New Chinatown ideas rise from ashes of rejected condo
Coming policy changes may mean keeping character at the expense of public benefit
Following a showdown over a landmark street corner, one of Canada’s endangered historic neighbourhoods is at a crossroads.
Vancouver councillors will introduce a pair of motions next week arising from the rejection, earlier this month, of a rezoning application by local developer Beedie seeking to build a 12-storey condo development on the edge of Chinatown. That council vote followed months of acrimony between opposing sides, with councillors describing the process as the most emotional and passionate they’ve seen.
And as the dust settles after the proposal’s rejection, questions remain about the way forward for the site at the corner of Keefer and Columbia streets — and to some extent, the rest of Chinatown. Andy Yan, director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University, says the implications of the Keefer decision reach even further: “It’s the way forward for the corner, for Chinatown, for the city. ... What did we learn as a city over 105 Keefer?”
The pair of motions on next Tuesday’s agenda — from one councillor who voted in favour of the rezoning and one who voted against it — relate to two major points of contention in the Keefer debate. Beedie’s proposal included 25 units of social housing and a new seniors’ cultural space, which proponents of the project argued were badly needed. Opponents said the benefits on offer didn’t outweigh perceived impacts on the neighbourhood of the 12-storey building with 106 market condos.
A motion being introduced by Green Coun. Adriane Carr, who voted against the Keefer rezoning, seeks to direct city staff to “quickly pursue” options to buy the site and “develop it as 100 per cent social housing, especially for seniors.”
The motion notes “the new provincial NDP government, supported by the B.C. Greens, has indicated its intention to increase the provincially funded supply of social and affordable housing.”
Carr said Thursday she felt “much more optimistic” about introducing the motion based on the results of last month’s provincial election, and the unfolding political drama in Victoria, with the NDP-Green alliance expected to topple the Liberal government as early as next week.
“A change in government is exactly what’s needed to support more social housing,” Carr said. “Both the Greens and the NDP have made it very clear through the whole election, they ran on a platform of increasing social housing.”
It is, of course, a very valuable piece of privately owned land.
But there could be a number of options worth investigating, Carr said Thursday, mentioning the idea of a land swap, with the city acquiring the Keefer site from Beedie in exchange for a similarly valued piece of land from the city’s portfolio of real estate holdings.
Yan said the motion represents “an interesting moment to see if we can do the ‘art of the deal’ here, in terms of a positive outcome for all parties involved.”
A Beedie representative declined to comment Thursday.
Meanwhile, another motion will be moved by Coun. Raymond Louie, the only Vision councillor to vote in favour of the Keefer proposal. Louie’s motion asks council to direct staff to explore options to secure sufficient and affordable space for Chinese senior associations, which is described as an issue of “major concern,” and notes “the recent attempt to secure Chinese seniors cultural space within the proposed 105 Keefer development failed due to the rejection of the development proposal.”
Louie said Thursday he was disappointed that the Keefer rezoning failed, adding: “The space, currently a parking lot, certainly is not providing any benefit to the community, and this was ... an attempt by the developer to work with the city to create something of value and substance for this historic area.”
Under the area’s current building policies, Beedie could build a nine-storey building on the Keefer site without applying for rezoning, but the developer opted to apply to build higher. Chinatown’s development policies, adopted in 2011, allow buildings as high as 120 feet if a developer provides adequate community benefits and council approves the rezoning.
Those policies were adopted, Louie said Thursday, because “what was in place wasn’t working. Chinatown was slowly dying, there was a migration of people away from this special place. ... So the thought was we would undertake a balanced approach, where there would be a preservation of heritage, but also be some allowance for new development and an injection of new energy and people into the area as well.”
But those building policies could be changing soon. Last month the city posted an update on its website, saying city staff would recommend changes to the Chinatown development policy, including lower building-height limits, after hearing community feedback that the “new developments are out of scale and lack character, and trading character for public benefits is ‘not worth it.’ ”
The new Chinatown that emerges from the ashes of the Keefer rejection may end up looking more like the old Chinatown.
What was in place wasn’t working. Chinatown was slowly dying, there was a migration of people away from this special place.