Transformation team puts Chinatown’s heritage first
Protecting neighbourhood’s unique qualities will extend to culture as well
The city decision this week to amend zoning guidelines to protect Chinatown’s unique qualities against rising land values, speculation and development focused mostly on restricting building heights and lot sizes.
But behind this, there have already been efforts to do more than just conserve the physical shape of the historical area.
The city has assembled a socalled Chinatown transformation team, naming four of the seven positions.
So far, it will include two city planning veterans: Baldwin Wong, who will oversee implementing policy and community development, and Helen Ma, who will look after arts, culture and community services.
Helen Lee, a heritage planner who chaired the Vancouver Chinatown Historic Area Planning Committee and trained at Hong Kong University’s architectural conservation program, will be responsible for legacy actions and policies. There is one clerical position that has been filled and the other three positions will be announced by August, according to the city.
The team’s “main task will be to create a plan for the whole area that actually (focuses) on the living heritage and culture. That will include the legacy businesses, but perhaps more importantly it will be about housing and land use and business mix and also creating the right kinds of economic vitality in terms of sustainable cultural education and tourism,” said University of B.C. history professor Henry Yu.
The team will also prepare to apply for the designation of Chinatown as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
As part of this, there will be “provisions for the concept of a ‘special economic zone’ linked to culturally appropriate businesses, legacy businesses and community serving enterprises in the area,” according to a memo released by city planners just before council passed the height and lot size amendments on Tuesday.
The transformation team consists of bilingual Cantonese and English speakers with the specific experience and ability to connect with seniors, clan leaders and businesspeople in Chinatown as well as link to conservation experts in cities such as Penang, Malaysia, and Kaiping, China, which have a similar history to Vancouver’s Chinatown as places of new beginnings, refuge and migration.
It will likely be closely watched by people in a Vancouver seeking tools and policies to retain “intangible” community assets — the long-thriving corner store, the Greek bakery, the little cafe — in neighbourhoods aside from Chinatown.
There will need to be a shift, said Yu, from work done by volunteer advocates and students to an infrastructure operated by full-time staff dedicated to managing lots of first steps and long-term goals.
Community activist Melody Ma spent the day after the amendments were passed walking through Chinatown with city engineers to talk about how to “activate” public spaces, which means giving people a reason to gather and use them, including day-today activities and special events. She’ll be looking to the transformation team to support summer events planned by youth groups in Chinatown.
“We can finally steward (the) majority of our energy away from protest and towards positive initiatives,” she said in a tweet.