Good morning. Wendy Cox in Vancouver today.
After nearly a decade of controversy, after countless hours of contentious city hearings and a lawsuit, the three people on the city’s once obscure development-permit board have given the go-ahead for a nine-storey condo project in Chinatown.
The Keefer St. building had become a crucible into which many of the city’s toughest challenges poured: the tension between the need for more housing and worries about gentrification of a neighbourhood that has long housed people without means; competing visions of Chinatown as a neighbourhood locked into historical tradition or as one that needs to accommodate new residents so those historic businesses can continue to thrive.
But add in more recent concerns about public disorder in the neighbourhood and a new city council with a mandate to address the situation, and Monday’s decision was not surprising – if also not one that activists were willing to accept.
“We declare this process illegitimate. We will not rest until we take 105 Keefer back,” said Jade Ho, an organizer with the Vancouver Tenants Union which opposed the project. On Tuesday, she called the project “widely despised.” Ms. Ho and other opponents maintain the site should be developed for social housing.
On Tuesday, Rob Fiorvento, managing partner of Beedie, said the developer was “obviously pleased” and he pledged to get working as soon as possible with city staff and community groups.
The city is requiring that the project, which will see 111 condos built on what has been a vacant parking lot, be adjusted to provide a welcoming space for the Chinatown Memorial Plaza at one corner where there is a monument to Chinese-Canadian railway workers and war veterans.
The site is also next to the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Garden, a cultural heritage site and tourist attraction.
As Frances Bula writes, the project was previously rejected by the city in 2017 amid community concern about the tall building’s architectural disconnect with historic Chinatown and the lack of social housing, which has continued to motivate opposition. Proponents, on the other hand, believe the project will economically revitalize the area.
Some long-time businesses have closed since the 2017 Keefer vote, and several Chinatown leaders complained bitterly in the months leading up to last year’s civic election that crime had increased significantly in the area after the pandemic, with little response from the city.
Mayor Ken Sim emphasized during his election campaign last fall that Chinatown had been ignored and its decline had even been facilitated by previous left-wing city councils.
The Keefer saga started in 2011 when city council, in an effort to bring new housing and local-shopping residents into the struggling Chinatown district, approved a plan to allow a few taller buildings outside the most historic blocks in exchange for some units of below-market housing or other community benefits.
But as the first three towers went up along Main Street, some people in the community got alarmed at what felt like very large buildings that provided few benefits and were out of sync architecturally.
Beedie’s proposal first included 25 social housing units, but it was rejected because it would have required rezoning to allow more height. The second design did not require extra height or rezoning, but the social housing units were eliminated.
Amid strong opposition, the permit board rejected the project in November, 2017. Beedie sued and while the B.C. Supreme Court rejected many of the company’s arguments, the court concluded the city had not given adequate reasons for the rejection and ordered the decision be reconsidered.
“I believe there was some procedural unfairness in the decision from 2017, but I do not support the rationale that because it was refused in 2017, it should be refused again,” said Andrea Law, the city’s general manager of building and development, said Monday.
She also noted that, although there was still a lot of opposition, there had been a “significant shift” in support from organizations and individuals that had been opposed previously. Representatives from the nearby garden and the Chinese Cultural Centre indicated support for the project after having opposed it last time.
This is the weekly Western Canada newsletter written by B.C. Editor Wendy Cox and Alberta Bureau Chief Mark Iype. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.
Wendy Cox