Peter Rezansoff CEO of ITC Construction Group was interviewed today by Malcolm Perry of the Vancouver Sun.  The article touches on a number of issues from the DTES, affordable housing, to high speed construction methods.  Building Opportunities with Business worked closely with Peter’s team at ITC as part of the Olympic Athlete’s Village construction efforts and the Community Benefits Agreement.

Throughout the course of constructing the athlete’s village 102 inner-city residents were trained in construction and 39 of them were directly employed by ITC Construction Group.

Olympic Athlete's Village

Social housing and how best to provide it and where is an ongoing debate in Vancouver, which was recently featured on CTV.

While I’ve been working here I’ve been monitoring the news through various Google Alerts mainly. Normally I send out an email with the highlights to the staff, but now that the blog is up and running we’ve decided to share stories and news through our WordPress blog.

Last week at City Hall there was a public discussion on possibly increasing the height of building that could be built in Vancouver’s historic Chinatown. Currently if you walk down Pender the tallest building is only four or possibly five floors for OMNI’s television studios. The long held belief being that the historic buildings should be preserved and not overshadowed by new development. Gastown has similar height restrictions.

Wing Sang Building

Developer’s such as Robert Fung or Bob Rennie have restored older buildings often in exchange for transferable density, but even that system is under review. Some folks want Chinatown and Gastown to remain quaint little tourist destinations and almost living museums of Vancouver’s past, others would like to see the situation improved for business owners especially in non-traditional and non-hospitality focused firms.

Albert Fok, president of the Vancouver Chinatown Business Improvement Association, would like to see Chinatown saved and become a neighborhood once again where people live and work. He spoke to that effect at City Hall and was further interviewed in the Vancouver Sun.

Building Opportunities with Business is located on Pender Street in Chinatown and continues to work for inclusive revitalization alongside our partners in the Chinatown BIA and City Hall.

Chinatown Gate

The other story Google turned up this morning is more details of the CORE Training program which BOB coordinated with VANOC, the City, and Millennium Development. Over 100 inner-city residents were trained and employed in the construction industry, the majority of which worked on the Olympic Athlete’s Village.