Group of Vancouver residents rallies against lack of consultation by the city

Over 200 residents from four Vancouver communities took to the streets tonight to take their case to city hall over proposed changes to their areas.

All four of the neighbourhoods — Grandview-Woodland, Marpole, downtown Eastside and West End — face intense pressure to grow and for the past couple of years, the city has been working out a plan.

But, residents say they’re not getting their say, and they’re worried about what might happen.

They complain that community plans are simply being dumped on them, pushing ahead with a densification policy that could see blanket rezoning in some neighborhoods.

“Our protest is about lack of process, lack of communication with the community,” says Grandview-Woodland Area Council President Jak King. “We spent a year meeting with city planners and we talked about arts and culture, parts and recreation and transportation, and they suddenly delivered a report that had massive amounts of rezoning and land use policies that we have never discussed for a single hour at any of those meetings.”