To all those commenting on living next to bums:

I've read a number of comments on other forums from people who have bought or are thinking of buying there - almost none commented on the social housing aspect, seems like they are willing to ignore it.

The #1 reason buyers are avoiding it is price. The location and build quality do not merit the premium - for the same price I'd rather live in Coal Harbour.

Well that's them,they cannot speak for what everyone else wants or can put up with.

I sure as hell don't want to pay 500K+ for a tiny place,work my ass off every day to pay for it,come home to find my door kicked in and try to figure out which welfare bum or crackhead robbed me that's living down the hall,because they don't work and got the place for free.

Also,when I come home,I don't like the idea of having to wear disposable gloves to turn door handles/knobs or press the elevator keys,who knows wear those filthy hands have been or worry about potential bed bug problems,or my car getting broken into on a regular basis.

I will agree with you,for 500K,I would much rather live in Coal Harbour than olympic village.

If I wanted to live in the slums,I would move into Raymur's projects for free.

Because you're only looking at one aspect of the big picture?

And it's really easy just to focus on one thing, especially when you don't have to deal with the entire problem. Why do you think that half of the nitwits come in here and post "DUH, rich people don't want to live next to poor people". That's OBVIOUS. But what's the solution to the big picture then? Build all of the low income housing in Chilliwack?

I have no idea how they're going to sell it off, or provide the highest level of benefit to all parties, but I'm not going to come in here prancing around as if I do just because I think I understand why rich people don't want to live next to poor people.

If they cannot speak for everyone else, why are you trying to?

I'm speaking for myself and any else that agrees with me.

Hmm maybe I don't know the whole story or the deal with social housing but someone correct me if I am wrong...

The social housing is for "low income" families which I take it as people who are making say less than $20k a year so in my mind they aren't giving the houses for cheap to so called bums and crack heads

If that's the case I wouldn't mind living there but as people have mentioned my problem would also be that I'm paying good money for a place while some other person is paying half of what I'm paying
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Yeah you'd have pick of the litter of single moms.

Welfare moms? No thanks,I'm not interested in supporting them or their kids.

lol...
but look @ it this way guys... if you have <20K income.. you now have a chance to live in olympic village... damn... as if rite now... i am gettin less than 20K in my pocket annually xD

Having CO-OP housing in a fancy neighbourhood doesn't mean it will go to shit. There's a two co-op buildings near me in Yaletown (one is on Marinaside!) and there's never been any trouble in them from my knowledge.

the main problem with the olympic site is high prices and the fact that the neighbourhood is too far away from yaletown to be useful and there's NO amenities nearby (except on Cambie).

who would pay top dollar to live in a gulag? Until the surrounding neighbourhood improves -- i doubt there will be much interest in the area...

those places were also built in a RUSH to make the deadline for the Olympics -- so I bet the strata's will have tons of problems with warranty claims -- but the new home warranties should take care of that

Thank you!

I'm so sick of hearing that the social housing component is the cause of all the woes with this development.

The $1000 per sq.ft price tag for a beautiful development in the middle of nowhere is a problem. No one cares if its LEED Platinum. You can't walk anywhere, because its in an "up and coming" neighborhood: Shell, BK, McD's and Mr.Lube...awesome.

So, they will now lower the price to ~$700/sq.ft, sell them and see how much of a loss we take. They are NEVER going to see the average of 1.5million per unit.

I'd just like to add that even if you live in a upscale condo, there will be theft there as well. A couple buddies live in high end units in both Yaletown and Coal Harbour and both buildings have been hit by internal theft, despite the fact that these places run for an average of $1million each. Funny enough, friends who live in "average" condos in Langley, Surrey and New West that run between $200k-400k have had less theft in their buildings than the two aforementioned friends in Vancouver and their upscale places.

Damn Robin Hood. :D

My friends in Ottawa used to think they were safe from crime by moving to affluent neighbourhoods, meanwhile criticized me cause social housing was close to my house. They were not impressed when I showed them that theft and vandalism was higher in their neighbourhood than mine.

My GF's condo building, with many luxury vehicles has been broken into twice this year, while mine is 8 blocks away yet hasn't been hit cause it is mostly rental units and the garage has mainly average cars.

It would be nice if people dropped the social stigma and focused on the facts.

....meanwhile captain hindsight is still no where to be seen, pls come and save this city

Yaletown and Coal Harbour began as ghost towns too and the same bitching going on now happened back then. It takes a little time for amenities to come in when you start from zero. It's easy to bring amenities to the water but not the other way around.

My friend and I took a stroll/drive through the Village and noticed that they're actually building shopping centers and various outlets on the ground floor of many of the towers, so it's not like they're going to have to go very far to do their grocery shopping.

It's like the new Morgan Creek development (near the new Best Buy) where they opened up a bunch of shopping outlets and grocery stores like Thrifty's so that the residents of the condos on top don't need to drive anywhere.




But you're right about the surrounding area. They're constructing a new building right across the street with prices starting at less than half the cost of these units. I'd rather pay the advertised $399,999 for one of those units, sit on the balcony and laugh at the people literally a stone throw away across the street who paid $1mil for the same view and location. As well, that surrounding area is a bit of a dump. I know they're slowly working on redeveloping it, but I wouldn't want to fork over that amount of money and see a bunch of decrepit and abandoned warehouses whenever I look out my bedroom window.

I thought there is a LD there. You sure the 399k buildings wont get blocked by the olympic buildings as far as the water view?

Only a couple of the 12 OV buildings have a water view.

The LD opening has been delayed according to a report I saw on CBC last night. It was scheduled to open before the end of the year, but it's been pushed back. There is however a huge liquor store and a state-of-the-art community centre. Urban Fare is supposed to be opening there too, but we all know it costs a fortune to shop there.

What would be nice is if the streetcar passed through the village.

The streetcar no longer exists; it was only there for the olympics as a convenience token and a "demonstration" of how well streetcars could work in Vancouver.
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Urban Fare is THE yuppie shopping destination. It should fit right in.

I dun get why ppl pay so much to shop at Urban Fair or IGA. Same shit with same quality can be bought at fraction of the price at say the market at crystal. For example, regular tomato is < 50cent /pound at Crystal mall but > $1.20/pound at IGA. That's a HUGE difference.

At urban fare 2 chicken breasts for $10.

At that price you might as well just eat out.

I've eaten there for lunch a few times. You can get a chicken breast and steamed vegetables for about $6. Perfectly-sized meal for lunch IMO... and relatively healthy compared to other options available downtown at ~$6.

I'd never buy groceries there though.

IGA? you mean the IGA Marketplace stores?

I tend to shop there cause I find them cheaper than Safeway, even after Safeway dropped prices this year.

Superstore, Walmart, and Save-on Foods are cheaper, yet a hassle to visit. Marketplace is 2 blocks away.