The city of Vancouver, where I live, is located on the ancestral and unceded lands of the Musqueam, Tsleil-waututh, and Squamish peoples, who have lived on Turtle Island, also known as Canada for millennia. 

Like many world cities today, Vancouver struggles with an intensifying housing crisis. In Vancouver, it will take my generation (adults between 29-34) almost thirty years to save up for a down payment on an average priced home. The 2020 Vancouver homeless count, considered by many housing advocates to be a conservative estimate, counted the highest number of homeless individuals since the first official count in 2005. Black and Indigenous people were disproportionately represented. 

Despite a general awareness around this issue, the severe lack of access to affordable housing is rarely discussed in any meaningful or holistic way. Discussions on “overheated” real estate markets and a need for affordable housing, spike during election times. It appears that we are drowning but are not talking about the thrashing storm waves of capitalism. Indeed the reality of record breaking figures of homelessness is juxtaposed with the skyrocketing value of global real estate which exceeded US$ 280 trillion in 2020, accounting for over 60% of the share of all global assets. Popular discourse seeks to disconnect housing from its function as a social good and a human right, in favour of its conceptualisation as a lucrative commodity. 

THE RIGHT TO HOUSING 

The right to housing has been guaranteed under international human rights law since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948. In 1966, the International Covenant for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) became the fundamental instrument enshrining the protection of the right to adequate housing and has since been widely ratified. Under Article 11, States party to the ICESCR recognise the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living, including adequate housing. States are required to take steps to ensure the realisation of this right.

Despite international recognition of the right to adequate housing, poor and wealthy states alike are failing to protect this right. There are multiple factors explaining the barriers to fulfilling State obligations. In the case of Canada, the past three decades have seen a rise in capital investment with real estate leading the way. This has resulted in the rapid rise in housing prices in major Canadian cities. Starting in the 1980’s the Canadian government began making cutbacks to social programs, divesting completely from creating new affordable housing in 1993. The general response of the federal government to the subsequent rise in unaffordable housing and homelessness was investment in emergency response infrastructure to provide short-term solutions, such as shelters and drop-ins, as well as law enforcement initiatives to criminalise homelessness. 

Despite unveiling the National Housing Strategy (NHS) in 2017, which was enshrined in law the following year, the federal government’s $40 billion plan has left much to be desired, as far as housing advocates and scholars are concerned. In its 2019 report, the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer concluded that it was unclear whether the NHS would meaningfully address the growing housing needs relative to previous years. 

PAVING THE WAY FOR GENTRIFICATION IN VANCOUVER’S CHINATOWN

Commodification of land has been an essential part of colonial and neoliberal projects, including in Canada. In his book “The Globalization Of Addiction: A Study In Poverty Of The Spirit”, Bruce Alexander traces this back to the arrival of European settlers on the west coast who capitalised on the lumber trade and established permanent urban settlements. Indigenous peoples, whose lives and culture have been closely linked to land since time immemorial, were soon restricted to reserves as their land was sold off as plots of real estate. 

Taking a look at cities as local contexts can be illustrative of how policies take shape on a national level. Global cities, such as Vancouver, are often spaces where a disproportionate share of corporate power and wealth is concentrated. At the same time they are often sites of resistance to growing inequality and marginalization. Despite the woes of rapid gentrification causing displacement, Vancouver has been on the list of most liveable cities for years. This has not been lost on real estate developers looking to increase their profits. 

There have been apt comparisons drawn between the displacement of poor communities in Vancouver’s inner-city neighbourhoods – including the Downtown Eastside and Chinatown – and earlier colonial narratives that dehumanised local populations to justify land theft. 

The language used by developers and proponents of gentrification, in these historically working class neighbourhoods, has been characterised by promises of “progress”, and “revitalisation” of spaces where it is implied that nothing of value really existed before. 

In 2008, the City of Vancouver introduced new zoning guidelines allowing for greater densification and higher buildings in the historic neigbourhood of Chinatown. Vancouver’s Chinatown has been considered desirable for redevelopment due to its location in the central core of the city and its undervalued land prices. Urban planning in many global cities, including Vancouver, has focused on the built form and sustainability has often been interpreted as urban densification. Such planning policies have largely disconnected sustainability from issues of economic, social and cultural impacts of development.

While rapid development took place in Chinatown over the last decade, between 2012 and 2016 property values in Chinatown doubled. The neighbourhood has suffered significant losses with the disappearance of Chinese dry goods stores, butcher shops and grocery stores. A majority of the Chinese population living in Chinatown today are seniors, most of whom speak a Chinese language at home. This aging population has felt deep impacts of the gentrification in their neighbourhood over the last 10 years and have been left out of many public consultations on the changing landscape of their surroundings, due to the inaccessibility of these processes to their needs. 

105 KEEFER – CHINATOWN FIGHTS BACK

Citizen activism, though not new to the Downtown Eastside began to stir in Chinatown in response to the rapid gentrification. In 2015 the Chinatown Concern Group (CCG), comprised of concerned residents, called on the Vancouver City Council for a moratorium on market housing in the neighbourhood. This was in response to a rezoning application by a developer, Beedie Holdings Ltd, to build luxury condos at 105 Keefer Street in Chinatown. Although the developer proposed to “help stitch Chinatown’s rich historical fabric into the new, vibrant Chinatown of tomorrow”, with its initial proposal of a 12-storey condo tower, there was a notable lack of consideration given to the cultural and social impact of losing another community space. 

The proposed development site was directly adjacent to Chinatown Memorial Square, a key community gathering and ceremonial space, and across the street from Sun-Yat Sen Classical Garden, a cultural heritage site and full-scale Chinese garden built in 1986. In the midst of ongoing cultural loss taking place in Chinatown, the few remaining public gathering sites had become the last frontiers of gentrification.

The public hearings on 105 Keefer saw a historic turnout and powerful grassroots organising that was successful in persuading the City to reject the proposed high-rise. The discourse surrounding the application to develop 105 Keefer Street was in sharp contrast to popular neoliberal discourse around housing development. Community groups comprised of neighbours, Chinatown youth and elders, spoke out in overwhelming opposition during various stages of the public hearing process. Residents expressed how the proposal was akin to “the government.... systematically trying to displace working-class ethnic Chinese residents and businesses” for the sake of profits. The community’s insistence on the use of human rights-based language appeared to have an impact on the outcome given the constraints of the City’s zoning laws which largely encourage densification over affordability.

In June 2013, the City of Vancouver declared the beginning of a Year of Reconciliation and in 2014 passed a motion to further research the historic discrimination faced by Chinese-Canadians at the hands of municipal governments. The findings, released in 2017, identified a number of priorities including “making a ... formal apology;…stronger social and cultural programming; and conserve, commemorate and enhance the living heritage and cultural assets of the community”. During the public hearings for 105 Keefer, which coincided with the release of the report, community members warned of a "setback to reconciliation”, referring to the impact on food and housing security in the neighbourhood. Community members noted the historical significance of the site and spoke out in solidarity with Chinese seniors who had been systematically excluded from the consultation processes thus far due to linguistic barriers.

The City reviewed five applications for 105 Keefer St. by Beedie Holdings, four of which were rezoning applications for greater density and height. After the first four were rejected, Beedie submitted the fifth as a development application which went to the City’s Development Permit Board (DPB). The DPB comprised a three-member board tasked with considering a straightforward application given the parameters laid out in the City’s zoning laws, with City planning staff recommending conditional approval. The jurisdiction of the board was not over matters of affordability, but whether the design of the proposed building was an appropriate fit “within the cultural context in which it resides”. The Board deliberated on matters of cultural responsiveness or context going beyond the elements of physical design and sustainability considerations. It concluded that the proposed building could not demonstrate culturally appropriate design conditions and moved to reject the application.

An outright rejection of a development application was considered such an anomaly based on the language found in the City’s zoning policies, that Beedie Holdings is currently suing the City of Vancouver, accusing it of over-reaching “beyond their jurisdiction”. Despite decades of weak municipal regulations around zoning and development in working class neighbourhoods, the final decision was based on the reasoning that the proposal was not a “cultural fit” to the context of Chinatown. Though this must be an important consideration to ensure housing is adequate and in accordance with international human rights guidelines, this reasoning was highly unusual practice by the City. How such decisions play out in the future will undoubtedly hinge on the outcome of this court case.

HUMAN RIGHTS VICTORY

When it comes to challenging power, social movements' use and constructions of rights discourses have played a vital role in challenging existing structures of power. This case is not only a victory for the residents of Chinatown but also a precedent for communities facing similar issues where ethnic enclaves are being gentrified at a pace faster than communities can learn to organise. This also constitutes a human rights victory as it affirms the universality of rights and demonstrates the agency of rights-holders to advance their cause even when legal and government institutions are flawed. 

Nadya has an MA in Human Rights from SAS, University of London. She has worked with communities experiencing systemic poverty and homelessness in Vancouver, BC over the last ten years. Nadya is interested in decolonizing cultural and social justice spaces through writing. Nadya believes that art and food are spiritual experiences and is always on the lookout for good chai and parathas in Vancouver.

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