ARCA Winter Newsletter

Winter 2016 Newsletter

ARBUTUS RIDGE COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION

Update on the Arbutus Shopping Centre Development

What happened to our neighbourhood centre! In the last two months, all except Safeway, the Bank of Montreal, the liquor store, Mogi’s and the Dance Studio have moved out. The merchants certainly did not receive considerate treatment from Larco, the developer. Many were given less than two months notice. Our treasurer, Marie Clarke, met with many of the tenants. Here are the addresses of some of the relocated merchants:

Arbutus Jewellers — 2589 W. 16^th Avenue

Bullock’s Eye Opener — 2827 Arbutus Street

The Designer’s Fit — 4548 W. 10^th Avenue

Insure BC Arbutus — 2251 W. 41^st Avenue

Purdy’s Chocolatier, Den Bosch Patisserie, Shefield & Sons, Dollarama, and the coffee shop, are, as far as we know, not relocating.

As one of our residents put it, “Many changes are in the wind. I am sorry for our Mall merchants, but, if they choose new locations and build their customer base with service and friendliness, they could be very successful again.”

The Arbutus Corridor

The battle between the City of Vancouver and CP Rail over the Corridor should be resolved in court soon.

The Canadian Transportation Agency started meeting on January 28th to hear the City’s request that would force CP to sell the tracks to the City. The tracks run from False Creek to Marpole and no trains have run on the tracks since 2001 when Molson Brewery switched to truck delivery.

The City wants to pay $20 million and CP says the property is worth $400 million. Do you remember when the interurban ran down those tracks every hour?

Photo of Andy Tan (Arbutus Jewellers) in his new store

City of Vancouver’s Neighbourhood Councillor Liaisons

Last month, City Council put forward a motion to assign specific councillors as liaisons to Vancouver’s 22 neighbourhoods.

The motion was strongly opposed by NPA councillor, George Affleck, who said it is a disguised return to the ward system so should be decided by a referendum. This liaison, says Affleck, provides the party in power “an ability to work in a neighbourhood and build that base for the next election”. What do you think?

Welcome to Our New Director, Illean Zhang

Illean is our youth representative, a student at Prince of Wales Secondary school. She has volunteered to be our Twitter manager.

We’re On Twitter!

ARCA Membership Fees

Individual fee—$10.00

Family —$20.00 (list names)

Business — $30.00

Student —$ 5.00

Make your cheques payable to Arbutus Ridge Community Association and send your fees to Marie Clarke, ARCA Treasurer, at 402-3905 Springtree Drive. Vancouver, BC V6L 3E2 – or attend our next AGM and pay there. ARCA’s Membership year is May 1 to April 30th so 2016/17 dues are soon due!

Help Still Needed for ARCA!

We are still looking for:

An assistant Webmaster for www.arbutusridgecommunity.org
A Newsletter editor – contact [email protected]
A 2nd representative to CVN – the Coalition of Vancouver Neighbourhoods
A 2nd representative to ARKS – Arbutus Ridge/Kerrisdale/Shaughnessy City Plan

If you are interested in any of these activities, contact Marion Boyle, our secretary, at either [email protected] or 604-263.7677.

Housing Demolitions in Vancouver

West-side Vancouver neighbourhoods are changing quickly with the number of housing demolitions – reported to be more than 1000 in Vancouver this year. Many of them are in Arbutus Ridge, probably one or two in your block.

Protesters admonish the waste of demolished materials but, as Acting City Manager, Sadhu Johnson, points out, it is the price of the land that dictates its use. Lots in our area average about $2 million. “It makes no sense”, says Johnson, “to dump a hundred or two hundred grand into an 80 year-old home that’s 1800 square feet….When anyone buys a property, it’s their decision how they want to use the house”.

Larry Benge, the Co-chair of CVN, expressed his concern with the latest news that the City is actively working on a city-wide rezoning for townhouses around parks, schools and community centre. He asks what this will mean for retention of rental, heritage and character houses. What are your thoughts on rezoning?

Contact Us:

Website: www.arbutuscommunityassociation.org

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @ARBTUSRIDGECOM

The Urbanarium

Your Future Home: Creating the New Vancouver is an exhibition at the Vancouver Museum sponsored by the Vancouver Urbanarium Society. It runs until May 15.

Afton, our president, attended the opening and recommends it highly. There are pictures and videos giving data on the demographic makeup of the city including distribution by income, ethnicity, immigration and more. Displays show the history of neighbourhoods and past planning including a model showing what might have been had we allowed the freeways and tunnels proposed in the 60s.

There is much more – just put Urbanarium into your search engine and go to their website.