A tour bus stops in front of a parking lot that is the proposed site of a condo development in Vancouver's Chinatown, on June 6. The nondescript parking lot at the centre of debate about the future of Vancouver's historic Chinatown is unchanged in the six years since plans to build a condo tower there were shot down by the city's development permit board.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
A building project that sparked nearly a decade of controversy in Vancouver’s Chinatown has been approved unanimously by the city’s three-person development-permit board.
The company of prominent developer Ryan Beedie will be permitted to go ahead with a nine-storey, 111-unit condo project on a vacant parking lot at 105 Keefer Street, next to the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden. It includes commercial retail and a seniors’ centre at the street level.
The project was previously rejected by the city in 2017 amid community concern about the tall building’s architectural disconnect with historic Chinatown and the lack of social housing, which has continued to motivate opposition. Proponents, on the other hand, believe the project will economically revitalize the area.
The board, which green-lit the development on Monday, did set out some required changes that the Beedie Holdings architectural team will have to make. That includes providing a strong and welcoming space for the Chinatown Memorial Plaza at one corner where there is a monument to Chinese-Canadian railway workers and war veterans.
But they did not think the changes required were so large as to force a rejection and resubmission, as one advisory panel member, Karenn Krangle, recommended.
“I believe there was some procedural unfairness in the decision from 2017, but I do not support the rationale that because it was refused in 2017, it should be refused again,” said Andrea Law, the city’s general manager of building and development.
She also noted that, although there was still a lot of opposition, there had been a “significant shift” in support from organizations and individuals that had been opposed previously. Representatives from the nearby garden and the Chinese Cultural Centre indicated support for the project after having opposed it last time.
Both planning head Theresa O’Donnell and engineering head Lon LaClaire said that, although changes in design were needed, they could be done through consultations between planning staff and the architectural team without necessarily rejecting the project wholesale and requiring a new application.
Monday’s approval was received with huge disappointment by a crowd of about 100 that had gathered at Vancouver City Hall.
“We condemn the city’s decision today. It is going to exacerbate displacement and accelerate gentrification,” said Jade Ho of the Vancouver Tenants’ Union. “We declare this process illegitimate. We will not rest until we take 105 Keefer back.”
Ms. Ho said there is a 500-name-strong petition already asking the province to expropriate the property and build social housing on it.
The Keefer project has been approved in the era of a new council, headed by ABC Party Mayor Ken Sim, which was elected in part on a campaign that emphasized how crime and economic decline in Chinatown had been ignored and even facilitated by previous left-wing city councils.
Mr. Sim, who announced last week that the city is opening a new community office in Chinatown as promised, was heavily supported by many Chinatown and community groups concerned about escalating problems in the area.
Some long-time businesses have closed since the 2017 Keefer vote, and several Chinatown leaders complained bitterly in the months leading up to last year’s civic election that crime had increased significantly in the area after the pandemic, with little response from the city.
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This go-round with the project brought out about 100 speakers, most of them opposed, but with several long-time Chinatown business and community groups in favour, including a couple that had been against the project in 2017.
Although many speakers argued that the city should reject the proposal because it’s too high or it should be preserved for social housing, the current zoning policy doesn’t allow the board to reject it on those grounds. Both Ms. O’Donnell and Ms. Law emphasized that the board doesn’t have the power to order the developer to build social housing or swap some land with the city.
The Keefer saga started in 2011 when city council, in an effort to bring new housing and local-shopping residents into the struggling Chinatown district, approved a plan to allow some taller buildings outside the most historic blocks in exchange for some units of below-market housing or other community benefits.
But as the first three towers went up along Main Street, some people in the community got alarmed at what felt like very large buildings that provided few benefits and were out of sync architecturally.
When Beedie Holdings Ltd. came along with a proposal for a condo building with 25 social-housing units at 105 Keefer, on a site they’d bought after the 2011 change, it ignited a wave of opposition fuelled by young activists wanting to preserve historic Chinatown, along with former senior planners and politicians.
The Vision city council rejected the first concept by Beedie that would have required a rezoning to allow more height.
Beedie then came back with a second design that did not require extra height or a rezoning, only compliance with the existing complicated design guidelines for new developments in Chinatown. The social-housing units were eliminated in the lower building.
Throughout, a very active group of opponents mobilized to bring Chinese seniors to council and to challenge different aspects of the whole process.
The three-person committee authorized to make the decision for the development permit board – the head of engineering, Jerry Dobrovolny; the head of planning, Gil Kelley; and the deputy city manager, Paul Mochrie – voted 2-1 to reject the controversial project in November, 2017.
Beedie then sued, and while a Supreme Court judge rejected many of the company’s arguments, he did say that the city had not given adequate reasons and ordered that the project be reconsidered.
In 2018, the city reversed its policy on allowing “tall and wide buildings” in the small historic neighbourhood.