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It’s a Canadian/Anglo thing to be sure. However these endless engagements that frankly only give voice to the frankly uninformed it is just performative and have nothing to do with democracy. Canada doesn’t have a direct democracy, we elect those to make decisions. They need to stop wasting time and money. If you want to have a direct democracy then that’s great, but we’ll have to make our education a lot better.
Is this common law? Or just the Anglo love of performance politics?
I see. That’s unfortunate, that requirement needs to be stripped. It’s a waste of resources and time.
There's probably also a lack of desirable homes to downsize too. The popular older person home is the medium size bungalow that has everything they need on the ground floor and usable yards to garden. But that's only really found in old suburbs, they don't really exist in new communities due to lot cost and size. And even for old bungalows, they're the frequent target of redevelopment because of their large, wide lots.
This is a required shift that I'm not exactly sure how to initiate. Personally, I cannot believe the fees that some buildings charge. It was cheaper per month for my wife and I to buy a duplex in Marda Loop than a decent size condo simply because of the condo fees.
I've also heard horror stories about the fees going through the roof if any structural issues or expensive repairs are required on a condo building. Some of the older downtown condos charge fees that are nearly as high as the mortgage would be. From an investment perspective, I hear that initial buyers in East Village have property values that are still underwater.
So... Vancouver is looking at building a Stadium for the Whitecaps. Looks like it could be near the PNE, with this and the amphitheatre we should just copy paste and edit just enough we don't get sued for copywrite.Ideally you want something that can nicely go from 10,000 to 30,000 seat capacity.
The lower end being for Cavalry and Wild. The higher end being for Grey Cup, a big soccer match, outdoor NHL game and a big concert which would actually have higher capacity because you can use the field.
There are a lot of simple designs out there that can be pretty basic, which is all we need. Best comparisons are probably MLS stadiums...
Cincinnati
TQL Stadium - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
26,000 Seats
Opened May 16, 2021
Construction cost $250 million (343.75 million Canadian)
View attachment 666756
St. Louis
Energizer Park - Wikipedia
22,423 Seats
Opened November 16, 2022
Construction cost $457.8 million (629.48 million Canadian)
View attachment 666755
Austin
Q2 Stadium - Wikipedia
20,500 Seats
Opened June 16, 2021
Construction cost $260 million (357.50 million Canadian)
View attachment 666754
Columbus
Lower.com Field - Wikipedia
20,371 Seats
Opened July 3, 2021
Construction cost $314 million (431.75 million Canadian)
View attachment 666753
So with a 2025 budget of $500 million Canadian you could probably get something like one of these. You could probably cut out a lot of bells and whistles (roof, permanent amenities, etc.) to maybe get it to $350 million Canadian. That doesn't seem crazy expensive to me. Especially if you put a bubble on it and call it a community recreation space from Mid-November to Mid-April.
The new Spruce Meadows area structure plan outlines that at some point in the next 30 years the Canada ring will be replaced by a new 12k soccer specific stadium.
Doesn't that chart show we're building more per 1000 people than 10 years ago? So we are building more after accounting for population change. If we hold population steady, our pace of building has really increased. Comparisons to the post-war periods aren't really useful. The Yonge street subway was built in 5 years. Some of that is political or contracting issues, but part of that is also more stringent safety regulation and other positive things.
There's a segment of the population that want to downsize and there's condos built for that in places like Mahogany and University District. Condos over 1000 sq ft, close to $1M dollars, and concrete build. Alberta is actually a bit better, but in places like BC and ON where the issue is probably much more acute, there's sizable transaction costs. Even if someone was ok to move to a condo or something smaller, they'd need to lose $200k in taxes/agent fees/lawyers/etc. that it ends up not being worth it.
Another city and province getting bullied into building a new stadium. And it just happens to coincide with the ownership group looking to sell and the Whitecaps among the 3 lowest valued team in the MLS. Guarantee the new owners will threaten to leave to force a new stadium. It's nice to see sports leagues grow, but a really sad part of professional sports is how corporate it's become. Every team needs their own unique stadium filled maximally with suites. It's not as big of an issue in Canada as the US where some cities have an incredible amount of stadium capacity. And unfortunately if Canada wants to take part, we got to fork over public money for it too. I don't mind Scotia Place as the Saddledome was really showing it's age and had structural issues, but forcing a move out of BC Place is pretty unnecessary. Especially when the main "complaint" is scheduling due to upgrades needed for FIFA, which would obviously be done by next year.
This is from the ASP which is from 2020 so I'd take it with a grain of salt. Although the CPL seems to be here to stay so I would expect this plan to still be something they'd like to do.
Other than Toronto, outside of hockey, it really is a struggle for Canadian cities to keep their pro sports franchises when the US has dozens of cities willing to spend obscene amounts of taxpayer dollars for pro sports facilities.
