Public hearing on higher buildings in Chinatown continues to draw crowds at Vancouver City Hall
Vancouver city council heard from about 20 of more than 100 registered speakers Tuesday (April 5) during a second night of public hearings on a proposal to relax building height restrictions in Chinatown.
Councillors heard from both opponents and supporters of the Historic Area Height Review plan for Chinatown, which proposes allowing buildings of up to 12 and 15 storeys in parts of the historic neighbourhood.
Due to new security measures introduced at city hall Tuesday, the council chambers were restricted to only a few speakers, but a crowd of tower opponents cheered and clapped from an overflow seating area in the foyer.
Proponents of the plan that addressed council included Tak Shing Chau, the past-president of the Vancouver Chinatown Business Improvement Association, who argued the proposal is not really about the height increases, but about “the survival of Chinatown.”
He said Chinatown has been “declining steadily” over the last 15 to 20 years.
“As the past chair of VCBIA, I know the challenges the businesses are facing: declining population, aging demographic, no new blood coming into Chinatown, competition from other areas catering to the same demographic, such as Victoria Drive, Richmond and more friendly, more convenient supermarkets,” he told councillors.
Former Downtown Eastside city planner Nathan Edelson told city council the proposal is an “honourable compromise” worked out by Chinatown groups over the last three years.
While he supports approving the rezoning, he said there should be an emphasis placed on low-income housing in the neighbourhood.
“There’s a desperate need for a clear implementation strategy for the housing plan, to provide security and indeed basic human rights to the low-income community,” he said. “This cannot be done without senior government support.”
Edelson said in an interview be believes the height changes won’t make a dramatic difference in the neighbourhood. However, he said “aggressive plans” are needed to secure land and properties, to renovate SROs and to build new social housing.
“If the market is just left to its own devices, it’ll push people out,” he said.
Opponents of the relaxed height restrictions in Chinatown raised concerns about the involvement of the low-income community in the HAHR process. A group of housing advocates held a concert in city hall prior to the hearing to protest the proposed towers, which they say could drive out low-income residents due to increased land values.
Tami Starlight, a board member of the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood Council, questioned what happened to the social impact assessment that staff were directed to undertake last year as part of the Historic Area Height Review.
“We’ve heard nothing about it, and it’s been on hold for months now,” she told council.
Starlight said she was a part of a committee that met in November to establish a framework for the social impact study, but she hasn’t heard anything since.
“We met half the day, basically developed a really decent framework that we could all agree on,” she said in an interview. “They just decided to derail it and postpone it.”
“I’m really, really concerned,” she added. “We were really encouraged because they had us on the planning of that process, the social impact study.”
The HAHR report was split into two parts on January 20, 2011, after council voted to send proposed zoning changes in the Downtown Eastside to a local area planning process.
Chinatown resident Dalannah Gail Bowen told council the neighbourhood should be included in that area plan.
She also criticized the surveying that was done of Chinatown residents on the proposal, and said she and many of her neighbours weren’t aware of the proposal for higher buildings in the area.
“I find that this consensus is flawed,” she said. “I live in Chinatown, and I know that I was never consulted, so my concern is valid about this questioning. We have a lot of Chinese people in our building, and those that I have talked to have expressed that they not only were not consulted, but knew nothing about these activities.”
According to the HAHR report, the consultation process on the proposal included meetings with city advisory bodies and community groups, and notification by e-mail to property owners and a list of community members. In 2009, three workshops and two open houses were also held on the proposal.
Council will continue hearing from speakers on the Chinatown height review on Thursday, April 7 at 7:30 p.m. and on Monday, April 18 at 6 p.m.
Comments
8 Comments
Fed up with hypocrisy in the DTES
Apr 6, 2011 at 12:41pm
Nathan Edelson?
- and we should care what he has to say because he's done such a fantastic job as planner for the DTES? *shakes head*
Pro-ghettoization planners like Edelson are the reason the DTES is the mess it is today. Vancouver's ghetto may appease NIMBY sentiments from everywhere the poor/addicted/insane are not, and may make for a compelling business argument for poverty industry. But it's a despicable public policy and for those of us living here, Edelson's tenure was a high-water mark of incompetance
The real irony here is that the 'activists' looking to control Chinatown don't actually want real community consultation - a fact clearly evidenced that the news that City's new Local Area Plan for the area (currently excluding Chinatown but including Gastown, Victory Square, Strathcona and Thorton Park) is to be run by the Carnegie Centre's Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood Council and an obscure group of non-resident former politicians and bureaucrats calling themselves Building Community Society. At places like the Carnegie - questioning or opposing their status quo is not encouraged or welcome, yet they claim to speak for the community?
I guess according to the city: unless you are on the Carnegie / poverty-industry bandwagon or you are a rich white guy with no ties to the community - you really have no say.
The moguls of misery in the DTES would have us believe that Vancouver's marginalized WANT to be in ghettos. They call for no development save for social services and the creation of a legal street level drug market. They'll trot out results of their own commissioned studies, or poor unfortunates to parrot lines about the "sense of community" (a community where violence and abuse is endemic, where dozens upon dozens of women can go missing, where you can buy a teenage prostitute for the price of few rocks of crack and where a daily parade of misery corrodes your soul).
The reality is that there are thousands of us here trying to get back on our feet, in recovery, running businesses, working poor, on disability or just trying to live our lives without having to bear witness to the very worst society has to offer.
The city needs to engage in meaningful public consultation; neither pandering to the bullies and activists nor the developers — but to the PEOPLE.
Tami Starlight
Apr 6, 2011 at 1:28pm
WOW!
Solid reporting Yolanda!
A few things to add.
1. Chinese immigration onto this first nations land has shifted greatly to other areas, especially Richmond.
2. The City of Vancouver, along with property owners allowed "historic" Chinatown fall into the space it is now.
I am so dismayed at all this gross capitalism being the "savior" of our neighborhood. What a terrible injustice being wrought upon the low income and long standing heritage of Chinatown and the rest of the downtown eastside. This heritage is also "low income".
Many people who have been here for their whole lives will be "displaced" and "pushed out".
I for one, will not go without a fight and these greedy little crapitalists will not get their way without a tremendous push back from our community!!
Jahmes
Apr 6, 2011 at 2:09pm
Seems like we have the property developers on one side and the poverty pimps on the other. Myopic visions that would see either a soul-less forest of condos and faux heritage or a extension of the squalid ghetto that has already ruined huge chunks of our city.
Some choice!
What a disappointing lack of leadership from our civic government.
Sid Tan
Apr 6, 2011 at 5:01pm
We should begin with consent for a respectful dialogue. Dialogue brings peace. Peace brings prosperity. A leader knows this.
I wrote on Saltwater City Vancouver 125 in a Georgia Straight blog (link follows).
"All who live and work in the area want a vibrant, safe, sane, and healthy community. That this is misunderstood suggests that the city-hall fix—a historic area heights review, Chinatown's exclusion from a local area planning process, and no social impact assessment—needs real fixing."
http://www.straight.com/article-384793/vancouver/sid-chow-tan-vancouver-...
Fed up with hypocrisy in the DTES
Apr 7, 2011 at 10:25am
"All who live and work in the area want a vibrant, safe, sane, and healthy community."
- agreed, but will that be achieved via a Carnegie Community Action Plan vision that includes a moratorium on any new developments but for social housing? A legal street drug market?
All outlined in the CCAP "vision" for the area.
http://carnegie-ccap.com/assetstoaction.pdf
I note with some irony that the Carnegie-based opponents of towers in Chinatown have no problem with towers if they provide social housing. (studies have PROVEN that large towers of social housing do NOT work and create dangerously unsafe and unmanageable environments)
Vancouverites
Apr 7, 2011 at 2:03pm
Mr. Nathan Edelson may have some valid points. But WHY Hasting and Main? Why not Robsin and Burrard? Putting all the SROs in one concentrated area is NOT the solution. Building a New building is really expensive. Renovating an older building is more expensive. AND Renovating a Historic Building is the MOST expensive. Mr. Nathan Edelson is right, 1 level of government cannot solve this problem. BUT I do not see the 2 other levels of government do anything. Campbell did nothing, Harper.....
I will give credit to CCAP about getting a 60 story tower in Downtown Vancouver, all for social housing. That will solve the problem.
Steve Y
Apr 7, 2011 at 6:56pm
People who have never built a home don't seem to realize that it is way, way cheaper per sq. ft to build a 20 story building than a 10 story building. I don't think that china town needs to change completely but a few well done marquee projects would have a great improving effect on china town, just like the woodwards building has had a marvellous effect on the DTES.
DTES Supporter
Apr 7, 2011 at 11:38pm
Another hearing from the hearing regarding height issue of Chinatown. BUT today meeting the very interesting, I cannot believe those SFU Profs who have their guest to make their speech when they have NO IDEA what they are talking about. One Prof (who against building height of Chinatown) said "he believes his co-workers so he is supporting Chinatown should stay same as now"...something like that, you people can hear the speech from the City's wed site. My questions to those well educated Profs...you simply believe what people told you, what the internet or journal said? and YOU without owning a business in Chinatown, shopping at Chinatown or living in Chinatown and made such an comments, you have totally waste your time studying your Phd. There are many things you dont learn from text book or journals! you need to physically be there, stay here, know the situation than you can make a comment, otherwise you are 'Irresponsible' of what you said. Let me ask you, WHEN was the last time you went to Chinatown? How often you go there? (once or twice a year when there is an event?) I used to believed what the text book told me or taught me until I finished my MBA and really start working in the real world then I found out 90% of what the text book said is F--king BS! People are not text book, people need to live, need to make a living, need to eat! Profs, please...face the reality, if SFU did not offer you pay-cheque will you teach there? Please also travel around the world...15stories of some buildings in Chinatown is like nothing!! Dont use HISTORY as a weapon or an excuse to against the real fact that Chinatown is facing!-NO BUSINESS, NO NEW BLOOD! I remember when I was a kid I love to go to Chinatown becoz they have COOL food beside mash potato and meat-balls. NOW even when I just drive by Chinatown I need to make sure my car door are locked in case some druggies jump into my car or jump out from sidewalks! I need to ask at least 2 of my friends to go with me and park da*m close to the restaurant so I can eat some of the delicious fried chicken wings! What is hell is going on??? If there is new building, more people will be there, new stores will open up, more great things for us-the customer....what wrong with that??? I dont need to be Chinese to LOVE Chinatown. If no improvements in Chinatown sooner than later, Chinatown will become a GHOST town! New buildings are good for the Econ, creates jobs and more! Stop worry about property price will go up...WHO does not want their property value to go up?? So disappointed with those Profs.