NEWS RELEASE posted on January 20, 2011 by flux
City Council avoids historic height hearing
"Emergency" resolution leaves social housing advocates speechless
More than 50 housing advocates were slated to speak on the City's condo towers plan.
Activists Paul Martin, Ivan Drury and Jean Swanson grill City staffer.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
VANCOUVER - City council should have listened to the 50 plus speakers about its proposed condo tower plan today.
"The more we look at the resolution the worse it gets." That’s what Wendy Pedersen, Community Organizer for the Carnegie Community Action Project (CCAP) said after city council passed the so called “emergency” resolution about condo towers in the DTES. "This resolution essentially helped council avoid hearing approximately 50 speakers today who were going to speak loud and clear about their opposition to more condos," she said.
When CCAP volunteer Harold Lavender heard the news that he couldn’t speak, he said “I feel ripped off. We should have had a chance to speak. I feel excluded from the community now. I live in Chinatown and they just broke the DTES into artificial pieces based on the priorities of developers. If I had a say, I could have influenced their decision. This process is a travesty.”
Five of the condo sites in Chinatown may be going to public hearing in February and could still go ahead. Two or more condo sites might go ahead after the election depending on the outcome of the newly proposed local area planning process. This is really bad, said Jean Swanson, the Coordinator of CCAP: “It’s really bad to have the decision on the 2 sites happen in December because it takes off all the pressure on this council. The city's election is in November.”
CCAP has been organizing since 2008 against the Historic Area Height Review, the city’s plan to flood the DTES with new market housing. Although today's decision is a victory in that the outpouring of opposition forced the city to delay their decision, there is still much work to be done. CCAP will continue to push the city for a unified planning process to secure, once and for all, the tenure and assets of the low-income community. CCAP will not abandon the low-income DTES residents who are excluded from 5 of the 8 DTES areas not covered by the new proposed local area planning process. As Wendy Pedersen of CCAP says: “DTES residents must not be priced out, pushed out or made to feel excluded in their own neighbourhood.”
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Contact: Jean Swanson: 604-729-2380
Wendy Pedersen: 604-839-0379
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