3. 5 PO L IC Y C O M P A RIS O N Throughout the 2014 Downtown East Local Action Plan (DELAP) and the 2018 NEFC Plan, significant attention has been given to improvements in housing, mental health services, and cultural engagement for Indigenous and other multicultural communities in Hogan’s Alley and the Downtown Eastside (among various others). The authors of this book do not have much critique for the contents or analysis, but rather, of the failure to include action items to accompany their policies. For instance, the DELAP report identifies the need for a facility that Aboriginal residents could use for traditional healing practices and ceremonies, and the need for other ways to facilitate Aboriginal placemaking in the community (i.e. innovative inter-generational Aboriginal housing projects, programming, public art, or the establishment of a new community facility which could include a healing and wellness centre). Yet, they provide no support or recommendation as to how this could be done, projects or designers that could provide services or inspiration, how many units, or even where those features might be located. This would provide the community the digestible information they need to engage with the plan and make decisions about whether or not they are being best served. Furthermore, there is significant failure to acknowledge the historical context and systemic structures that led to the conditions the DTES communities are currently experiencing, nor recommendations as to how economic and land sovereignty might occur. In the NEFC Plan, there is plenty of talk about ‘honouring’ the Black community and wishing to ensure all communities felt welcomed and represented, with little to no mention of how that could be achieved.
Figure 94: Digital Drawing of Floating Basketball Court as a Critique of the Perkins+Will proposal for Hogan’s Alley by Samantha Miller, 2021.
SITE GUIDELINES
The following pages contain a few excerpts from various policy documents compared to the guidelines set forward in this document.
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