NotRaffiVille
Another wild west cronification public land deal gone wrong, this one just south of Langara on Cambie in Lotusland Central, has been unearthed by Lori Culbert and Joanne Lee-Young of the VSun:
...The Pearson-Dogwood development, known as Cambie Gardens, is zoned for 2,160 market condos, 540 social housing units, commercial spaces, a daycare, parks, a community health centre, a long-term care home, and 114 supported apartments to replace the two aging health facilities on the site.
The (BC Liberal) government sold the Dogwood Lodge Complex Care Home in 2015 and the long-term residential care George Pearson Centre and the surrounding land in 2016. However, Postmedia has learned that (developer) Onni has paid just over half the money it agreed to pay: It still owes $137 million because the provincial Liberals gave the developer a low-cost loan and until 2023 to pay off the remainder of the sales price...
Gosh.
It's almost as if the BC Liberals were TeeVee's Bluth Family who told their friends and influential uncles not to worry because there was always money hidden away in the banana stand when needed.
Except, of course, in this case, we were the banana stand.
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Interestingly, when the VSun tried to get the guy who ran the provincial program to sell off a billion dollars of public land for a song to talk about it, current BC Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson refused.
Instead, his braintrust trotted out the former mayor of Lotusland, and past ruler of Spam-A-Lot, Smilin' Sammy Sullivan to do the explaining.
As you might of already guessed Mr. Sullivan both admitted he knew nothing about the progam while he simultaneously defended the program because...
Real Estate experts!
...Postmedia requested an interview with Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson, who was in charge of the program when it launched in 2013, but Liberal housing critic Sam Sullivan responded instead. He did not know details of the deals Postmedia examined, but defended the program and said the Liberals relied on the advice of real estate experts when making decisions...
Well, one thing this tells us for sure is that Sammy's war chest must really be all spent now given that neither of the former City Caucus boys have yet to pen any puff pieces backing up their former fearless leader/ruler.
Silver lining, maybe?
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4 comments:
“It is normal for government to buy and sell,” said Sullivan, MLA for Vancouver-False Creek.
But is it normal for a government to be bought and sold?
Lew as you way better than most...
For the BC Libs and their shadowy criminal activity this has always been their modus operandi. It is all they know.
Bill
No government owned land out to be sold. We need it for the future. It can be leased in 50 year chunks but that would be all.
The land would have been a wonderful opportunity for all sorts of housing, such as co-ops, housing for disabled, a new hospital to replace the one which was there. Parks, instead the developers got a smoking hot deal and we the citizens got fucked without being kissed.
of course Wilkinson won't talk about it. He is the B.C. lieberal party leader and they're trying to put as much distance between him and his "misdeeds" as possible. Lets hope some one reprints the article in 2 years during the election.
I want to know how much that developer and the company principles along with family and friends donated to the B.C. Lieberals. Perhaps then we the tax payers could take the developers back to court and sue to have the property returned. Wonder how much of the money was borrow, how much was laundered money, how much was off shore money. Not even the paper is going to answer those questions, because in my opinion, they were complicit in all of this. You will notice all of these stories are out now that the B.C. Lieberals are out of office. in the end, wait until the msm tags this onto the NDP during the next provincial election.
Didn't read the articles but do wonder how many times they used the term "government" instead of B.C. Lieberals. That was the one thing I noticed in Sam Coopers early articles, the word "government". by the time he wrote the articles the "government" was the NDP, not the B.C. Lieberals its not just the words, its how they're used.
Lew et al.--
I think, perhaps, that for Mr. Sullivan those two definitions of normalcy just may be perceived as equivalent.
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