As promised, I braved the open house for the TMH proposed for the Olympic Village Station parking lot. I'm not going to go into my feelings on the matter, as I know it's a volatile issue. That said, I can speak to what I witnessed.
First off, the crowds were larger than I expected, with about 250 people attending by the time I left. The crowd was literally too large for the venue. When I arrived about 30 minutes after the event started, there was still a wait of about 10 minutes to get in. As I was waiting, I overheard people arguing over whether this project was appropriate for the neighbourhood. After they were done, I asked one of the participants why they felt there was such a backlash, given the False Cree South workshops seems so amenable to social housing. The person sighed, and told me that they live in a building where many of their neighbours have been participating in the process, and that it was all part of a plan. The idea was that those participating in the process would demand that the only increase in density should be social and/or affordable housing. The desired outcome being that the city will never have the resources to meet that demand, and thus the neighbourhood will never see any more density. Truly, if that really is why the neighbourhood was responding so well to income diversity, it is kind of a sickening/ evil genius plan to preserve the status quo.
Once inside, the room was absolutely packed. There were plenty of staff from both the city, BC housing, and other pro bono housing groups. While there were plenty of voices opposed, there was nowhere near the backlash that has been reported in Marpole. Most voices expressed concerns about safety, or their property values. One person expressed that the nearby VPD station didn't make them feel any safer, as the police are never around it anyways.
In terms of media, the only group I saw represented was Global News. I found it disappointing that they didn't air the interviews collected as, anecdotally, most seemed open to the housing type. One voice I did hear booming out was from the owner of a nearby bike/scooter shop. This person was quite disgusted by the idea of more social housing nearto his store. He expressed that the nearby Margaret Ford social housing building has seen his store fall victim to more property theft. He was quite adamant that these new units will see that problem dramatically increase, and that it would be far better to ship these people out of Vancouver.
Personally, I think the City has to do a better job of getting their information out about these projects, as I heard some people talking about how this will be an un-monitored den of the mentally ill /addicted, while another was quite adamant that these units will not have heat or basic sanitation, resulting in people defecating in the corner of their units.
The boards from the event, which have additional information.
http://vancouver.ca/files/cov/temporary-modular-housing-west-2nd-information-display.pdf
The next open house is for 4410 Kaslo St, and will be held tomorrow (Feb 6th) at 4 - 7 pm at 2791 E 27th Ave, I may head down just to watch the ongoing theatrics.
http://vancouver.ca/people-programs/temporary-modular-housing.aspx
Prev
Linear Mode
