725 replies to this topic

[gumgum]

Homeless cleanup begins. Just like Cridge.

[Baro]

This sort of work might clean the park up short term, but without locals actively using the park it will create the same sort of vacuum that attracts the homeless and drug users.

[amor de cosmos]

Human remains delay work at Victoria's Pioneer Square Park
Published: September 12, 2013 11:00 AM
Updated: September 12, 2013 1:03 PM

Excavation work at Pioneer Square Park came to a halt yesterday after human remains were unearthed near the corner of Meares and Quadra streets.

City crews were removing asphalt to make way for a new pathway when the remains were found less than half a metre under the surface, said Katie Hamilton, City of Victoria spokeswoman.

While the site was used as the city cemetery between 1855 and 1873, crews did not expect to find human remains buried so close to the surface, Hamilton said. There are an estimated 1,300 human remains buried within the park.

http://www.vicnews.c.../223506291.html

[aastra]

What do we all think of this sort of thing? (from Saint John, NB)
http://www.flickr.co...ca/10480021286/

[Baro]

Looks like a church being put to good work.

[Bingo]

Why would they build a beautiful church right next to that awful building?

[Nparker]

With declining attendance over the next 25+ years, there are going to be a lot of churches needing re-purposing for the foreseeable future. This is doubly good for it will breath much needed life into buildings mostly only used a couple of days a week, as well as generate needed revenue once their tax-free status is gone.

http://www.cobourgat...nt-comment=1567

[HB]

They are not totally tax free status. The portion of the church used for mass are taxed. for example they pay taxes for areas other then the interior portion where the pews and alters are. The do pay taxes on the sacristy the yard the lawn the parking lot and the front area by the road as well as the parish centre on View
This is my understanding I am sure that if this is not totally correct I will be pounced upon with haste.

[wisevictoria]

They are not totally tax free status. The portion of the church used for mass are taxed. for example they pay taxes for areas other then the interior portion where the pews and alters are. The do pay taxes on the sacristy the yard the lawn the parking lot and the front area by the road as well as the parish centre on View
This is my understanding I am sure that if this is not totally correct I will be pounced upon with haste.

Incredibly specific answer, but not accurate. Churches and schools (among other things) are exempt from property taxes under the Community Charter. http://www.bclaws.ca...ection220<br />

[James Bay walker]

Incredibly specific answer, but not accurate. Churches and schools (among other things) are exempt from property taxes under the Community Charter. http://www.bclaws.ca...ection220<br />

(link) "(h) a building set apart for public worship,"
I suppose it could be a matter of interpretation (the parking area, the unimproved grounds, along with any non-worship portions of a structure) might be seen as taxable in theory. But I'm unaware of where this is ever done in practice, as I'd expect to encounter the reasoning that the whole is the sum of the parts and related to public worship.

jbw

[James Bay walker]

With declining attendance over the next 25+ years, there are going to be a lot of churches needing re-purposing for the foreseeable future.

So, are we going to soon see one or more of our major downtown church buildings converted into condos anytime soon?

http://online.wsj.co...163303753632508

jbw

[Coreyburger]

Incredibly specific answer, but not accurate. Churches and schools (among other things) are exempt from property taxes under the Community Charter. http://www.bclaws.ca...ection220<br />

Read the Charter. It only talks about the building used for public worship and the land it sits on, not the rest of it. Most munis just grant the whole part because that is a lot simpler.

http://www.victoria....e-exemption.pdf

[amor de cosmos]

What do we all think of this sort of thing? (from Saint John, NB)
http://www.flickr.co...ca/10480021286/

looks cool, kind of like this recent addition to a 200-year-old house in quebec:


http://www.archdaily...-henri-cleinge/

[amor de cosmos]

While foreign sojourners continued to admire and envy Brazil for being a land free of oppressive traditions and haunting venerable ruins, Brazilians were keenly weaving the threads binding Modernist efforts with the images of colonial, patriarchal Brazil. In fact, Brazil was not a land without history or prejudice but her history was hardly perceived as a burden by those devoted to the moulding of her future in the sense that they did not fear their deeds would prove them unworthy of their illustrious ancestors. In twentieth-century Brazil, confidence in the future energed as a consequence of a new confidence in the past.

Brazilian Modernist artists rejected the efforts of their immediate predecessors and conservative contemporaries who wished to modernize Brazil in a manner that would render it dependent upon a foreign history and a domineering culture. But these Modernists spared no effort in the construction of a national past in the image and likeness of an anticipated national future, tradition and modernity. On the contrary, the invention of a tradition recognizable by all Brazilians as their own was a prerequisite for Brazil's entry into the world of modern nations. Debate focused on the legitimacy of different versions of the national past or on the direction of the future, but past and future were not perceived as antagonistic. They were imagined concurrently and in similar terms. -- Stylane Philippou, Oscar Niemeyer: Curves of Irreverence p.42

[Bernard]

Here is a film clip from the late 1940s of the Inner Harbour and the Legislature

 

http://youtu.be/CGa5iQFTsIQ

[Hotel Mike]

^ Nice. I love the hair in the gate in the lower left corner. 

[wisevictoria]

Sorry for the lousy quality. From the 1949 yellow pages.

[Mike K.]

The Oddfellows building has a brand new paint job. Together with the dollar store they make quite the pair.

[Nparker]

Douglas Street is butt ugly.

[HB]

At least the Odd Fellows is a building and not a big wall of cinder blocks like the Dollar store....waiting to kill pedestrians during and earthquake.

Dollar store is a one storey building made to look big.