In the late 1990s, Vancouver’s Real Estate department discovered that it had overcharged some of the City’s False Creek South strata tenants for leasehold prepayments due to the use of incorrect floor areas.
Wanting to correct this, it hired Allan Diamond Architect (ADA) to determine definitive interior floor areas for all the False Creek South stratas. ADA produced a report (see image) dated August 12, 1999, which the Real Estate department used to correct the prepayment amounts, and to provide refunds with interest.
This was reported by the Vancouver Sun’s Frances Bula on July 3, 2000 (see image below).
This decision to correct the prepayment amounts, and to provide refunds with interest, was an ethical response. The Real Estate department acknowledged errors and corrected them.
We do not know if the Real Estate department still has a copy of its ADA report (as it is notorious for not retaining important records). In any case it is not using the floor areas the report determined for it.
Instead, its current master False Creek South statistics table (image below) has higher floor areas for the stratas that received refunds in 2000; these are possibly the same floor areas that ADA was commissioned to correct.
In response to FOI requests, the Real Estate department has been unable to locate any records regarding the source of the incorrect floor areas it is now using.
However, those incorrect floor areas were used to calculate the land values used to determine the prices (totaling $109 million) which the City is currently charging its strata tenants for lease extensions. It can be anticipated that when the leases terminate, the Real Estate department will again use these incorrect floor areas to calculate inflated land values, to reduce the required payments to its strata tenants at that time.
Why did the Real Estate department use incorrect floor areas for its current table of False Creek South statistics, instead of using the corrected areas it commissioned from ADA, or using floor areas from BC Assessment or the City’s own appraisers (which are the same as the ADA floor areas)? Was it simple incompetence, or an attempt to squeeze extra money out of False Creek South tenants?
In any case, the Director of Real Estate Services, Jerry Evans, and the department’s General Manager, Deputy City Manager Armin Amrolia, do not appear willing to correct their current table of False Creek South statistics, and the resulting lease prepayment overcharges which total approximately $2 million. Perhaps the City Manager or Council can intervene…
But how sad, if the City’s treatment of its False Creek South tenants proves to be less ethical in 2025 than it was in 2000.
CONTEXT:
The Real Estate department routinely recommends the sale of City land to developers at less than market value. A striking example was the sale in 2014 of 2.7 acres to Ian Gillespie’s Westbank for its “Vancouver House” development, for $32.4 million which was $95.5 million less than its market value at the time.
DISCLOSURE:
The author is one of the affected False Creek South strata tenants.
Robert Renger
January 2025
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Robert Renger was the senior development planner for the City of Burnaby and the city’s lead for the planning and development of the UniverCity community at Simon Fraser University. See links to more articles by Robert here: https://cityhallwatch.wordpress.com/guest-writers/robert-renger/
