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It took a long time, but Aberdeen Centre officials finally got what they wanted: approval to triple the size of its mall.
City council unanimously allowed the mall's owner, Fairchild Developments Ltd., to expand the mall at the corner of Cambie Road and Hazelbridge Way despite the objections of neighboring retailers.
When Fairchild announced its expansion plans in December 1996, it immediately upset neighboring residents and nearby competing shop-owners.
Objecting shopkeepers - mainly from next door's Parker Place Shopping Centre but also from Yaohan Centre and Dorfolk Place - fought a long campaign against the mall's expansion, predicting doom and gloom for their own businesses.
Calling themselves the "Richmond Asian Merchants Committee", the opponents claimed Aberdeen Centre's three-year construction work would cause havoc and keep customers away.
As well, they claimed parking and traffic troubles would exacerbate once the mall is expanded from its current 10,835-square-metre mall (116,626 square feet) to 34,250 square metres (368,676 square feet).
They also feared the Asian-oriented shopping district could not sustain the numerous new malls, especially the expanded Aberdeen Centre. Many malls are already suffering with vacant shops or copy-cat stores that are selling the same products or services, they claim.
"We have basically over-supplied ourselves already," said the anti-Aberdeen group's spokesperson Bob Tai.
The number of retail shops in the Asia West malls is expected to triple in about three years, he said. That's simply too many stores.
"The question is how many shopping malls do we need," Tai added.
But it was clear from the public hearing that council members didn't believe those predictions. Each councillor instead believed the larger Aberdeen Centre will lure more customers, not turn them away, and improve, not worsen, parking and traffic headaches.
Coun. Kiichi Kumagai noted that current parking problems will be solved once Aberdeen's four-level, 1,600-stall parkade is built. Fairchild is required to build a 1,018-vehicle-capacity parkade, but the company is adding an extra 582 stalls at its own cost to help make up for an existing parking shortage, Kumagai said.
Coun. Lyn Greenhill noted that it was Parker Place that is partly responsible for contributing to the parking problems by not providing enough stalls.
"Maybe what you should do is provide more parking for your people for your customers," Greenhill suggested to one of the opposing retailers from Parker Place. "Do you not think that's just as legitimate as to ask Fairchild to come up with all the parking for the whole area?"
No councillors believed the claim that Aberdeen's expansion will force neighboring shops under, a sentiment shared by Mayor Greg Halsey-Brandt.
"Ever since its opening in 1990, the area has developed to such a great extent that it is now one of the designated attractions, not only for local shoppers and consumers but also for international business travellers and tourists," said Halsey-Brandt.
The success of Asia West has gone beyond most people's expectations to the point now where Richmond's main competitor for shopping is Vancouver, noted Coun. Harold Steves.
Fears there weren't enough customers to go around the booming Asian-oriented shopping district was nonsense, Aberdeen's consultant Ray Spaxman told council. The vacancy rate for shops in Richmond is 1.5 per cent, compared with eight per cent in Delta, four per cent in Surrey and White Rock, five per cent in Vancouver, and 1.5 per cent in North Vancouver.
"The demand is clearly great," he said.
The condo crisis is not just a lesson to be learned, said political scientist Kennedy Stewart, but evidence of "a system failure."
The SFU instructor, who has recently completed a report on municipal government, said that despite municipal government being closest to the housing industry, it has the least accountability politically.
"The municipal government is on the front line," he said. "Surely they noted there were problems. They're the ones actually doing the front-line inspections; in that way, they are the ones inspecting the sites and enforcing the building code, really.
"Even though they don't inspect for (building envelope) problems... didn't someone recognize it at one point or the other?"
Although many condominium owners had complained to local governments that they had leak problems and were unable to get recompense from developers, the issue wasn't raised at council meetings until the provincial government and the Condominium Homeowner's Association were substantially engaged in developing prevention measures.
But Coun. Lyn Greenhill disagreed with Stewart's assessment. While city inspectors may have been informed of problems, there wasn't an overnight solution available to local governments to properly address the issue.
"I'm quite certain it did catch someone's attention."
Although the city can't change the building code, the province can. That's why changes are being made swiftly by the provincial government, a feat that would take years for cities to achieve, she said.
Richmond, as compared to other cities, has seemingly been lucky in the condo crisis saga. Relatively few condos here have been ravaged by rot and water, she said.
The City of Richmond has taken a couple of steps to ensure future condos don't leak.
The city's building approvals department has added two requirements to beef up its building approval process recently, said Rick Bortolussi, the city's building approvals manager.
The city now requires an inspection of the condo's "sheathing", the exterior coverings such as plywood and building paper. As well, the city requires the owner hire a private "building envelope specialist" to review the building's exterior design, and again check over the roofs, windows, walls and balconies.
Both of those measures will help ensure future condos don't leak, Bortolussi said. "Introducing the building envelope specialist requirement will go a long way in addressing the majority of potential construction problems," he said Monday.
Only a few of those "building envelope specialists" exist, however, since the building industry has only recently decided to embark on a new training program. So for now, new condo builders in Richmond must refer to a list of 13 companies that have such specialists (only one company, Levelton Engineering Ltd., is based in Richmond). That list was compiled by the City of Vancouver when it reviewed the condo problem a couple years ago.
The Architectural Institute of B.C. is developing an education program for those specialists. But Richmond city hall decided it couldn't wait for the entire sector to train itself, so it made the "building envelope specialist" a requirement anyway, he said.
"What the city is saying is that we couldn't wait any further delays," Bortolussi said.
The city now believes it has done its part in protecting condo owners, and can't do much more until the provincial and federal governments change appropriate legislation, he said.
Vancouver also requires a "building envelope specialist" and that city hired extra inspection staff. Bortolussi said he hasn't yet asked for extra inspection staff in Richmond, preferring for now to take a wait-and-see approach.
Meanwhile, it was Bortolussi's report to council last week that noted the Barrett Commission didn't take enough steps to hold developers accountable for their mistakes.
City staff tried months ago to determine which developers are bad and good, but couldn't because many repair jobs were done without the city's knowledge.
After deliberating for about three days, the jury in the second-degree murder trial of Richmond's Steven Charles Wilson could not reach a verdict.
Wilson was facing a maximum life sentence after he was charged with the murder of Michelle Fiddick, a Vancouver-area mother and prostitute.
Crown counsel Patti Tomasson told The Review Monday that the jury came back early Friday afternoon and told B.C. Supreme Justice M.J. Allan that they were hopelessly deadlocked. That leaves the Crown with the decision of whether to prosecute Wilson again.
Earlier in the week, the jury stopped deliberating, but Justice Allan asked them to try again to reach a verdict, Tomasson said. But the extra day-and-a-half made no difference.
"They were disappointed," Tomasson said of Fiddick's family's reaction.
Fiddick's burned corpse was found by a young couple shortly after midnight in July 1996 in a south Vancouver park.
Police believe that New Westminster's Michael Roberge and Wilson picked up Fiddick and were driving her to Richmond when the murder took place.
The court heard that Roberge turned himself into police and told them that Wilson committed the murder. Roberge later entered into an immunity agreement in exchange for his testimony against Wilson.
Crown counsel Tomasson said the Crown believed Roberge's story because there was physical evidence to support his claims. She did not elaborate on the type of physical evidence.
Roberge testified that Wilson stabbed Fiddick and slit her throat after Fiddick made fun of Wilson's earlier encounter with a different prostitute.
But when Wilson took the stand in his own defence, he testified calmly that it was Roberge who did the killing.
Fiddick's mother, who lives outside the Lower Mainland, came to Vancouver to hear the evidence presented to the jury.
Wilson is scheduled to appear in B.C. Supreme Court on July 29. If the Crown opts to proceed with a new trial, a date could be fixed during that appearance.
Wilson's defence counsel Brian Coleman did not return calls by press time.
Despite a recent breakdown in contract negotiations, the union representing metro Vancouver's bus drivers is not about to resort to the S-word: strike.
The region's 2,300 drivers have been without a contract since the end of March, and talks between the Independent Canadian Transit Union's Local 11 and BC Transit broke off abruptly at the end of June.
But ICTU Local 11 is attempting to play nice. As a result the union has requested third-party facilitation, and talks are scheduled to resume July 27.
"We've been accused too many times of inconveniencing the public," said Local 11 president Eric Scott. "So we're taking a responsible position.
"We want an agreement without a (labor) dispute."
Scott said drivers are looking for a pay package in line with those reached elsewhere in the provincial public sector. The norm has been three-year deals with increases of zero, zero and two per cent, although Scott declined to discuss figures.
He also would not say what tripped up the last attempt at negotiations.
"We have some fundamental differences on some things," he said.
Among the likely bones of contention is BC Transit's attempts to reduce absenteeism - which averages 37 days per driver per year - including the possible firing of employees with "excessive" absenteeism.
Also complicating the matter is the looming handover of the metro Vancouver transit system from the provincially owned BC Transit to a new agency controlled by civic politicians.
That transfer of power becomes official next April, and ICTU - fearing a potential loss of membership if cities set up their own bus systems under the new structure - has already taken out newspaper ads opposing the handover.
The new agency will have to inherit whatever contract BC Transit and ICTU can agree to. The two sides have five days of negotiations booked starting July 27.
Free court services will be removed from nine Lower Mainland adult and youth courts, including Richmond provincial court, starting Nov. 1.
On Thursday, the Legal Services Society cancelled its contract with the Elizabeth Fry Society to fund the society's court worker program.
The $45,000 volunteer-driven program assists defendants by informing them of their rights and options when they arrive in court.
"It's a disgrace," Attorney General critic and Richmond-Steveston MLA Geoff Plant said Thursday in reaction to the budget slash. "It's a classic case of penny-wise, pound-foolish."
The people who will be hardest hit by the cuts don't have a voice in the community, Plant said. These "forgotten people" will no longer receive advice in making potentially life-altering decisions in the courtroom.
Defendants qualify for legal aid only if they are charged with a serious criminal offence, or if they face incarceration. Without these Elizabeth Fry volunteers, many people will have nowhere to turn for help.
That will inevitably result in more cases that will go to trial that don't need to, Plant said. This will create further delays and add to the backlog in a court system that has already been described as in crisis.
In March, The Review first reported that the executive director of Elizabeth Fry feared the services were in jeopardy.
"People have a very hard time representing themselves (in court) because most people don't know anything about the criminal justice system," Shawn Bayes said in March.
But the blame for the funding cut should be placed squarely on the shoulders of the provincial government, not the Legal Services Society, Plant emphasized. LSS has been forced to make tough decisions in reaction to an ever-tightening budget from the provincial government, Plant said. Court services have essentially been "stripped to the bone."
While Elizabeth Fry volunteers aren't paid, the $45,000 funded two part-time workers who coordinated and trained 38 Lower Mainland volunteers. They provided 5,817 hours of work during the 1997/98 fiscal year, at a total cost of 65 cents per client.
Donna Surman, co-supervisor of the program, is one of the two paid workers who will be out of a job this fall.
"It's been a rollercoaster," Surman said just two hours after receiving notice of the cuts.
Four local volunteers, who offered hundreds of hours of their time each year informing defendants of their rights, will no longer be working the hallways outside Richmond provincial court, she said.
The decision to stop the funding of the program was made after a recently-completed review of Elizabeth Fry society's "intake and other services."
"The review showed a reduced demand for the court workers' help with filling out legal aid application forms as a result of LSS service enhancements," an LSS press release states.
But Surman maintains that the program's mandate from the start was to have trained individuals available to assist defendants in dealing with the complex legal system. The society offered to hand out and help defendants fill out legal aid applications "out of the goodness of our hearts," Surman said.
"The people we service are the people who don't qualify for legal aid. There's nobody out there to talk to them."
A seven-page report prepared by Elizabeth Fry and faxed to Lower Mainland MLAs this week shows Crown counsels and court judges back the program.
"There is no question that the absence of (Elizabeth Fry) workers will result in missed court appearances, delays and misunderstandings, all of which will have a negative impact on the courts," deputy regional Crown counsel Lance Bernard said in the report.
In an unexpected move, Education Minister Paul Ramsey introduced new legislation Thursday aimed at raising funds for the purchase of new school sites.
If it passes, the legislation would replace the Bill 43 agreement that currently exists between the city and local school board. Bill 43 taxes certain developments, with the revenues earmarked for new school sites.
"This comes as somewhat of a surprise to us," Richmond school board chair Sylvia Gwozd said Friday.
Richmond is one of the few B.C. municipalities to have hammered out the voluntary Bill 43 agreement after it was introduced in 1995. In an attempt to encourage school districts and cities to come to terms, the education ministry indicated it was more likely to provide funding for schools in communities with the agreement in place, Gwozd said.
But most communities have been unable to forge an agreement. That has created an unlevel playing field between cities, some with and some without the tax, frustrating developers, school boards and municipalities.
While the new legislation, now known as Bill 35, resolves some of those inequities by establishing a province-wide policy, it will apparently tax developers significantly less, Gwozd said.
Bill 43 was originally meant to help communities raise 60 per cent of the revenues required for buying land for schools by taxing certain types of development.
The proposed legislation drops the burden to developers to about 35 per cent, Ramsey said.
In Richmond, certain local developments are taxed to the tune of 2.47 per cent. To date, Bill 43 has raised about $500,000 for the purchase of new school sites in Richmond.
But bringing in the agreement has cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in administrative costs to the city and school district, according to Richmond school district secretary-treasurer Ken Morris.
Although he hadn't read the proposed legislation, Morris was concerned that Bill 35 wouldn't address the "pent up need for school sites in the city."
For the past five years, the school district hasn't received "substantive monies" from the government for buying school sites, he said.
If the legislation is passed sooner rather than later, it could save the school board $60,000.
That's because the city and school board are preparing for another round of arbitration relating to their existing agreement which will remain in place until Bill 35 becomes law. If Bill 35 becomes law in the near future, that would do away with Bill 43 and make the arbitration unnecessary.
A small section of peaceful Granville Avenue is growing up, much to the chagrin of some of its residents.
Resident Derek Sankey was upset that city council gave staff the green light on Monday to widen Granville Avenue between Railway and No. 1 Roads.
Due to the road widening, 50 large trees and several other shrubs and smaller trees will be cut down. "The street has trees that are up to 50 years old," said Sankey, who lives on Granville.
The road work will ruin the peaceful neighborhood for the sake of others, he said; part of the engineering department's rationale for widening the one-kilometre stretch is to improve access for the fast-growing Terra Nova area, he said.
City staff have told residents that the three-lane road will be safer because it will have two dedicated bike lanes. But Sankey doesn't believe that because staff are also considering paving over the bike lanes at a later to make it a four-lane road way, Sankey said.
"Who knows what their actual agenda here is," he said. "People can't understand that you are looking at 65 feet approximately of asphalt and concrete."
But city transportation manager Gordon Chan told Monday night's council meeting that the road should be widened because the traffic is already increasing in the area and will help funnel cars heading to and from Terra Nova area.
Staff did consider reducing the size of the road work to help save the trees. But those were dismissed for a number of reasons including the possibility that the trees won't survive anyway once the ditches are filled in.
They don't mind growth, but this is ridiculous, says some Asia West shopkeepers.
Plans for new Asian-flavor malls, including one proposal that will triple the size of Aberdeen centre, has nearby retailers worried their own businesses will be overwhelmed. That's why they've bandied together under an umbrella group, calling themselves the "Richmond Asian merchants committee". The group will be asking city council at Monday's public hearing to reject Aberdeen's expansion plans. It also wants council to slow down the growth of popular Asian-oriented shopping malls.
The group includes several store owners from Dorfolk Place, Parker Place 1 and 2 and Yaohan Centre, all located in the shopping district also known as Asia West.
"Quite frankly, this kind of expansion will drive us bankrupt," said group spokesperson Bob Tai at a press conference Wednesday.
Aberdeen Centre's mall owners, Fairchild Developments Ltd., wants to expand the mall from its current 10,835 square metres (116,626 square feet) to 34,250 square metres (368,676 square feet), adding a roof-top, four-storey, 1,600-stall parkade.
The size of that mall - six storeys in total - will overshadow neighboring smaller malls and will cause traffic and parking chaos, the group claims. They want the Aberdeen expansion plans reduced.
Aberdeen's expansion is also part of a much bigger problem: too many malls and copy-cat stores competing for the same customers, said the group's lawyer Tommy Tao.
The area is growing so quickly with other similar malls, that the number of stores is already expected to double in two years, Tao said. With Aberdeen's expansion it will be triple, he said.
"Although (the group) understands the need for development, city council has a responsibility to control development so that it can be absorbed by the demand," Tao said. If supply exceeds demand, some businesses will go broke, he added.
The Asia West shopping district is currently home to five main shopping malls: Aberdeen Centre, Parker Place, President Plaza, Yaohan Centre and Central Square. Together they have about 355 shops and 1,828 parking stalls, Tai said. That doesn't include the other smaller plazas and strip malls located nearby.
"It's already overbuilt," said Tai, who owns a retail outlet in Parker Place. "This is a cut-throat situation."
But Fairchild Developments maintains there will be plenty of shoppers to go around. With the booming airport and bounty of new hotels, Richmond can't help but become a major tourist attraction for international and nationals visitors, said Fairchild's marketing manager Mimi Kwong.
"In fact, we see a very healthy future for Richmond," she said Thursday. "We expect a lot of tourists and also shoppers from other cities will come to Richmond to shop."
As for the parking and traffic concerns of Aberdeen's plans, Kwong notes that the 1,600-stall parkade will be more like a public parking facility. Aberdeen officials will allow shoppers to use the parkade even if they shop at other malls, she said.
As part of the Aberdeen's expansion, the mall owners must pay for long-awaited road work, including aligning Hazelbridge Way with Northgate Way at Cambie Street, and will build a pedestrian bridge over Cambie Road to link up with the Radisson President Hotel and plaza, Kwong said.
That's part of the reason why city staff support the mall's expansion. According to a city staff report, the re-vamped Aberdeen will conform to city centre plans and will help "urbanize" the area by intensifying development. City staff want the shopping district to break away from the suburban strip-mall model where malls are separated by large parking lots and wide streets. The new Aberdeen will also be more pedestrian-friendly, the report states.
The merchant group appears to have lost some steam as it was revealed at Wednesday's meeting that one group of shopkeepers has since bolted from the group. Aberdeen centre's own shopkeepers had earlier opposed their own mall's expansion, fearing the three-year construction phase will discourage shopping. They have since worked out a deal with their mall management and split from the group, Kwong said.
To help their cause, the merchant group pointed to a traffic study they commissioned that concluded the parkade will be under-used. That's because it will be the last choice for shoppers who will steer clear of the roof-top parkade. As well, the group maintains the city underestimated how much parking will be needed, particularly since the area is already short an estimated 600 stalls and 90 more parking spaces will be removed from Hazelbridge Way.
"By itself, the expanded Aberdeen Centre will create a parking problem rather than solving the existing parking problem," Lawyer Tao added.
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