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helenl.bsky.social
development professional working on vibrant, sustainable & inclusive communities pro abundant & affordable housing, bike & bus lanes, & not getting hit by cars 🏡🏢🚎🚲 ❤️| posts & sarcasm my own | Host of podcast urbanismvancouver.com
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💪💪💪
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delulu ✨✨
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At least they respond to something I’ve had responses that don’t answer my questions but are a page long 😭
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Oh I don’t doubt It sounds like you all should stay inside Indefinitely
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I like the kinda cold where I get to wear my nice cosy sweaters, not the kind where I have to put in a puffer coat on top of my sweater cold
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We should definitely compile all public land in a registry to find best ways of mixed-use developments to address multiple but compounding benefits. Affordable homes + community space + incorporating alternate modes of transportation near transit nodes 🏢🚌🚴🏻‍♀️🎨
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If the city just upzoned massive areas (AHEM SHAUGHNESSY) instead of limiting density to Bway & downtown they’d get way more market homes built faster on more sites These sites are LIMITED opportunities to build w/ little to no land cost for deeper affordability that other devs & sites can’t do 9/
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And despite it being city owned land & projects these things often take way longer than a comparable market project. There’s just so many more layers of approvals & bureaucracy unfortunately. So is this the best use of city owned land? 8/
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Case & point the CoV real estate dpt loves delaying non-profit projects by arguing about whether they should actually just sell a city owned site for big $$$ instead of using it for non-profit homes I’ve experienced it personally at least a few times 7/
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But most importantly the “revenue generation” bit gives the CoV real estate dpt even more ammo to squeeze every $$ they can out of these sites If you’ve ever had to work on CoV owned projects, you’d know that the real estate dpt is all $$$>affordability which is bonkers on non-market sites 6/
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This is a foot in the door for the city to not do the following instead: 1. Increase our VERY low property taxes & make the wealthier homeowners pay a fairer share, instead of charging higher rents on already struggling rents households 2. Not lower the super bloated VPD budget 5/
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My other concern is with “revenue generation”: what I hear is the city already planning for possible use of these rental funds, meaning: 1. Incentive to meet rents higher, & 2. Incentive to see city owned homes as $$$ > social impact of affordability 4/
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Any other developer can & have been building market rentals. These sites rare opportunities to provide deeply affordable homes given the little to no land cost, which would have deep impact to lower income households, who are facing great threats of being pushed out of CoV 3/
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Yes, more homes is objectively good. But let’s consider the context & opportunity. This is city land that is at little to no cost to the city & we all know that land is one of the most costly pieces of development. Why use it for market rental when it can instead be for deeper affordability? 2/
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He’d have to actually do something productive with his time & focus on his own life
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Oh this explains a lot
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Sadly google thinks it’s something they should show on my “for me” page Maybe there’s an option to perma mute anything with his name
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His boomer takes are poorly veiled attempts to “just ask questions” while actually just saying “I got mine so now the city is full” This is his 9 billionth time trying to argue that building more homes in the cities makes housing more unaffordable in said cities, with no data/facts as usual
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I don’t believe we do here in Canada!
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Truly bourgeois stuff so you gotta stick with the affordable car for the every day person
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That would be helpful, thank you
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🤢🤮
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I was posting in jest, I actually believe planners should have less control/influence in building aesthetics than they currently do But perhaps they can spend their newfound time regulating the appropriate aesthetic for cars which take up 99% of the pedestrian visual anyway
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hard agree. And so much of the time the people on the board disagree with each other anyway & then their comments are neither here nor there but the step of going to review board delays projects by like months
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jealous
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Really?! Okay I’ll give those a go
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hm well that’s unfortunate to hear
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Nooooooooo
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Is this incrementalism consistent across the Strong Towns movement or is it mostly a few key folks? Genuinely asking.
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Yikes but also I low key love people on LinkedIn outing themselves as walking red flags
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ok but not like that obviously
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lol might want to double check the definition of “towering”
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❤️
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It’s more like a “colleague” outside of the org! Unfortunately not really
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💯 but at some point it’s just draining for everyone like they’re orbiting around a black hole
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on the one hand I empathize but on the other it’s like you’re a full grown adult and this is a workplace
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they’re not opposed to development, they swear
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Oh wait they won’t bc they don’t actually care They’re probably the same people charging whatever they want for basement suites that don’t even meet code due to the the housing shortage 2/