A public hearing is set to take place on a proposal that would significantly alter the skyline of Vancouver’s Chinatown by allowing buildings to reach 12 and 15 storeys in parts of the historic neighbourhood.

City council will start hearing from speakers this evening (March 17) on recommendations made in the Historic Area Height Review, a plan that has garnered support from Chinatown’s major business and community organizations, and criticism from social-housing advocates and low-income residents.

Leaders of groups including the Vancouver Chinatown Merchants Association and the Chinese Benevolent Association of Vancouver have sent a letter to city councillors urging them to approve the policy, which they say is the culmination of a decade of planning, in order to encourage economic revitalization in the area.

According to Jordan Eng, vice president of the Vancouver Chinatown Business Improvement Association, years of uncertainty over future development have led to many empty storefronts and the deterioration of buildings.

“We cannot wait for further studies, and 10 years is enough,” Eng said at a March 10 press conference attended by 11 Chinatown groups. “With the approval of HAHR, certainty will encourage private-sector, public-sector, and nongovernment organizations to invest in Chinatown, and to build a more sustainable and balanced residential population and fill the vacant stores.”

Eng hopes community contributions from developers will fund repairs of some of the area’s oldest buildings. However, social-housing advocates fear the construction of towers in Chinatown could make the area unaffordable for the nearly 1,000 low-income residents estimated to be living in single-room-occupancy hotels and social housing in the neighbourhood.

Groups such as the Carnegie Community Action Project want to see Chinatown included in the local area planning process initiated by city council on January 20, when it shelved the portion of the HAHR that recommended relaxing height restrictions in the Downtown Eastside.

“We’re calling on council to hold off on the additional density, and let’s get a plan to preserve the housing and get better housing for the SRO residents, and to preserve the good things about the community”¦before any higher density and any more condos are allowed,” Jean Swanson, coordinator of CCAP, said at a March 14 press conference.

Ivan Drury, a board member of the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood Council, said volunteers have met with SRO and social-housing residents in recent weeks and found that many tenants, as well as local store owners, are unaware of the higher buildings proposal.

The two groups, which have collected petition signatures from 25 Chinatown businesses opposing the plan, are also concerned that towers would drive up property taxes for some of the shops serving the neighbourhood’s low-income residents.

“On Keefer and [East] Georgia streets east of Main and on Gore, the plan could see a line of 12-storey towers 10 years from now,” Swanson said. “The numerous produce and food stores, which are the heart of the living Chinatown, as opposed to the architectural Chinatown, could be totally replaced with boutiques and upscale businesses catering to the new, richer residents.”

The HAHR proposes a rezoning policy for the Chinatown South district, which includes the area between East Pender Street and Union Street, from Quebec Street to Gore Avenue. The policy would allow council to consider approving buildings of up to 120 feet, and five sites where buildings could reach 150 feet on Main Street, south of Keefer.

Brent Toderian, the city’s director of planning, told the Straight by phone that minimal height changes, from 65 to 75 feet, have been proposed in the historic area of Chinatown north of East Pender Street.

The HAHR was launched in 2008. In January 2010, councillors endorsed a moderate height increase in principle and asked staff to report back on potential higher building sites in Chinatown South.

The public hearing will begin at 7:30 p.m. at City Hall.