Mercer conducts the ranking for Quality of Living and Best Eco-City to help governments and multi-national companies compensate employees fairly when placing them on international assignments. The rankings are based on a point-scoring index, which sees Vienna score 108.6 and Baghdad 14.7. Cities are ranked against New York as the base city, with an index score of 100.
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Calgary Rated Top Eco-City in the World
Monday, November 15th, 2010Simple Ways to Slash Your Grocery Bill
Tuesday, October 26th, 2010Groceries are one of the biggest money-drains you have, but you can save thousands of dollars a year just by making a few simple changes. For example, taking a minute or two to wash and cut your own fruits and veggies makes a HUGE difference. A bag of pre-washed romaine lettuce costs over a dollar more than a head of cut-it-yourself lettuce. By ditching the pre-packaged produce, you’ll save over $400 a year. Here are some other ways to slash your grocery bill, courtesy of the researchers at Real Simple magazine.
- Reduce your meat. Melissa d’Arabian is a host on the Food Network. She says that a recipe calling for a pound of ground beef – which is 16 ounces – can easily be made with just 13 or 14 ounces. Those few dollars of savings will add up quickly.
- Befriend the managers. The folks in charge of the produce, meat, dairy and seafood departments can tell you what time of day the food is marked down, so you can get the best deals.
- Buy more fruits and vegetables. When families add more produce to their diets, their waistlines get smaller and their food budgets shrink by 25. That translates to more than $900 saved on average each year.
- This last tip is very important: Make a list and stick to it. Research Studies show people who avoid impulse shopping save big – spending up to 23% less on grocery bills. That’s an annual savings of more than $860.
Northern Hills Harvest Moon Dance Saturday October 30th
Friday, October 22nd, 2010Nenshi wants to legalize Calgary Secondary Suites
Thursday, October 21st, 2010Mayoral candidate and long-time housing advocate Naheed Nenshi today announced a policy for secondary suites that will immediately bring safe, legal affordable housing units to Calgary, while minimizing disruptions to existing neighbourhoods. This stands in stark contrast to the Notice of Motion being presented to City Council today by aldermen Ric McIver, Jim Stevenson, and Gord Lowe – all ardent opponents of secondary suites in existing neighbourhoods in the past – which would tie up any decision on suites in administrative paralysis for at least eight months, if not longer.
Nenshi’s proposal envisions secondary suites being allowed in all residential communities without need for a land-use rezoning, subject to the following simple conditions:
- All provincial building code rules must be met, notably the need for fire safety (e.g. fire walls between suites, smoke alarms that ring on all floors)
- One off-street parking spot must be provided for the suite, in addition to the spots required for the main dwelling. This rule would be waived for suites within 500 metres of an LRT or BRT station.
- The owner must occupy any home with a suite; both units cannot be rented simultaneously.
“It’s unbelievable that this has been allowed to go on for so long,” said Nenshi. “This city has been out of step with other cities, with public opinion, and with its own plan to end homelessness due directly to a lack of courage at City Council to address the issue.
“Alderman McIver’s motion would just extend this untenable situation even further. It’s a clear indication that he and his colleagues suffer from “Councilitis” – an inflammation of analysis characterized by an inability to make tough decisions, even when they are the right thing to do. We don’t need eight months to study the issue – we already know what works and we just need to do it.”
There are an estimated 50,000 to 80,000 illegal suites in Calgary, whose tenants lack any safety protection or recourse. All major cities in Canada save Calgary have a secondary suite policy, with Vancouver, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina, and Toronto, amongst many others, having legalized them in all neighbourhoods.
Northern Hills Harvest Moon Dance Saturday October 30th.
Wednesday, October 20th, 2010Please show your support and participate in the 1st Annual NCHA Fundraiser, Harvest Moon Dance on Saturday, October 30th, 2010 from 6:00-Midnight at our beautiful Country Hills Golf Club! the proceeding will be used to build more programs and activities for residents in Northern Hills Communities. We also want to invite members to take this opportunity to interact with your neighbours at this event. You can dance to the ’50s and ’60s music, let your hair down and have a great time!
There will also be 3 live auction items as well as many silent auction items and exciting door prizes for your to win!
For more information please click here! This is a great opportunity to support our local communities and have a fabulous time doing it!
Entrepreneurs go where the money is – and in Canada that’s West.
Wednesday, October 20th, 2010It is not easy starting a business at the best of times, but Benjamin Dalziel and Joseph Facciola picked just about the worst time possible when they left Ontario to open up a food-and-wine tour business in the ritzy resort town of Whistler, B.C., in September 2008.
The concept, a guided three-hour walking tour that includes a four-course dinner spread across four restaurants, seems like a good one, but a risky tourism venture from two guys with little business experience at the apex of global economic armageddon? Seriously?
“Well, I was looking for work in Toronto right as the economy was starting to crumble, and nobody was hiring,” Dalziel said. “Definitely, we were worried (about things like financing and people not vacationing) but we figured if we couldn’t pull it off when we’re young and motivated, we wouldn’t be able to do it later in life.”
The enthusiasm and optimism of Dalziel and other independent business owners for their prospects moving forward is a major reason why cities and regions in Western Canada continue to hold most of the top spots of the third annual FP/ CFIB ranking of Canada’s top 100 entrepreneurial cities.
“Optimism levels are considerably higher now than in the past year,” Ted Mallett, chief economist with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said in an interview. “Alberta, for instance, had a bigger bounceback than most other provinces as it had a bigger drop in optimism (the previous year).”
Cities from Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia account for nine of the Top 10, with Grande Prairie, Alta., at No. 1. The only eastern city in the Top 10 is Saint-Georges, Que., which came in ninth.
The highest-ranked region in Ontario is the Greater Toronto Area at a disappointing 20.
“There are still some challenges in some of the major industrial areas (in Ontario and Quebec). Many small firms are doing quite well, but for those dependent on major supply chains in the industries that can be a problem,” he said. “I’d put Quebec at the level next to the west,” Mallett said.
David Simpson, a professor with the Richard Ivey School of Business and a local entrepreneur in London, Ont., for 20 years, said he was not surprised by the survey results. “Entrepreneurs `go where the money is’ so it should be no surprise that Western Canada shows great success rates for entrepreneurs,” he said in an e-mail.
“Capital sourcing is the most important way to encourage entrepreneurship. An entrepreneur friend of mine from Calgary always said that you can test your business plan quite quickly out West by finding out if money will follow the idea. If you can’t raise $1 million in two weeks – that project isn’t going to fly.”
Western economies are much newer, and deals rely more on merit than on what school the entrepreneur attended, Simpson said.
“The lack of worry about where you came from and `how did you get into my office’ was borne of necessity as the first wave of entrepreneurs in Western Canada needed to help each other survive,” he said.
By contrast, Simpson has always found both high taxes and government red tape to be particularly frustrating in London (ranked 77), but chose to see it as a challenge.
“I viewed it as a competitive advantage because very few people would put up with how difficult it was to do business here,” he said. “Not surprisingly, Ontario is disadvantaged today relative to Alberta and Saskatchewan.”
Some of the hardest-hit cities in the recession, such as the auto- manufacturing centre Windsor, Ont. – which ranked 82 – need a culture change if they want to attract entrepreneurs back to their shores.
“I think we’ve already hit rock bottom, so there are opportunities here,” said a small business owner in the service sector who has lived and worked in Windsor all her life. “There are people who want it back, and the auto industry was wonderful for us, but we have to look at it as a thing of the past. ”
There are plenty of openings for entrepreneurs with new ideas, such as taking advantage of Windsor’s relatively low real estate prices to build retirement homes and health care services.
“We are the Florida of Canada,” said Maria, who asked that her last name and the name of her business not be published.
And while it was tough seeing friends and neighbours leave the city in recent years, that only emboldened those who stayed behind. “We hung in there, we entrenched,” she said. “And you do hope they come back.”
As for Dalziel and Facciola, it turned out many of the high-priced restaurants in Whistler wanted to get involved with their tour, precisely because people were cutting back on discretionary spending.
Two years in, Whistler Tasting Tours is going strong.
“We’re pretty optimistic about the potential here,” said Dalziel. “As we recover, Whistler will be on the map.”
© Copyright (c) Postmedia News
A Growing Number of Landlords Are Enforcing Smoking Bans
Wednesday, October 20th, 2010We’re used to seeing “no smoking” signs in public places – like airports and restaurants. According to MSNBC, a growing number of landlords are enforcing smoking bans in more private places – like apartment complexes and condos. In fact, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development recently issued a notice encouraging landlords to consider smoke-free policies, which would essentially force people to stop lighting up in their own home! You can probably guess why.
Rita Turner directs the Center for Tobacco Regulation, Litigation and Advocacy at the University of Maryland Law School. She says many landlords are being sued these days, as people wake up to the reality that cigarette smoke doesn’t stay in one place. In apartment buildings, it can seep through doorways and vents, and enter other apartments down the hall, or even on other floors. There’s no such thing as “risk-free” exposure to secondhand smoke. Research has shown it’s very dangerous to your health – causing everything from asthma, respiratory infections, sudden infant death syndrome, heart disease, and – of course – lung cancer.
So far, most landlords say adding a “no smoking” clause to their lease has attracted more residents than it’s detracted. In fact, some landlords now advertise their smoke-free living spaces among other popular “green” amenities – like saline swimming pools, solar-powered trash compactors, or recycling bins. That doesn’t mean you have to move if you live in a building that still allows smoking. Lawyers say most apartment leases have something called a “nuisance clause.” It’s there to protect you from neighbors who make excessive noise, or do things that put your safety and well-being at risk. So, if a neighbor’s smoking bothers you, you have the right to file a complaint based on that “nuisance clause.”
Your mortgage could end up working for you- National Post – Top Stories
Friday, October 15th, 2010It’s hard to imagine, but there was a time when the mortgage on your home was something a buyer wanted to take off your hands.
But who can remember the 1980s and double-digit inflation, when a single-digit mortgage rate was gold? I was just a teenager then and the mortgage was my father’s problem.
But could a rising rate environment, if that actually happens, make the mortgages we are locking into today valuable in the future?
A survey released by Toronto-Dominion Bank this past week found 60% of repeat home buyers don’t know they have options when it comes to their current mortgage.
“Rates today could become attractive two years from now,” says Farhaneh Haque, regional sales manager of mobile mortgage specialist with TD Canada Trust.
The same survey found only 33% of repeat buyers bring their current mortgage with them to their new home and just 8% use it as selling feature of the home they are leaving, allowing the new owner to assume their mortgage.
“A mortgage assumption means we have to qualify the new buyers. The cost is minimal, but it is a full qualification of the new buyers,” says Ms. Haque, acknowledging in the current market there are very few assumptions.
“With rates having declined, no buyer is going to pay 6% when they could get 4% in the market.”
Don Lawby, chief executive of Century 21 Canada, has been in the business long enough to remember when a low mortgage rate on your home became a major selling feature and made the home worth more money. A car worth $35,000, for example, is much more attractive with 0%financing.
“It would have a lot of value on it. It depended on what you were going to do. You might try and take the loan with you. Generally speaking, when you are selling, you are going to buy another house,” Mr. Lawby says.
Another product from another real estate age that could rear its head in this market is something called the vendor take mortgage. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. describes this as the vendor, rather than financial institution, financing the mortgage.
You essentially lend someone money so they can buy your house. They take title to the property and make mortgage payments to you.
“I think we are going to see more and more of them now with the market slowing down and tighter regulations [for mortgages at government-regulated financial institutions],” says Mr. Lawby, who remains somewhat wary of the vendor take-back mortgage. “If I’m selling a house, I don’t want to think about it. I’m gone.”
Vendor take-backs are generally used because the purchaser can’t qualify for the mortage or to induce somebody to buy by offering them a very low rate.
But Ron Cirotto, who runs the website amortization.com,says buyers should be very careful about being blinded by a low rate. In some cases, sellers will lower your rate for cash up front. “Somebody says, ‘I know rates are 9% rate now, but if you give me $6,000, I’ll give you 7%. You have to connect the dots,” Mr. Cirotto says. The savings from the lower rate could be less than the cash you are paying up front. In a market where returns from investment certificates and government bonds are small, providing a mortgage on your old home sounds like a pretty attractive investment.
But mortgage broker Vince Gaetano points out there is risk for the seller, too. You may know the home you’re selling and providing a mortgage on, but how well do you know the buyer?
“Your investment is not liquid. There is more risk,” says Mr. Gaetano, who does see more and more private individuals funding second mortgages because a lack of other investment opportunities.
But as for vendors taking on mortgages to sell their homes, there is one major problem. Most people selling a home need the cash to buy another one.
“Anybody selling needs the money,” Mr. Gaetano says.
Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/Your+mortgage+could+working/3577638/story.html#ixzz12ST2ym9k
City of Calgary starts delivering black bins
Tuesday, October 5th, 2010The city is starting to roll out and deliver black bins to communities this week. Once you get your black bin, you should start using it immedately.
Black carts will improve garbage collection service by reducing litter in streets, increasing efficiency, and making things sager for both collectors and residents.
What is Black Cart Garbage Collection?
Black Cart Garbage Collection uses trucks with mechanical arms to collect garbage from wheeled carts, a lot like the way blue cart recycling is collected now. Homes that currently have garbage collected by hand will receive a black cart. Residents will put their regular household garbage in the cart instead of in a trash bag or can.
Black carts will improve garbage collection in a number of ways:
The carts keep garbage from getting scattered by animals or wind, and keeps neighbourhoods cleaner. Garbage stays in and pests stay out.
Black Cart Garbage Collection is more efficient, because it is collected using one-person trucks instead of two person crews.
The carts are safer for residents and our collectors, because they reduce heavy lifting and contact with sharp objects.
There is no extra fee for Black Cart Garbage Collection, and additional bags will still be collected. The City encourages home owners to reduce and recycle as much material as possible. However, garbage that does not fit in the cart can be put in bags or cans and set next to it.
Something most residents don’t know on the Real Estate aspect of things, is that both black bins and blue bins contain a serial number and are linked to the specific house that the City of Calgary delivered them to. As a result, when moving- both the black bins and blue bins must stay with the house. If you move into a home where the blue or black bins were not left behind-you need to get them back from the previous owner or you will be charged by the city for new ones.
Calgary to lead nation in economic growth
Thursday, September 23rd, 2010A report released today by the Conference Board of Canada ranked Calgary as the number one growth city on Canada for the next four years. It goes on to detail an average of 4.3% growth each year for these comming years. Despite a 4.5% decrease last year, Calgary’s Real GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is already predicted to grow 3.5% this year with increases in the years to come.