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Old Posted Aug 31, 2008, 9:07 PM
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Strathcona property owners and tenants demand a plan for the neighbourhood

Strathcona property owners and tenants demand a plan for the neighbourhood


Barbara Lee and her family live in the gorgeous heritage neighbourhood of Strathcona, but they put up with a lot to do so. The other day, she arrived home with her two kids to find a man defecating in her driveway. Someone smashed the window of a visiting friend’s rental car to steal a GPS unit. Last week, someone stole her shoes from her backyard. Her 80-year-old father’s house has been the target of several break-ins, she said. Two years ago, someone shot a bullet through it.

“They’re creating a ghetto,” she told the Straight, referring to City of Vancouver planning decisions that have concentrated social services and nonmarket housing in the family neighbourhood. “We have been fighting, pleading to get a planner for our neighbourhood.…I think the city is just starting to understand that we’re not going away.”

Lee’s “we” is the Strathcona Property Owners and Tenants Association, a feisty lobby group that’s been fighting for a political voice for the neighbourhood since the 1960s. Her father, Sang Lee, is its chair.

SPOTA has joined with four other community groups to make sure their voices are heard when the city reviews the Downtown Eastside/Oppenheimer official development plan in early 2009, potentially allowing for greater density. Together, they call themselves the Strathcona Revitalization Committee, which wants to stake its claim to represent the neighbourhood, which, they assert, extends from Terminal Avenue to the central waterfront.

In “Strathcona 2010: A Clear Vision for Our Community”, an SRC document released on August 15, the committee offered the city its plan for a mixed-income neighbourhood, inclusive of all people. Low-rise market housing should be built along with nonmarket, it argued. Make East Hastings Street a vibrant retail hub, like West 4th Avenue, by offering incentives to businesses. Build recreational facilities.

Vancouver city councillor Suzanne Anton plans to meet with the SRC on Thursday (August 28), and she told the Straight she strongly supports market housing being built in what’s commonly known as the Downtown Eastside.

“It would be an unfortunate result should it be a neighbourhood of social housing only and nothing else,” Anton said, noting that Concord Pacific’s application to build a tower at 58 West Hastings Street, across from Woodward’s, saw more than 40 community groups show up at the development-permit board in June to argue that the site should be set aside for social housing. The city, she said, has committed to keeping 10,000 low-income units in the East Side.

“Everybody recognizes it is a low-income neighbourhood and it always will be,” Anton said.

But just around the corner, near the Main Street SkyTrain station, the five swish CityGate towers once offered the same promise of revitalization for the neighbourhood.

However, the buildings’ eastern border, along Main Street, is still a dusty, isolated stretch, boasting a Starbucks, a corner store, a Subway, a cheap pizza joint, and the Cobalt Hotel, whose “Girls Girls Girls” sign now flashes just “Girl”. Nearby, the lofts around eastern Gastown still see an open drug trade and needle users in the small green spaces.

As Downtown Eastside city planner Jessica Chen pointed out, there’s plenty of developer interest in the neighbourhood now, after about 20 dead years.

The V6A and Ginger condo projects, both near CityGate, are under construction. The once-affordable Strathcona neighbourhood’s heritage homes have been priced at more than $1 million. Plus, Oppenheimer Park is getting “revitalized” as of early 2009. Chen said she’s aware that changes in each part of Vancouver’s heritage district—Chinatown, Gastown, Strathcona, and the Downtown Eastside—affect the others.

How will planners ensure the streetscape of East Hastings is more vibrant than the area around CityGate? “There’s no one approach,” Chen said. “The key important improvement is only going to come when this neighbourhood planning is part of a larger strategy. The drug issue and affordable housing are national issues. We need to make sure our work is connected with other levels of government.”

Chen promised that the Strathcona Revitalization Committee, along with other groups, will be included in making arrangements for next year’s review of the Downtown Eastside/Oppenheimer official development plan.

http://www.straight.com/article-1592...a-demands-plan
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