Interior BC Place Soccer Configuration

[Guest Jeffery S.]

Let me just insist that I think a well-designed stadium in the port on Kerfoot's land (and not that crappy rendering their put out), would be amazing. An authentic architectural flagship for the city, a prestige building on a challenging site. That is what I would hope for, but I just feel there are good reasons why it will be held off and one or another or a third will stonewall on it and the Caps will have to look for alternatives within 4-5 years.

Kerfoot won't mind I don't think, he is still making money as the issue is debated.

[Calgary Boomer]

I can't believe the references to "dubious" locations when referring to the proposed waterfront site. This is a VISIONARY location. There's no way the proposed waterfront site could be used for anything industrial at this stage.

The issue is, and always has been...power, greed and shortsightedness. The Port Authority is effectively being held hostage by Kerfoot's ownership of the critical rail-yards, while he is being held hostage by the land swap valuation. If a waterfront stadium was NOT going to happen from the start, why are negotiations continuing, and why have they gone on for so long?

I've often wondered if the Port people who are brokering this deal get a commission for the ransom they're asking for.

[Johnnie Monster]

quote:Originally posted by the biologist

[so these kinds of "messed up political situations" will happen anywhere as long as dubious locations are selected, and by dubious I mean "dubious for at least some lobbies".

Important to keep in mind though that through this process, Kerfoot has repeatedly been steered by city council and planning staff hall to specific "dubious" sites.

It was former mayor Larry Campbell who encouraged him to try to purchase land at Main & Terminal five years ago, followed by a variety of other sites in and around False Creek flats. Campbell's COPE majority then rezoned the area Kerfoot had been directed to focus his efforts for social housing to rally the poverty vote before an election.

As for the Waterfront, this wasn't a case of Kerfoot grabbing $30 million of land and blindly hoping there was a chance he could build on it. There was plenty of consultation with city council beforehand, and the indication was, "This might be do-able." It was the condo kings of Gastown (and the social activist puppets manipulated into supporting them) who jock-blocked the whole process with bad press, resulting in a three-year bureaucratic tug job with no happy ending in sight.

Kerfoot's not at fault here. The problem is and always has been city council's lack of balls.

Theoretically speaking, the next incoming city council (we're having municipal elections in BC today) has the power to sit down at the next meeting and approve construction on Kerfoot's own land (rather than the land he's trying to trade with the Port).

The only thing holding the current council back is that the existing waterfront community plan (written decades ago) makes no provisions for a stadium. Well, of course it doesn't. Who would have thought that a guy would show up out of nowhere and offer the city a free stadium?

All council has to do is tell staff to amend the plan. Sadly, I doubt this will ever happen.

[piltdownman]

Through the Vancouver Election it has became very clear that you have to bribe city hall to get things done. My guess is that Kerfoot didn't bribe enough or at all.

http://www.canada.com/vancouvercourier/news/opinion/story.html?id=d994bec2-19db-4b27-95fd-eac97afda254

[Calgary Boomer]

You are bang on PDM. Had it been that scumbag Aquilini, you bet your ass there would have been money flying around to the various Port People.