To the editor:
Re: Pantages foes need to check their heads, April 27
Allen Garr got quite a few things wrong, maybe because he listened only to one side. I was there at the development permit board hearing on April 23, one of several little old ladies who were not frightened at all by the crowd, only by the police presence.
There will be blood in the streets, was not a death threat. It was a warning to the Board from people who have been recently homeless, that if condos and gentrification go ahead in the Downtown Eastside, more people will become homeless, or brutalized by police protecting gentrifying stores and homes.
A bully didnt whip up the crowd. Ivan Drury, sensing the injustice that the developers' friends had been allowed into the hearing room, while friends of opponents were shut out by a police barricade, shouted repeatedly that all should be let in. A child romped in the room while this was happening. Many people sat quietly and talked.
Ivan Drury is not a thug, or relentlessly hostile, although he is smart. Ive worked with him intensely for a year and a half during which time he has never hurt a flea. And has risked physical injury to get help for other people, such as when he was part of an occupation of a welfare office to get income for a young girl so she could get off the street. He regularly gets almost love notes from people in the Downtown Eastside community because he finds housing for homeless people. Ivans voice was directed at police who were refusing to let DTES residents have the same access to the permit board as supporters of the project had.
Drury is only one of over 2000 people who have signed letters and 40 groups including housing providers as well as 9 coalition member groups representing thousands of DTES residents who oppose the Sequel condo development. to single him out is to ignore the breadth of opposition to Sequel. Sequel is critical to us because it is in the Oppeneimer area of the DTES which is the only place in the city where developers have to put in 20% social housing. Until now, this regulation has saved this subarea of the DTES from gentrification and allowed low income residents to continue to live there comfortably. The citys Housing Plan actually says that if it becomes profitable for developments like Sequel to proceed in the Oppenheimer area, it is unlikely that the citys goals for that area can be maintained.
The Carnegie Action Project is not the co-chair of the Local Area Plan. The Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood Council is the co-chair.
Marc Williams Sequel development proposal did not clearly meet the citys housing criteria. The DNC has a legal opinion that challenges it and I would argue that Sequel is contrary to the rate of change policies in the DTES Housing Plan as well as its plans for low income housing in the Oppenheimer sub area..
When it was time for the meeting people from the DTES Not for Developers Coalition, not just Carnegie Action, walked into the room at City Hall. We did not rush the meeting room.
I didnt hear anyone threatening anyone when I was there. Not once.
People who will be displaced by gentrification are naturally upset by condos. People could easily die from homelessness if they are displaced by this process. Yes, some people did say, our shout this out. Its an urgent issue. Whats wrong with trying to make people in power understand the intensity of this?
The alternative to condos is not to let the neighbourhood rot. The alternative is to save the land for social housing and to start building it. As many Downtown Eastsiders are starting to say now, better neighbourhood, same neighbours.
Garr should apologize to Drury and the neighbourhood he has maligned.
Jean Swanson, Vancouver
