Downtown Vancouver Updates

[officedweller]

The palm trees can probably be transplanted easily.

[mcminsen]

Here are some links to previous discussion in this thread about 1754 Pendrell, dating back 7 years.

Originally Posted by yogiderek

So i was passing 1754 Pendrell and saw a new rezoning sign. 21 storey condiminium plus a 5 storey separate building for rental. So this is the second time round for this property. A blank parcel of land, an old house and a hideous 3 storey walk up. Hopefully this one will go through.

Originally Posted by jlousa

The project for the 1700block of Pendrell has been altered.

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Originally Posted by Vin

Came across this:

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Originally Posted by Vin

NIMBYs at work once again. Fighting against a mere 21-storey rental building to be built downtown? Only in Vancouver geeesh! No wonder more and more developers move to the suburbs to build. The ones that can afford to stay in Vancouver will only build ultra-expensive condos on a few selected lots. Get used to unaffordable housing for decades to come. It's the people of Vancouver to be blamed anyhow.

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Originally Posted by Vanville

Moving the heritage house from site in preparation for demo of remaining coach house & walk up apartment building. Heritage house to be temporarily relocated to 215 W1st Ave then later to 400 blk of East 5th where it will be renovated into rental. It's a pretty tight fit in that alley! My pics Nov.30:

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Originally Posted by mcminsen

1754 Pendrell.

Jan.1 '17, my pic

[osirisboy]

Yes this is the one. thanks, I really appreciate these updates!

[hollywoodnorth]

is 1754 Pendrell still going to be built to be tied eventually into the Vancouver Neighbourhood Energy Strategy?

as per this link >> http://council.vancouver.ca/20150623/documents/p5.pdf


and was this the site that was proposed to have a full on boiler to add heat into the steam loop system?

[Feathered Friend]

Originally Posted by Changing City

The long-awaited non-market housing project at 58 West Hastings (across from the Army & Navy store) has been submitted for rezoning. There are a few more details on the Changing City blog

Today's open house for this project was cancelled.

What is shocking, the reason for the cancellation is because the Vancouver Community College got word there were plans for protesters to attend. So, at the last minute (this morning) they cancelled the room reservation on the city. From what I've heard, staff have no clue where they will reschedule, and I even heard Carnegie Community Centre floated as an idea, which is probably a bad idea in my view.

Here are the links to the boards that were supposed to be at the open house.

http://rezoning.vancouver.ca/applications/58whastings/index.htm

The rezoning open house for 58 West Hastings Street, scheduled for Tuesday April 18, has been postponed to a later date. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please stay tuned for notification of future public consultation. The open house material is available for viewing below, and comments are still accepted through our online feedback form.
City of Vancouver Boards PDF(13.23mb)
Applicant Boards PDF(16.11mb)
Architect Boards PDF(44.01mb)

After finding this out at the doors of VCC, I still managed to get to one open house today. It was for a project on Kingsway and I'll post some photos / info I gathered later on.

[VancouverOfTheFuture]

Originally Posted by Feathered Friend

Today's open house for this project was cancelled.

What is shocking, the reason for the cancellation is because the Vancouver Community College got word there were plans for protesters to attend. So, at the last minute (this morning) they cancelled the room reservation on the city. From what I've heard, staff have no clue where they will reschedule, and I even heard Carnegie Community Centre floated as an idea, which is probably a bad idea in my view.

Here are the links to the boards that were supposed to be at the open house.

http://rezoning.vancouver.ca/applications/58whastings/index.htm


After finding this out at the doors of VCC, I still managed to get to one open house today. It was for a project on Kingsway and I'll post some photos / info I gathered later on.

protesting what? what is there to protest? i don't know enough about the project.

[logan5]

Yes. What is there to protest? Half of 222 units would be at shelter rate.

You try to be sensitive to what people in the DTES are going through, and they're confused about what is happening around them, but how could they possibly think 111 new units of shelter rate housing is bad?

[Feathered Friend]

Sorry, I should have been more clear. All there was at the front door of the community college was a note stating the open house had been postponed, and would need to be rescheduled ( I didn't think to grab a photo).

I only found out later on from a city staff member that it was cancelled because the room reservation was pulled by VCC due to concerns about protester.

I don't have any info regarding what aspect of the project was being protested. However, considering the project stats:

Seven floors of housing, with 222 social housing units;
Retail and Health Care Office uses on floors 1-3;
One level of underground parking;
A floor space ratio (FSR ) of 6.6; and
A building height of 32 m (105 ft.).

Why anyone would protest it is beyond me.

[Bdawe]

DTES housing activists believe that they have been mislead by the city, and believe that the proposed income mix for the site will contribute to the overall gentrification of the area.

[Vin]

In the rest of the known universe, people regard gentrification as a very good thing.

[SpongeG]

well when you make your living off the backs of poor people any threat to your income is deemed bad

[Vin]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

well when you make your living off the backs of poor people any threat to your income is deemed bad

You mean people who don't want to get jobs and improve their livelihoods, and prefer to stay in the welfare system forever? I'm sure many of the folks living there can even get jobs from gentrification, if only they can clean themselves up first, and stop blaming the system for their plight. Perhaps developers can then proceed to invest money to improve the area with the newer constructions without facing the unnecessary protests.

I believe the site at 58 W Hastings is currently vacant. It's not like people are going to be kicked out from the vegetable garden, unless of course you consider those living in illegal tents and leaving needles and Safeway carts around.

[SpongeG]

no i mean the social workers and private charity businesses who make their livings off the backs of the people they are helping who oppose changing the area or improving the lives of the people in need down there.

[officedweller]

This is what he's referring to:
(PHS is Portland Hotel Society)

What rules apply in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside?

Ken MacQueen on financial accountability in Canada’s poorest postal code

Ken MacQueen

March 24, 2014

...

It’s now quite clear that rule-blindness also applies to financial accountability, as revealed March 20 in the release of two damning KPMG audits of the PHS Community Services Society (PHS), the leading government-subsidized service provider in Canada’s poorest postal code. The excesses include: $8,600 in limousine bills for one executive in 2013; $8,300 for a trip to the U.K. to look into a heroin prescription program, necessitating, apparently, a $900-a-night hotel room; $5,800 for a cruise as a gift to a society director; $7,000 for a “celebration of life” for a dead employee; a trip to Disneyland for another director. In fact, $300,000 in travel costs between 2010 and 2012 including trips to Istanbul, Paris, Vienna, Los Angeles and New York City. And on and on.

By the time the province released the audits by B.C. Housing and the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, PHS co-founders Liz Evans and her husband, Mark Townsend, and their combined $300,000-plus salaries, had been shoved out the door, along with the rest of the board. The audits blew apart the credibility of PHS, which has, as even the auditors concede, done a good job of managing a difficult clientele.

The scandal raises serious questions about the poverty industry that flourishes in the neighbourhood. A few years back The Province newspaper, after months of research, concluded that more than $1 million a day in government and charitable money was pouring into the neighbourhood. While it’s unfair to tar every charity, group, soup kitchen and storefront ministry with the same brush, one wonders where the money goes. And why so little seems to change. Every new business or housing project in the area that doesn’t cater exclusively to the poor or addicted is condemned by activists as “gentrification,” a dirty word for those who seem to prefer the wretched nobility of the status quo. Outside of this neighbourhood such projects are celebrated as “urban renewal.” Even the language is different here.
...

http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/what-rules-apply-in-vancouvers-downtown-eastside/

[s211]

Originally Posted by officedweller

This is what he's referring to:
(PHS is Portland Hotel Society)


http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/what-rules-apply-in-vancouvers-downtown-eastside/

PHS is a leech. Aren't they the group that renovated that historic hotel in Gastown which ended up costing more than $500K per SRO?

I'd love someone to explain with a straight face how PHS shouldn't be disbanded and recreated from scratch?

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by Vin

In the rest of the known universe, people regard gentrification as a very good thing.

*Middle-class people regard gentrification as a very good thing, because it gets rid of those "undesirable" areas and people. Only problem is, what happens to those people?

I'm not here to comment on this project and its effect on gentrification. I just wanted to comment on "gentrification being a very good thing" overall. Middle-class people like us might like to see more areas look pretty, but nothing that displaces such large amounts of people that have nowhere to go is a very good thing.

And obviously the Downtown Eastside has its own problems, and you're right that some of those people may not ever escape the welfare system, for whatever reason. But displacing them and their landscape certainly doesn't help.

And what about those living in gentrified walk-up neighbourhoods in Metrotown? Just about all of those people have jobs, and yet their buildings are being torn down to build towers they can't afford to live in. Is that "very good?" How it falls within the realm of pros vs cons is another question, but for those affected by it, gentrification is certainly not very good.

Of course the general cleanup of neighbourhoods is good, but not when that cleanup results in people being forced out.

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

*Middle-class people regard gentrification as a very good thing, because it gets rid of those "undesirable" areas and people. Only problem is, what happens to those people?

I'm not here to comment on this project and its effect on gentrification. I just wanted to comment on "gentrification being a very good thing" overall. Middle-class people like us might like to see more areas look pretty, but nothing that displaces such large amounts of people that have nowhere to go is a very good thing.

And obviously the Downtown Eastside has its own problems, and you're right that some of those people may not ever escape the welfare system, for whatever reason. But displacing them and their landscape certainly doesn't help.

And what about those living in gentrified walk-up neighbourhoods in Metrotown? Just about all of those people have jobs, and yet their buildings are being torn down to build towers they can't afford to live in. Is that "very good?" How it falls within the realm of pros vs cons is another question, but for those affected by it, gentrification is certainly not very good.

Of course the general cleanup of neighbourhoods is good, but not when that cleanup results in people being forced out.

What if forcing them out to other neighbourhoods (Olympic Village, Yaletown, West End) gets them away from the cycle of drug dealers in the DTES. Just a question.

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

What if forcing them out to other neighbourhoods (Olympic Village, Yaletown, West End) gets them away from the cycle of drug dealers in the DTES. Just a question.

I don't think people being forced out of poor neighbourhoods are likely to end up in nice neighbourhoods like that. Considering the DTES is probably the cheapest place in all of Metro to live, there's really nowhere those people can go. Either the poverty migrates (see Surrey Central to Newton in the past few years) or you create even more homeless people.

I obviously don't have an answer to fixing the problems of the people in the DTES. I think many of them can't be solved. It would be great if these people could live in better neighbourhoods, but I don't think the way of doing that is demolishing the ones they're in now.

And again, the DTES is a whole other issue. The question was specifically about gentrification, not just the DTES. As I mentioned in my other post, there is no issue with Metrotown at all, and yet that's still being heavily redeveloped with no concession to existing residents. Gentrification doesn't eliminate poverty, it just hides it.

[Tetsuo]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

What if forcing them out to other neighbourhoods (Olympic Village, Yaletown, West End) gets them away from the cycle of drug dealers in the DTES. Just a question.

This works, look at Kits, developed in the past 50+years with a ton of "social housing" for families, vibrant neighborhood and kids don't end up growing in a ghetto. Another example = social housing units in Yaletown and Coal Harbour.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

no i mean the social workers and private charity businesses who make their livings off the backs of the people they are helping who oppose changing the area or improving the lives of the people in need down there.

Ohhh! Totally misunderstood you there! LOL.