DIY Days from Sabi Pictures on Vimeo.

The last time the three of us were hanging out on Commercial Drive, my old stomping ground, we stopped by a favourite  coffee shop we like to think of as ours. It’s obvious by the crowd of customers always inside and the many others hovering around the exterior that this is the way a great many people think of the place. To me, all of Commercial Drive is a little like that. Commercial Drive is a place many people call their hood. I don’t mean a location you tell someone you live. No. There is a connection that almost becomes part of one’s personality, or is it the other way around? Who knows. It’s more than simply an address of where you live.

As we were enjoying our coffee on the outside patio our nine year old son asked us if he could go play in the park across the street. He’s familiar with the park. He’s been there before. It’s the one that smells like “Man Pee”. I’m talking about Grandview Park.

His little adventure of crossing the street at the light and finding his way to the playground all by himself, (we could see him the entire time), was cut short when a yelling match broke out between two groups of people which quickly escalated into a fight. He came straight back. A few minutes later police cars where there. It was an embarrassing display.

So now I am hearing that people don’t want the park to change? That I am possibly a gentrified yuppie if I think it might be a good idea to make it safe for kids? A sense of ownership, reduced to a square block, by one group of people. At the very least, let’s have signs, “This is our park. No fun for kids”

The Approved plans (PDF)

And here are the “Owners” of Grandview Park

A little too busy to be riding a tandem bike and holding a video camera in one hand but I like the challenge.

What co-op living is teaching me is that we are “the man”.

I gave up home ownership, (namely strata corporation) for co-op living in 2006 and I sold my tenanted condo on May 31st 2008 during a real estate peak and I wait with a pocket of cash for that proverbial expected downturn in the real estate market to pounce on a deal (or two). And I wait. And I wait. And now I worry but still I wait but I won’t go into that right now.

Often an active board member of any strata corporation I owned in, I did the same thing when moving here to Helen’s Court Co-op and looked to offer my time on committees to help run the place. The big difference here was the pull to be a part of it rather than being talked into it. I was asked to join but also drawn to a position on the board not from the feeling of ownership but from a feeling of community. For this reason most of the people sitting on the board of the co-op want to be there and as I am nearing the end of my 2 year stint, will be giving up the position to a new and willing person. The board is fresh and ever evolving.

Things to know about this co-op: We are required to only charge a maximum of 70% market rate. At the same time we must subsidize a certain percentage of the homes. The 1, 2 and 3 bedroom homes must be occupied appropriately. We can not make a profit and our only subsidization equals about 4% of our operating cost. It’s like the setting for a sims game.

Because we have a wider variety of people living here in our 44 homes than in any strata development or even a large subdivision spanning square kilometers, the co-op community really becomes a micro society. A bite sized piece of what our larger masses are around us. young and old. People with grown kids and people with new borns. People living hand to mouth with little to spare and some with so much money they have summer homes and real estate.

As a board member and finance committee member I have discovered that we are the man. We are responsible for our community and outcome.

Stripped down to its bare cold bones, the Olympics, simply put, is a world sized party. A party that no wedding planner or online event organizer could ever imagine putting together in their wildest wet business dreams. It’s a party that’s been planned again and again for a long long time. O.K., it’s history is fuzzy so blur your eyes. It’s still been going a long time. It’s only because of it’s ongoing history that it is possible at the scale it is today. It’s only because of its shear size that it is the way it is.

Who doesn’t like a party? If you left town then it must be you. You don’t like a party. Maybe you just don’t want the party in your house. Maybe you went to Mexico and delivered your tourist dollars there were they get distributed to the disenfranchised… oh wait.

Maybe you didn’t leave town. Maybe just sat there and complained about crowds of people who (how dare they) were enjoying themselves aimlessly walking around. Perhaps you might try aimlessly walking around sometime, it’s a lot of fun. How was your commute? did it affect you you you?

Fun was always having an event to watch and root for. Fun shows and events put on for free and popping up everywhere magically. Fun was learning more about my country. Fun was accidentally walking into a giant crowd of happy people – all the time. Fun was being a part of the elation that built in an ever increasing momentum – because I let it happen to me.

I think that’s the difference. I let it happen. If you’re pissed off you will remain so because you need to be right.

To be honest, I voted not to have the Olympics here. I could, (and still can) see all the issues it brings. I lost that vote. Are we better off? who cares? nothing can be done about that. I know that party will have a hang over. I know we need to clean up. I know.

Yea, it’s easy to critisize and point to everything wrong with the Olympics. I am surrounded by these people. It’s easy to say in loud online voices how you hate the people “invading”, hate the organizers, hate money being spent for anything other than healthcare, schools, the arts, and any other special cause that personally affects you. In reality, there never is enough money for those programs. There never will be – ever. Let’s talk about that some other time.

What’s hard for some is being happy because in their minds, happiness equals stupidity. Happiness has a bad reputation among pissed off people. Let’s talk about that next time.

I am so glad I experienced an Olympics in my town.

Help us reclaim your back alley with Christmas lights, caroling and mulled cider.

This year, join us and decorate your alley.  Light up your windows, balconies, and fences on the alley side with the spirit of Christmas and Solstice.

At our location (2137 West 1st Avenue) we are decorating the alley between 1st Avenue and York Street, from Arbutus to Yew Street. Then on Sunday Dec 20th at 8pm, we are Christmas caroling and handing out mulled cider  in the alley.

Join the Facebook Group and tell us how you’re turning your alley into a livable area.

Why?

For many of us the alley is the main outlook of our homes and with new Lane-way Housing being built a lot of eyes are beginning to re-examine how we use and perceive these utilitarian traffic routes and for good reason. For too long many residents of Vancouver have been using alleys as garbage dumps, leaving mattresses and other junk lying out near dumpsters.

It’s time to take back the residential alleyways of Vancouver.

This Christmas decorate the alley side with lights and cheer as you would have normally the front of your house. All you apartment and condo residence facing the alley have a great opportunity to make a difference. All it takes is as little as one string of lights from each of you. Can you imagine how beautiful an alley would look if everyone got on board?

Get your street to Light up your alley this holiday season in 2009!

I live in an alley. It’s a townhouse where our “backyard” is at alley level as are about 16 of our 40+ units. My design and lobby has been to rid the fences we have between us and the alley and claim the alley as our street. The rest of the building has decided it’s better to maintain large high fences to separate us from the undesirables. So we have a large high fence.

I have some hopes for future occupants of Vancouver’s new laneway houses. I see in the specifications there must be room for greening and “yard space”. The specifications also require most windows face the alley. The alley is the unit’s view. So it seems inevitable that alleys will have to become more palatable.

If your thinking of building a laneway house, here’s a quick rundown:

• In RS-1 and RS-5 single family areas
• On lots 33’ wide and wider, with an open lane, on a double fronting street, or on a corner with a lane dedication
• Generally located in the space where a garage would be permitted, i.e. in the rear 26’ of the lot (and a minimum of 16’ separation between the laneway house and the main house)
• Rental or family only / no strata-titling
• Minimum of one on-site parking space
• Unit size based on lot size to a maximum of 750 sq.ft. (approx. a 500 sq.ft. unit on a 33’ X 122’ lot)
• 1 and 1 ½ storey configurations, with guidelines to address upper storey massing, privacy, and shadowing
• Enabling homeowners to add a laneway house while retaining their existing main house; with or without a secondary suite in the main house (a laneway house could also be built with a new house)

rental lights

Someone stole the portable lights we rented for our kid’s football team. Now they can only practice until dark. Not long and getting shorter.

While I’m on the subject of stealing from kids: My son can not collect bottles for extra money like I did as a kid. Someone always steals them. They come into our back gate and take all of his carefully sorted stash.

I can almost understand the latter. Someone needs the bottles more than my kid? They are on the street and need money. I almost accept that. Stealing rental lights from a sports team that has seen cuts from funding I don’t accept. The lights needed a good sized vehicle to haul them away in, a professional tool for cutting the chains and a number of people to heave-ho the darn things to the curb (the same way the parents would heave-ho them into position at every practice).

Stealing the lights from the team took planning by someone with resources. They did not need them.