Vancouver City Councillor

The new Memorandum of Understanding signed in May between Mayor Gregor Robertson and Chief Gibby Jacob, of the Squamish First Nation, will be tested in action in the coming months as the Squamish accelerate plans to develop land they own at the south end of the Burrard Bridge.

The land, part of the original site of a Squamish village named Senauq, was recovered by the Squamish more than a decade ago after lengthy litigation. It had been expropriated before the First World War. Squamish villagers were loaded onto a barge and shipped to Burrard Inlet, their homes burned behind them.

But council has learned that the odd-shaped parcel, which once provided a “wye” where trains crossing False Creek could be turned around, will be developed in phases, with the first parcel moving through a planning process in the coming months. That process will be directed by the Squamish First Nation but parallel the city’s usual procedures, a unique arrangement the SFN has already used for projects as complex as Park Royal in West Vancouver.

The first phase of the city’s study of the Georgia and Dunsmuir Viaducts will not involve public consultation or consideration of the benefits of removing them, according to a memo from city manager Dr. Penny Ballem.

Ballem makes clear that vehicle trips to the downtown core are dropping steadily. “This trend indicates that as more people shift modes to walking, cycling and transit, less road space is required for vehicles,” she writes. “The question is when can capacity be reduced and by how much?”

The memo is a timely warning to community organizations around Northeast False Creek — many of whom are looking for new ways to create a new sustainable neighbourhood where the viaducts now stand — that they’ll have to be ready to bring forward their concerns when the first phase winds up in February 2011.

Although Ballem says the first phase will produce valuable information on transportation and soils, regardless of the final outcome, “the first phase of the study would not conduct any anlysis of land use, structural costs or review of urban design opportunities.

“It would be a technical study of transportation impact and environmental contamination issues that would inform Council of the some of the major risks associated with alterations to the viaducts, but not the potential benefits resulting from reconfiguration and potential redevelopment.”

Richard Tetrault high above Hastings St. at work on the Orwell Hotel mural.

My post last week about the new mural emerging on the wall of the Orwell Hotel at 456 East Hastings St. was improvised from materials at hand, included some errors, and failed to indicate the broad community roots of this project.

David Eddy, of the Vancouver Native Housing Society, sent me this update today:

The mural was commissioned by Vancouver Native Housing Society (VNHS) at the Orwell Hotel, a renovated SRO which we manage and operate for BC Housing.

The mural is an urban Aboriginal initiative whose major sponsors to date have been BC Housing, and the City of Vancouver’s Great Beginnings program. We have also received significant donations from the Royal Bank, the Strathcona BIA, Britannia Community Services, and General Paint. There was no federal stimulus grant received for the mural. It is all BC money.

We have been very fortunate to have commissioned Richard Tetrault, Vancouver’s pre-eminent muralist, as the project’s artistic coordinator and we engaged members of the DTES community in the design process. The artists involved in the design and application, Jerry Whitehead, Richard Shorty, Haisla Collins, Sharifa Marsden, Don Howell, and Nicola Campbell are all Aboriginal.

The concept is based on VNHS’ plan of developing social enterprise through our social and supportive housing portfolio: to create employment for urban aboriginals and ultimately provide income to VNHS to invest in sustaining and increasing affordable housing. [Read more →]

Today’s news that Vancouver’s downtown parking is the cheapest in Canada is not news at all, but says a great deal about the region’s successful shift to transit and, to a lesser extent, cycling.

Traffic to the downtown peninsula has been decreasing for the last decade, despite perceptions of gridlock. Why? Undoubtedly more commuters are using transit, as parking operators note. Soon, we hope, more will be cycling.

It’s hard to credit, however, the claim here that the new bike lanes are emptying the lots. Would that it were so.