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Development News Much Ado About Little

By Ben Meisner

That’s wasn’t pulp mill smell in the air yesterday, it was the politicians, Mayor included,at city hall announcing a development on Quebec Street between 5th and 6th Ave. 

The sale hadn’t even closed , the construction of a building on 13,200 sq ft site won’t take place until the summer of 2006 , with completion in 2007 and the Mayor was beating his chest saying it has been his dream to see people living in the down town core. 

Well in one respect he is right, we already have people living in the area , street people and we are about to grow that number,  perhaps even before the 16 high end residential condominiums and five commercial retail spaces along with ground level parking are built on the site. 

Anything that changes the down town is good, but surely you must temper that with the fact that it will increase the down town population by about 30 people, hardly enough business to open restaurants and beer and chip joints.  But I do confess, if you add that number to the 50 or 60 who will live in the Back Packer motel’s new hostel and it’s a good start. 

To suggest, as the Mayor did, that he has traveled extensively and any down town with people living in it tends to improve the area, is right. He also is right from the point of view that he has traveled extensively on the City's dime, although he did qualify that by saying, "I did a lot of traveling before I became involved in politics". Uh Huh. 

The bigger issue however was the report from Initiatives Prince George which said more people are choosing to live here after retirement. 

No doubt. 

When you look further down the report, you’ll notice that property value per capita was $46,995 in PG, $61,323 in Kamloops , $92,409 Kelowna Chilliwack $67,443, And $70,142, Nanaimo . The average in BC $88,610. Now you don’t have to be a brain surgeon to see that if you sold your home here, you will find that you can’t afford much in the way of real estate in any of the mentioned communities which all just happen to be retirement destinations. So you really don’t need a Rhodes Scholar study to determine why we are staying here. 

Home prices have not moved in any manner in the same way they have in other centers. 

We dropped population perhaps as much as 7,000 people and you don’t sell homes when there are more homes than people need. The report states we have 77,721 (check the sign heading into town which says 81,000). 

We have been telling a giant fish story to the rest of the world over the past ten years with the result that many don’t believe what we say. If you can’t tell the truth for God’s sake don’t tell anything .

Finally ,what did well sell that 13,000 square feet of space for?  I do hope it’s more than the $145,000 we are about to drop on yet another study of the down town. And what study did we show the developer of the Quebec Street property? 

I’m Meisner, and that is one man's opinion.
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