**1511** Posted **Dec 16, 2009, 6:51 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by jlousa

LEDs are fine it's the parts that drive the power to them that 🞵🞵🞵🞵. Spending 10s of thousands of dollars fixing the problem each time, after the third time you don't care for LEDs anymore.

Seems like Wall financial is going to be revising it's WCFC project, we knew they were looking at a rental component but looks like they too are jumping on the STIR bandwagon. Expect news shortly and construction to start as soon as April 2010.

Uhh... aren't the power supplies for the most part use a 12VDC convertor and a couple inline resistors?

jlousa · #**1512** Posted **Dec 16, 2009, 2:44 PM**

The vacancy rate is much higher the .2%, chmc only uses data collected from mutlidwelling rentals ie anyone renting their condo or basement suite out individually isn't included. Even the .2% figure is pretty suspect though, Wall Financial when owns quite a large amount of rentals has a vacancy rate of ~3%. Another thing to take into account is CMHC doesn't count normal turnover as vancancy so if I have a unit when a tenant moves out on the 30th but I'm not able to find a new tenant until the 28th of next month, that unit was empty the whole month but doesn't count towards the vacancy rate I won't argue there isn't a lack of affordable rentals in the city, but there is plenty of rentals available. As much as I hate craigslist as a source a simple search will show hundreds upon hundreds of unit's available at any given time. Not quite as dire as it appears. If the Stir program were to create affordable rentals somehow then it would be a much more worthy program for the city. Case in point the Bidwell project if it were completely market condos would've provided the city with an extra $7Million. Are those 49units of rental apts worth $7M to the citzens when any renter is going to pay $2.25psf to live there? Had they all been market condos probably 24 of them would've ended up on the market anyways for the same rents. To me that's way too much of a cost. When everyone is revamping their plans to include rentals all of a sudden then we should be asking if we've sweeten the pot a little to much.

The costs involved in changing out the parts for the leds aren't the actual parts but the labour. If you need to bring in a dedicated stage to get to the parts, have wcb approve the work permit, it can be a 3-6month process and costs $10s of thousands of dollars, only to make you bang your head when another part fails a couple of months later.

Back onto topic, Does anyone know if the community centre at SEFC has been named? I can't seem to recall every hearing anything.

officedweller · #**1513** Posted **Dec 16, 2009, 6:08 PM**

Haven't heard of a name.
(Then again, I hadn't heard a public announcment in the press that the Mt. Pleasant Community Centre (1 Kingsway) was officially open).