Condo Conversions Continue Despite Low Vacancy Rate

Wednesday night, after over two hours of presentations and discussion, Regina Planning Commission decided to approve the application to convert the Viva Apartments on 2141 Rae Street into condominiums.

The recommendation for approval comes despite the fact that city staff drafted a strongly-worded report recommending denial; and despite the fact that city policy and provincial legislation indicate that conversions should be denied when the vacancy rate drops below 3% (as reported on this blog back on Dec 11, the present vacancy rate is 0.5%); and despite the fact that five tenants appeared before RPC to express their opposition to the conversion; and despite the fact that according to the city's survey of tenants, 64% of them are opposed to the conversion (when vacancy rates drop below 3%, city policy requires 75% of tenants be in agreement with an application); and despite the fact that two members of the Cathedral Area Community Association and one from the Regina Anti-Poverty Ministry appeared before RPC to oppose the conversion.

In short, the 2141 Rae application has failed every test put before it, official and unofficial, and yet the RPC has recommended approval.

The reasons for the approval? There seem to be two.

On one hand, it was pointed out that at the time the application was made (early last year) the vacancy rate for the central area was 3.5% (the citywide rate was around 1.5%). It was felt by some that because the 2141 Rae application has taken so long (this its third time before RPC) the applicant shouldn't be punished because of the delay and the older area rate should be used (and the older citywide rate ignored). This, of course, ignores the fact that the old area vacancy figure was based on October 2007 data which was already several months out of date at the time the application was made. Assuming the rate was dropping over that time (it had to have been to get from 3.5% to 0.5% in a year) then it's unlikely the actual vacancy rate for the central area was above 3% at that time.

The second reason cited was that the applicant -- DR Realty which is being represented by property manager, Nicor Developments -- is willing to let tenants who moved in before the application was submitted to stay for up to five years (or for life if the tenant is over 70 years old). Also, those tenants will have rent controls in place while they live there. RPC noted that if the conversion is not approved, the property owner will still go forward with renovations to the building but would be forced to finance those renovations by raising rents. Seeing as there are no rent controls in Saskatchewan, the applicant could simply price the apartments out of reach of the current tenants.

Sound to you like a case of a developer holding its tenants and the RPC hostage with threats of massive rent increases? Yeah, to me too.

After 2141 Rae, there are presently in the neighbourhood of 19 more condo conversion applications to be considered before Councillor Clipsham's conversion moratorium comes into effect. That means there are 500 more rental units that will likely be lost to the market and that's going to be a disaster for anyone who rents in this city --- not only will they find it hard to move if they have to, there's also the problem that, as anyone who has taken Econ 101 will tell you, constricting supply while there's an increase in demand is going to lead to a spike in rents.

When this was pointed out during the Wednesday meeting, RPC chair, Coucillor Fougere, remarked that each of the remaining applications will be judged on its own merits so no one should assume that all of the applications will be recommended for approval.

That's reassuring. Because clearly, considering all the opposition and all the factors working against it, if the RPC couldn't bring itself to say no to 2141 Rae, they'll definitely start rejecting applications any day now.

And, as if to put that to the test: shortly after the 2141 Rae conversion was approved, RPC voted to approve another condo conversion on 15 Coventry Road with hardly any debate whatsoever (and that despite the fact that city staff again recommended it be denied on account of the low vacancy rate).

Both the 2141 Rae and 15 Coventry Road conversions will go before city council on Monday January 26 for final approval.

Travel Advisory

As a favour to anyone who may be traveling in the New York area by air in the near future I'm posting this warning that Secretary Michael Chertoff [pictured] of U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued today.

Orange Alert: Recent information has reached this office that an insidious group of terrorists with roots in Canada have begun operating in the New York area. With ruthless efficiency, our sources inform us, they are targeting domestic flights taking off from La Guardia airport on suicide missions that pose tremendous risk to Americans. To combat this threat, our office will be pressing Congress to introduce heightened security measures at all border crossings with Canada, including the possible creation of a series of camoflaged outposts manned by drunken louts equipped with shot-guns. In the meantime, anyone with information on this terrorist cell, which is believed to be headed by an individual with the code name Branta Canadensis , is urged to contact Det. Andy Sipowicz of the New York Police Department immediately. God Bless America.

TV is Dead, Long Live TV

Just read this interview. It's with Jeff Macpherson and Tosca Musk of Tiki Bar TV. (Yes. I realize I'm a little obsessed.) It's a pretty thorough behind-the-scenes look at how the show came to be. Lots of fun for anyone who's a fan.

But it's also worth reading for what it has to say about new media.

I found it very interesting to learn how internet-based shows like Tiki Bar are devising new business models for creative content. Basically, they're managing to make a living even though they give their show away for nothing. (Which is kind of like the prairie dog, come to think of it. Holy crap. We're cutting edge!)

Compare that to the dinosaurs in the mainstream media. The media conglomerates are wringing their hands over their intellectual property being pirated and everyday they're coming up with new, more draconian measures to hinder the free flow of content and punish those who circumvent them. And they're losing market share as a result.

Meanwhile, people like Macpherson and co. are making some truly inspired creative content, giving it away, and rewriting the rules of entertainment commerce as they go. Personally I'm pretty excited to see where this will all wind up.

One thing I think is pretty clear is television is going to be an early casualty in all this. Not being able to get shows on demand and for nothing (or next-to-nothing) is just not going to cut it much longer. (On top of that, switching to digital this year and making millions of televisions obsolete isn't going to help their situation any.) And I have to say, after being inundated over the xmas holidays by my parent's prime-time viewing choices, the networks aren't exactly churning out quality material.

Maybe the networks won't go black, but they might become the exclusive domain of reality shows while all the cutting edge drama and comedy wind up online. Kind of like what happened to radio when television took over.

Football and politics

What do you say when you meet up with someone who you really respect, but in a very public work, you want to tell them – and fail to tell them – that they’ve missed the point? That’s the dilemma I faced at a Conexus Credit Union branch when I ran into Rod Pedersen, CKRM’s sports director, play-by-play guy for the stations’ Pats and Riders broadcasts, and author of Green Magic, a book about the 2007 Saskatchewan Roughriders.

The book, originally (at least in my mind) was to have been the subject of an 800 word review, which got cut down further and further into a squib of a review that appeared in the pre-Christmas edition under recommended gifts (the same thing happened to two other books, by Jim Pitsula, that I wanted to review for prairie dog). Space considerations and other stories thwarted my and Whitworth’s attempts to publish anything else.

The worst I can say about Pedersen’s book is the best that I can say: inside a good book is a great book struggling to get out. Green Magic was written because the Riders couldn’t or wouldn’t publish a commemorative DVD of the 2007 season (something about not being able to secure broadcasting rights). Pedersen’s book is good at describing the 2007 season, but he’s a sports guy, not a political studies major, sociologist or historian. And the REAL story of the Saskatchewan Roughriders – how they went from a mom-and-pop organizations where the season ticket drives could have been themed by Pete Droge and the Sinners to the flagship not just of the CFL but also of, for lack of a better term, Saskatchewan Inc., has yet to be told. I think Steve Mazurak (former Rider receiver, local boy, ran for the Liberals in the same riding where I ran for the Rhinos in 1984, currently the Rider’s VP of marketing) is the Riders’ unsung hero for putting the Riders on a much more stable financial footing.

The Riders took everything in the Al Ford business playbook, made a photographic negative out of it, and succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. No more frantic pack the park days that revealed the Riders then-true purpose (not to win football games, but to get 20K or so in the city to buy meals at the restaurants and bars and sleep off the hangovers in the hotels). After Hillsborough, these were acts of madness. As well, the Riders lifted the home blackout policy, got ‘retro’ third jerseys,’ and otherwise gave the Riders a massive warchest.

Somebody writing a story like that could have given the Saskatchewan equivalent of America’s Game, a great book on how the NFL reinvented itself into the marketing machine it is today. Maybe that wasn’t Pedersen’s mandate or ambition when he wrote Green Magic: I wish it was.

Brains Over Brawn

January 15 prairie dog hits the streets with our look at U.S. President-elect Barack Obama. In advance of the 2004 U.S. election, we did a Bush Bash issue. No, that didn't entail us throwing a big party to celebrate George W.'s imminent victory over John Kerry. Instead, we sought to highlight all the things we hated/despised about arguably the worst president America has ever had. Will things be better under Obama? We certainly hope so. In our Jan. 15 cover feature we discuss some of the changes we can expect to see in terms of Saskatchewan/U.S. and Canada/U.S. relations. One area we don't address directly -- but do indirectly in an article on what Obama's election means for the Religious Right -- is that while Obama himself professes to be a man of faith, he is not a dogmatic Christian who believes in Biblical literalism. During the election campaign, some of the rhetoric emanating from the Republican camp, especially Sarah Palin, made it seem that anyone with a university degree was an "elitist". Call it Revenge of the Eggheads or whatever, but intellect and scientific rationalism are now in, and we're not the only ones who think that's good a thing.

The Harder They Fall

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is within 60 days of shutting down. If no one buys the newspaper -- and in America's current economic climate, who would? -- it'll either become a web-only publication or be gone for good. Whitworth's favorite alt-weekly, The Stranger, also based in Seattle, blogs about the announcement party.

Hat tip to TPM and Americablog

He's Probably Right

A couple days ago I posted a link to this story in the Guardian about a British advertising campaign promoting atheism. The catch phrase: "There's Probably No God."

There's been more discussion around the campaign in the Guardian around this (not really a surprise, people are very attached to their make-believe sky-spirit). I like this article by A.C. Grayling, who brings the smackdown on the the word "probably". Turns out the it's in there because the sales twits who sell ads on buses think it would be legally inaccurate to simply say "there is no God".

Grayling has this to say:

"There is something delicious about the thought of a functionary in an advertising agency doing ontology by arbitrating on the question of which fictional characters need a grey area of uncertainty around discussion of their existence – Little Red Riding Hood? Rumpelstiltskin? Santa? Betty Boop? Saint Veronica (who allegedly started out as sweat on a cloth and became a person)? Aphrodite? Wotan? Batman?"

Fun stuff. Read the whole thing here.

Russian Roulette and your Hoagie

I generally regard Macleans' columnist Paul Wells and Globe and Mail editorial writer Adam Radwanski as the left and right forks of the Canadian political establishment's tongue. Wells is more annoying to me because he's an elitist twerp, a graduate of the University of Western Ontario (but I repeat myself) and fills his Macleans' blog with references to jazz performers. Radwanski, in comparison, is a Toronto Argonauts supporter -- a figure more to be pitied than scorned.

So when I read their latest separate blogs, there's a little bit of 'I-told-you-so,' combined with a feeling that these gomers are just discovering what we in prairie dog already knew -- that there's only two sides to Stephen Harper and his minions: the devious and the incompetent. These guys couldn't run a beer stand in a baseball game in Hell.

Wells' analysis of the Harper government's failure to hold an investigation into the listeriosis outbreak is here: Radwanski's is here. Both are required reading for anyone -- ANYONE -- who sincerely thinks Harper's government has any idea about what governments are supposed to do.

The Aloha President

Just found out I'm supposed to be working on a piece for our upcoming issue about what Obama's presidency could mean to our Prime Minister. And that got me thinking, screw Harper, what does Obama's election mean to me?

Well, despite what the supermarket tabloids would have you believe, the guy's from Hawaii. And that means we could be in for a long overdue revival of Tiki culture. Heck, if the Wall Street Journal can be trusted anymore, then one has been brewing for some time. Now, maybe it's the mai tai in me but if that's the case, all I have to say is, Hau’oli makahiki hou! (That's "happy new year," by the way.)

Could this perhaps finally reverse the tide of faux-Irish pubs in which our country is awash? Don't get me wrong. Few things make me happier than to swill beer surrounded by Guinness posters and Harp logos while Great Big Sea plays overloud on the soundsystem. Oh, those things never get tired. But just once I'd like to go out and order a fogcutter and have it come to me in a moai mug with a little parasol. And sit on wicker.

It's not like that's without precedent, even in this city. Why, the Regina Inn was once home to the Ky-Tiki Polynesian Theatre Restaurant, one of western Canada's last great tiki lounges. That image in the top left is the cover of its menu. I've also included pics of the cocktail list and a swizzle stick as further proof of Regina's luau legacy, all courtesy the collection of Mimi Payne via the Critiki website.

Flaherty's Double-Dog Dare

Now that Iggy and his Stooges are backing away from the coalition, Jim Flaherty is designing a budget that's top-heavy with government tax cuts. Which is a standard Milton Friedman-esque budget that will be top-heavy with tax cuts but will have little to no stimulus package. And Iggy will smile, roll over, and play dead.

Tax cuts aren't the economic answer. If you're scared you're going to lose your job, you're going to stop spending, no matter what tax breaks the government may offer. If you think your job is safe, then you'll buy that house or car. That was the lesson that should have been learned from Flaherty's cut to the GST. But Flaherty is a Conservative. Conservatives never learn.