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News Release
CALM
Community Advocates for Little
Mountain
For immediate release November 6, 2009 / 7:45AM
Wrecking ball starts today to
destroy Little Mountain Housing
Protesters block gates and send a message
Protesters’ message to the provincial and city governments:
NEVER AGAIN!
The destruction of Little Mountain is
a disaster that must never be repeated! The needless and senseless
destruction of a well-functioning community and habitable homes, years
before construction can begin, is a major setback for affordable housing
in our city.
It is wrong to destroy a
vibrant supportive community. This will be a phased development; with
proper planning, tenants could have moved to one part of the site while
the other part was being re-developed.
It is wrong to needlessly
destroy affordable housing. Our city is in the midst of the worst housing
crisis in history. Affordable rentals keep disappearing at a phenomenal
rate and families with low and modest incomes are leaving the city in
droves. It is unconscionable to remove 224 affordable homes for a period
of several years. It is wrong to put the greed of developers before the
housing needs of our people.
It is wrong to sell public
land. Vancouver does not need hundreds of high priced condos
– what we do need is a community with 2 or 3
times as many social housing units and additional affordable housing for
working class and middle class families. While half of the proceeds
may be invested in supportive housing elsewhere (not affordable family
housing), permanent assets (land) are being replaced by temporary assets
(buildings). The only way to build affordable housing at affordable cost
is to build on public land. It is short-sighted and ill-conceived to fund
supportive housing out of the proceeds of selling public land. Now, there
will never be additional affordable housing on the site.
We need policies that ensure this will
not happen again. Several other social housing complexes in Vancouver are
slated for "re-development". These sites must remain in public hands and
be developed in a way that leaves the existing communities intact and
ensures that any re-development consists of affordable homes (geared to
income).
CONTACT:
Little Mountain Fact Sheet
The demolition of the 224 homes at
Little Mountain is going ahead.
The needless destruction of a
well-functioning community and habitable homes, years before construction
can begin, is a setback for affordable housing in our city and
represents a return to long-discredited "urban renewal" practices. By
choosing to redevelop Little Mountain in this way, our governments have
made a major mistake that must never be repeated.
Little Mountain is no "win" for the
tenants. The remaining tenants have all received eviction notices, in
spite of the impression given by our Mayor. They will be able to move into
one building just long enough to watch the demolition of their homes and
their community and will then have to vacate the site. In fact, the
only guarantee the tenants have from BC Housing is that they will have to
move again if they choose to stay on-site while the demolition
proceeds. This is all for the benefit of the developer (Holborn) who was a
major financial contributor to Vision Vancouver.
Contrary to the Mayor's statements,
affordable housing at Little Mountain is not being "maximized".
There will be no increase in the number of social housing units.
One-for-one replacement is not good enough given the need for affordable
housing and the dramatic density increase that will occur at this site.
The City of Vancouver usually requires that 20% of a major development be
reserved for additional affordable housing. At Little Mountain the City
will be contravening its own policies, as the number of social housing
units will comprise around 10% of the planned new development.
The Mayor has announced that
high-density re-zoning of the site will proceed despite the
Council-approved Community Vision for a four-storey limit (already
more than quadruple the existing density). This is a betrayal of the
commitment to the community by City Council, the Province and the
developer for an "extensive" public planning process to examine all policy
options prior to considering a rezoning proposal.
Community consultation has yet to
happen. Construction will not start until well after the Olympics. The
site will be developed in phases and presumably the 224 social housing
units will be replaced in phase one. That will take a minimum of two
years. In the meantime, the rest of the site will sit empty. During
this period, Little Mountain could have housed many families.
Instead, it is being obliterated for
the convenience of a private developer who has stated that it is "easier"
for his purposes to destroy all of the homes now, rather than have the
homes occupied until he is ready to build. The great shame of the Little
Mountain fiasco is that it is so ill-conceived and unnecessary. The
entire process at Little Mountain has been about destruction: of
existing affordable housing; of future affordable housing; of
community; of people’s lives. | 
