In 2010, UBC updated their LUP, and as part of that process, also updated their RCS. In their proposed RCS, UBC initially made projections of future population that did not include any students living in residence. In response, a Metro Vancouver report asked them to include students in their counts, among many other things. Ultimately, the compromise reached was that the 2021 projected population figure was stated as “Approximately 22,500 residents, including 10,000 residents in student accommodation on academic lands.” Metro Van gets a realistic estimate of the actual number of bodies on campus, while UBC still gets to distinguish students as somehow different.

Now, UBC is trying to revise their RCS from 3 years ago. Once again, they’ve excluded students from population counts. Their proposed wording for 2021 is now “Approximately 12,500 residents in Neighbourhood Housing Areas.” This, of course, conveniently ignores those 10,000 students living on campus that are currently being counted. C+CP’s 2031 and 2041 population projections also don’t include students.

The numbers for people living in student residences break down like this: 6,000 residents on 8-month leases (Sept-Apr) coinciding with the school year. 4,000 residents are on 12-month leases. In addition, phase 1 of Ponderosa Commons (~600 beds) is slated to open September 2013; those people will be on 12-month leases. Ponderosa phase 2 (~500 beds) is “shovel ready”. All told, within 2-3 years, there will be 5,000 students living in 12-month housing on campus. Thousands more could be added as other residence hubs are built in the future.

Even if there was a solid rationale for not counting the 6,000 residents on 8-month terms, there’s no credible way to discount the 5,000+ year-round student residents from being counted. These people make their home on campus all year round just like anyone living in a campus condo. They need the same services, the same infrastructure, the same amenities. Deliberately underestimating population numbers by 20-40% is one of the more irresponsible and dishonest things C+CP has tried to do. Doubly irresponsible, and infinitely more dishonest, given that they tried to do the exact same thing just three years ago and were told unequivocally to change their ways.

Since today’s issue of the Ubyssey is the last one for a few months, and campus is wrapped up in the flurries of exam season, this story might end up flying under the radar and fading away quickly. It shouldn’t. Everyone should get to know about the charming story of a condo developer offering the university money, and the university responding by giving the condo developer favourable treatment.

On the surface, it seemed simple. Modern Green, a believer in urban sustainability, wanted to contribute $3.5 million to CIRS, where UBC conducts its research into sustainable building practices. When it was announced, it was trumpeted by UBC as a partnership to further “green building research”.

As is made clear in the contribution agreement between Modern Green and UBC (obtained via Freedom of Information request), it wasn’t that simple.

First of all, UBC used a third party to collect the money on its behalf. That third party was UBC Properties Trust. And most crucial of all, the payments would be made as lease payments on a parcel of land that Modern Green hoped to secure for a condo development in Wesbrook Place.

Put in another way, just to make things clear: no lease, no money. UBC only gets the $3.5M from Modern Green if they allow Modern Green to develop a condo on campus. But UBC, with its “robust approval process” for campus development in place, would not let a thing like the promise of $3.5M cloud its judgement, right?

No, of course not.

Which is why, on March 28, 2011, Modern Green submitted a development permit application for Yu. The plans outlined a six-storey building, located a block south of Save On Foods. On the date the application was submitted, the South Campus Neighbourhood Plan specified a height limit of 5 storeys for Yu’s proposed site. The building Modern Green wanted to construct was taller than the rules allowed for.

With what can only be classified as extremely fortuitous timing, a week later on April 5, UBC’s Board of Governors approved two specific revisions to the South Campus Neighbourhood Plan. The key revision: raise the height limit for Yu’s site to 6 storeys, a change which affected no other developments.

By the time it came to evaluate Modern Green’s proposal at UBC’s Development Permit Board on May 11, its height no longer violated the neighbourhood plan. It did, however, violate UBC’s Development Handbook, which also limited the height to 5 storeys. No matter, the Development Permit Board voted to relax that section of the regulations for the project, allowing it to proceed.

Modern Green’s project had now been approved, and all it had taken was for UBC to change and bend its development rules to conform to the building Modern Green had proposed, rather than having Modern Green’s proposal conform to the development rules set out by UBC. A lease was signed between Modern Green and UBC Properties Trust on July 8, 2011. As per the terms of that lease, Modern Green has already paid UBC Properties Trust $2.5M of its contributions towards CIRS. A final payment of $1M will be made on December 1, 2013. Two bedroom units in the building are currently listed starting at $689,900, and interested buyers can visit their presentation centre daily from noon – 5 pm.

“UBC requires [Student Housing] to take out internal loans for building new residences from the UBC endowment, and charges profit seeking levels of interest on these internal loans of approximately 5.75%. UBC is lending to a part of itself and requiring a highly profitable return.”

[...]

“In the 2011/2012 financial year, SHHS interest and debt repayments to the University were projected to be in excess of $26 million, out of total SHHS costs of $77 million. While $8 million was to pay back money that was borrowed, just under $18 million, or approximately 23%, was for interest payments alone.”

From a Freedom of Information request received in December:

“I am enclosing a copy of a summary of mortgage loans provided by UBC to its employees… these loans are all interest-free.”

Lisa Castle, VP Human Resources at UBC, described this system to the Ubyssey – levying millions of dollars in interest charges against students living in residence, while forgoing all interest charges from those at UBC who have the most ability to pay – as “standard practice”.

If you’re lucky, you last a decade, avoid major scandals and get two or three big things done. Then everybody forgets you.

And if you’re really lucky, years later they’ll name something on campus in your honour, which sophomoric students then will attach nicknames too.

Like “P.P. Fountain”

Today, UBC announced that the intersection of Main Mall and University Boulevard (containing a big honking fountain) will be named “Martha Piper Plaza.” No doubt, in the years to come, tens of thousands of students will pass by it daily in a hurry, thinking “OH GOD WHY DID I THINK HAVING BACK TO BACK CLASSES ON OPPOSITE SIDES OF CAMPUS WAS A GOOD PLAN?” And they’ll probably never think about who the fountain was named for, or if they do, probably assume it was an old person who gave money, if current UBC naming conventions are any future indication.

But every president worth his salt (sorry, Kenneth Hare! [sorry, readers, for making this piece even more impenetrable!]) gets something named in their honour, from roads (Wesbrook) to buildings (Klinck, MacDonald, Strangway, Kenny) to housing (MacKenzie, Gage). The decision carries a certain amount of symbolism with it, as something people will casually associate with the person for decades to come.

And in that sense, Martha Piper Plaza is both a wonderful tribute to UBC’s 11th President, in both a sincere and snarky way.

First the sincere: The UBC you know and love today is the vision of Martha Piper. The focus on being “world class”, the prioritizing of research, the international push, the partnerships far and wide, the intense branding—all things that came to fruition during Piper’s term as President. Also Bort. Oh, Bort.

(Please google “martha piper bort” now for understanding.)

When you imagine the “UBC experience”, whatever that is, it probably involves students heading to class on Main Mall, going to a shiny building of some sort, trying to balance class with being a global citizen of tomorrow… and something about passing Martha Piper Plaza along the way makes sense.

But, it’s also a fountain. A fountain with no practical value. A fountain that looks nice, has no offensive qualities, but if you took it away, nobody would really notice or complain.

(This is where the snark comes in)

See, while Piper was UBC’s President for nine years, her tangible legacy is actually quite short. The new things UBC did under her watch are relatively few, because it was in most ways a continuation of the reign of David Strangway, who was UBC’s President from 1985 to 1997.

Strangway saw a mid-sized university getting less and less money from the government, and decided the solution was selling large tracts of UBC land on 99-year leases, launching giant fundraising campaigns, putting a priority on research over undergraduate teaching, and made UBC one of the first North American universities to develop partnerships in Asia.

Those, more than anything, are the giant blocks on which UBC is built today, and Piper herself has admitted this, saying her main job was to continue Strangway’s legacy. Under Piper, UBC built a bunch of new buildings, advertised itself to the world, but really didn’t change what it was about or improve in many discernible ways. Heck, even Piper’s only scandal, the 1997 APEC protests, is really due to Strangway: He had approved the arrangements detailing UBC’s involvement, and Piper, just months into her term, couldn’t really do anything about it.

And the thing named for Strangway? Just that building on the corner of University and Wesbrook. Right at the entrance of campus, mixed-use, but sort of unassuming. Home of an Oral Health Centre that allows for vertical integration of UBC’s academic/research aims, and Mahony and Sons, an expensive restaurant guaranteed a monopoly and not really designed for undergraduate students at all.

Martha Piper will have a plaza with a nice fountain in the middle of campus named for her. That’s nice. That’s pleasant. And while virtually no one who passes it will realize it—it’s an appropriate tribute to a competent, yet forgettable, president.

Justin McElroy is former Coordinating Editor of The Ubyssey, and currently writes the news for Global BC.

The twitter account @UBCDimewatch was deleted today. Its stated aim was to find “dimes” (attractive women) at UBC. However, for months, it was much more frequently a repository of blatantly sexist put downs aimed at women, like the one above. It also contained “creepshots” – candid photos of unknowing women along with comments making reference to certain parts of their anatomy. It was sleazy. The evidence now strongly suggests it was the work of a group of members of the UBC Men’s Hockey team.

Yesterday morning, the @UBCDimewatch account unveiled a related website, thedimewatch.com. This website was registered to “Big Dog” Ben Schmidt, a player on the UBC Thunderbirds Men’s Hockey team. The website registration information was quickly made private shortly after this fact was revealed, though Schmidt does acknowledge registering the domain and building the website.

Schmidt, while not running from the domain registration, is hiding from any connection to @UBCDimewatch. He disavows all of the content of the website and the twitter feed and claims to have been hired by “a friend” to construct the website, nothing more. He has not elaborated on who his “friend” in this case is.

It seems plausible, likely even, that multiple people were behind the @UBCDimewatch account. Ilan Cumberbirch, another Thunderbirds hockey player, said Schmidt was innocent. He tweeted (and has since deleted): “@ubcinsiders sleep at night, seen some scumbag detective work in my day, sewering innocent citizens #NoCredibility #WrongfulAccusation #JOKE”

So it should not come as a surprise to learn that other people have accused Cumberbirch of being involved too (see above). It is merely a coincidence, no doubt, that Cumberbirch and the mysterious party behind @UBCDimewatch both use the same model of 3-year old Blackberry phone to take photos.

In another bizarre coincidence, Schmidt also uses the same model phone, as a “follower” who sumitted a photo to @UBCDimewatch.

Regardless of who exactly was involved, a typical observer would come to the conclusion that whoever was tweeting from this account was more than likely a player on the UBC Men’s hockey team.

Be More Than A Bystander

This poster is currently up on a board in the SUB.

The UBC Thunderbirds are taking part in the “Be More Than a Bystander” campaign, aimed at combatting violence against women, violence which can include a “joke, cat call, comment, put down”. The essence of the campaign is to encourage people to speak up when they witness violence against women, to call people out when they’re insulting and objectifying women, in order to create “a culture that no longer sits idly by, condoning violence against women through its silence.”

The Thunderbird athletes putatively behind @UBCDimewatch were the ones initiating violence against women exactly as described in this campaign by composing a consistent stream of sexist comments, jokes, and put downs. Yesterday, people decided to “be more than a bystander” and to speak up against it. The response of many of UBC’s student athletes and their friends was to then direct their harassment towards anyone who pointed out and challenged @UBCDimewatch’s inappropriate behaviour. Personal attacks continue to be directed my way. An AMS councillor who engaged in the fray was labelled a bitch by an athlete, a sentiment subsequently echoed by other athletes and friends.

UBC’s student athletes are representatives of the university. Once UBC caught wind of this all this morning, the fallout was swift. Tweets were deleted from personal accounts, as well as a number of other vulgar anonymous accounts clearly run by UBC student athletes. But the true colours of many of UBC’s student athletes were made very clear last night. Supportive of outright sexism and harassment.

Shame on the UBC student athletes who think it’s acceptable to insult and objectify women.

Shame on those who harrass people who oppose and challenge this sexist and inappropriate behaviour.

Shame on those that think both of these unacceptable behaviours should be allowed to be conducted anonymously.

I’m going to continue to be more than a bystander and say: shame on them.

As per the definition in the Emergency Program Act, Part 1 – Definitions and Application, the UNA does not meet the criteria of a municipality, electoral area, nor a national park. Based on this finding, UNA is not required to develop an emergency plan.

In order to batter the UNA’s ego just a little bit more, guess who does hold jurisdiction for emergency preparedness?

UNA falls under the jurisdiction of the Metro Vancouver area. Metro Vancouver is the local authority having jurisdiction (AHJ) for the area. As the local authority, Metro Vancouver has the responsibility “for the direction and control of the local authority’s emergency response…” as per the Emergency Program Act. Metro Vancouver provides fire, police, and ambulance services to support any incident occurring at housing developments operated through UNA.

It was pointed out that the UNA can still make emergency preparedness plans in order to supplement Metro Vancouver’s plans and to make themselves feel better. However, Metro Vancouver is top dog on this file and anything the UNA comes up with should support, not supplant Metro Vancouver’s plans.

The reason the UNA would commission a consultant’s report like this is not to actually ask for a neutral opinion on what their role should be in emergency preparedness. It’s to have a third party validate their already-held view that the UNA has jurisdiction over emergency preparedness in their Neighbourhoods. The UNA’s plan seems to be that if they occupy their current role for long enough, they’ll be able to claim squatter’s rights on UBC’s vacant municipal governance at some point in the future. To campus denizens not in the Neighbourhoods, they may as well just be a group of people standing on the top of Save-On Foods screaming “Respect my authoritah!”

BC’s 40 most popular courses will get free textbooks! Up to 200,000 students will benefit! Savings of hundreds of dollars or more! In place as early as next September!

Sound too good to be true? It is. The open textbook announcement was made with few of the details having been worked out and the press release was correspondingly vague. This has led alternately to having people wonder about what’s really going on, as well as people inventing in their own minds how the program will work.

Sentences like “open textbooks are expected to be created with input from B.C. faculty, institutions and publishers through an open Request for Proposal process” makes it sound like the project will involve a lot of textbook creation. But this project is less about creating open textbooks, and more about convincing people to actually use them.

In a lot of cases, open textbooks that BC students could use already exist. The organization coordinating the BC open textbook project, BCCampus, already has links to a number of open textbook sources on their website. One of the featured examples is Open Stax, a project of Rice University in Texas, which currently offers open textbooks for introductory courses in Physics and Sociology, with books for Anatomy & Physiology, and Biology coming soon. The books look well-done and are Creative Commons-licenced, meaning that students can download a PDF copy for free. For a professionally printed copy, the 500-page Open Stax Sociology text is available for under $30; the 1200-page Physics text is under $50. Or you can get it printed yourself from the PDF.

Rather than write an introductory physics text from scratch, it seems much more likely that the Open Stax version could be adopted for use in BC as well. Alternately, because of the way Creative Commons licencing works, entire chapters or large excerpts of the Open Stax version could be adopted (with attribution) and combined with new content generated in BC. The result would be a remixed textbook: part Open Stax, part original, and customized to match the curricula of introductory physics courses offered at BC universities. Or an entirely new textbook could be written from scratch, although that approach, if used on all 40 courses, seems like needlessly reinventing the wheel.

So the creation of textbooks won’t be the main challenge of this initiative. A lot of it has been done, and there’s a reasonably large base of material that’s already available to be used or remixed to create new books. This doesn’t just include existing open textbooks, but any bits of instructor-generated course material that could be combined and incorporated into an open textbook. Instead, the key will be convincing professors to use them. Without a concerted effort to push faculty to adopt open textbooks, it’s entirely possible to imagine a scenario in which BCCampus has an open textbook available, but that no BC university decides to use it.

The government’s promise to work with universities to develop an open textbook policy is nice, but the most important thing will be for these books to have a champion who will promote these books to professors in the same way a big publishing company would. It’ll take a push to overcome the inertia of having instructors simply use the latest edition of the book that’s been in use for the last decade.

Many questions about the project don’t currently have answers. Who will be writing the textbooks? Not sure, and in some cases, the books may already be written. Which courses will be included in the list of “40 most popular” receiving free textbooks? That list hasn’t been decided yet, and may be based more on books that are available rather than course popularity. Have any universities committed to using these textbooks? Not yet. But it’s still a good initiative to be optimistic about, a vote of confidence for the use of more open educational materials in BC.

Remember a few years back when there was this big huge thing about Saving the UBC Farm? If not, don’t feel bad, because a whole generation of students has come and gone since that all happened. In a nutshell, UBC has a 24 hectare farm in south campus. That land was slated for condos, like much of the land at UBC. People who liked the farm were not keen on that idea and they got over 15,000 people, and Metro Vancouver, to agree that the farm should be stay as a farm. After a few years of fairly relentless fighting, questioning, demonstrating, and petitioning, UBC’s Board of Governors agreed to keep the farm as a farm, with a few strings attached. The farm was “saved” and would continue to be a farm for the foreseeable future. Case closed, for now.

Here’s an idea to make the future of the farm even more secure: put it into BC’s Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR), “a provincial zone in which agriculture is recognized as the priority use. Farming is encouraged and non-agricultural uses are controlled.”

Why might this be awesome? Because of this: “The Agricultural Land Reserve takes precedence over, but does not replace other legislation and bylaws that may apply to the land. Local and regional governments, as well as other provincial agencies, are expected to plan in accordance with the provincial policy of preserving agricultural land.”

UBC’s board, or whatever local government gets installed here, wouldn’t be able to simply change the designation of the farm’s land to use it for other purposes. They would have to apply to a provincial commission to get it out of the ALR designation first. It provides a nice extra layer of bureaucratic protection for the farm. Now, there may be drawbacks to this idea; I have no expertise on the intricacies of managing land in the ALR and there may be drawbacks that make it not worthwhile. But I really think it’s an idea worth serious consideration by those who are invested in the farm’s long-term future. While support for the farm is strong from the current administration, and UBC did reaffirmed its commitment to the farm in last year’s Land Use Plan revisions, things could change over the course of 20+ years. An ALR designation would put an extra roadblock in place in case future administrators have a change of heart about the value of the farm to the university and to the community.

There might even be a way to get UBC to support this plan. Two years ago, UBC bought about 100 hectares of land in Kelowna, adjacent to the Okanagan campus. All of that land is currently in the ALR.

Until UBC can get it out of the ALR, the new land will remain a unicorn sanctuary.

If UBC ever wants to do non-farm activities on the Okanagan land (presumably that is the case), they’re going to have to get that land removed from the ALR. This might be an opportunity to engineer some sort of land swap arrangement: UBC agrees to put 24 hectares of new land (UBC Farm) into the ALR at the same time they’re taking 100 hectares (UBC Okanagan) out. A win-win.

For clarity, the Liquor Distribution Branch is the formal name of the governmental organization that owns and operates BC Liquor Stores. LDB will be used to refer to the corporate entity throughout this post, while BCL will be used to refer to the actual store locations.

Why did the UBC liquor store move? It can be paraphrased like this:

The primary motivation for moving the liquor store was not to better serve those living, working, or studying on campus; the primary motivation for moving the liquor store was to better serve those NOT living, working, or studying on campus.

The LDB knows that because they are the only liquor store on campus they can move wherever they want, within reason, and they will still have a liquor monopoly on campus. They are under no threat of competition. The LDB saw an opportunity to move the BCL next to an anchor tenant in Save on Foods that will draw people from all over, with lots of free parking, in an area of campus that will see the most population growth in the next decade. So, they moved. That’s it, in a nutshell. The reasoning in the business plan makes sense on the surface, and echoes the publicly stated reasons reported in the Ubyssey and The Campus Resident (page 10). But the business case is lazily done and seems like an extended exercise in confirmation bias. For the nitty gritty, read on.

Talk of moving the liquor store started in January 2009, when UBC Properties Trust (UBCPT) approached the LDB about space available in Wesbrook Place. Construction of Save on Foods was well underway at the time, and the grocery store opened in September 2009. While it seems like the LDB was quite receptive to UBCPT’s offer of space in Wesbrook there was a slight snag: at the time, they were in the middle of a 15-year lease – signed in 2002 – for their space in the Village.

While it is possible for the LDB to get out of its lease in the Village early, the soonest date they can do it is on November 1, 2013. So, even though the BCL store has already moved, the LDB is still committed to its lease in the village for another 14 months. During this time, the LDB will be paying rent on both properties, and if the BCL space in the Village remains vacant for an extended period, it’s because the landlords are getting paid anyways.

No "For Lease" signs in the window in the Village, because it's still under lease until late 2013. Photo: Jeff Aschkinasi

Although all the details of rental rates are redacted, presumably UBCPT offered them a sweet deal on rent. Not only so that the LDB would be willing to eat a year’s worth of rent on a property they aren’t using, but because rental rates are priced per square foot. The new BCL is about 4,800 sq. ft., while the old BCL was just under 3,000 sq. ft. so the new store probably costs more overall. Yet, having a bigger store, or being able to offer a better selection as a result, are not listed as an advantage or goal of the new location. They made a pro/con list of the new location, and it reads as follows:

Pros for Proposed Location

• Rapidly growing UEL community and UBC market housing on the south campus
• Save-On Foods is the Anchor Tenant of the new Wesbrook Village
• Excellent complementary retail that includes RBC Royal Bank, Blenz Coffee, Boston Pizza, and TD Bank
• Close proximity to UBC residences
• Ample parking, 100 on-grade and 200 underground parking stalls
• Better location to serve both the student and residential customers of the UBC market place

Cons for Proposed Location

• None identified at this time

Only the Wesbrook location was evaluated using a pro/con list. There was no similar list made for the merits of staying at the existing location in the Village. Saying Wesbrook Place is a “better location” for a liquor store implies that some sort of fomal comparison was made between two or more locations, based on a measurable set of criteria. This did not happen (or it wasn’t included here if it was).

The list of pros seems like it was probably generated by UBCPT staff trying to sell the LDB on the move and plugged right into the business case without even seeing if the reasons were valid, or seeing how it stacked up to the Village location. Let’s take a look. Yes, a lot of population growth will happen in Wesbrook. But there will also be a lot happening in Acadia and Block F eventually, and the access to those neighbourhoods will be via University Boulevard not 16th. Point for Wesbrook, there’s no real anchor tenant in the Village. But on complementary retail, the Village currently does much better. Two of the four places on the Wesbrook list of complementary retail (TD bank and Boston Pizza) don’t yet exist, and haven’t been announced as tenants if they are indeed opening in the neighbourhood, which is why it seems like this list was written by UBCPT. The Village is also in close proximity to UBC residences, and in most cases, closer than Wesbrook. While the Village might not have 300 parking spaces, there seems to be enough to handle the people going there. Instead, a pro for the Village might be that it has lots of foot traffic and a bus stop serving 4 busy routes, including the busiest route the lower mainland. The Wesbrook location is just “better”. The Village location is not. Somehow. Don’t get me wrong, Wesbrook is a completely reasonable place to put a liquor store, but the case for the move, as presented here, seems lazy, exaggerated and generated for the purpose of rationalizing a pre-determined conclusion.

The LDB is well aware that the campus BCL is the only liquor store around these parts. The closest private store is over 2 km away in Point Grey and it is extremely unlikely that any private competition will appear at UBC in the next decade. They characterize their market share as “100.0%”, having the campus liquor market cornered without even trying. And given that they close at 7 pm most days, they’re not really trying. The best opportunity for growth they saw was to capture more of the off-campus market. Fair enough.

The way to get these off-campus people into the store, they reasoned, is with “ample free parking” and proximity to a “strong anchor tenant” in Save on Foods. Says the report: “The current UBC GLS [Government Liquor Store] does not benefit from the existing residential density bordering UBC land however, the LDB believes that relocating the existing UBC GLS next to the Save on Foods will result in the relocated store capturing new market share from the drawing power of the major food store.”

In the period from 2005/06 to 2009/10, the report notes that sales at the Village location had increased by 45%, although growth has been stagnant in recent years. With the move, the LDB is predicting a 10% growth in sales in each of the first two years, then 1% annual growth in the next three years. Of the major initial growth, the LDB expects 3% to come from increasing population on campus, in Wesbrook in particular, while 7% will be from the off-campus driving to the store. Those guesstimates are based on projections of growing population numbers on campus and a customer survey.

The customer survey was conducted over two days in January 2011 and consisted of copying down the licence plates of all cars in the Save-On-Foods parking lot and mapping where those cars came from. They concluded that “Save on Foods has a very strong draw into a secondary trade area that extends just east of Dunbar street.” The details of the study were not included in the business plan, but was it surprising to find that most cars weren’t coming from just a block over? It seems like this type of survey is merely an exercise in confirmation bias. No such survey was done to see what traffic in the Village is like or where it came from, so there’s no comparison between the sites. Pedestrian and transit traffic was not measured at either site. Just the cars. So again, how do we know Wesbrook is “better”, in the absence of any actual comparison?

UBC developed Wesbrook with a mixed-use model, where the ethos is that people can live, work, and shop all in the same community, emphasizing walking, biking and transit. It’s a bit ironic that the LDB is moving their store in the hopes of enabling more people with cars from outside the community to drive to the store, encouraged all the while by UBCPT.

Only time will tell whether the move actually helps the LDB’s bottom line as predicted. I want to make clear that the Wesbrook location is a completely reasonable place to put a liquor store and that the reasons for moving are understandable. The population of Wesbrook will grow immensely in the next decade. “Ample Free Parking.” However, the location in the Village wasn’t really given a fair shake. It was simply assumed to be inferior without any real evaluation or comparison. But with no new private liquor stores at UBC likely for at least a decade, people will be forced to adjust to the new Wesbrook location. Under monopoly conditions like this, a business case doesn’t need to be particularly sound to still succeed.

“UBC is experiencing an increasing number of requests for new voice-based cellular installations on campus and in the adjacent university neighbourhoods.”

So says Campus and Community Planning, and as a result, they commissioned a consultant’s report to review how they handle applications for new cellular installations. What they found is that the current system is fairly disorganized, but that the blame is spread amongst both UBC and the cellular carriers.

The carriers’ feelings…

All of them commented about the complexity of the UBC approval process yet all agreed in discussion that they could probably contribute to the process if more involved in it. The perception in some cases was of a confrontational process rather than a collaborative one.

And from UBC’s side…

Everyone was prepared to accept that the carriers might perceive UBC as the cause of the problems, though their perceptions were more that the carrier demands were often unreasonable.

The recommendation from the consultants is that both sides should grow the fuck up and do shit right.

UBC should treat good cell reception on campus as a necessary utility all over campus, like electrical service, and plan for how to achieve good service when planning buildings or neighbourhoods. UBC should divide buildings into “acceptable” and “non-acceptable” categories for use for cellular installations, suggest a network of sites to best provide coverage to the whole campus, and force all the cell companies to share those sites.

The carriers should be proactive, rather than reactive, about building cellular installations on campus since UBC can already tell them where population growth will be. They also shouldn’t bitch about having to share sites since it’ll save them money anyways.

It’s a good read if you’re interested. And for the curious, they provide a list of current and proposed cellular installations at UBC. (NOTE: This does not include installations in Pacific Spirit Park or the UEL, which would also provide service to certain parts of campus.)

Existing and proposed cell-phone installations at UBC