Vancouver missed out on millions as land deals were struck without proper strategy: report
CBC
A $13 million calculation error in a Vancouver land sale deal is one of several issues raised in a new report from the city's independent auditor general that questions how it deals with public land transactions.
Mike Macdonell’s latest report, released this week, concluded that the city cannot show it maximized the value of its land sales and exchanges because it lacked a clear strategy and kept poor documentation of those deals.
“In 2024, my office received a whistleblowing complaint and the whistleblower said that they felt the city hadn't received good value in certain land sale transactions,” Macdonell said.
His office examined 16 transactions out of 40 over an eight-year period between 2016 and 2024.
“There's only one chance to get it right. You sell a piece of property, then that’s gone,” he said. “And there's no do overs or anything like that.”
The auditor found that out of the 16 transactions 14 were initiated by potential buyers or developers and not the city. According to the report, Vancouver has largely been reacting to offers and not “proactively” using its land portfolio to advance priorities like affordable housing.
“The vast majority of the transactions we looked at were kind of done on an ad hoc basis,” Macdonell said.
He says the council was not routinely given key information on payment conditions, extensions and interest payments.
In two transactions worth more than $90 million each, payments were delayed for years and the city did not charge interest, despite existing policy outlining it should have. Had interest been applied at the time, the city could have been entitled to roughly $26.3 million in interest payments alone, the report says.
The report also highlights one transaction where the council was not advised of a staff calculation error.
In the sale of 601 Beach Crescent, the auditor says city staff made an error that understated what a developer owed by nearly $13 million.
In the same deal, the city also agreed to pay a $12.1 million community amenity contribution that was legally the developer’s responsibility, but council was never informed.
“I think a lot of it was because the documentation was disorganized,” Macdonell said. “The guidance that the city had on guiding staff and how to conduct these transactions was out of date, sometimes it was contradictory.”
Required checklists were often incomplete or missing, problems, which he says, the city’s own internal audit flagged back in 2018.
The billionaire U.S. owners of the busiest land border crossing in North America turned to a high-powered lobbying firm run by former top aides to Prime Minister Stephen Harper in recent years, records show.
Students across the province are protesting recent changes to the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) — the post-secondary financial aid system will go from a majority grant structure to a majority loan structure in the new school year.
A program at the University of Prince Edward Island that trains future French teachers once struggled to find students, but it's now seeing more interest than ever.
All school purpose vehicles outside of London, Ont. are cancelled Wednesday morning due to a thick blanket of fog causing poor visibility on the roads.
Gas prices in the Greater Toronto Area jumped six cents on Wednesday, with experts warning more increases are expected in the days ahead due to the U.S. and Israel-Iran war.
Albertans listening to the U.S. president’s state of the union address last week may have experienced a sense of deja vu when it came to Donald Trump’s plans for AI data centres: “We’re telling the major tech companies that they have the obligation to provide for their own power needs.”
A prominent labour organization in Newfoundland and Labrador that was pushing hard for topsides construction contracts on the Bay du Nord production vessel says a plan to invest in a massive floating dry dock will more than offset the loss of any work on the topsides.
Some Iranians in Sudbury, Ont., say they are ecstatic about recent attacks from the United States and Israel against Iran.
A Nova Scotia family is speaking out after two masked intruders entered a Halifax-area high school and violently attacked a Grade 9 student, prompting concerns about school safety and security.
Keith Hoyt’s cows used to be the neighbourhood celebrities.
It is a bluebird morning at Mont Tremblant ski resort, with the white peaks reaching into a clear sky.
The man responsible for the 2018 Humboldt Broncos bus crash could be deported to India within weeks, leaving behind his wife and two children, who are pleading with Canada to let him stay.
Delays and closures, including the cancellation of several families of schools, are in effect across parts of P.E.I. Wednesday morning after an overnight snowfall on the Island.