Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 24, 2015, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A4 A 4 WINNIPEG FREE PRESS, SATURDAY, JANUARY 24, 2015 TOP NEWS winnipegfreepress. com E xperience the great outdoors in Manitoba's provincial parks this summer. Apply today for the seasonal camping program and occupy the same campsite for an entire season - including long weekends. Both serviced and un- serviced sites are available in Manitoba campgrounds. All sites are distributed through public draws. Pick up your information package and application at 200 Saulteaux Crescent in Winnipeg, at Manitoba Conservation and Water Stewardship District Offices, or online by visiting manitobaparks. com. The application deadline is February 6 for all provincial park seasonal campgrounds. For more information about the seasonal camping program, please call 204- 945- 3934; toll free 1- 800- 214- 6497; or email seasoncamp@ gov. mb. ca Public Seasonal Camping Draw Apply today for the Seasonal Camping Program stmarysacademy. mb. ca | facebook. com/ smawinnipeg | twitter. com/ smawpg 550 wellington crescent | winnipeg, mb | r3m 0c1 | 204- 477- 0244 JANUARY 27, 2015 AT 7: 00 P. M. information evening st. mary's academy New student applications are due February 13, 2015 - Financial Assistance Available - A community of learning, faith and service. This is my school. Students at St. Mary's Academy know that education is more than just opening a book. They are part of a community that encourages academic excellence, spiritual growth, athletic ability and artistic expression. Each student is challenged to reach her full potential as an individual created in God's image. Call For Proposals The City of Winnipeg, in partnership with the Winnipeg Community Advisory Board ( CAB), is currently soliciting proposals to organize and conduct a " Point in Time Count" of the homeless people within the boundaries of the City of Winnipeg. Deadline for Applications: Proposals must be received at the Winnipeg Housing and Strategic Initiatives Division Office 400- 10 Fort Street Winnipeg, Manitoba R3C 1C4 no later than February 13, 2015 at 4: 30 p. m. For application packages or additional information, please contact: Terry Cormier at 204- 986- 3911 Or tcormier@ winnipeg. ca Providing free support and services for women and children . Programs . Counselling . Workshops . Resources Dying of Embarrassment? Difficulty eating or writing in public Difficulty maintaining eye contact Blushing, sweating, dry mouth, racing heart in social situations Call: 925- 0600 1( 800) 805- 8885 www. adam. mb. ca S INCE 1989, armchair planners have been able to manipulate imaginary cities by playing various versions of the video game SimCity . Build a power plant next to a residential neighbourhood, and those homes won't rise in value. Fail to create parks and you won't attract wealthy residents. Don't build churches and a divine power may just smite your city with an earthquake. The worst thing that could happen, if you screw up on a colossal basis, is your imaginary city will go bankrupt, and you'll have to start the game from scratch. Real cities don't have a restart option. When real- life planners make mistakes, cities pay the consequences, which more often than not involve a massive pile of cash. This is what the City of Winnipeg may be facing as a result of its downtown development agency's efforts to engineer an entire vicinity: The SHED, or sports, hospitality and entertainment district. This 11- block area covers part of the South Portage neighbourhood, made up mostly of commercial buildings and surface- parking lots, and spills into Portage- Ellice, encompassing the MTS Centre, RBC Convention Centre and both the Metropolitan and Burton Cummings theatres. The SHED is also aided by a development incentive known as taxincrement financing, where additional taxes from new or improved structures is plowed back into infrastructure in the same area or handed back to developers. Ideally, these incentives would be made available to anything new in the area. But only pre- approved projects in the SHED get to qualify. This is a mild perversion of city planning. But the SHED is also odd in that tax- increment financing is more powerful when it covers blighted areas. Downtown Winnipeg is underdeveloped, but calling South Portage blighted is a stretch. All of this, however, is small potatoes compared to the biggest problem with the SHED: planning arrogance, if not outright hubris. The SHED represents an effort to create an entertainment district from the top down, with little consideration for the organic way neighbourhoods develop when zoning rules, tax incentives and market forces are allowed to interact anarchically. In 2012, CentreVenture purchased the Carlton Inn, a hotel considered a scourge by some of its neighbours. The land was worth less than $ 2 million, but there was a functioning business on the premises. CentreVenture wound up spending $ 6.6 million on the purchase plus additional cash on demolition and accounting for the curious deal that saw the Canad Inns Corp. assume partial ownership for tax- avoidance purposes. Construction company Stuart Olson, already obligated to build a hotel to serve the expanded convention centre, was required to build on the Carlton site. But CentreVenture spent too much, hampering efforts to bring a hotel to the table. The development agency wound up doubling down by working with True North Sports & Entertainment on a larger plan involving both the Carlton Inn site and the surface- parking lot to the east at 225 Carlton St. There's nothing wrong with Centre- Venture conducting land assembly. North of Portage Avenue, the A& B Sound purchase prevented another dollar store from opening and made way for the Centrepoint project, which includes a hotel, condo tower, office space and a parkade. In comparison, the land assembly south of Portage Avenue appears haphazard. First, the occupied Carlton Inn site was selected for a conventioncentre hotel even though Lakeview, a company that builds hotels, owned a vacant lot west of the convention centre. When private efforts to buy the Carlton failed, CentreVenture bought the hotel. And when that site couldn't be sold without incurring a loss, Centre- Venture signed an option with True North. All of this would have gone unnoticed if a Carlton development was finalized before Winnipeg's new mayor was elected and the convention centre didn't come before a new council asking to release Stuart Olson from its obligations. Brian Bowman is now in the unenviable position of demanding to learn details of a plan developed with True North, whose chairman, Mark Chipman, endorsed him. More significantly, the mayor is making noises about limiting Centre- Venture's future ability to engage in land transactions without council oversight. In SimCity , a game based on reallife planning principles, players learn their actions come with consequences. CentreVenture's manipulation of downtown's tax regime and real estate market may actually serve to dissuade development, especially if prospective players believe the field isn't level. bartley. kives@ freepress. mb. ca W INNIPEG Mayor Brian Bowman and his executive policy committee will decide Monday which bad option is best for the downtown convention centre. A special meeting is set for 1 p. m. to consider a formal request from the board of the RBC Convention Centre to cancel the $ 16- million holdback to contractor Stuart Olson for its inability to attract a hotel operator for the convention centre expansion project. In an unusually frank question- andanswer exchange Wednesday, convention centre chairman Bob Silver told the board it had reached a deal with Stuart Olson for a $ 3.75 million settlement in exchange for cancelling the $ 16- million holdback. Silver said the settlement deal - which he described as the " bad" option - was in recognition that trying to withhold a $ 16- million payment to Stuart Olson would likely end up in a lengthy and costly legal dispute - which he described as the " worse" option. Increased property- tax revenue from the proposed hotel site at 220 Carlton St., where the former Carlton Inn stood, is to be used to repay a $ 33- million loan from city hall to the convention centre for its $ 180- million expansion. Councillors are concerned that without a hotel on the property, that loan will never be repaid. EPC members said Wednesday they needed more time to deal with the convention centre's request. Coun. Marty Morantz, chairman of the finance committee, said he couldn't support letting Stuart Olson out of its commitment. Coun. John Orlikow said city council may have no other option than to comply with the convention centre's request. Complicating the convention- centre situation is the role CentreVenture, the city's downtown development agency, did or did not play in undermining Stuart Olson's attempt to lure a partner to build and run a hotel on the site of the former Carlton Inn. CentreVenture officials confirmed to EPC while the convention centre and Stuart Olson were discussing the likelihood of getting a hotel operator, Centre- Venture signed an option on the hotel site to another developer - suspected to be True North - for a mystery project. CentreVenture CEO Angela Mathieson refused to divulge any details on the option or confirm True North is the developer but said it will be a fantastic project for the city. Bowman and EPC members criticized CentreVenture for its handling of the hotel property and now wants CentreVenture to issue a public request for proposals for the site. aldo. santin@ freepress. mb. ca Learning SimCity's lessons CentreVenture's planning efforts could do more harm than good BARTLEY KIVES When real- life planners make mistakes, cities pay the consequences, which more often than not involve a massive pile of cash BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Mayor Brian Bowman was dumped in the middle of a plan developed with True North, whose chairman, Mark Chipman, endorsed him. ' Bad' option versus ' worse' EPC to decide which for convention centre By Aldo Santin A_ 04_ Jan- 24- 15_ FP_ 01. indd A4 1/ 23/ 15 8: 48: 31 PM ;