3.5 Policy Comparison

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.

The following pages contain a few excerpts from various policy documents compared to the guidelines set forward in this document.

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

From the Downtown East Local Area Plan, 2014

+ 6.14.2 Support the Aboriginal community in their pursuit of the establishment of an area or site of meaningful community activity and amenity. + 6.14.3 Explore partnerships and opportunities to develop inter-generational Aboriginal Housing projects and a healing and wellness centre in the

Downtown Eastside.

From this Report

Precondition 1: Land Back

A Land Trust will be developed in the name of MST Development Corporation, and the so-called city of Vancouver will hand over properties to MST, including properties within Union Street, Gore Ave, Prior Street, and Expo Boulevard, as well as 133 Union Street/721 Main Street and 280 Main Street (which the City will have to acquire and include in Land Trust). This would provide MST with legal rights to their land (albeit the laws not recognized by MST) and give Indigenous Stewards the power to veto Phase 2 and additional guidelines.

From the Northeast False Creek Plan, 2018

+ 16.5.3 Consider places of congregation as well as places of connection with communities, including

Urban Indigenous, Chinese-Canadian and Black communities with deep histories and contemporary presence in the project area.

From this Report

3.4.3.1 Community Cultural Centre

The site MUST provide indoor cultural and recreational space such as a community cultural centre serving the Black, Indigenous, Chinese, Jewish, Italian, and other community members. The centre MUST include a gallery, performance, gathering, and multifunctional space, including but not limited to open space for music, dance, and celebration, outdoor dining associated with a community kitchen, and rooftop gardens.

From Downtown East Local Area Plan, 2014

+ 6.12.1 Support development of a mixed use neighbourhood in lands made available by the replacement of the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts with a range of housing types, parks and public amenities. + Recognition and honour the former Black community

Hogan’s Alley that existed prior to the viaducts.

From this Report

3.4.3.6 Honouring History

The site MUST honour the legacies of those who were erased from this site and those who still reside, including but not limited to the Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, Black, Chinese, Jewish, and Italian communities in immaterial and material ways.

+ The site COULD incorporate commemorative signage of the stories told from Hogan’s Alley. + The site COULD use digital media and other forms of storey projection on black surfaces, including the viaducts, until their removal. + The site COULD plant a bosque of trees for every home that was removed to construct the viaducts. + The site COULD commemorate the legacy of the porters through subtle design features.

From NEFC, 2018

+ 4.2 Urban Indigenous Communities…… Many

Indigenous people from these communities call

Vancouver home. + 4.2.2 Design public spaces with Urban Indigenous user groups in mind to ensure everyone feels welcome in that space. + 4.2.3. Explore opportunities to provide space for traditional, spiritual, health and healing practices.

From this report

3.4.5.4

The Hogan’s Alley, Chinatown, Strathcona, and DTES neighbourhoods are home to a diversity of residents whose traditional knowledge of land management could significantly improve the quality of the space. The consultation and participation of these residents toward land sovereignty and protection is invaluable and SHOULD be considered and implemented wherever possible. When traditional knowledge is not applicable, more holistic measures to land management that result in additional vegetation and/or permeable land cover should always be prioritized.

+ Flood-sensitive site elements COULD include sunken gathering spaces made of an easily-cleaned material in the event of flooding. + Structural elements such as buildings within the floodplain COULD be elevated above projected water levels via stilts. + The site designers MUST understand that any proposed structure or designed elements that cross the designated floodplain will likely flood. + Site design SHOULD include Black and Indigenous traditional land uses to better protect future generations from flooding and other severe weather events. + This COULD include but is not limited to shoreline stabilization, rainwater harvesting, flood-resistant design, drought resistance, erosion protection. + While not directly within the scope of the subject property, large scale considerations for flood attenuation COULD imagine the deconstruction of the Vancouver False Creek sea wall followed by the implementation of infrastructural ecologies (a synthetic landscape of living, biophysical systems) that operate as urban infrastructure as an alternative to the geoengineered solutions proposed by the City of Vancouver Coastal

Risk Assessment Task Force.