The battle over a controversial proposed condo project in Vancouver’s Chinatown was back at city hall again Monday with no decision reached for a second time.
All registered speakers were heard but the final decision has now been deferred to June 26 at 3 p.m.
The city’s Development Permit Board reconvened to hear speakers weigh in on Beedie Living’s proposal for 105 Keefer St., after a previous hearing also ran out of time to hear everyone.
Forty-eight people had their say on May 30, and double that many spoke Monday.
As proceedings unfolded inside, activists opposed to the development held a rally with Chinatown seniors on the steps of city hall, urging the city to reject the project for a sixth time.
“I would not like to see an empty lot. In fact, I would like to see the B.C. government purchase the land and develop 100 per cent social housing on that land,” Tintin Yang with the Vancouver Tenants Union said.
“We believe that the development of condos in Chinatown luxury condos are an inappropriate use of the land.”
Those opposed to the development say the nine-storey, 111-unit condo project will hasten gentrification in the neighbourhood, raising rents and property values and displacing low-income seniors who have lived in the area for years.
They’ve also raised concerns it will negatively affect the adjacent Chinatown Memorial Plaza and overshadow the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Classical Chinese Gardens across the street.
Administrators with the gardens, however, do not share that concern.
“It’s been a real rough couple of years, especially post-COVID,” Lorraine Lowe, executive director of the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Classical Chinese Gardens told Global News.
“Things are finally starting to look up and to be honest timing couldn’t be better for this project and development right now — we’re in the middle of a housing crisis, let me be clear, we need housing and this is not a luxury condo development.”
The gardens have joined with a group of legacy Chinatown organizations including the Chinese Cultural Centre, the Chinese Benevolent Association and the Vancouver Chinatown Business Improvement Association to back the development.
Lowe said Chinatown has seen a rapid decline, and the legacy groups believe more residents, more foot traffic and new investment will help counter the crime and vandalism that have plagued the neighbourhood in recent years.
“I do believe there should be social hosing, but not particularly in this one location here, this is a private property, privately-owned, and I think it’s going to be a huge improvement to that corner, to that street, and I think that outweighs the negatives,” she said.
“We’re doing the work that’s going to help preserve and honour the past, we want to take care of our elders, but we need to accept and be ready to adapt to the change in a positive way.”
The version of the project under consideration Monday is the same plan the city last rejected in 2017.
In December, a B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled the Development Permit Board had failed to give adequate reasons for that rejection, and ordered it to give the project a fresh hearing.
A previous 12-storey iteration of the project included 25 units of seniors’ housing, but that version of the development was rejected amid opposition over the building’s height.
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