UsVille
By now you have likely heard about the massive, two hundred million dollar, plus, interest free loan that the 'purchaser' (i.e. Holborn Properties) received from the 'vendor' (i.e. you and me) when they bought the Little Mountain tract in central Lotusland and started demolishing existing public housing soon thereafter.
This is because, finally, thanks to the digging of David Chudnovsky and local advocates as well as Jeremy Allingham and the CBC, we finally got to see the 'contract', which was signed in 2008 and has been amended since.
Yesterday, in addition to his piece that was posted on the CBC British Columbia website (where the entire 'contract' can be downloaded), Mr. Allingham also posted the following on his Twittmachine feed:
Mr. Allingham's tweet led me to go digging through the original 'contract' (careful: pdf file) where I found the following in Section 2.3 of the April 25, 2008, 'Amended and Restated Purchase and Sale Agreement':
Gosh.
Does this mean that the 'purchaser' (i.e. Holborn Properties) doesn't even have to start paying back the principal on the $210,957,340 interest free loan that, again, was laid out by the 'vendor (i.e. you and me) on that 'Remaining Balance' mentioned above as long as they leave the bulldozed and weeded over land fallow (except for a single tranche of already built, but excluded, non-market public housing) while the value of the land just keeps on appreciating?
Well, according to Holborn Properties spokesperson Megan Schrader, it would appear that just might be the case.
Dan Fumano had that part of the story in his piece published in yesterday's Vancouver Sun:
Imagine that!
...(Ms.) Schrader, the Holborn spokeswoman, said that remaining balance of $210.9 million will be paid through the proceeds of market housing sales, and the arrangement was structured this way “to prioritize the construction of the social housing units.”
“In payment structures for large land sales, it is very common for the Purchaser to provide a deposit and pay the remaining balance as the land is developed,” Schrader said. “The proceeds of the Little Mountain sale provided immediate funding to the province, allowing them to reinvest that money into affordable housing projects.”...
Imagine that!
______
By the way, that Section 2.3 is some Catch...errrrr....Section (it starts on pg 30 of the 'contract' pdf file)...Section 2.3 pretty much lays out the entire deal in financial terms...That 'deposit' that the Holborn spokesperson mentioned above?...In total it appears to be all of thirty-five million dollars....Given that, I don't know about you all but I, for one, sure would be interested to learn what the 'purchaser's' non-market housing parcel is worth today.
And here's a question for, say, the guy who was in charge of the deal at the time....How, exactly, did Holborn's $35 million lead to more reinvestment in affordable housing projects than, say, $210.9 million, would have at the time?....And, to be clear, when answering that question, phoney provincial budget number re-jigging does not count as a legitimate explanation.
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10 comments:
This fiasco has Gassy Coleman written all over it.
There is only one way that guy still walks around free of criminal liabilities--he's a made man, and the watchers ain't watching some of us the same as the rest who ain't brothers.
Keith--
From Mr. Allingham's original piece...
"CBC News requested interviews with Holborn Properties, the B.C. Liberal Party and former housing minister Rich Coleman. Holborn and Coleman did not respond and the Liberals declined to comment. "
Interestingly, Ms. Bond of the BC Liberals and the afore-mentioned Ms. Shrader of Holborn did speak to postmedia's Dan Fumano - although his piece came out later in the day yesterday.
At the BC Liberal annual “Beans ‘n Jeans” BBQ in July of 2012 Christy Clark introduced Rich Coleman as “Mr. Fix-It”.
For a double entendre be used to effect, both interpretations must at least be possible. But one is usually far more likely.
In this instance I know which one that would be; and so did Christy.
Back in 2013 I did this post on all the properties that the Province owns, owned, including Victoria's inner harbours'.
https://blogborgcollective.blogspot.com/2013/10/christy-clarks-british-columbia-selling.html
I'm sure Mr. Eby is busy enough as it is, but perhaps he could devote some time to this. It stinks on ice.
Holbern, with is favorable purchase agreement knows the longer they wait to build, the more money they make. Given its location, building an upscale development in ten years is going to make some one a shit load of money. Coleman was just such a generous guy along with the rest of those B.C. Lieberals. Well except for kids who had their child support clawed back nickel by nickel by Christy and the gang, if their parents were on disability.
Give Holbern back their money, expropriate the land and use it for affordable housing for people who live and/or work in the City of Vancouver.
Would appear the good Mr. Coleman had his fingers in a lot of pies. Wonder how that lawsuit in the nanaimo courts turned out and did they ever get Coleman to testify.
Don't know what the B.C. lieberals got out of this, but I do hope they didn't do it for free because that would have demonstrated how stupid they really were/are. Doing it for personal gain, I can understand. Doing this for free, not so much. No one in my opinion does a deal like this unless they're getting some thing out of it, Oh, right lets not forget how the Socreds sold all of the north shore of False Creek for $50M. They call themselves business people?
Mr. Eby/Mr. Horgan, its time to look into this and lets not use the horsemen for this investigation, I do believe that is where Coleman started.
@ e.a.f.
Donations from HOLBORN HOLDINGS LTD, aka HOLBORN DEVELOPMENTS LTD WEST GEORGIA,
https://contributions.electionsbc.gov.bc.ca/pcs/SA1ASearchResults.aspx?Contributor=Holborn&PartySK=5&Party=BC+Liberal+Party&ClassSK=0&ClassificationName=(ALL)&DateTo=&DateFrom=
$184,190.00 Total From
2005/03/15 $2,990.00 to 2017/05/26 $25,000.00
Bonus year 50,000.00 2013/10/09 was just a coincidence, eh
etc.....
And then there's this, partnership with Trump Tower
https://holborn.ca/holborn-ta-global-bhd-and-trump-hotel-collection-launch-trump-international-hotel-tower-vancouver/
Holborn encourages innovation and values excellence recognizing that in the pursuit of this, they can expand, achieve and progress. The company’s commitment to social responsibility is reflected in its vision to be a diversified, international entity that has a presence in every region and influences these regions in the most appropriate and beneficial ways.
Who is Holborn, and what is their history?
holborn.ca
Vaughn Palmer's article this morning:
https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/vaughn-palmer-land-deal-shows-b-c-liberal-coverup-incompetence-and-disregard-for-the-public-interest
... a few weeks after winning re-election in 2013, they put out a news release announcing that the government had concluded the sales agreement with Holborn for the Little Mountain property.' VP
and we know from yesterday, here, that the BC Liberals accepted a $50,000 donation within those same few weeks.
2005/03/15 $2,990.00 to 2017/05/26 $25,000.00
Bonus year 50,000.00 2013/10/09 was just a coincidence, eh
NVG, thank you for the additional information. They didn't do it for free, but gee they didn't charge much, in my humble opinion. Of course we don't know what else was "given"
The "mission statement" still has me laughing. omg, they expect us to believe that b.s. Well given their mission statement perhaps they will "gift" the province and the underhoused in this province, the land. I'm sure the co-op housing sector would find the "down payment" to pay for Holborn's expenses for the land.
Haven't read Vaughn Palmer's article yet, but the reference does cause me to wonder where the hell was he when all of this was going down. If my aging memory serves me well, according to Palmer, during the B.C. Lieberal's reign of error, he didn't write much about them which was negative and neither did the Vancouver Sun.
e.a.f.
further reading you might be interested in.
https://ibis.geog.ubc.ca/~ewyly/students/Thomson(2010).pdf
THE DEATH AND LIFE OF THE LITTLE MOUNTAIN HOUSING PROJECT: BC’S FIRST PUBLIC HOUSING COMMUNITY
by
Thomas Michael Thomson (interviewed the owner of Holborn)
A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS
Page 243 of 331
7.1.2 The Developer and In-Moving Condominium Purchasers: The Gentrification Connection On May 8, 2008 BC Housing announced that it had selected Holborn Properties to purchase and redevelop Little Mountain. Holborn will redevelop Little Mountain into a mixed-income community. Although the developer has yet to present any development plans that show how much additional density it would like to put on the site, the company had indicated that it will seek re-zoning.
Thus, the very supportive housing being showcased to the international media in Vancouver for the Olympics was achieved by demolishing public housing and displacing almost 200 families. Protecting rental housing and preventing residents from being involuntarily displaced due to the Games were among the commitments made by all three levels of government in the Olympic Inner-City Inclusive Commitment Statement. The Little Mountain redevelopment initially seemed unrelated to the Olympics. But the provincial government has linked Little Mountain with the Olympics by using the sale proceeds from Little Mountain to pay for the supportive housing on display at the Olympics. This is a clear violation of the Inner-City Inclusive Commitment Statement.
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Page 246 of 331
When I interviewed Joo Kim Tiah on December 21, 2009 he indicated that, while the global economic downturn has affected the redevelopment of Little Mountain, the impact would have been worse if they had been further along in the development process:
It has affected it, don’t get me wrong. But I’m trying to look at it in a positive way. I mean everyone is saying, which is true, that the price of the transaction was during the peak of the market so hence it has to be a high price and because of that it’s going to be tough for us and we need to have high densities. It’s true to a certain extent. However, if we had started the process and gotten really into it and incurred a bunch of costs, let’s say we already got approval for the amount of density to make it work. Then the economy came down. Then we are like, now we are screwed right. Because nobody’s going to buy these units, not at these price points. And we’ve incurred a bunch of costs, maybe we’ve incurred marketing scheme or sales centre whatever, kind of what happened to us in our other projects like the Ritz. When we were already started in constructing then the market crash comes, that is much worse So in this case, it was good in some ways that we hadn’t actually started, so now we can try to adjust accordingly.
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