Remember that by killing the Villages Plan, Sean, ABC, & "Green" Pete Fry scuttled Complete Communities, an essential Big Move of the Climate Emergency Action Plan. 1000s will commute in cars from exurbs & fossil gas will heat more homes, regardless of what CoV rules say.

Can’t get this story out of my head. The delays aren’t unusual, the cost comes out at $100k per unit or ~$400/month rent for those non-market homes. Same issues come up for market housing, developers could keep building at lower rents if munis did not impose those delays and uncertainty.

Ryan Jabs@ryanjabs.bsky.social · 2d ago

Another window into why even non-profit housing is so expensive. Saanich delays led to an extra $9milliom (!!) in costs. No one in Saanich is held accountable so they keep dragging their feet and increasing costs. bcbusiness.ca/real-estate/...

Allam polling that high has to be a party name thing, right? The “use a name that people already have opinions about from another level of politics” strategy in action again

Polling Canada@canadianpolling.bsky.social · yesterday

Vancouver - Mayoral Polling: 🟡Sim (ABC): 30% 🔴Allam (LIB): 19% 🟢Fry (GRN): 19% 🔵Hardwick (TEAM): 14% 🟣Bligh (VOTE): 7% ⚪️Azaroff (ONE): 5% 🟠Allen (COPE): 4% Research Co. / Aug 1, 2026

I would like to move away from US companies for hosting. Anyone know a VPS provider in Western Canada (latency matters, so Ontario/Quebec is out) that they’d recommend?

i love this building that just got approved by the toronto government to start development thats an 11 story residential apartment building with retail space on the ground floor, with a buddhist temple on the very top

This has been stuck in my head in an oddly positive way; there’s lots we can be doing to improve wildfire outcomes in North America in the short and medium term!

Stephen Jacob Smith@stephenjacobsmith.com · last wk.

These crazy wildfires in Spain and France have only destroyed “hundreds” of homes? LA’s 2025 fires destroyed 18,000. Noncombustible materials and a tight wildland-urban interface are probably a better strategy than clearing vegetation and spacing out houses. www.nytimes.com/live/2026/07...

Really remarkable article, the Anglican Church is going gloves off against multiple cities. $9M and 6 years of delay to build 85 units of below-market seniors housing on their own land

Ryan Jabs@ryanjabs.bsky.social · 2d ago

Another window into why even non-profit housing is so expensive. Saanich delays led to an extra $9milliom (!!) in costs. No one in Saanich is held accountable so they keep dragging their feet and increasing costs. bcbusiness.ca/real-estate/...

Some parallels to how zoning was introduced in North America; I get the impression that there was a lot of demand for the “we will keep apartments and shops away from you” awfulness that Bartholomew was selling

Christof Spieler@christofspieler.bsky.social · 2d ago

I think the conspiracy is comforting to people -- "a few bad guys did this." The reality -- "electeds, planners, and most of the public believed that the car was the future and rail transit was outdated" is actually more unsettling since it raises the question of what we're getting wrong now.

this is not true. there was no conspiracy. it didn't matter whether the streetcars were publicly owned (seattle, detroit) or private (los angeles, atlanta). a thread (because i wrote a whole-ass book on this): 1/?

David Ho@davidho.bsky.social · 3d ago

Is everyone aware of the General Motors streetcar conspiracy? In the mid-20th century, auto and oil interests bought up electric streetcar systems across the US and systematically replaced them with bus routes and paved roads, funneling commuters toward private cars.

Google restaurant rating scale in Japan 1 star: food does not quite meet expectations 2 stars: the proprietor greets you brusquely 3-4 stars: immaculate food & unquestionable service 4.5+ stars: only tourists go there

Doug@doug.city · 3d ago

Google hotel rating scale (in North America): >4.5 stars: Very nice (for the class of hotel) 4 stars: Nice enough 3.5 stars: Barely acceptable 3 stars: You probably won’t get bedbugs 2 stars: You probably will get bedbugs 1 star: You probably will get murdered and the bedbugs will eat your corpse

Police in many parts of Europe are very aggressive about enforcement and seeking out distracted drivers, while also having better designed streets. I don’t think we need to pit these things against each other.

The War on Cars@thewaroncars.bsky.social · 5d ago

Catching 74 distracted drivers in six hours is good, but what would be better is redesigning the street so drivers are forced to pay attention.

Beautiful 18th-century botanical models in wax from the Museo della Specola in Florence (source: www.finestresullarte.info/opere-e-arti...)

"We can't use cut and cover in historic downtown San Jose." Meanwhile Les Halles, Paris, 1973:

driving to the Okanagan and filling up inside the Translink gas tax boundary, because I’m not a tax evader

Once again, this is how San Francisco and Silicon Valley’s economy actually works:

Pride Ott 🦦 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️@hikoukihikouki9.bsky.social · 6d ago

In all the AI economic doom scenarios the AI rents all accrue to big tech but reality probably is that they’ll accrue to people whose parents bought SF real estate in the 60’s

Commercial Drive squared this circle in a funny/sad way, by banning apartments on only one side of the high street

Michelle Cyca@michellecyca.com · 6d ago

you can have neighbourhood of multimillion-dollar single family homes or you can have a vibrant, walkable neighbourhood of shops and restaurants but babe, you cannot have both in one place

I do wonder if, given rural-urban polarization, a "stick it to the big cities (by forcing them to allow more homes)" approach would work politically. Are there any precedents out there?

Sorry Buddy@3cityyimby.bsky.social · 6d ago

Might have to run a deep-cover play with the BCCons. Get elected then 'punish' Vancouver & Victoria for not voting correctly by eliminating their zoning & bylaw powers and forcing them to approve anything that meets BC Building Code. And ditch the Van City Charter.

omg so much dam enthusiast representation on japanese wikipedia (articles autotranslated to english in my browser)

You love to see it:

CBC BC News RSS Feed (Unofficial)@cbc-bc-rss-unoff.yvr.whims.io · 7d ago

Floating spa to be moored in Vancouver's Kitsilano marina, despite opposition

thinkin' about how every now and then the Japanese government tweaks building standards *across the entire country* to allow more floor space, new uses, etc. www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Seeing a lot of people (mostly from outside Vancouver) miss this aspect of the Villages rejection.

GRIDS Vancouver@grids.reillywood.com · last wk.

Planning staff do deserve a decent amount of blame too. The "you can't rebuild your home or add a laneway because we're requiring commercial use" thing drove a *lot* of anger and it was completely avoidable! It's free and easy to keep allowing existing uses!

I just donated the maximum amount to OneCity's victory fund, and I'd encourage you to donate whatever you can www.onecityvancouver.ca/donate

GRIDS Vancouver@grids.reillywood.com · last wk.

@lucymaloney.bsky.social was the only councillor willing to stick up for this, and I appreciate that a lot bsky.app/profile/davi...

Grab bag of thoughts re: the Villages I think the last few years have shown us that the wave of support for more housing was... not illusionary exactly, but people don't feel strongly enough about it to counteract very concrete+organized NIMBY opposition. Grim.

Ok, they severed the SES part, so this is the vote on the main part of it: A-J. And, the Villages Plan is dead. This hurts. ABC, COPE, and the Greens are all unwilling to take even quite modest action on expanding low-rise apartment areas.

I thought this was a typo but no, the (mostly) beloved 24-hour bakery/cafe is getting into real estate development, neat

Kenneth Chan@iamkennethchan.bsky.social · last wk.

Breka Bakery & Cafe proposes 30-storey hotel tower next to SkyTrain's Marine Drive Station in Vancouver. - 324 hotel rooms - 32,000 sf conference space - 30th floor restaurant - Breka's industrial bakery - Many solar panels #vanre #vancre #vanpoli dailyhive.com/vancouver/85...

ABC Vancouver councillors making big hints that they will be voting down the Villages plan in council today. A big retreat from Ken Sim, who made prezoning these areas for apartments of up to six storeys a top priority three years ago. www.vancouverisawesome.com/local-news/a...

ABC Vancouver pushes to prezone 26 city 'villages' to accelerate housing

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim announces seven "bold" ideas on the housing file.

vancouverisawesome.com

OK I'M BACK! I'm catching up, sorry. SKY has an amendment. Sever the recommendations. ABC hinted that they might want to move forward with Single Stairs, but not the rest of the Villages Plan. Problem is...there's no zoning to allow single stair apartments 🙄

I enjoy that one of the people interviewed is a cattle rancher (!) who is pretty clear that this is about not wanting to look at a wind turbine: "You didn't do so good on oil and gas, and this is way more visual."

CBC BC News RSS Feed (Unofficial)@cbc-bc-rss-unoff.yvr.whims.io · last wk.

Leaders in northeast B.C. push back against province's plan to fast track new wind farms

This is a fun example because not-yet-a-councillor Orr NIMBY'd it *hard*. A church building on their own property with no displacement!

Abundant Housing Vancouver@ahvancouver.bsky.social · last wk.

The Villages Plan is not that controversial & Council should approve all 17 villages. There was not that much opposition considering most complaints were poorly founded & the result of NIMBY fear-mongering. For comparison, consider 1805 Larch, ONE 5-storey apartment building.

I was gonna do a poll but can't figure out how to do one in Bluesky, so... How're you all feeling about the Villages Plan vote tomorrow? 1) Punt to after election/mOaR CoNSUltAtiOn 2) Killed 3) Pass a pilot (eg 2 or 3 Villages instead of all 17) 4) Approve Unfortunately I think #1 is most likely