Community Slams Condo Plan, Process

21 April 2008

Vancouver Downtown Eastside community members and housing advocates are gathering tomorrow to hold a consultation that they say the City of Vancouver was legally required to do, but didn't do, on a new condo project in the neighbourhood.

" The City of Vancouver may have been trying to sneak this proposal past us, suggesting that 154 condos in the first block of Hastings Street East isn't a major project that requires consultation," said Wendy Pedersen, of the Carnegie Community Action Project. "We disagree, and we're going to hold our own consultation on what the neighbourhood wants to see on that site."

The consultation concerns a lot at 58 West Hastings Street owned by Concord Pacific, Canada's largest developer. The proposed project is a seven storey condominium project called "Greenwich," which proposes 154 market housing units, from two-bedroom to studio units. No social housing or other community amenities are currently proposed to be located on the site.

Rick Michaels, the Director of Planning delegate for the City of Vancouver, has already apologized for what he calls an "inadvertent shortfall in the notification process for this application," and an " incomplete notification process."

" This project got a rubber stamp from the city, even though it doesn't comply with the DTES housing plan," noted Pedersen. "How can the City approve this project without talking to the elected officials that set the plan, or the community that relies on that plan?"

Joyce Rock of the DTES Neighbourhood House was equally disappointed in the approval, suggesting it would lead to displacement: "In what other neighbourhood in Vancouver would the City tolerate 32% of residents being at risk of displacement because of new development?" A meeting scheduled for today by the City to approve additional density for the site was cancelled after C-CAP wrote to the planning department to express concern about the lack of notification that the project was moving ahead.

The consultation is endorsed and supported by: the Carnegie Community Action Project, the Downtown Eastside Residents' Association, the DTES Neighbourhood House, the Franciscan Sisters, Pivot Legal Society, Streams of Justice, and VANDU.

What: Community Consultation on 58 West Hastings Street
Where: VANDU, 380 Hastings Street East, between Gore and Dunlevy
When: Tuesday, April 22, 2008 at 2:00 p.m.

For more information, contact:
Wendy Pedersen, CCAP (604)839-0379
Richard Utendale, VANDU, (604)726-4077 or (604)719-5313

Endorsed by:
Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU)
Pivot Legal Society
Downtown Eastside Residents Association (DERA)
Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood House (DTES NH)
Carnegie Community Action Project (CCAP)
Streams of Justice
Sisters of Attonement