The answer is no, according to research conducted by Duncan Low, former executive director of the Vancouver East Cultural Centre. His careful assessment, set out in this paper, was submitted in 2010 as part of his Masters of Arts research in the SFU Urban Studies Program.

Low traces the story of Larwill Park from Olympic live site to empty lot to projected location of a new Vancouver Art Gallery as part of the grand “cultural precinct” study launched by Sam Sullivan’s NPA council. (There is much more, but Larwill Park is a key part of the story.)

The site for millions of dollars of “cultural” investment for the live site next to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Larwill Park now sits empty. Sports legacies, in contrast, are obvious at the Richmond Oval, Hillcrest and elsewhere.

Here’s Low’s provocative and thoughtful conclusion at the end of nearly 100 pages of analysis:

This is the crux of the Olympic arts and cultural disconnect: that subsidy for the creation of a cultural precinct and the re-housing of the new VAG to meet the demands of an urban tourism destination is considered prudent government policy.

At the same time, the majority of Vancouver’s professional arts and cultural sector endures increasing hardship with budget cuts and recession. In a Vancouver Foundation report “Weathering the Storm,” published in October 2009, Expectations for 2010 stated,” 73% of Arts & Culture organizations expect a decrease in their revenue from government sources, higher than any other sector.”

It is true to say that the millions of Olympic dollars invested may not have ended up in a cultural budget. But it is also true to say that having spent the money on the construction and deconstruction of various buildings on Larwill Park those dollars will never provide an artistic legacy.

The same argument could be made in relation to the temporary installation of the Olympic streetcar in relation to transit legacy.

Given the research question and the data collected it is fair, at this point to say, that there is little evidence in the data to support the premise that hosting a Cultural Olympiad provided Vancouver’s professional arts and cultural sector as a whole with increased national and international profile nor sustained material and financial benefits.

(Moody’s was so impressed with progress in resolving the financial issues related to the Olympic Village that it upgraded the city’s credit rating last spring in the wake of a May report by the receiver.)

Here are the numbers in terms of unit sales:

Market (For Sale) Condominiums

• Total sales: 427 sold out of 737 market units (60%  sold)
• Sales since February 2011 launch: 164 (164 units over 156 days – just over one per day) to mid September 2011
• Total rented: 26 market units have been rented
• Total market units occupied: 453 out of 737 units (62% occupied)

Market Rental Units

• Total rented:  119 out of 119 rental units (100% rented)

Commercial Spaces

• TD Bank and Legacy Liquor Store open
• Terra Breads: successfully opened  Saturday, Sept. 24, 2011
• Laundry/Drycleaning Store:  tenant improvements under way with anticipated opening by end of year
• Urban Fare:  scheduled to open in June 2012 but they are attempting to open  in May 2012
• London Drugs:  anticipated to open by end of May 2012

City Owned Commercial Spaces

• Creekside Community Centre – Village Kitchen Restaurant scheduled to open in the spring of 2012
• Salt Building: City is in negotiations to finalize long term tenancy – in the meantime, the Salt Building is being used for short term tenancies

Affordable Housing

• The two City buildings (on Parcels 5 and 9) - both 100% occupied (total of 168 units)
• Co-op (Parcel 2) - ~80% occupied (66 of 84 units)

Overall occupancy of the Village is 73%

1. Professional hockey and the NHL

Riots have occurred in four out of the last five Stanley Cup final series, twice in Montreal. (There are some who will claim Mayor Gregor Robertson caused them, too.) Is there a connection with hockey? A Facebook friend writes on my wall that “nobody seems to mention the violence and remarkable lack of sportsmanship that characterize professional hockey.”

But the commissioners do open that question: “It is, regrettably, impossible to fully separate what happened that day from the sport of professional hockey. The NHL should have an interest in working with teams and communities to promote peaceful, happy hockey celebrations — especially around its premier event and season finale, the game that decides the Stanley Cup.” Can the sport promote fighting on the ice, but urge fans to just hug and high-five after the game?

The commissioners recommend that “the NHL should be urged to partner with host cities and NHL franchises competing for the Stanley Cup to help ensure the best, safest public celebrations possible.” To their credit, the Canucks have already stepped up. But from the NHL and sports writers? Silence.

2. The role of the media

There is wall to wall coverage of the role of social media in the riots, but none that I have been able to find of these recommendations, which flow from a mild critique of the quality of mainstream media work:

• That for all regional events media partners be invited into event planning at the highest level to ensure the information and communication process before, during, and after the event is prepared so as to best help media communicate accurate and timely information to the public at all stages of delivery.

• That all major Vancouver media be encouraged to stage their own regional event round table discussions to develop the best approaches to covering regional events so as to best serve the public good without affecting their ability to report on the unfolding events.

The commissioners write that “the reach of media outlets is immense and we believe it is still relevant for them to examine their own standards and code of conduct to be sure the role they are playing is truly serving the public interest.” Any takers?

3. A long-term community-based solution — a volunteer corps of “Everyday Heroes”

The commissioners propose that the city drive the creation of a “new ‘Everyday Heroes’ volunteer initiative [and] ensure that such a program is developed to meet some of the human and technical needs of staging these events.” The outpouring of volunteer energy in the clean-up was evidence of what could be achieved, as VANOC did during the Olympics, by training and maintaining volunteers to help with the staging of major events.

There will be a price tag for this, but the benefits are obvious. Again, any takers?

It was the cost of  border clearance — a charge Ottawa thought Amtrak should pay because of the special shift required — that had put the second train in doubt after the 2010 Games and again last year. Mayor Gregor Robertson lobbied hard with local businesses, US rail supporters and fellow mayors in Washington and Oregon to keep the service and twice won extensions of the 2010 pilot program.

Now Toews has solved the problem, good news for both Vancouver’s tourism industry and the future of sustainable transportation, perhaps even higher speed trains, along the Pacific seaboard. The second train is the equivalent of several cruise landings in positive economic impact.

During the bid preparation phase in 2002, Vancouver made a virtue out of our efforts to use existing facilities and reduce environmental impacts. International Olympic Committee experts demanded the Games be “greened up” and the Vancouver Bid Committee did everything it could to comply. The result: Vancouver narrowly edged out Pyeongchang to host the 2010 Games.

The London Games, to be held next year, did much to build on the Vancouver philosophy, but there was little of the recycling spirit obvious in Russia’s successful Sochi 2014 bid, which is carving an entirely new resort out of the landscape.

Now, here comes Pyeongchang, using the Olympics as economic stimulus for the construction sector. Sure, there’s a high speed rail line thrown in, but $1.4 billion is earmarked for new venues, villages and much more. Bulldozer drivers, start your engines!

One parcel sits at 84 percent occupancy already  and the first residents are moving into 151 East 1st Ave., the first co-op to open in the city in many years.

With the success of the receiver’s February sales program, commercial tenants are also signing leases. A new Terra Breads cafe on the main plaza is also promising a summer opening.

Missing was the fact that the staff report under consideration was actually proposing to expand the right of protesters to use structures, as Falun Gong did outside the Chinese consulate on Granville for nearly a decade. Use of structures would still be prohibited in residential zones, where other forms of protest remain wide open, as they always have. Everywhere else in the city, structures would be allowed with a permit.

(The residential restriction has drawn little criticism so far, although it irritates Falun Gong, which wants to camp outside the Chinese consulate, located in a residential district. The Chinese visa office downtown would not be immune to a “structure” protest.)

That demonstration came to an end when Mayor Sam Sullivan convinced council to enforce an obscure bylaw that bans structures on city property. With Sullivan’s intervention, long sought by the Chinese government, the issue became an all-out legal battle as documented in Saturday morning’s Sun by Pete McMartin

The bylaw was upheld in one court hearing but failed on appeal. The city must now change the law to ensure that its regulations do not unduly impact free speech. The deadline to do so is April 19.

Before, during and after the legal action initiated by Sullivan,  anyone who wanted to protest anywhere, including outside the Chinese consulate, could do so with banners, flags, petitions or whatever. That right remains.

(The uproar is all eerily reminiscent of the pre-2010 Games panic that saw the BC Civil Liberties Association threaten to sue the city, only to drop the action as the Games began. As we know, Vancouver sailed through the Games with charter rights intact.)

The so-called “protest fee” is in fact a proposed $1,000 refundable deposit suggested by the engineering department to cover the costs of removal of a structure, if necessary. This and other elements of the permit policy, like the requirement for a “transportation plan,” are unlikely to survive council’s review of the draft.

But the bottom line is simple: the new bylaw will lift a ban on “protest structures” that has existed for many years and was first enforced by Sam Sullivan.

The Vision Vancouver council is lifting the ban, as the court requires.

Why?

Port CEO Robin Silvester said March 31 that the most likely explanation is more run-off on the Fraser’s vast watershed resulting from the ravages of mountain pine beetle.

(He was addressing a joint gathering March 31 of Metro Vancouver’s Port Committee and the board of Port Metro Vancouver. The two boards, sometimes at odds over taxes but aligned in their determination to protect the economic benefits of the port, were meeting on a sternwheeler cruise of the port’s facilities between New Westminster and Richmond.)

Silvester said the Fraser’s side channels, which are dredged by other organizations, are constantly at risk of silting up because of the increased load.

It was a fascinating insight into the enormous and widespread economic impacts climate change and the pine beetle infestation, a disaster often forgotten by city dwellers.

But the devastation in BC will be the focus of an upcoming global conference in Spain focussed on global disease threats to forests. Wells artist Claire Kujundzic, whose pine beetle work was installed at the Salt Building during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, is preparing a special exhibit for the conference called Cariboo: Message from the Beetle.

You can contribute to Kujundzic’s travel costs and receive an example of her work by donating here.

It includes a useful and detailed summary of the events that brought us here.

NPA blogonaut Mike Klassen found the piece “abhorrent,” demanded an apology and declared the whole affair another product of the “Vision Vancouver bully machine.” (You can find the link for yourself.) All I can say is, these guys can dish it out, but they sure can’t take it.

Michael Geller, once alerted to my post, e-mailed me directly, saying “Geoff, if you were a mensch, you would link to my response.”

Who wouldn’t want to be a mensch, particularly when unmensch means “evil” and “cruel?” So here you go. Scroll down far enough and you’ll find a useful list of 12 reasons for the very difficult situation the Vision found when it took office from  . . . the other guys.

Deep within the thousands of words flooding the blogosphere on this topic, I found these from Mr. Geller:

It is time for politicians and former politicians, worried about the next election, to stop treating this [Olympic Village] community as a political football. I am concerned that Vancouver’s international reputation is suffering in part due to the unfounded accusations against the community.

Amen. I assume this is the last we will hear from him on this topic.