Inclination: Nelson

good enough  
simply is not
good enough

               
                       
                     

The Nelson Commons Cash-Dash

The name Nelson Commons is pretentious twaddle. A condo-box with a supermarket, insufficient parking and nowhere for children living there to play safely in any direction hardly fits the image of an old-world Common (no s!).
Park this!

That said one must agree with Councillor Morrison on her resistance to the City expected to continue giving way more to Nelson Commons (NC) than it receives in return. And Councillor Dailly's support - as member of the Housing Committee yet!
Movement!

 
For detailed info on NC - again! and now what! and they can't be serious! - go to:
www.nelson.ca
Agendas
Reg. Council Meeting - 7 Apr, 2015
Development Variance Permit Application - 708 Vernon St.
Nelson Commons

The first time the 3 now-called (un)affordable residential units were mentioned was:Van City Credit Union long ago stipulating that its financial participation in NC was partly contingent on making 3 units available as then-called social housing. They are not a manifestation of the Coop's social consciousness! Predictably - and over time - NC has turned these 3 must-or-else units into an emblem of its own tree-hugging wonderfulness - while in reality, now blatantly - attempting to use them as an additional money-maker. 
From social housing to market-value real-estate - in addition expecting this to be subsidized by the local tax-payer. Plus having the City totally administer these units on tax-dollars as well! In perpetuity! Laughing all the way to the bank!
Be still, poor heart!

It's high time to differentiate between the Coop and NC - the latter a separate entity except for whatever their financial cross-pollination may be - few know - and the new Coop-store to be rented from NC.
This originated and run not by but for the Coop as a basic for-profit real-estate development by Russell Precious - its very well-paid and very development-savvy project-managing brain.
And when Councillor Dailly says - in his own words - that surely we can rely on the Coop's credit being solid because - after all - it is THE Coop: we need to take a deep breath and consider what role its existing store plays already as lynchpin in financing NC. I mean: what else is there as collateral for the complex financial multiparty backing?
 

The City must begin to - at long last - deal with NC as a single entity, strictly just another development-project - which unfortunately it had not done until the above Council Meeting. Particularly now that Nelson Landing is on the table as well!

Councillor Cherbo has a point when he wonders whatever happened to the varianced green bike-racks all over NC. Which now attempts to claw back parking-spaces one-here one-there - after receiving the previous Council's approval to scale back the then appropriate 190 spaces to an astonishingly low 100. This variance worked-out for NC by Dave Wahn - Nelson's previous Manager of Planning and Approval - long before even officially applied for by NC wink-wink. The (public) rationale behind this drastic cut comes from Precious - after the variance is approved: The full 190 spaces would have required a second underground parking-level at an additional 1 mill - making the whole project unfeasible.
Not very bloody likely - seeing that this whole NC-thing is the only plan they've ever had for paying-off significant debt, incurred by the Coop buying the Extra property and then what!

The variance - if/when implemented - meaning far-reaching impact on local driving- and parking-patterns. What with Wahn - to make up for the loss - deciding to simply make those spaces we do have smaller to gain more! Rationalizing this Alice-in Wonderland move with: people will just have to buy smaller cars! All this for NC!
Oddly-or-not - since this retooling of parking on City Hall paper - nobody has talked about implementing it. No matter and inescapable fact: there will not be enough parking at NC thus in its vicinity. The pebble in the pond!

Bottom-line: NC's posture of entitlement in this way unbalanced relationship - based off-point on the Coop's local sacred-cow status - was locked-in enthusiastically by City Hall's previous incarnation. There are more examples!

While one may empathize with this Council's unenviable position of being up against NC's shrewd money-grabs: many locals - including so-called Coop-owners/members - feel manipulated into - directly/indirectly - facilitating schemes for paying-off a property way too large and way too expensive for a basic larger store.

Ultimately - what could have been the Community Master Plan's heart of Nelson - will be an unremarkable Villa Kelowna with a new! improved! supermarket downstairs.
For years and years to come!






Pierre et Gilles

This is Canada!

A true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity.
                                                   
                                                         Andre Gide








 

More Senate Porn

(Conservative Senator Nancy) Ruth said Wednesday that she's been asked why she didn't eat free airline food rather than file breakfast expense claims on a couple of occasions.
  

"Well, those (airline) breakfasts are pretty awful," she said. "If you want ice-cold Camembert with broken crackers - have it."

"Most of their questions are not very sophisticated, nor do they really have anything to do with Senate business... I mean, they're really weird."

 

"I didn't do anything particularly wrong."

 

Camemwho in Economy Class?

Just askin', Nance.





Canadian Press