The Persistence of Anti-Asian Racism, Part III | The Politics of Space

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION| The first part of Nathan Crompton’s three-part essay introduced the history of anti-asian racism in Vancouver, while the second part focused on contemporary versions of scapegoating in Vancouver culture. But if racism and scapegoating are used to hide reality, the following essay asks a simpler question: what is the reality it hides? Behind the “empty signifiers” of culture and its discourses, what exactly is happening on the ground in Vancouver?

Despite constant invocations of “the Chinese” in debates on the housing crisis, a full third of all people living in poverty in Vancouver are Chinese. Today, in the shifting world of the city’s diverse neighborhoods, the gentrification of East Vancouver is in fact having its most direct effect on immigrants and racialized communities. Crompton draws from countless academic publications and recent demographic studies to reveal that the complex diversions of scapegoating conceal the racial and class divisions that define contemporary Vancouver.

Ground Zero: Mount Pleasant

The signs are difficult to ignore for anyone taking a walk down Main Street. Since at least 2008, the Mount Pleasant neighborhood has experienced a renewed wave of gentrification. Major shifts in the movement of capital have brought a sea-change in the number of rental apartments upgraded, renovicted, converted into strata condos, or altogether demolished to make way for new condo towers. High-end storefronts and promotional materials from the local BIA give an impression of a settled middle-class neighborhood, and the image depicted by local boosterism is slowly in the process of matching up with a new reality. But yet the hype also tells us surprisingly little about the neighborhood. At this stage of gentrification, image-making still lacks control over the world it might hope to represent. A vast majority of residents in the North Mount Pleasant area are renters (70%), most of them first and second-generation immigrants (58%).[1] Despite being put in the unforgiving cross-hairs of gentrification, and despite superficial appearances suggesting urban lifestyle and conspicuous consumption, Mount Pleasant is today a proud and alive immigrant neighborhood.

Conflict of Interest at City Hall: Condo Tower Approved in Chinatown

On May 7th the Development Permit Board (DPB) approved the application of a 10 storey luxury development in Chinatown. The project, financed by Solterra Group of Companies, comprises 82 dwelling units above three levels of underground parking. This is the first condo project stimulated by the Vision-NPA gentrification plan for the neighbourhood. In spring of last year, Vision-NPA approved a blanket upzoning of land, which increased the value of 189 Keefer from $1 million to $2.9 million overnight. Through the so-called “Height Review” for the DTES, the predominantly low-income Chinese community and other low-income social groups are gradually being displaced by the incursion of market condos, high-end shops, and cultural amenities catering to a wealthier, predominantly white clientele. If a recent “snapshot” of emerging Chinatown by Scout Magazine is any indication, Chinatown will become the next Gastown.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

There was an added controversy at the 189 Keefer hearing, in the form of a serious conflict of interest. One of the members of DPB’s “Representatives of the Design Professions,” Foad Rafii (Architect) represented the Developer (Solterra) at the hearing. Rafii spoke on behalf of the applicant, and did not publicly disclose his conflict of interest. When a member of the public voiced his concerns, the Board Chair Vicki Potter and Foad Rafii remained silent, refusing to address the public’s claim.

This is the second time in a month that Foad Rafii has misused his post on the DPB. Two weeks ago, from his DPB seat Rafii spoke out energetically against community members who protested Pantages condos proposal. In retrospect, his decision regarding the Pantages condo project was tainted by his desire to see his own project approved the next week.

City Council uses questionable methods to fast-track Sequel 138 gentrification project

This past Monday, April 23rd, all three voting members of the Vancouver Development Permit Board (DPB) voted in favor of the ‘Sequel 138’ condo project on Hastings, next to the Carnegie Centre and across from Insite.

The decision to push through the gentrification project was made beforehand by senior city staff at the direction of the Mayor’s Office. Nevertheless, the city went through the motions of holding a DPB meeting to listen to community concerns. The meeting lasted 7 hours, from 3pm to 10pm, with about 50 community members giving speeches. Almost all delegations passionately opposed the project.

After seven hours of delegations, not one member of the DP Board or its Advisory Panel engaged in discussion or posed any further questions of staff for clarification. The Board moved immediately into a vote. First, the nine members of the Advisory Panel gave their advice. The only member of the nine-member Advisory Panel not personally associated with the development industry, Duncan Wlodarczak of SFU’s Sustainability Centre, spoke for deferring the decision until “rate of change” mechanisms are in place to address the balance between market and non-market development in the DTES, as outlined in the DTES Housing Plan. One other member Advisory Panel member, Jasminka Miletic-Prelovac, spoke in favor of deferral until the Downtown Eastside Local Area Plan (LAP) is in place next year.

Don’t let one man’s property rights outweigh the needs and will of an entire community

DTES Community organizing against Sequel 138 condos shows united opposition to displacement by gentrification.

The date is looming for the City’s Development Permit Board meeting to decide the fate of the Sequel 138 condo proposal. It’s been a year since nine major Downtown Eastside (DTES) community organizations formed a coalition to stop Sequel 138 condos. Their campaign involves thousands of DTES residents, workers, social housing providers, artists… united in opposition to a bad proposal for a destructive condo project in the heart of the most vulnerable urban community in the country.

In the midst of a gentrification storm in the Downtown Eastside with more than 688 new condo units proposed or planned this year, the Sequel 138 proposal at the Pantages site might seem like a strange project to target. It’s only 79 condos, it doesn’t require a rezoning, and it includes 9 units of welfare rate social housing. But the Sequel project is different because it is the first condo proposal ever made in the DTES Oppenheimer District, where 80% of the residents are low-income and most live in substandard SRO hotel rooms.

Most importantly the Oppenheimer District was highlighted by city planners and lawmakers (back when they actually talked about social housing) as the area expected to host most of the needed social housing for the DTES. To make this goal possible they drew up an “inclusionary zoning” bylaw to keep land prices and rents low and keep the real estate speculators at bay: any new development in the area must include 20% social housing. Now, if the city gives a green light to the Sequel project, speculators and developers will swarm over the cheap land as investment opportunities.