DEVELOPMENT: ‘There’s a Canadian way to do solutions in a community like this’

John Bermingham
Province

It’s being called “The Shift East.”

Larry Beasley, the City of Vancouver’s director of current planning, coined the phrase almost two years ago in a keynote speech to property developers, challenging them to invest in the older, eastern portion of Vancouver’s downtown region.

Today, with the central downtown peninsula almost built-out, developers now see the city’s eastern metropolitan area, which extends beyond the traditional Downtown Eastside, as the future.

Over the next 25 years, more than 40,000 low and middle-income residents are expected to buy new homes in the region.

Beasley says living there can keep the dream alive of owning an affordable home in the city, provided you’re willing to live in some demanding, mixed-income neighbourhoods.

It also opens up new opportunities for a new generation of developers willing to work in traditionally low-income areas.

“This is not about gentrification at all,” Beasley told The Province. “But we can create a social mix to build much more economic activity. Our idea of complete neighbourhoods includes community and commercial infrastructure.”

The Woodward’s redevelopment along Hastings, for example, is already putting 500 market-units on the block in March, and eventually will add 200 subsidized social-housing units.

Beasley said the success of Woodward’s will attract new developers and increase property investment all along Hastings.

“It’s going to bring a kind of stability, an anchor, to the whole area,” said Beasley. “I think it’s going to become very much the neighbourhood centre here.”

Woodward’s selling agent Bob Rennie agrees. “The city has nowhere else to go but east,” he said.

Rennie also insists that as east-side development picks up, the poor and needy Downtown Eastside residents will remain, but that the drug dealers will move on.

The shift east began several years ago, with heritage incentives for projects in Gastown, Chinatown and Hastings Street, which has led to 20 heritage projects either completed or under way.

Gastown property developer Jon Stovell is one of the east-side players. He’s been converting warehouses into live-work spaces since the mid-1990s. His latest project is at 33 Water St., a 10-storey, loft-style rental building.

He says heritage incentives are changing the face of Gastown and luring new retail investment.

“Pushing east into a very low-density area that’s very close to downtown and borders on an under-utilized industrial area is only logical,” he said.

Beasley adds that Vancouver planners are also avoiding the pitfalls of ghettoizing or gentrifying the Downtown Eastside.

While the city wants to develop the area, it also wants existing residents to benefit.

“There’s a Canadian way to do solutions in a community like this that is more humane and more sensitive to the real needs of people,” said Beasley.

Steps include city council increasing policing in the Downtown Eastside and aggressively pursuing the Four Pillars drug strategy.

The Vancouver Agreement, with the goal of integrating Canada’s poorest neighbourhood with the 2010 Olympics, has also invested $20 million in federal and provincial dollars for various local projects. The mix of low- and middle-income people in the same neighbourhood is expected to work in new projects along False Creek, Beasley explains.

The Southeast False Creek project, with a build-out of 15 years on public and private land, could bring 15,000 new residents to a sustainable community near Science World.

In Northeast False Creek, roughly the area around B.C. Place stadium east of the Cambie Bridge, a smaller-scale project will add a population of 5,000.

The False Creek Flats, an old industrial area between Main and Clark Drive,will be rebuilt over the next 25 years. It’s now being planned as a major mixed-use project, including a high-tech hub, live-work units and low and mid-rise housing.

Add to that the prospect of university space on the old Finning lands and St. Paul’s Hospital possibly moving on the north end of the flats.

In Mount Pleasant, developers are working with the community to build middle-income housing while preserving the community’s heritage character.

Beasley also expects that private developers will take up the challenge and work with the city and community leaders.

Melinda Entwistle, executive director of the Vancouver Economic Development Commission, said economic benefits will flow from increased residential development.

And David Podmore, president of the Urban Development Institute, sees the area as an exciting venue for young developers. Podmore said the sites will be smaller, but will provide more affordable products.

“You are going to see the development community take a more serious look at properties in East Vancouver,” he adds.

“It’s just the natural evolution of the city.”

Peter Simpson, CEO of the Greater Vancouver Home Builders’ Association, puts it this way: “It was almost a poor cousin before but now you’re seeing more multi-use projects, where you’ve got retail on the main level and residential on the top level.”

Simpson said the eastern metropolitan area will be rejuvenated, with an influx of younger residents looking for affordable homes in the heart of city.

“The young people like to be where all the action is. If you can provide them with affordable homes then I think the prospects look very good.”

Cheeying Ho, executive director of Smartgrowth B.C., said the eastward metropolitan shift is a great thing, but she’ll be watching to ensure affordable housing is not forgotten.

“We want to make sure any of these developments will include moderate and affordable housing,” she adds.

Ho also agrees with developing on existing sites, as long as transit in the areas connects them to the downtown. And the neighbourhoods must have their own retail and services, she adds.

© The Vancouver Province 2006

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