Allen Garr, on June 20, 2017
Across the street to the west is the Chinese Cultural Centre. Next to that is the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Park. Both structures, as longtime Chinatown activist Shirley Chan reminded me, are the beneficiary of an earlier battle to save Chinatown. Back in the day when the fight was on to stop the cross-town freeway, that land had been set aside by the city as a highway intersection.
Years later, in 2010, when the city decided that to save Chinatown they would have to increase the heights and density of any new buildings, Chan recalls that the site of the Beedie proposal was given special consideration for being excluded except in “special circumstances.”
That somehow got overlooked. And what resulted from the increase in heights and density on other properties led not to more folks coming back to Chinatown, but to an increase in property values and taxes. “It was a mistake,” says Chan.
As the movement to stop the Beedie project grew to include everyone from millennials of Chinese heritage to Chinese Canadian war vets to low-income seniors, splits became apparent among clan members. There were those who wanted the project; it included some low-cost seniors housing.
The belief also grew among Chan, and the rest of those opposed to the project, that the city would approve it. After all, it had been revised and then revised again to satisfy the city’s urban design panel. Finally, city staff recommended it and the proposal was sent to public hearing where literally hundreds of interveners spoke.
Then, on the day of the council decision, the first on his feet to vote was Coun. Kerry Jang. He was opposed to the project. Chan was surprised. And it was just the beginning of what ended as an 8-3 vote to kill the project.
Chan was elated, as were her seat mates: Chinese-Canadian veterans.
In the lobby outside council chambers I found urban planner Andy Yan wiping tears of joy from his eyes. “We started,” he said “as the Charge of the Light Brigade,” a disastrous exercise by British cavalry soldiers during the Crimean war.
“We ended with the Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Glory! Glory! Hallelujah.
But, as Chan says, there is still “more work to be done” to ensure Chinatown’s future.
Share: 
