LETTERS

Hello, A quick update on Concord letters:
The City of Vancouver is calling the number of letters they received so far "overwhelming." What will they think if we hit the 100 mark by Friday? Please consider writing a quick few sentences to oppose. Please cc mayor and council and bcc us at wpedersen@look.ca. Directions for letter writing below. Check out a few of the great letters written at the bottom. If anyone is interested in being part of visitations to Concord head offices please let me know. You will likely receive 2 to 3 emails a week over the next month on this as our strategy changes. With the chance of getting a "pause" in condo construction and a plan for social housing before it resumes, we believe this is the most important thing we can do to end homelessness in our city right now. ~best to all, Wendy (CCAP) *** sam.sullivan@vancouver.ca; clranton@vancouver.ca; clrball@vancouver.ca; clrlouie@vancouver.ca; clrstevenson@vancouver.ca; clrdeal@vancouver.ca; clrchow@vancouver.ca; clrlee@vancouver.ca; clrcadman@vancouver.ca; clrcapri@vancouver.ca; clrladner@vancouver.ca *** Carnegie Community Action ProjectRequest for Letters to Development Permit Boardby Friday, May 16, 2008 Dear friend, Please join with us to oppose a significant proposal for condos covering 6 lots at 58 W. Hastings in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. We literally need hundreds of Vancouver residents to write a letter AND sign up to speak at the Development Permit Hearing to make an impact. The hearing is on June 23. It is essential that our letters are in by Friday, May 16 so the Planning Department can reference them in the report that will be submitted to the DP Board who will make the decision. Your letter does not have to be long or profound. A few sentences to object will do just fine. Elaborating is good too. Feel free to use the information below or take a look at CCAP's letter posted at: http://ccapvancouver.wordpress.com, to understand more the impact of this development on our community. Background: The Concord Pacific development at 58 W. Hastings must be stopped. The rapid gentrification of the Downtown Eastside (DTES) is overwhelming the low-income residents of this neighborhood, who make up 75% of its population. The current rate of new development, in which new condos outstrip social housing 3 to 1, is a grave threat to the neighborhood. The feverish planning, approval and construction of market condos is a destructive force accompanied by massive aftershocks to this community. Rising real estate prices are already resulting in increased rents, conversions and closures of residential hotels (SRO's), creating a constant flow of displacement and evictions of low-income residents, and consequent homelessness. Condo construction will be accompanied by a flood of upscale amenities catering to the new residents of the area, which will further marginalize the low-income residents who have make this neighborhood home for many years. Unlike people with significant resources, whose lives may be marked by independence and mobility, people living in poverty form communities of interdependence, located in a specific geographical area, and embedded in neighborly networks of support and assistance. The community of low-income residents who currently call the DTES home should not be displaced from their neighborhood and relocated somewhere else for the sake of condo development. This is their home, and they should be able to live here. Poverty is not grounds for displacement. Condo construction in the DTES must be halted until a community vision is formulated, planned and implemented. Like putting up a tent in a windstorm, rooting and securing housing for low-income people in a community experiencing the hurricane of condo development and massive gentrification is impossible. Residents need time to determine their own community vision and support the implementation of that vision, before the green light is given to condo developers. What is at stake is the existence of a vibrant, amazing community of people. The cessation of condo development for the sake of this community can begin here and now, with the rejection of a development permit to Concord Pacific for the 58 West Hastings site. We believe there is an opening at City Hall to support a temporary halt to condo development until social housing is in place. On Thursday, May 1 at the Planning and Environment counil meeting, Cameron Gray, Director of the City's Housing Centre said the surge of condos in the DTES is "like a hurricane and is going twice as fast as predicted [and] we need to address the rapidity of change in order to stay on track with the Downtown Eastside Housing Plan." He also said that a strong mechanism to control condo development "could signal to the Province that no market housing will be built and landowners/developers may be off to Victoria to get more housing here." And he said: "its time to do a community visioning because groups are more united and able to do it and because of the rapidity of change." At the same meeting, Councilor Anton of the NPA stated "we have the horrendous challenge of 4000 more units" in terms of securing replacement housing in the area and that "as long as the SRO's are in private hands, they are in jeopardy." Councilor Anton said she was "very encouraged by the [visioning] work in the DTES." Please write or email your letters by Friday, May 17 to: Alison.higginson@vancouver.ca Address your letter to: David McLellanThe Chair, Development Permit Boardc/o Alison Higginson, Project Facilitator, Development Services453 West 12th AvenueVancouver BCV5Y 1V4 Please bcc your email letter to: wpedersen@look.ca or send us a quick note to let us know that you wrote a letter. To sign up to speak at the hearing on Monday June 23, call: Lorna HarveyAssistant to the Development Permit Board Development Services 604. 873-7469 Sincerely, Carnegie Community Action Project [CCAP]Streams of JusticeDowntown Eastside Neighbourhood House [DTES NH] ====================Wendy PedersenCarnegie Community Action ProjectCarnegie Association604. 839-0379http://ccapvancouver.wordpress.com/ //////////////////////////SAMPLE LETTER////////////////////////// David McLellanChair, Development Permit Boardc/o Alison Higginson, Project Facilitator, Development Services453 West 12th AvenueVancouver BCV5Y 1V4 Dear Sir and Madam: I support the CCAP call for the cessation of condo projects and development that displaces low income residents and demolishes heritage buildings in the DTES until a community Vision process is developed by the neighbourhood and implemented by the Vision group and The City. This would hopefully include zoning changes required to protect low-income housing and heritage buildings in the DTES. Existing low income housing needs to be protected (and more built as non-market housing types), because there is currently a diminishing amount of low income housing in this city, and for the social justice reason that long term residents and tenants ought not to be forced out of their homes for the development of higher end housing. Neither should long term businesses be forced out of their locations for the development of higher end housing and businesses. Therefore, please refrain from issuing such development permits (including the proposed 6 lot project at 58 W Hastings Street) until the above has been accomplished. Thank you, Mary Ann Code366 28th Avenue EVancouver, BCV5V 2M7 //////////////////////////SAMPLE LETTER////////////////////////// 11 May 2008 David McLellanThe Chair, Development Permit Boardc/o Allison Higginson, Project Facilitator, Development Services453 West 12th AvenueVancouver, BC V5Y 1V4 Dear Chair and Members of the Development Permit Board, I am writing to object to the development permit sought by Concord Pacific for six lots at 58 W. Hastings. This development is the latest threat to affordability and stability in a community that is being undermined by a turbocharged process of condo construction, gentrification, speculation, and displacement. Moreover, there are serious concerns over process and procedures on the near-approval of this permit on April 7 without any community input. Affordable housing has been in crisis in the Downtown Eastside for several years now, and things are only getting worse. Council's DTES Housing Plan clearly specifies that new market and low-income housing development should proceed in balance, but new market housing units are now set to overwhelm the promised new social housing units by a factor of three to one. The Housing Centre's own data show that the remaining SRO housing stock has been declining for many years net losses in thirty-three of the last thirty-seven years. Even worse, not all of the SRO units that remain can still be considered affordable units: closures, speculative vacancies to prepare for sales, illicit daily and weekly rentals to students or tourists, and other practices are spreading throughout many parts of the neighbourhood, further whittling away the security of those who need affordable homes. The Downtown Eastside is a community. The low-income residents of this community have a right to decent, affordable homes. They should not be displaced or pushed into homelessness by the latest waves of speculative development. They have the right to stay put. The commitment to replace SROs on a full, one-for-one basis should be honored and enforced. Land-market pressures must be monitored to protect the goals of the DTES Housing Plan. Condo construction should come to a halt until promises on social housing are fulfilled, and until a community vision is firmly in place. Until we have protections in place for the most vulnerable community in our city, do we really need another upscale condo development? Is there really such a shortage of luxury accommodations for the most privileged residents that more of the Downtown Eastside must be given over to yet more investment, speculation, and displacement? Council has options. You should, and you can, place a temporary moratorium on the condo tsunami. You can demand that the development at 58 W. Hastings be turned into social housing. You can just say no to yet another condo development in the Downtown Eastside. Thank you for your consideration. Sincerely, Elvin K. Wylyewyly@geog.ubc.ca Elvin K. Wyly, Ph.DCo-Editor, Urban Geographyhttp://www.bellpub.com/ug/dauthor.htmAssociate Professor, Chair of Urban Studies Program Department of Geography, University of British Columbia1984 West Mall, Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z2 Canada778 899 7906http://www.geog.ubc.ca/~ewylyhttp://www.arts.ubc.ca/urban ***Consider posting your letters on our blog at http//:ccapvancouver.wordpress.com***