Doug Ward
Sun
representative of Vancouver Chinatown Business Improvement Association says the height increases suggested by City of Vancouver won’t provide enough new residential development to stop the area’s economic decline.
A group representing Chinatown merchants says that moderate building height increases proposed in a new City of Vancouver staff report aren’t tall enough to revitalize the historic area.
Albert Fok, president of the Vancouver Chinatown Business Improvement Association, told a public hearing at city hall Friday that recommendations in the Historic Area Height Review report won’t provide enough new residential development to stop Chinatown’s two-decades-old economic decline. “If we’re to proceed as recommended, we would end up with the status quo.”
City staff recommended a maximum height of seven storeys on Pender Street. The report also suggested extending maximum heights in the area south of Pender to Union Street, between Columbia and Gore, to between seven to nine storeys, and up to 12 storeys through rezoning. Finally, staff recommended a maximum of three 15-storey buildings at Abbott and Pender, Carrall and Pender and a site behind the Keefer triangle at Columbia.
Fok told city councillors the proposed maximum heights aren’t high enough to interest developers — and that without new residential development, many Chinatown merchants will leave the historic area.
“Chinatown is not a museum,” said the Chinatown health food entrepreneur, adding that “because of the lack of viable and realistic solutions in this report our members are ready to depart permanently. They have lost faith and hope.”
Fok said his group supports heritage preservation but that Chinatown also needs more housing development. “Chinatown is culturally rich but commercially poor.”
Afterwards, in an interview, Fok said his group isn’t proposing maximum heights of 30 storeys — a proposal suggested by city staff last year, which set off huge concern in Chinatown that towers that high would overwhelm the area’s mid-rise, heritage character. But Fok said the maximum heights in the area south of Pender need to be taller than those proposed, adding 15 storeys “would be a start … but it depends on the particular site.”
The height proposals were supported by the Alliance for the Conservation of Historic Chinatown, a group concerned with preserving Chinatown’s cultural heritage. But the alliance was uneasy about the proposed locations of the three 15-storey buildings, especially the Keefer triangle site, which it worried could cast a shadow over the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden.
Alliance member Terence Pun thanked city staff for dropping the earlier proposal to build a 30-storey tower in the Chinese Cultural Centre site. “We don’t oppose high towers in the area but do oppose their construction in locations that would directly damage the defining character of Chinatown,” said Pun.
Meanwhile, the report also called for a maximum building height of 12 storeys in the Main and Hastings area, with 20 per cent social housing required in each development.
This recommendation was criticized by anti-poverty activist Wendy Peterson of the Carnegie Community Action Project, who said the proposal would lead to more condos in the Downtown Eastside, driving up land values and displacing low-income renters. Peterson urged council to suspend height increases until a study is done on what impact new condos, including the Woodward’s redevelopment, will have on rental affordability in the area.
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