April 19, 2011
Vancouver City Council votes to gentrify Chinatown and the Downtown Eastside
VANCOUVER – Today Vancouver City Council approved the plan to increase building heights in the Chinatown sub-district of the Downtown Eastside (DTES). The “Historic Area Heights Review” (HAHR) plan increases overall building heights in all of Chinatown except Pender Street to 9 stories, without application, and to 15 stories on the Main Street corridor and 12 stories in the rest of the area by application.
One hundred and sixty-seven people spoke at 5 public hearings about the HAHR. The great majority of these speakers were low-income residents of Chinatown and the DTES and supporters of the low-income community, all who whom spoke out against the plan.
Explaining why he opposed the motion to increase heights in Chinatown, Councillor David Cadman said that he heard Chinatown business leaders point to gentrification pressures coming into the DTES from the West. He said that the council decision to encourage and subsidize condo development in Chinatown will mount similar real estate market pressures from the south and will drive real estate speculation in the poorest community in the country. Fraser Stuart, a DTES resident and member of the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood Council (DNC) board of directors agreed. After sitting in on all five public hearings and the final council meeting Stuart said, “I feel like I live on a chessboard and the city and the developers are playing together to take over my home.”
Mayor Gregor Robertson explained why he supported the motion to increase heights, “Saying no to the Chinatown neighbourhood who has brought this forward will only increase divisions in the DTES.” Ivan Drury, a DNC board member and DTES resident who lives on the eastern border of Chinatown wondered if Robertson had been at the same hearings he had. Drury said, “I was at all the five public hearings and I did not hear even one Chinatown resident speak in favour of the heights increase. City staff started the hearing process saying that heights were unanimously supported by “Chinatown”, and today they made their decision to exclude the low-income residents of Chinatown from that community.”
Wendy Pedersen, also a resident of the DTES and board member of the DNC, who has been working on the Local Area Planning Process that council initiated in January, said, “This is going to make our work uniting the DTES community behind a community development plan much, much harder. We tried to say, come on you guys, give us some time and we can save the heritage buildings and get good housing for Chinese seniors.”
Pedersen explained that the heights increase will negatively affect the whole DTES, “Vision councilors voted to gentrify the Downtown Eastside. Council just foisted 12 to 15 story towers on us and this will cause bad ripple effects like property value increases, rent increases, more yuppie stores. The end result is poor people get pushed out.”
Homeless Dave, a DTES resident who, on the first night of public hearings threatened that more gentrification would create a “little Tunisia” in the streets of the DTES. After the decision to increase heights in Chinatown he said, “City council has finished the easy part, they passed a zoning change in City Hall. The hard part is yet to come. What developer will dare be the first to come down and fight the low-income community in our neighbourhood?”