Two Debates in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside

I've been following two debates recently going on in Vancouver related to the Downtown Eastside--one was triggered by the city's Historic Area Heights Review and the other by future locations for social housing--and thought it would be helpful to compile some of the discussion in one place.

Historic Area Heights Review

The Historic Area Heights Review sought higher building height limits in the DTES and Chinatown. You can read the document here (I know it looks long, but after page 16 it's appendices only). If you don't want to read all that, you can check out the presentation version, which also discusses view corridors and height reviews in other areas of the city. It also has the benefit of looking very slick.

Basically, what the study recommends is rezoning in the DTES and Chinatown to allow for higher buildings of around 120 - 150ft at certain locations. The study also notes the distinct character of this historic area should not be compromised and that the higher densities should bring public benefits.

(image taken from the HAHR report)

This prompted a slew of Vancouver professors, planners and politicians to write a letter to council expressing their concern that the added density and height would compromise the low-income nature of the DTES, ultimately contributing to higher rents that would push out at-risk tenants. Mike Harcourt, former premier, wondered why there was a "height-only" study when the needs of the DTES required a broader social and economic study. Sounds like a reasonable request to me.

Michael Geller argued on his blog that the real issue was preserving the heritage nature of the district, something that higher buildings would encroach on.

Ultimately, city council cancelled the public hearing set for January 20, 2011 (which had a large number of speakers signed up) in order to call for a social-impact study to be completed and a community committee to be formed with the intent to create a local area plan for the DTES. A Georgia Straight article noted the public hearing led to an outcry against council for anti-democratic tactics, but that it was ultimately seen as a victory (for now). The Vancouver Sun's Jeff Lee wrote that city council had simply split up the area, so that while the DTES height reviews are on hold, the Chinatown ones will proceed with public hearings in February. Local action group Fight the Height used the headline: "Council strikes down the heights review...sort of."

Concord Pacific Social Housing Swap

As if that wasn't enough, a deal being drawn up with Concord Pacific (that ubiquitous developer of Vancouver's forest of glass towers) to have the developer turn over two DTES sites to the city for social housing development instead of including those units in the development of the North False Creek area, has triggered another debate. This time about where future social housing should be built--mixed with the rest of the city or located to the DTES?

On the one hand, the city has found it extremely difficult to build social housing units in developments in other parts of the city, the most publicized recently being the problems at the Olympic Village site. Compounded with this is the fact that the DTES has an established community and network of services for low-income citizens so it makes sense to provide social housing there.

On the other hand, you have Michael Geller's argument that we shouldn't be relegating Vancouver's poor to the DTES and should instead be including them in other areas of the city. A pretty hateful and vitriolic article by The Province (no surprise there) takes the view that the Downtown Eastside should be destroyed and social housing should be built outside of the DTES, but totally ignores the fact that in Vancouver NIMBYism on such projects is quite high.

I have no idea what is best. My instinct tells me that we should be providing low-income citizens with opportunities to share in the wealth of the city by including them in these mega-condo projects. While many residents of the DTES feel a connection to the community and wouldn't want to leave (nor should they have to) there are probably some that would rather live in other areas of the city.

Phew.

Walking Through Toronto's Laneways with Graeme Parry

This past Sunday I had the pleasure of attending a free walking tour of Toronto's laneways led by Graeme Parry. We met at the corner of Queen and Bathurst and soon the group had amassed to more than 60 people; the largest group for a tour yet, Parry said. The tour took us on a winding route through the graffiti-filled alley just south of Queen West and then north-west up to Dundas and Ossington.

I have always had a bit of a love affair with alleys, jump-started, I think, by an interest in the street art found in Vancouver, a city I explored as a suburban teenager and eventually moved to in 2003. Alleys were always my best bet to get a glimpse of colourful murals and quickly-drawn tags that were too often scrubbed clean from any wall facing a more public area.

Soon, however, I began to appreciate more than just the thriving graffiti in the alleys. There was something else intoxicating about wandering the back-streets of a city. A feeling of being off-the-grid, even though you are very much still on the grid. It's a private space that is still public, quieter and, as this Spacing article points out, less commercial than walking along the street. Alleys can be dirty, filled with garbage, and not well lit, but they also challenge your view of your city, force you to acknowledge the existence of a different part that may not always be displayed or sanctioned.

Vancouver always had a bit of a scrubbed-clean feeling to me -- a toy recently removed from its shrink-wrapped packaging -- and the alleys showed me a different, grittier side to the city. A side much different than the world-class clad-in-glass image Vancouver attempts to portray. Vancouver's alleys, especially in the Downtown Eastside, can be home to sleeping bodies, needles, and drug deals. Once, photographing the graffiti in an alley running parallel to Granville Street I encountered a man smoking crack who identified himself as "Bent Brent" because his arm had been partially severed and reattached at a strange angle. He lifted his t-shirt to show me the scar, then told me to be careful with my camera.

Walking with the tour through Toronto's laneways, we were shown examples of laneway housing, a type of residence being built inside laneways. In cities looking to increase density, it seems a good idea. Vancouver passed a motion allowing laneway housing in 2009 and saw the first opened in 2010. Objections to privacy, access to city utilities, and fire and garbage truck access have become issues and barriers to laneway housing; however, we came across several successful laneway housing projects, including a townhouse complex built on a former parking lot. One, more sleek example of a laneway house, is even featured on page 74 of the Guidebook to Contemporary Architecture in Toronto and can be found pictured here. Laneway architecture needs to be more inventive, using a smaller space ingeniously. There were some strange buildings, but the one pictured below, with its folded-over peak like a flopped Orca fin, caught my eye.

Parry led a casual, but informative tour and managed the large group well. The laneways we travelled through were mostly empty of people, except for a few curious residents who came to check out the strange mass of people taking pictures of their houses. However, there was one traffic jam created at a laneway intersection where we had to negotiate space with several large cars.

At the end of the tour, Parry explained that one of the things he loves about laneways is how you can get lost inside them in your own city. He asked us how many of us had felt disoriented in the laneways only to dump out at an intersection or street we knew. It was this exact experience that I find so compelling about laneways and one of the reasons why I walked them so much in Vancouver. It seemed a way to renew my vision of the city, wipe away the fog that builds up when you live in a place too long and allow yourself to be surprised again.

all photos taken by me on September 5, 2010 on walking tour route.