Vancouver City Councillor
Will the winds of political change bring a breath of fresh air for Chinatown?
As news broke Monday of the historic NDP-Green deal to form a progressive government for our province, I was waiting at city hall, one of hundreds of speakers over four days testifying before city council in defence of Chinatown.
As I post this, authorities are still determining the loss of life from the smouldering remnants of the 24-story Grenfell Tower in West London. Videos and images of the early morning towering inferno leave little doubt that the final tally of casualties and loss of life will be grim. Gut-wrenching stories of trapped residents, parents desperately trying to save their babies by dropping them from upper floors to rescuers below. This, the stuff of absolute nightmares.
It’s too soon to guess the cause of the fire at Grenfell, but what we do know is that the residents of the building had been complaining for years about the appalling state of disrepair and dereliction of duty toward safety. Ultimately though, the cause of this tragedy is privatization of public housing.
At issue: the re-zoning proposal for a new large scale condo development in the fragile heritage neighbourhood. This latest in a series of rejected applications by Beedie Developments for the block next to the Chinese Classical Gardens and Cultural Centre has been met by resistance every step of the way.
Chinatown advocates are right to be concerned; after years of neglect, recent big block condo developments in the name of renewal have radically transformed the neighbourhood.
Tomorrow, Friday March 31st is the public’s last opportunity to provide feedback on the City of Vancouver’s disastrous new planning policy for Chinatown before the proposal goes to City Council. The Chinatown Economic Revitalization Update and Development Policies being proposed by the planning department favour big developers and development in the fragile heritage neighbourhood and will cause permanent and irreversible damage to historic Chinatown.
There are a lot of concerns with the new planning policy, but the literal and figurative big one is large lot assembly. Typical Chinatown lot sizes are 25 feet wide, the new plan would allow assemblies of up to eight lots, for 200 foot frontages.
Remembering the late Joe Wai who designed some of our city’s best loved Chinatown places, including the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Gardens, the Chinese Cultural Centre, Skwachàys Healing Lodge, and the Millennium Gate. Along the way he was a driving force behind the preservation of Chinatown and renewing it’s many heritage buildings and facades, and he led the campaign to see Chinatown designated as a National Historic Site.