Homeowner upset by racist clause
Original land-title documents still contain discriminatory language
A West Vancouver woman says she was infuriated to find racist language still exists on her home ownership documents, two years after the district vowed to take action to strike out these “discriminating covenants.”
“I was very angry. I wanted to get the awareness out that this is still happening,” said Michele Tung. “My goal is to get rid of these covenants, because I don't want to have to tell my children's children that I didn't do anything about it.”
Even though these offensive clauses were made unenforceable in 1978, they are upsetting when they are still part of official documents attached to residents' homes. Tung's covenant, created in 1955 for her land in the British Properties, said people of “African or Asiatic” descent could not reside there — unless they were servants.
Tung's friend Stembile Chibebe, who is of African descent, does not have this offensive clause in the documents for her West Vancouver home, but would like to see the wording removed from all land titles before her two school-aged children are old enough to buy property.
“You wonder why we are keeping this language? This should have been taken off a long time ago,” Chibebe said.
Tung created a petition, signed so far by about 800 people, asking for these covenants to be removed.
She discovered the racist language after she said West Vancouver staff asked her subcontractor for a copy of a restrictive covenant that is notated on the front of her land title document, alongside three right-of-way notices. Providing the covenant was necessary, her subcontractor was told, to avoid delay in getting an additional permit for a house she and her husband are building. The Land Title and Survey Authority (LTSA) in New Westminster holds these documents.
This issue was on the radar of West Vancouver Coun. Marcus Wong in January 2020, when he introduced a motion that staff work with the LTSA to determine the “process, resources and time” required to strike racist language from land title documents. Although the motion passed unanimously, action has been delayed by the pandemic, Wong said.
West Vancouver does not have the resources required to pull, review and update the thousands of land titles in the district, so an immediate solution to this dilemma has “yet to be identified,” said district spokeswoman Donna Powers. A staff report that seeks further direction from council will be finished by the end of May, she added.
Wong, who has spoken to the two local MLAs about the provincial government also playing a role in this issue, is confident a “team effort” involving various agencies will bring about change.
“I've grown up with these covenants hanging over my head in West Vancouver,” said Wong, who owns a British Properties home that comes with the same clauses. “Being somebody of Chinese descent, born and raised in Canada, it's still very traumatic for me to think that where I live, not even a generation ago, I was not allowed to live.”
The racist covenants have also been found in other North Shore areas, including Caulfield, Glen Eagles, and Edgemont Village, Wong said. Councillors in New Westminster and Vancouver have raised similar concerns.
The LTSA says these covenants were put on some properties between the 1900s and 1950s, but legislative changes in 1978 made them unenforceable. The law says land title documents cannot be redacted, but homeowners can email the LTSA to ask for lines to be struck through the racist language; the agency receives fewer than five of these requests annually, said spokeswoman Janice Fraser.
The LTSA is also trying to identify discriminating clauses in the millions of paper and digital documents it oversees. It is working with Simon Fraser University to explore new techniques to identify these covenants, to better understand what can be achieved with computers and what still must be done manually, Fraser said.
British Pacific Properties, a private company that oversees the development of 4,000 acres it purchased from the district in 1931, agrees the covenants “have no place in our society,” said president Geoff Croll.
A motion by Vancouver Coun. Sarah Kirby-Yung in February 2020 asked city hall staff to explore options to address racist land title documents. This week, Kirby-Yung said she was disappointed her motion didn't produce the action she had hoped, and noted the issue is important given an extreme increase in anti-Asian hate crimes during the pandemic.
“I think that it's an even more sensitive time right now,” said Kirby-Yung. “It's become pretty clear that this is not a thing of the past, that racism is alive and well, unfortunately.”