scrubbedexpat091

Land is not something you will get in Vancouver...lol... All the lots are small for the most part (there are pockets of old homes, well more like mansions that are 1 million+ that have larger lots) but the old middle working class neighborhoods are all on small lots.

Large lots appear to never have been fashionable in Vancouver except for the rich.

Now of course developers are buying entire blocks of houses, ripping them out, and building either condos to sell at inflated prices, or building million dollar + homes, so where 2 houses used to be, they now have 1 larger house, but the lot is still small.

The house I lived in, was built in the early 40's and for all intents was a dump but when the owner sold it, she got almost a million dollars, 900 something, not a bad return on investment since she bought in the 70's.

In my town the lots are larger, my GF's mom is on 1/2 acre and its assessed at 700,000, would be higher if the house was in good shape, but its a fixer upper.

A new house next door on a smaller lot, but brand new is listed at 850,000.

Cheapest listed right now is 490,000 but again a fixer upper, so not move in ready and not for someone who lacks the funds or ability to do or pay for the repairs.

This region is in a world of hurt if the housing market ever collapses.

Bob

Lawrence is a first class shit hole...but there are loads of hidden trailer parks all over the place. Some pretty nice ones too.

As for the low cost in the condo's, it's part of the requirement for them to provide it if they want to build the place, because the town needs to keep that 10% set aside and building up a large number of houses without anything set aside wont' work because the town isn't going to build something specific.

S Folinsky

On Veteran's Day one of our paralegals and myself walked to the local Starbucks to get our free cup of coffee. We had both served in the "Army" -- myself in the US Army and the paralegal in the Soviet Army. SB had no problem.

BTW, I was once telling one of the younger attorneys in the office that a uniform aspect of military service anywhere in the world is "painting rocks white." She scoffed at that but our paralegal went "Of course" when relating the experience in the Soviet Army. However, unlike the Soviet Army, we never had to paint the grass green.

S Folinsky

BTW, I was co-counsel of a case many years ago where our client needed a medical discharge from the Navy and they let get out instead on alienage. [BTW, the Government attorney who was reserve JAG agreed with us that the Navy had been a bunch of jerks and offered to assist us in changing the discharge once the case was over]. A person who declines to serve on the basis of alienage gives up their right to naturalize. Ultimately, the court ruled that the provision applied to conscription only.

Now to the point -- the regulations provide that service in the armed forces of a NATO member exempts one from the bar noted above. One of our arguments was that three years in the United States Navy was service in the armed forces of NATO. The lower court ruled that the regulation implicitly covered non-US service despite that the regulation had no such language in it. The Court of Appeals ignored that argument.

hungryhorace

British Armed Forces are required to remove their combat gear from most retail locations in England I believe. Tesco's received some negative PR for it a few years back. The RAF were even advised to remove their uniform in public: BBC NEWS | UK | England | Cambridgeshire | Brown condemns no-uniform advice

Bob

They've not been banned from wearing uniform outside of base for quite a few years now.

It's just not advised and they need base head honcho approval to do so.

S Folinsky

When I was in the US Army in the early 70's, we were not allowed to wear our "fatigue" ["battle dress"] uniforms off base. When off-base, were allowed to wear our "Class A" or "Class B" uniforms. Judging from what military recruiters now wear, it seems that army now allows the wearing of fatigue like uniforms off base.

My dad tells me that during WWII, civilian clothes were not allowed at all for those in the military.