Updated: Sun Nov. 09 2008 07:57:28

ctvbc.ca

Vancouver mayoral hopeful and city councillor Peter Ladner says the decision to secretly approve a $100-million loan to complete the 2010 Olympic athletes' village was made unanimously by council last month.

The Globe and Mail newspaper reported that councillors voted during an in-camera meeting on Oct. 14 to approve the loan for the Millennium Development Corp. project.

The $1-billion Olympic village, which will include 1,100 units of housing on prime waterfront land along Vancouver's southeast False Creek, has been dogged by cost overruns and financing difficulties. The athlete's village is already $65 million over its original price.

But no one -- not the current mayor, the city, the developer, Olympic organizers or a mayoral candidate that would have been part of that meeting -- was prepared to discuss the loan.

"I'm not talking about what happened at an in-camera meeting; in-camera meetings are always a secret," said mayoral candidate Peter Ladner, a sitting councillor who chairs the municipal finance committee.

Ladner was asked about the loan during a mayoral debate Thursday morning, and would only say that the city's property endowment fund would be equipped to handle a loan of that size.

A struggling project?

At another debate late last month, a video of which has been posted on the Internet, Ladner acknowledged the project was struggling and said the city has been "investing heavily" through the fund to ensure the village is finished.

Ladner's main rival for the mayor's seat, Gregor Robertson, seized on the issue and called for an emergency council meeting to reveal the details before next Saturday's civic elections, although councillors from Robertson's own party who are privy to the deal also refused to discuss details.

Officials from Millennium Development, a consortium of 17 firms who won the contract to develop the village, were not available for comment.

The city issued a vague statement, saying only that the risk associated with the village had not changed.

"I think that the taxpayer out there will understand that when we conduct business discussions on their behalf, that we don't reveal those on a day-to-day basis, because we're in negotiations," Jody Andrews, the city's project manager for the village, told reporters.

Mayor Sam Sullivan's chief of staff also refused to comment and suggested it wouldn't be unusual to make such a decision in secret.

"I'm not confirming what's in that report," said David Hurford.

"Council deals with in-camera items all the time, It's part of the job. You're dealing with real-estate issues, things regarding land values, the economic situation of private companies."

The Olympic connection

Vancouver Olympic organizers simply said they were confident the city was properly managing the village, and wouldn't comment on the loan.

NDP Olympic critic Harry Bains says the loan is another reason for more scrutiny over tax dollars going to the Games. Bains says he's been calling for years to have the province's auditor general oversee 2010 spending.

Under Millennium Development's contract with the city, the developer is supposed to be on the hook for any cost overruns.

Last month, Ladner said he was "distressed" to learn that Millennium Development was having trouble financing the project.

At the time, the developer acknowledged there were discussions with the company's lender and the city about a financing agreement to cover costs but insisted taxpayers wouldn't be on the hook for a bailout.

After the Games, most of the apartments will be sold as private condos, while a portion will be reserved for social housing.

Recent projections suggest the value of real estate is on the decline in Vancouver, raising questions about the financial feasibility of the Millennium project. The developers, Fortress Investment Group, agreed to pay $193 million for the land on which the village is being built.

Comments are now closed for this story

Paul
This is exactly why when, in the civic elections I vote NO when asked if I would like to give the city the ability to borrow/spend without approval of the electorate. They can't find enough money to house the THOUSANDS of homeless, but Millions more to help pay for the 2 week party coming up in just over a year........disgusting and disgraceful.

jimmy
In this time of economic hardship, securing a $1m loan from the tax payers would be ludicrous. I guess the developers have to get rich somehow. Thanks Millennium!

Denis
It's amazing how our municipal elected representatives can just go ahead and bailout a project with tax payers money and not have too disclose any details as too where these funds will come from and how are they going to be paid back. The least they could do is inform the public that pay for their wages and have elected them in good faith.

Is honesty and integrety too much to ask for now a days?

PS: For the record, my comments are not politically driven, I would expect these qualities that I mentionned above from any level of government.

Dave
Isn't it amazing how these same individuals on council who are wined and dined by developers can wantonly spend our money behind closed doors....while thousands of others in the city go without a roof over their heads in the rain.

With the screwed up priorities of politicians in Vancouver - I'm now ashamed to say I'm born here.

Jim-Surrey
Here we go again keeping secrets from the voting tax paying public.
When are these politicians going to learn to be honest and up front with the public it is no wonder everyone gets a bad taste in their mouth when they have to vote as they don't know which liar will lie the least!
Maybe a more watchful eye should have been kept on the project instead of just letting them loose to spend tax dollars.
I say to HELL with 2010 it is going to make us go broker than we already are!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

monty
It cracks me up how Robertson prances around making all these accusations about a process and a project he knows little about.

Is Gregor forgetting that his own COPE/Vision team of Louie, Deal, Stevenson and Cadman also approved this loan? His idiotic pronouncements that the NPA is solely to blame is only going to backfire.

The REAL problem here are the incumbents. My advice: DON'T VOTE FOR ANY INCUMBENTS!

I plan to vote only for a few new people from both sides: Sean Bickerton and Michael Geller from NPA; Andrea Reimer and Geoff Meggs from Vision. In my mind, these are the best candidates running and we need New Blood and Better Ideas other than what has come from the in-fighting and pettiness of the current Council.

Michelle Casey
Being a tax payer I think that being sneaky about making a decision like this that will affect all of us is wrong. There was obviously a reason why the guilty involved didn't want us to know about this. A secret that could bite us all in the butt later on? Dirty politics! When can we move in?

Terry Hoogenboom
Tick'ed Off

I have a problem with any part of goverment that can decide that my tax dollars can be spent on a building to house athletes for a couple of weeks when there is good enought hotels, hostels and/or why not billet home's like the young people have to do.This really ticks me off when kids going without food or warm clothes in this country if this problem is gone I have no problem donating some tax dollars to sports.
I could go on and on about the waste that all levels of government miss use my tax dollars.

A Guenther
I searched Fortress on this site to try and get a handle on what exactly the relationship between Millenium and Fortress is. The following are from CTV articles dated Oct6 to Nov7:

"credit crunch in the U.S could hit Millennium"
"project is being financed by Fortress Investment Group, a New York-based private equity company"
"even though Millennium is the developer, the city of Vancouver has made a pledge to the 2010 organizing committee"
"concerns about the ability of Fortress Investment Group to meet its obligations in relation to its Intrawest operations"
"Fortress is approaching potential and existing lenders in order to maintain the value of its investments in Intrawest"
"Intrawest's flagship assets are its ski operations in Whistler"
"Intrawest said the deal was reached after the company received unanimous support from its lender group"
"Intrawest is a unit of the Fortress Group LLC, which paid $1.8 billion for the resort firm and its 10 North American mountain resorts two years ago"
"As a vacation resort operatorm and developer of real estate at its resorts and at other locations across North America and in Europe"
"..of the Millennium project. The developers, Fortress Investment Group, agreed to pay $193 million for the..."
"the Millennium Development Corp project"
"Millennium Development, a consortium of 17 firms"
"Under Millennium Development's contract with the city, the developer is supposed to be on the hook for any cost overruns"
"..the Millennium project. The developers, Fortress Investment Group, agreed to pay $193 million for the land on which the village is being built"

Which brings up a few disturbing questions:
1. Vancouver will get Whistler ski ops if the loan is defaulted?
2. who exactly was involved with that 1.8 billion dollar refinancing in Whistler?
3. WHY? after all of this, is Fortress getting prime waterfront property?
4. Do we have complete dunderheads in our government?, and yes, that includes especially Campbell