I hope they can avoid squandering this sum on consultants. The housing commission is a farce. If the district allows the Bible Fellowship to proceed they will slow the process down so badly that no one will really ever benefit. They are talking years before the first unit is available. The district is known by developers as too difficult to deal with. The units that the district forced the developers to give to the district drove up the prices of the other units to make them unaffordable. I don't know what the answer is but it certainly isn't with this council and mayor.
the last 2 comments make a lot of assumptions given the limited info in the article. where is this free land give away for the church? It seems like phase 1 means some solid planning of the land layout and design. not necessarily consultants anymore but actual planners and architects, I hope.
This is getting dumber and dumber. the alleged consultant/ developer/ shyster the district hired about in the summer last year to be the attainable housing expediter has already designed the subdivision of DL 114. , at a fair expense i might add, with an engineering firm drawing up a topographical map with projected roads and proposed lots. probably about 50 to 60K so far if not more. the very best piece of this developable land has already been allocated to the fellowship group by virtue of an MOU. for this article to state that $500,000 is going to be spent designing a subdivision that we've already paid to design is becoming typical of the follies surrounding this Council. can someone tell me what more is there to plan? besides bollards, polkadot walkways, and badly drawn fish swimming across the laneways. if someone told me that $500,000 was to be spent pushing the road in I can understand that would actually be doing something. or if the District engineer costed out the water and sewer pipes that counts as well. however stating publicly that the District and the fellowship group are going to get together and design something is like saying we are going to light $500,000 on fire and roast marshmallows in the flames. the design work work is already done. we taxpayers have already paid to have it done. does anyone else see how dysfunctional this is? and a lot of taxpayer money is spent getting nothing done. now council going to spend more money to get twice as much of nothing done
article mentioned that they will be breaking ground and building by early 2019 with estimate of 5 mil for 20 units and social services building. seems well priced compared to 2 mil for a few kms of bike trail.
We already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars with Braiden Smith's plan.When will this madness end ? This is as well thought out as the NDP speculation tax.
I did contract work for a so-called"developer" clan for many years. Time and time again I was shocked at how many unjustifiable cost-overuns due to efficient, Laurel and Hardy type building practices, which included the hiring of fly by night sub-trades to magically get the job done at a lower cost, were hidden in the invoices given to clients. Many of their customers, who were astute enough to know the "devil is in the details" balked and asked for clarification of the expenses.
No integrity, no honor; all that remained at the each job was the smell of sulfur.
The taxpayers are going to be on the hook for years after the dust settles on this one.
The Mayor is quoted as saying this $500,000 constitutes "almost 40% towards the total cost of production of shovel ready designs for about 50 units of work force housing".. What can this possibly mean? Is she saying the total architectural bill for designing 50 units of worker housing is expected to cost "1,250,000. If so, the biggest rip off since Brexit discovered gold in Indonesia.
Or is this supposed to be 40% of the cost of production of servicing(road, sidewalk water sewer hydro etc.. needed to create the building sites, the lots.) In which case I would suggest they are sadly out to lunch. On good ground(nothing in Tofino qualifies as good ground) you could expect development costs for hard costs shovel work (not engineering and paper shuffling) to be around $350,000-400,000 per per acre for small lot subdivision. Now you do the math.
Either they don't know what they are talking about or simply can't explain it, which means they don't know what they are talking about....
Not to worry the taxpayers can always make up the shortfall
I hope they can avoid squandering this sum on consultants. The housing commission is a farce. If the district allows the Bible Fellowship to proceed they will slow the process down so badly that no one will really ever benefit. They are talking years before the first unit is available. The district is known by developers as too difficult to deal with. The units that the district forced the developers to give to the district drove up the prices of the other units to make them unaffordable. I don't know what the answer is but it certainly isn't with this council and mayor.
ReplyDeleteThere should be a clear separation between church and state. The district should not be giving free land to build a church.
ReplyDeletethe last 2 comments make a lot of assumptions given the limited info in the article. where is this free land give away for the church? It seems like phase 1 means some solid planning of the land layout and design. not necessarily consultants anymore but actual planners and architects, I hope.
ReplyDeleteThis is getting dumber and dumber.
ReplyDeletethe alleged consultant/ developer/ shyster the district hired about in the summer last year to be the attainable housing expediter has already designed the subdivision of DL 114. , at a fair expense i might add, with an engineering firm drawing up a topographical map with projected roads and proposed lots. probably about 50 to 60K so far if not more.
the very best piece of this developable land has already been allocated to the fellowship group by virtue of an MOU.
for this article to state that $500,000 is going to be spent designing a subdivision that we've already paid to design is becoming typical of the follies surrounding this Council.
can someone tell me what more is there to plan? besides bollards, polkadot walkways, and badly drawn fish swimming across the laneways.
if someone told me that $500,000 was to be spent pushing the road in I can understand that would actually be doing something. or if the District engineer costed out the water and sewer pipes that counts as well.
however stating publicly that the District and the fellowship group are going to get together and design something is like saying we are going to light $500,000 on fire and roast marshmallows in the flames.
the design work work is already done. we taxpayers have already paid to have it done. does anyone else see how dysfunctional this is?
and a lot of taxpayer money is spent getting nothing done. now council going to spend more money to get twice as much of nothing done
article mentioned that they will be breaking ground and building by early 2019 with estimate of 5 mil for 20 units and social services building. seems well priced compared to 2 mil for a few kms of bike trail.
ReplyDeleteWe already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars with Braiden Smith's plan.When will this madness end ? This is as well thought out as the NDP speculation tax.
ReplyDeleteI did contract work for a so-called"developer" clan for many years. Time and time again I was shocked at how many unjustifiable cost-overuns due to efficient, Laurel and Hardy type building practices, which included the hiring of fly by night sub-trades to magically get the job done at a lower cost, were hidden in the invoices given to clients. Many of their customers, who were astute enough to know the "devil is in the details" balked and asked for clarification of the expenses.
ReplyDeleteNo integrity, no honor; all that remained at the each job was the smell of sulfur.
The taxpayers are going to be on the hook for years after the dust settles on this one.
As Don McGoo once told me:
ReplyDelete"The bigger the relijun, the bigger the screwin'."
THC still exists? Wow.
ReplyDeleteThe Mayor is quoted as saying this $500,000 constitutes "almost 40% towards the total cost of production of shovel ready designs for about 50 units of work force housing".. What can this possibly mean?
ReplyDeleteIs she saying the total architectural bill for designing 50 units of worker housing is expected to cost "1,250,000. If so, the biggest rip off since Brexit discovered gold in Indonesia.
Or is this supposed to be 40% of the cost of production of servicing(road, sidewalk water sewer hydro etc.. needed to create the building sites, the lots.) In which case I would suggest they are sadly out to lunch. On good ground(nothing in Tofino qualifies as good ground) you could expect development costs for hard costs shovel work (not engineering and paper shuffling) to be around $350,000-400,000 per per acre for small lot subdivision. Now you do the math.
Either they don't know what they are talking about or simply can't explain it, which means they don't know what they are talking about....
Not to worry the taxpayers can always make up the shortfall
Can anyone post the "MOU" being referred to? Would like to see what it says.
ReplyDelete