On Dec. 18, Vancouver City Council approved the demolition of the Dunsmuir Hotel, a single-room occupancy building with 167 units at the corner of Dunsmuir and Richards Street. The decision marks yet another feather in the cap of property developer Holborn Properties, with plans for a large-scale residential redevelopment of the site.
Author: Nathan Crompton
Tenants in two Mount Pleasant buildings have found themselves among the first wave of renters impacted by the upcoming Broadway corridor redevelopment. One of those tenants is Nathan Crompton, who writes about the fate of his neighbors and the prospects for a collective tenant riposte.
On December 13, 2023, Vancouver City Council passed a motion seeking provincial endorsement for the elimination of the Park Board. The ruling ABC majority has given strong indications that they are seeking the privatization of parks assets and operations as a short-term attempt to balance the municipal budget, embedded within a wider project of neoliberal restructuring.
With Larwill Place set to close and 700 modular housing units at risk the crisis is set to worsen, argues Jean Swanson. “We are [also] losing a lot of low-income units to fires, to rent increases, to demolitions for redevelopment, to scuzzy landlords who take advantage of vulnerable tenants to just lock them out (like at the Melville Rooms just recently), and because leases on the temporary modulars aren’t being renewed.”