[Wamvan] Fwd: SOS! Stop the Pantages condos sneak! Come to city council Tuesday

[Tami Starlight]

*STOP THE PANTAGES SNEAK!
**SOS! The city is slipping condos through the back door while we guard the
front!*

*http://ccapvancouver.wordpress.com/2012/03/25/pantagessneak/*

Join CCAP, DNC and many others from the DTES low-income community to speak
out against a policy that could destroy the low-income community in the
name of helping it

*TUESDAY MARCH 27
2PM
VANCOUVER CITY HALL
(meet 1pm at Carnegie 2nd floor)*

To sign up contact Bonnie Kennett, Meeting Coordinator, at 604.873.7269 or
e-mail: bonnie.kennett at vancouver.ca

The City’s *Interim Rezoning Policy* and *Development Management
Guidelines*for the DTES Local Area Planning Process (LAPP) are
supposed to provide
some relief to the low-income community from the pressures of market
development so that we can do long-term planning. We feared that these
policies would be weaker than we needed but we never dreamed that they
would sneak a gentrification bomb in the back door of this policy, burying
it in a last-minute document that the committee never got a chance to see
or comment on before it was sent to council…

The city policy that will streamline 79 units of condos in exchange for
only 8 units of social housing at welfare rate on the Pantages site says:

“In the areas governed by the existing Downtown Eastside Oppenheimer
Official Development Plan (DEOD ODP), any development permit application
for residential development over 1 FSR must include 20% social housing. For
the purposes of these Development Management Guidelines and interpretation
of the DEOD ODP, “social housing” means residential units that are owned
and/or operated by government or a Council-approved non-profit, with at
least 50% of these units where the tenant contribution to rent is no more
than the shelter component of income assistance for a single individual
($375) and the remaining 50% of units with a maximum monthly rent of 30% of
BC Housing’s Housing Income Limits (HILs) or CMHC market rent (whichever is
lower).” *[This means that the 50% not renting at welfare rate could rent
for up to $837.50 to $925 depending on whether they are bachelor or
one-bedroom units.]*

Stopping this policy change from going is urgent because the DTES
Oppenheimer District (DEOD) is the only sub-area of the DTES with special
zoning that requires 20% social housing in every project. This policy will
cut this 20% requirement in half by defining only half of this social
housing at welfare rate. The 20% requirement (which has not yet been
defined in terms of rent-costs) has managed to significantly limit condo
development in this area. If it is weakened to slide 79 condos onto the
100-block it will also send a signal to developers with speculation
properties they have been sitting on in the area: The DEOD is open for
business!

City policy expects that, because of depressed land values and development
controls, the DEOD must be the main area where SRO hotels are replaced with
social housing. The Housing Plan warns that if the DEOD becomes
"attractive" to market developers then the city must act to lessen this
attraction or the social housing targets will not ever be reached. Now is
the time to act to slow development, not encourage it.

CCAP knows of five blocks where significant property combination has
already taken place, likely by speculators waiting for the market to be
right and the restrictive zoning to
change.[1]<http://ccapvancouver.wordpress.com/2012/03/25/pantagessneak/#_ftn1>The
first and most urgent of these property combinations /
condo-developments in waiting is “Sequel 138,” the condo project at the
former Pantages Theatre site on the 100-block of East Hastings. The
proposal negotiated with city staff by the developer at Pantages is the
model for the policy change around the definition of social housing in the
DEOD… though maybe it’s a bit chicken-or-the-egg.

The Sequel 138 deal is for 79 condo units at about
a-quarter-million-dollars apiece and only 8 or 9 units of social housing at
welfare/old-age-pension rate. If approved, Sequel 138 will be the thin edge
of the wedge that will open up the DEOD to further gentrification. We can
be sure more proposals for market housing will flood in as a result of City
approval of this definition of social housing and Sequel. The city must
STOP this proposal and we need your support to push them to stop the
Pantages sneak!

*For more on Sequel 138 condos at the Pantages site:*
Downtown Eastside Not for Developers
coalition<http://dtesnotfordevelopers.wordpress.com/>(organizing
against Sequel 138 condos)
CCAP’s letter to city council against the new Pantages condos
proposal<http://ccapvancouver.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/stop-sequel-138-pantages-condos-ccap-letter-to-city-council/>
The nightmare returns: Sequel 138 is
back!<http://dnchome.wordpress.com/2012/03/01/sequel138/>

*And more on the proposed DTES LAPP Interim Development Policies:*
Talking points for city
council<http://ccapvancouver.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/talkpts/>
CCAP Analysis of the city’s DTES LAPP Interim Development
Policies<http://ccapvancouver.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/lapppolicies/>

*On the “Rate of Change” (gentrification) in the DTES*
Market housing surges ahead of social housing construction in the
DTES<http://ccapvancouver.wordpress.com/2012/03/03/24to1/>

*For more info:*
CARNEGIE COMMUNITY ACTION PROJECT
ccapvancouver.wordpress.com  |  Wendy: 604-873-0379

------------------------------

[1] <http://ccapvancouver.wordpress.com/2012/03/25/pantagessneak/#_ftnref>The
four other packages we know of, besides 138–144 E. Hastings include:
121 Main St; 319 Main St; 337, 341, 357 E. Hastings around Flowers
restaurant; and the 500-block of Cordova.



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