Search Results for "sahota"

901 Main artists Dennis Brown and Eri Ishii in Ishii's studio

The dirty, noisy corner of Prior and Main, where conflicting pressures in the city’s life are grinding together, is seething with conflict and controversy.

The 901 Main artists, who highlighted Vancouver’s crisis in creative space with their 2008 campaign to fight eviction,  now confront a new threat, just one of the arguments raging among the communities living in parallel universes in this two-block area.

The activism of the 901 Main artists last year produced a commitment from Amacon, which wants to convert their studios to a private residence for Amacon’s owner, to provide new space at an upcoming heritage development further south on Main.

But Amacon wanted much higher rents at the new location and the talks foundered earlier this year. Now the developer is imposing major increases at 901 Main, forcing some artists out and placing the future of the entire group at risk. This for a building where the toilets often don’t work and residents bear the brunt of basic maintenance and security. The 901 group is a pillar of the Eastside Cultural Crawl.

The 901 Main building, a former BC Electric workers hostel built just before the First World War, stands above the Main St. off-ramp of the Georgia Viaduct, which nearly destroyed Chinatown and Strathcona in the 1970s. Across the street is a condominium project and the old American Hotel, boarded up after police a police crackdown on gangs and drug dealers several years ago.

Next door is the Cobalt Hotel, owned by the notorious Sahota family. The Cobalt is one of the properties that housing advocates think of when they call the Sahotas “slumlords.”

Some may want the Cobalt closed upstairs, but downstairs, where the punk rock bar programming is often organized by unsuccessful independent council candidate wendythirteen, there’s a grassroots campaign to Keep the Cobalt Open. The pro-Cobalt movement, which sees the 2010 Winter Olympic Games as the dark force threatening their venue, numbers more than 5,300 on Facebook.

In a recent issue of Vancouver’s excellent street paper Megaphone, wendythirteen reported noise complaints from neighbours had triggered three police calls in in less than a week. Was it noise from the bar or the shouts of distraught tenants upstairs?

No one was sure and city officials were unaware of the complaints, but wendythirteen is unready to help the Sahotas improve soundproofing: “I can’t afford it, nor am I willing to do it,” she told Megaphone. “The slumlords won’t fix their shit — why should I put money into fixing their building?”

She blames new residents in the latest Citygate tower behind the Cobalt for the complaints, a reasonable assumption given the top-of-market prices they paid to live next to an off-ramp and behind a skid road hotel with a punk rock bar.

The Citygate folks are doing their best, conducting periodic cleanups, needle collections and Keep Vancouver Spectacular anti-litter drives. These are duties formerly undertaken by the artists, who may soon leave.

Can’t these people all get along? Perhaps it’s time for a community meeting.

After all, they live there. The Sahotas and the Amacon owners do not.

Can Vancouver’s slumlords be forced to clean up their properties? A promise to step up enforcement of standards of maintenance bylaws was a key plank in Vision Vancouver’s election platform, a reflection of the widespread outrage at appalling conditions in some Downtown Eastside hotels.

In response to a motion moved by Councillor Tim Stevenson and me in December, city staff have prepared an analysis of the city’s options. (Download it here, item 4.) It will be debated before the Planning and Environment Committee meeting Thursday.

Housing activists have demanded that the city use its powers under the Vancouver Charter to step in when landlords fail to maintain their buildings. The city has the power, if necessary, to do the repairs itself and charge the owner for its trouble.

But the staff report argues the existing “collaborative” approach is producing good results and offers court injunctions, if necessary, as a better way to force reform.

Two families have faced the most criticism for the conditions of their buildings, the Sahotas and the Laudisios. The Sahotas, in particular, have been at the centre of a number of controversies regarding their properties — like the Regent, the Balmoral, the Astoria and the Cobalt — and are regularly called slumlords. They have not, to my knowledge, ever sued.

Laura Track, of Pivot Legal, says they are “responsible for the most serious and ongoing violations of the law.” She terms conditions in their hotels “shocking and atrocious.” (Remarkably, Portland Hotel Society director Mark Townshend defended the two families, calling criticism of them “very, very unfair.” The Sahotas are providing a service, he argued, for the hard-to-house. Housing Minister Rich Coleman scoffed at the suggestion: “they would just rather let it deteriorate to the level they can redevelop it.”)

The staff perspective is unlikely to satisfy housing activists, who will review the report’s appendices with interest. They list (with identities withheld), the city’s enforcement record during the past two years. It seems clear that collaboration works for most of the landlords most of the time, but not for some landlords at any time.

If the city can’t find a way to crack down on repeat offenders, why should ethical property owners make the effort?