Already fissures are showing

and the 320-page report has
hardly been released. Local
businesses are already calling

the consultation process a

failure. CBC reports Strathcona
Business Improvement
Association spokesperson Joji
Kumagai as saying, “Some of the
documentation that would help
us understand parts of the plan
haven't been made available to us,
or have been made available very
late.” Even if this were a plan of
gentrification, one would think at
least the businesses would be well
informed.

Next, Jason Jones of the
Vancouver Media Co-op has
reported that part of the plan

is to freeze the population of
low-income people allowed to
live within the DTES. Vancouver
is already an expensive place

to rent; welfare and social
assistance rates are low and

#DTES: A 30-year plan
of gentrification or
eoodness?

Tyson Kelsall
Culture Editor | ote-culture@

he city of Vancouver released a 30-year local area

plan (LAP) for the Downtown Eastside (DTES). Man:
are wondering if this is another attempt at serious
gentrification. The city’s promise that nobody will be pushed
out is being questioned. The plan will go to vote by city
council on 12 March 2014. News headlines are claiming this
to be a proposed 1-billion dollar fix.

unmoving under the BC Liberals.
So, although the city is claiming
that the 18,500 people currently
in the DTES will be unmoved,

a far-fetched promise at best,
within the 30 years there will also
be no newcomers. Additionally,
there’s a reason people need

to live in the DTES: the rest of
ever-growing Vancouver is North
America’s most expensive city to
live in, and home of the 2nd most
expensive real estate of any city
next to Hong Kong according to
the Demographia International
Housing Affordability Survey.

To speak bluntly, Vancouver
cannot afford this plan. Brian
Jackson, the City of Vancouver's
general manager of planning

and development told CBC that,
“We need the other levels of
government, other non-profits
and the faith-based groups and
the development community to
make this a reality," because they

can only pay for approximately
twenty percent of the project.
Fifty-percent is projected to
come through the provincial
and federal governments, but
that has not been agreed upon.
Will the BC Liberals or Canadian
Conservatives support a project
with such a proposed focus on
social housing? It is not really
within Conservative ideology, to
say the least.

Of course, inherent to worries of
a 320-page report are the same as
the worries whenever the federal
Conservatives pass an omnibus
bill. Jones writes, “One way of
manipulating a situation is to
overwhelm”, A 320-page report is
one thing, but considering there
is only two weeks to organize
against it, if anyone wished to,
the small time period exacerbates
that. When the Conservatives
pass an omnibus bill, it is usually
partially due to the notion that

jal

wad

et |

Matthew J. Vandeventer

they are stripping environmental
regulations and do not want to
give time for ENGOs and frontline
communities to lobby against

it. Why else would such a long
report be given so little time to be
analyzed?

Businesses and grassroots
advocacy groups, such as Carnegie
Community Action Project, have
come out saying there has been

a lack of direct discussion. The
plan is going to have strong
opposition, in fact, it already does.
There is reason to be skeptical,

as over the years many poor
attempts have been made to fix
the DTES without working with
the appropriate populations. If
Vancouver wants to do it right,
they should be working alongside
community groups, not imposing
extended reports on them.