Downtown Eastside activists, Chinatown leaders at odds over higher buildings

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It took Chinatown leaders years to get everyone in their sometimes fractious community to agree on a plan to revitalize the neighbourhood and allow taller buildings.

Now they're worried that, after an uproar last week over a city plan to consider taller buildings around Chinatown and Main and Hastings Streets, their efforts will be stalled again - this time, by outsiders.

Downtown Eastside housing activists have said they will fight to stop the city from approving taller buildings in Chinatown, not just their area, in order to prevent market developments and speculation that they believe will eat away at the area's supply of low-cost housing.

The two groups will be arguing their case at the public hearing that city council decided last week should go ahead next month.

"We're concerned. Last year, there were a lot of divided views inside Chinatown. This time, we have the whole community, all of the organizations here, together," says Jordan Ng, a director with the Chinatown Area Business Improvement Association. "The solution we have is a 'Made in Chinatown' one. And even though Chinatown is in the Downtown Eastside, it's a distinct neighbourhood."

But Mr. Ng's neighbours, a couple of blocks away, don't agree.

"It's artificial to try to draw a border around Chinatown and say it's distinct from the Downtown Eastside," says Ivan Drury, a director with the area's neighbourhood council. He said there are 1,000 low-income people living in Chinatown who are also concerned about being driven out.

The whole issue of allowing taller buildings in the two historic downtown areas, characterized by their clusters of relatively low buildings that remain from building booms in the early 1900s, has been festering since Vancouver council asked planners to look at the idea in 2007.

Some Chinese business leaders had been asking the city to allow that for several years, saying it would encourage investors to build in the struggling neighbourhood. The city's once-thriving Chinatown has declined since the 1970s, as new Chinese immigrants have chosen to settle and shop in Richmond or south Vancouver.

The Non Partisan Association-led council of the time also saw allowing more density in Chinatown as a possibility for its EcoDensity initiative, aimed at accommodating many more people.

A new, Vision Vancouver council approved the idea of higher buildings in principle last January.

But when a final staff report appeared last week with more specifics, including recommendations for 120-foot buildings along Main in south Chinatown, building-height increases of 20 feet around Main and Hastings, and two 150-foot buildings between Chinatown and Woodward's, a coalition of opponents emerged.

That coalition, which ranged from former Vancouver mayor Mike Harcourt to a group of local academics to former city planners, said the city needed to develop an overall plan for the Downtown Eastside before it started approving one-off building sites.

The Vision council, with a hastily cobbled-together motion, did an end run around both opponents and supporters Thursday by agreeing to stall the Downtown Eastside part of the change until a comprehensive plan is developed, while allowing the Chinatown changes to move ahead one step to a public hearing.

That surprise move, which resulted in what many called a "gong show" as 70-plus speakers were told at the last minute that they weren't going to be allowed to speak because the issue had already been decided, has provoked as much uproar as the proposals for tall buildings.

What's ultimately at issue, though, is whether everyone involved can agree on a way to solve what has been an irresolvable issue in the Downtown Eastside for years: How to combine the traditional parts of the neighbourhoods - the low-income population that has called the area home for 100 years and the historic part of the city - with new development that has been encroaching more with every passing year.

Mr. Harcourt said he doesn't agree with activists who say no market development should be allowed and the whole area should be preserved for low-cost housing. He also doesn't agree with those who say the market should be allowed to do whatever.

"I don't want to have a ghetto. I don't want gentrification. I want a balance."

But Mr. Drury said that's impossible. If the city allows taller buildings, which mean more profit per site for developers, it will kick off a market rush that makes low-cost housing impossible to preserve.