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.
With a report from The Canadian Press
