1.3 Vibe Statement

Advocate, activist, and co-founder of the Hogan’s Alley Memorial Project, Wayde Compton, noted that it is important that the history of what happened to Vancouver’s Black community remain in the public memory, “so people understand that top-down planning doesn’t work, and contemporary versions of that are equally dangerous“ (Compton via CBC News, 2016).

The process began with an analysis of the Hogan’s Alley Working Group Workshop Report (2017), the Northeast False Creek Plan (2018), and a guest-lecture from Stephanie Allen given to the [Re]Visiting Hogan’s Alley Vertical Studio on September 28, 2021. This led to identifying a list of wants and needs directly from the community, understanding the intent of the reports, themes, language used, and recognizing political structures in so-called Vancouver. Refer to 3.1 Summary of Wants and Needs, and Appendix E: Chart of Wants + Needs.

This report seeks to address, to the best of the author’s abilities, the direct wants and needs of the community. It is a graduate level attempt at subversion, or a bottom up approach, where the desires of the community are considered far above the bottom line. Guidelines provide direction to, and support for, systematic change while leaving room for community input. It places emphasis on Black and Indigenous geographic centrality, healing, spaces of social connection, oral history, resilient nature, and land sovereignty. This is a working document and will be given to the community to be used in whatever role they deem appropriate, with support provided by the authors moving forward. The authors recognize that Hogan’s Alley exists within a greater socio-economic urban culture and that this process could be applied to similar scenarios.

1.0 Introduction addresses any disclaimers and acknowledgments. 2.0 Stories of the Land outlines a comprehensive historical and current context pertinent to the design process. 3.0 Site Guidelines outlines preconditions for an MST Land Trust, wants and needs of the community (HAWGWR 2017), and proposes design and/or policy guidelines to address the above. 4.0 Iterations + Criteria demonstrates the guidelines visually and identifies methods of prioritizing trade-offs.