The Downtown Eastside Local Area Plan or DTES LAP is a comprehensive plan for a significant area of downtown/East Vancouver. It goes before City Council this week, where Council seems likely to pass it despite significant opposition.
You can get a copy of the LAP—which released only two weeks before going to Council, despite consisting of 450+ pages—from Publication Studio in Chinatown, who have kindly printed it for public accessibility on a pay-what-you-can basis.
The plan is, in my opinion, a fairly massive giveaway to condo developers by the developer-friendly civic party Vision Vancouver. It conforms to a way of running and envisioning cities that is increasingly being termed neoliberal urbanism. See also this article on this approach.
I am by no means an expert on this very complicated plan and all the issues involved. But based on what I have learned from months of discussions down here in the DTES as well as living down here for 12 years, I find the following takes on the issue compelling (and will be adding more soon).
Advocate/PhD student Melissa Fong’s speech to Council is excellent.
Carnegie Community Action Project letter to Council
Statement by Strathcona Residents Association
Why developers don’t like the DTES LAP by Media Coop (in effect, developers dislike the only parts of the plan I endorse)
Where do working class ethnic enclaves fit into our future cities, in Megaphone Magazine
And the official links:
Staff Report and Plan
https://vancouver.ca/files/cov/report-downtown-eastside-local-area-plan-2014-feb-24.pdf
Social Impact Assessment
https://strathcona-residents.org/files/social-impact-assessment-2014-feb-26.pdf
Corporate Communications presentation for media
https://vancouver.ca/files/cov/executive-summary-dtes-local-area-plan-2014-feb-27.pdf
Lastly here is an interesting comment on the DEOD section of the LAP (please comment if you disagree, or have anything to add):
“Lastly, there has been a good deal of concern over proposed “no-condo zone” in the 10 blocks of the DEOD. In many respects we feel this is a bit of a red herring. The pretense includes 40% market rental and 20% “affordable” housing – with the remaining 40% split between shelter rate and CMHC’s Housing Income allowance (30% income) rate. To put a dollar value on that, a one bedroom at the CMHC rate would be about $950, a one-bedroom at the “affordable” rate would be about $1350. The scheme proposed significant height and density increases and relies on uncommitted federal / provincial money and developer levies. We feel that the “upzoning” being proposed will cause significant land lift and resultant speculation that will negatively impact retail and industrial diversity as well as social sustainability and liveability, and ironically the very “affordable housing” it is proposing to protect. For perspective on the market economics driving purpose built rental, we suggest the Western Investor’s recent “Why New Rentals are Being Built” article provides some context behind the market economics behind schemes like this and Rental 100 in the West End.”
We also need to talk about the City’s rather arbitrary population growth projections which seem to be the justification for allowing developers the density bonuses they seek. Not that density is bad, but how is the idea of density being mobilized and for whose benefit?