Protect Affordable Housing
Mayor’s Motion goes to Council on Wed, Feb 26
STOP KEN SIM: A CITY FOR US NOT BILLIONAIRES!
Rally to support the DTES Community at City Hall on Wed, Feb 26 at 1 pm
https://www.instagram.com/p/DGO870AyD0k/
Please see flyer attached
On Wednesday, February 26th, a coalition of DTES organizations, residents and allies will hold a rally at city hall protesting Ken Sim’s motion to “revitalize the DTES.” This includes more resources for policing, suspending all development of supportive housing across Vancouver, and opening the floodgates for market-rate rental and condo development in the DTES. As city council takes the motion to vote, we know that we cannot police away the drug poisoning epidemic or homelessness.
We will make our voices heard! If you oppose Sim City and want to join the vision for a DTES that includes and empowers all of its residents, please join us. #StopSimCity
Other info about the motion:
The Mayor announced in January, no to any new supportive housing in all of Vancouver – and here’s the motion that came out last week. As a long-time supporter of folks in the DTES, Russ Maynard, said, “This is the wrong solution to the right problem!”
In the media and with other announcements, he is falsely blaming the challenges in the DTES on the concentration of poverty in the neighbourhood and the non-profit organizations that save lives every day rather than on the systems that created the issues – and our failure as a society to build enough decent, stable housing since the 1990s and provide adequate social assistance to ensure that everyone can afford basic necessities, thus creating a poverty trap and re-traumatizing those who have already survived serious trauma.
Petition to Protect Affordable Housing and the DTES Low-Income Community
The City is considering a motion called “Uplifting the DTES” that could be a motion for “gentrification” by another name
City staff are exploring a City Council motion for “Uplifting the DTES”, which could open up the core of the DTES to condos and rental housing towers. If the motion is implemented, it could mean new social housing would exclude low income people.
Real estate developers are likely pushing for this to happen. Westbank, the largest developer in the city, is proposing 3 rental towers on E Hastings (at Campbell Avenue) with over 900 units of which fewer than 6% of the units are for low income seniors.
We fought hard to keep this neighbourhood affordable for people living here. After 10 years, there’s proof our work is paying off.
Right now the DTES is the only place in the city where the zoning policy says:
One-third of all social housing has to be affordable to people on welfare, disability and seniors pension.
Within the DTES are 8 sub-areas, one of which is the Downtown Eastside Oppenheimer District (DEOD). It’s a special zone which also prevents condos, the most expensive type of housing, from being built over one storey.
You can’t build profit-making rental housing in the DEOD unless 60% of the building is non-profit social housing.
Each of these requirements makes homes and land in the DEOD more affordable than anywhere else downtown.
Low income DTES residents fought from 2010-2014 for this zoning to be included in the DTES Local Area Plan (LAP).
The DTES LAP called for 1400 units of social housing to be built in the first 10 years of the plan.
Since then, 41 projects with 3401 units of social housing have been built, purchased, or are in the development process.
22 of these projects are in the DEOD with 2251 units, 988 of which rent at shelter rate. This is more than all the other DTES areas combined.
The current zoning is working to building the social housing we need.
If the city reverses this zoning, it will block real housing innovation that has been happening in the DEOD.
If implemented, this motion could increase property values in the DTES and make it hard for Nonprofits, Land Trusts and Government to buy the land and build the shelter rate social housing that we desperately need.
They won’t be able to rebuild the SROs and work to end homelessness.
Downtown Eastside Oppenheimer District
It's the area surrounding Oppenheimer park with a finger going down Hastings St. to Columbia St. The DEOD is one subarea of 8 subareas of the Downtown Eastside. The DEOD and DTES have special zoning that helps get housing that low income people can afford.
What is zoning and why does it matter to low income DTES residents?
Zoning is when the city makes rules about what kind of building you can build and how high it can be.
The city says you can have homes, stores, institutions like schools or hospitals, agriculture, or industry on each piece of property.
The city also makes rules about how high you can make a building. They can say you can only build one story or 60 stories and everything in between.
Why is this important?
Zoning can increase land value a lot.
What do you think happens if you have a piece of land where you can only build one story and the city then changes the zoning so you can have 30 stories?
The land owner will be able to collect rent from 30 stories instead of 1 story so the value of the land skyrockets.
Together we fought for the current zoning and together we must fight to preserve it. What can you do?
Come to the Carnegie Housing Project’s action lunches each Friday at noon in the Carnegie third floor classroom.
Tell your neighbours about the threat to our neighbourhood.
Write a letter to city councilors to express your concern. Ask them to preserve and protect the DEOD for the low income community and not change the 30 year plan.
Keep your eyes open for a Carnegie Housing Project Town Hall to plan our response to this motion.
Read our articles in the Carnegie Newsletter to learn more about the issue so you can tell City Council: we need to keep this zoning and social housing that we can afford, in Spring 2025 when Council will deal with the issue.