TAEHOON KIM
SOURCE: BC ASSESSMENT
SEPTEMBER 2017 BCBUSINESS 15
T H E M O N T H LY I N F O R M E R
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"Hey, this thing I love,
gaming, now can t within
the things I'm looking for
in a business model" –p.21
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 17
INSIDE
Dirty money ... Tumbler Ridge turnaround ... Chain pub crawl ... How to wear a kilt ... + more
BATTLE GROUND
Tax consultant Paul Sullivan
is pushing to lower tax rates
on empty land slated for
residential development
A
t the corner of Alma
Street and West 10th
Avenue in Vancouver, a
long-standing vacant lot that was
once a gas station has recently
become a 24,000-square-foot gar-
den brimming with vegetables,
fruit and •owers.
Neighbourhood gardeners
who•make use of its 100 plots,
for a nominal fee of $15 a year,
have a real estate developer to
future condo development.
Temporary gardens, and
sometimes parks, have popped
up throughout Vancouver,
usually in places undergoing
densiƒcation, around Olympic
Village or the downtown core.
The Davie Village Community
Garden at Burrard and Davie
streets is owned by Prima
Properties, which plans to
build a mixed-use tower on
the site. London Drugs Ltd.
has a community garden next
to its store on East Hastings
Street while the company holds
the land for a mixed-use
residential development. A
spokesperson said London
Cash Crop
REAL ESTATE
LAY OF
THE LAND
thank for their future bounty.
Landa Global Properties hired
a non-proƒt gardening group to
transform the lot—decommis-
sioned by Shell Canada Ltd. when
it sold the property in 2008—into
a series of raised garden beds,
with seating, public art and fruit
trees, as well as a water supply.
Gardeners can only be assured
of a crop from season to season,
though, because the land is a
Property developers have made Vancouver greener by
converting empty lots into community gardens, but they're
also reaping a generous tax break
by Kerry Gold
22 Vacant lots
in Vancouver,
Burnaby, North
Vancouver
and Squamish
converted to
gardens and
parks in the
2017 tax assess-
ment year
16 Garden
and park conver-
sions in the 2013
tax assessment
year
