Candidate Sim wants to preserve city’s soul
We all have favourite places. Those places suggest something about who we are and what we value. With that in mind, columnist Daphne Bramham has asked four of the front-runners in Vancouver’s mayoral race to meet her at their favourite places to talk about what’s special about it, what the place says about Vancouver, and how it reflects their vision for the city.
The Dutch Wooden Shoe Cafe hasn’t changed all that much since Ken Sim was a 15-year-old kid working there as a prep cook.
It still has flower boxes under the windows, with lace curtains on the inside and brightly painted shutters on the outside. In the kitchen, hundreds of eggs are still being cracked every day, just as they were 32 years ago when Sim took the job.
“This is part of our culture. It’s our heritage and, unfortunately, we’re losing a lot of places like this just because of the way we do business in the city when it comes to permitting, when it comes to property taxes,” said Sim.
“And if we don’t do something about it, we’re going to lose the heart and soul of the city.”
Sim grew up in east Vancouver. His immigrant parents struggled to make ends meet and the only way that Sim was able to go to university was by paying his own way.
So, on his 15th birthday, he went to Wendy’s and begged for a job. He got one as a graveyardshift janitor cleaning toilets and windows on Fridays and Saturdays from midnight to 8 a.m.
So, working as a prep cook was a step up, and it came with a 75-cent-an-hour increase in pay to $4.
In the heart of the Cambie Village, the Dutch Wooden Shoe occupies the ground floor of a modest, two-storey building. It retains its hand-painted sign and its original name even though it was the genesis of De Dutch Pannekoek House chain that has eight restaurants in Metro.
“People love this street, and streets like Main Street and Fraser Street. It has a soul,” said Sim. “You have these collections of little, independent businesses that are the heart and soul of our neighbourhoods.”
Sim and I didn’t get to have waffles that day. There was a scheduled outage to replace a power pole. B.C. Hydro notified businesses, but not until after I’d made the reservation a week earlier. It was disappointing, since Sim admits that all these years later, he still loves waffles.
“I don’t eat a lot of waffles and pancakes now. You know, they’re not super-healthy options.”
But the closure unexpectedly underscored Sim’s and the Non Partisan Association’s message that the city’s small businesses are struggling for survival after more than a decade of rapid change.
Few Vancouver streets and local merchants have so far dealt with the kind of development pressure that Cambie Street has been under since the early 2000s.
First, there was the construction of the Canada Line that required a deep, open trench in the middle of the street.
Because of the disruption, shops and restaurants lost business and many closed or moved. One of the owners, Susan Heyes, took the Canada Line consortium to court and won damages of $600,000 only to have that overturned on appeal. Three others won a separate lawsuit last month — a test case for a classaction suit involving 200 other business owners.
But then there was the redevelopment pressure that came from rezoning to allow mid- and highrise condos all along Cambie.
The result? “A place like (the Dutch Wooden Shoe Cafe) could actually be paying taxes as if it was a 20-storey condo building,” said Sim. “And that’s actually putting way too much financial pressure on our businesses to survive.”
Cambie Village still has small restaurants and shops and retains an old-fashioned charm. But for how long ?
The whole experience might give a new council pause as it deals with the rapid-transit expansion along Broadway. But with housing affordability at a crisis level, there is pressure on every neighbourhood.
But Sim believes that solving the issue is more complicated than just building more homes.
“I tell you, if we hammer our small businesses, it all starts to fall apart,” he said. “It could mean a gutting of our city. But it’s reversible.”
Sim said some of the problems are systemic. One is the long delays in getting building permits. But the other is more complicated and potentially trickier to solve: Property taxes are assessed based on the land’s highest and best use. A site zoned for a 20-storey condo will be assessed taxes as if that’s what is on the land, even if what’s really there is a 50-year-old, two-storey building with an apartment above a store.
People are already leaving Vancouver because they can’t find affordable homes, jobs and business opportunities. But Sim said they are also leaving because the city is losing its vibrancy.
Cambie Village and the Dutch Wooden Shoe Cafe are the heart and soul of Sim’s Vancouver. The lesson they have taught him is that Vancouver can only be a great city if unique communities and local businesses are alive and thriving.